The Generalife is situated at a little distance from the Alhambra, on a pass of the same mountain. Access is gained to it by a kind of hollow road, that traverses the ravine of Los Molinos, which is bordered with fig-trees, having enormous shiny leaves, with palm oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels, and rock roses, of a remarkably exuberant nature. The ground is composed of yellow sand teeming with water, and of wonderful fecundity. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this road, which appears as if it ran through a virgin forest of America, to such an extent is it obstructed with foliage and flowers, and such is the overwhelming perfume of the aromatic plants you inhale there. Vines start through the cracks of the crumbling walls, and from all their branches hang fantastic runners, and leaves resembling Arabian ornaments in the beauty of their form; the aloe opens its fan of azured blades, and the orange-tree twists its knotty wood, and clings with its fang-like roots to the rents in the steep sides of the ravine. Everything here flourishes and blooms in luxuriant disorder, full of the most charming effects of chance. A wandering jasmine-branch introduces a white star among the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate-tree; and a laurel shoots from one side of the road to the other to embrace a cactus, in spite of its thorns. Nature, abandoned to herself, seems to pride herself on her coquetry, and to wish to show how far even the most exquisite and finished art always remains behind her. After a quarter of an hour's walk, you come to the Generalife, which is, so to say, nothing but the _casa de campo_, the country-house of the Alhambra. The exterior of it, like that of all oriental buildings, is very simple: large walls without windows, and surmounted by a terrace with a gallery divided into arcades, the whole being crowned with a small modern belvedere, constitute its architecture. Of the Generalife nothing now remains but some arcades, and some large panels of arabesques, unfortunately clogged with layers of whitewash, which have been applied again and again with all the obstinacy and despair of cleanliness. Little by little have the delicate sculptures and the wonderful guilloches of these remains become filled up, until they have at last disappeared. What is at present nothing but a faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work, as fine as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese carves for ladies' fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused more _chefs-d'œuvre_ to disappear than the scythe of Time, if we may be allowed to make use of this mythological expression. In a pretty well preserved hall is a suite of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but the only merit they possess is a chronological one.