By having walked in advance of the gallera, I had secured one of the three quartos, which I gave up to the females of the party, or rather shared it with them: and after having succeeded in getting some hard-boiled eggs, and some excellent wine, I made my bed, and retired to it; for no repetition of my good fortune occurred this night. But there was so great a number of mules in the venta, that the tinkling of their bells, and the noise of their feet, added to the unintermitting attacks of certain enemies of repose, whose name might be called “legion,” prevented the gentle approaches of sleep; and it was with great satisfaction that I hailed the morning dawn through the paneless windows. I need scarcely say that window glass is not to be seen in any village south of the Sierra Morena; and in the most southern, and in the eastern parts, even the principal posadas in the large towns have rarely glass in the windows. It is quite a mistake, to suppose that there is no occasion for glass in the southern parts of Spain. There are many days during a Spanish winter--and before leaving Spain I had experience of them--which, in England, would be thought to demand closed windows, and a blazing fire. After leaving the Venta de Casin, we entered upon a heathy country, wild, open, and covered with aromatic plants; and after three hours travelling, we caught the first view of Imperial Granada,--yet at a great distance--backed by the lofty Sierra, with its snowy summits. At a small village famous for its fruits, I purchased a melon as large as a man’s head, for four quartos--a fraction above a penny--and found it delicious beyond any that I had ever before eaten. Granada is the most celebrated, among all the Spanish provinces, for its fruits; but, with the exception of the melon, the pomegranate, and the prickly pear, the season of fruit was passing. At Santa Fe, the country becomes rich and populous; for here we are within the influence of irrigation; and now at every step, Granada rose before us with greater distinctness and magnificence. The situation of Granada eclipses that of any city that I have ever seen; and altogether, the view in approaching it, struck me more forcibly than any other view that I could at that moment recollect. And yet, the description would not perhaps be very striking on paper; because the ingredients of its magnificence consist in the vastness and splendour of its Moorish remains--not a single Alcazar, not a few isolated ruins, whose dimensions the eye at once embraces--but ranges of palaces, and castles, and towers, covering elevations a league in circumference, rising above and stretching beyond one another, with a subject city at their feet; and almost vying in grandeur with the gigantic range of the snowy Sierra that towers above them.