The fashionable world of Granada assemble on the Saloon, between seven and eight in the evening; the carriages follow along the road, but they are for the most part empty, as the Spaniards are very fond of walking, and in spite of their pride, deign to use their own legs. Nothing can be more charming than to see the young women and young girls pass to and fro in little groups, dressed in their mantillas, with their arms bare, real flowers in their hair, satin shoes on their feet, and a fan in their hand, followed at some distance by their friends and sweethearts, for, as we have already said, when speaking of the Prado at Madrid, it is not customary in Spain for the women to take the arms of the men. This habit of walking alone gives them a bold, elegant, and free deportment unknown to our women, who are always hanging to some arm or other. As artists say, they carry themselves beautifully. This perpetual separation of the men from the women, at least in public, already smacks of the East. A sight of which the people of the North can have no idea, is the Alameda of Granada at sunset. The Sierra Neveda, whose denticulated ridges face the city on this side, assumes the most unimaginable hues. Its whole steep and rugged flank and all its peaks, struck by the light, become of a rose-colour, dazzling to behold; ideal, fabulous, shot with silver, and streaked with iris and opal-like reflections, which would make the freshest tints on the artist's palette appear thick and dirty: the hues of mother-of-pearl, the transparency of the ruby, and veins of agate and advanturine that would defy all the fairy jewellery of the "Thousand-and-one Nights," are to be seen there. The hollows, crevices, anfractuosities, and all the places which the rays of the setting sun cannot reach are of a blue colour which vies with the azure of the sky and sea, with the lapis-lazuli and the sapphire; this contrast of hue between light and shade produces a wonderful effect: the mountain seems to have put on an immense robe of shot silk spangled and bordered with silver; little by little, the bright colours disappear and turn to violet mezzotintos, darkness invades the lower ridges, the light withdraws towards the summit, and all the plain has long since been in obscurity, while the silver diadem of the Sierra still shines out in the serenity of the sky, beneath the parting kiss sent it by the sun. The company take a turn or two more and then disperse, some going to take sherbet or _agraz_ at the _café_ of Don Pedro Hurtado, where you get the best ice in Granada, and others to the _tertulia_ at their friends' and acquaintances' houses.