The gardens called _Carmenes del Darro_, and of which such charming descriptions are to be found in Spanish and Moorish poetry, are situated on the banks of the _Carrera_, on the same side as the fountain of _los Avellanos_. The city is thus divided into four quarters: the Antequerula, which occupies the brow of the hill, or rather of the mountain, on which the Alhambra is situated; the Alhambra and its appendix the Generalife; the Albaycin, formerly a vast fortress, but now a ruined and depopulated quarter; and Granada proper, which extends into the plain round the cathedral, and the place of the _Vivarambla_, which forms a separate quarter. Such is the topographical aspect of Granada, traversed in its entire width by the Darro, bordered by the Xenil, which washes the alameda (parade), and sheltered by the Sierra Neveda, which you perceive from the corner of every street, and which seems so near, in consequence of the transparency of the air, that you fancy you can touch it with your hand from the balcony or the _mirador_ of your house. The general aspect of Granada greatly deceives the ideas you may have formed. In spite of yourself--in spite of the numerous deceptions you have already experienced--you cannot bring your mind to believe that three or four hundred years, and streams of matter-of-fact citizens have passed over the theatre of so many romantic and chivalrous actions. You picture to yourself a half-Moorish, half-Gothic city, where open-worked towers are mixed with minarets, and where gables alternate with terraced roofs; you expect to see houses sculptured and ornamented with coats of arms and heroic devices, grotesque buildings, with their stories overlapping one another, projecting joists, windows adorned with Persian carpets and blue and white vases--in short, the reality of an opera scene, representing some wonderful perspective of the Middle Ages.