Legends of hidden Moorish and Morisco wealth are still extant in many parts of Spain. The Abbé Bertaut de Rouen[43] and Swinburne among foreigners, or Spaniards such as the gossiping priest Echeverría, who provided Washington Irving with the pick of his _Tales of the Alhambra_, have treated copiously of this fascinating and mysterious theme. The Siete Suelos Tower at Granada is particularly favoured with traditions of this kind. Peasants of the Alpujarras still declare that piles of Moorish money lie secreted in the lofty buttresses of Mulhacen and the Veleta, while yet another summit of this snowy range bears the suggestive title of the Cerro del Tesoro, where, almost within the memory of living men, a numerous party, fitted and commissioned by the State, explored with feverish though unlucky zeal the naked cliffs and sterile crannies of the lonely mountain.[44] [43] This entertaining and inquisitive tourist describes, in 1659, a wondrous cavern in the south of Spain, "ou l'on conte que les Mores ont caché leurs trésors en s'en retournant en Afrique, et ou personne n'ose aborder de peur des esprits que l'on dit que l'on y voit souvent. Mais comme il commencait a se faire nuit, je n'eus pas le loisir de m'y amuser beaucoup." With this our author shelved his curiosity, and prudently retired. [44] Leonard Williams. _Granada: Memories, Adventures, Studies, and Impressions_, p. 90. Reducing all these fables to the terms of truth, Moorish and Morisco jewellery and coin are sometimes brought to light on Spanish soil. Such finds occur, less seldom than elsewhere, within the provinces of Seville, Cordova, Granada, and Almeria (Plate xiv.), but since they are neither frequent nor considerable, although the likeliest ground for them is being disturbed continually, we may conclude that nearly all the Muslim wealth accumulated here slipped from the clumsy if ferocious fingers of the mother-country, and found its way, concealed upon the bodies of her persecuted offspring, to the shores of Africa.[45] [45] Ford was more hopeful as to the preservation of this wealth in Spain. "No doubt much coin is buried in the Peninsula, since the country has always been invaded and torn by civil wars, and there never has been much confidence between Spaniard and Spaniard; accordingly the only sure, although unproductive, investment for those who had money, was gold or silver, and the only resource to preserve that, was to hide it."--_Handbook_, vol. ii. p. 682. [Illustration: XIV MORISCO JEWELLERY (_Found in the Province of Granada_)]