The hillsides undulating from the vermilion ramparts of the Alhambra are clad with graceful elms, with orange and pomegranate trees bearing deep red and golden fruit and with the mulberry's glistening olive green. Here and there are open spaces between the groves; fields of roses and lilies. The Darro and the Xenil flow by the foot of the hill, and from their banks for almost thirty miles stretches the Vega. At the base of the fortress, between the rivers, lies the city of Granada,-- The artist's and the poet's theme, The young man's vision, the old man's dream,-- Granada, by its winding stream, The City of the Moor. Out on the plain the settlement becomes gradually sparser, the houses more scattered. White stucco walls are interspersed with plots of green garden, the ochre houses are smaller shining patches amid the yellow-flowering fig-cactus and the regularly planted olive groves, until finally the eye must search for the farmhouse hidden among vineyards, orchards and waving fields of corn. The gleaming villas and farmhouses still look as they did to the Moor, like "oriental pearls set in a cup of emeralds." The endless plain, once the fertile bosom of fourteen cities, innumerable strong castles and high watch-towers, is shut in from the outside world like a very Garden of Eden, by the mountain walls of the Alpujarras and Sierra Alhama. Far away on the horizon the barrier is broken at a single point, the Loja gorge. This was once guarded by sentinels ever on the watch for the distant gleam of Christian lances to light the fires that signaled approaching danger to the distant citadel. Most Spanish cities were densely built within high walls, but Granada felt so secure in her mountain fortress that her dwellings were strewn broadcast over the plain. Behind the walls of the Alhambra, on a second slope wooded with cypress, the brilliant towers of the Generaliffe gleam against the dark foliage. Beyond, across the whole southern sweep, rises the chalky, hazy blue of the Sierra Nevada, capped with glittering, everlasting snow. Gazing up from the valley below, one might fancy it a white veil thrown back from the lovely features of the landscape. Thus lies Granada, a verdant and perfumed valley wrapt in the soft mystery of its hazy atmosphere,--"Grenade,--plus éclatante que la fleur et plus savoureuse que le fruit, dont elle porte le nom, semble une vierge paresseuse qui s'est couchée au soleil depuis le jour de la création dans un lit de bruyères et de mousse, défendue par une muraille de cactus et d'aloes,--elle s'endort gaiement aux chansons des oiseaux et le matin s'éveille souriante au murmure de ses cascatelles."[19]