The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens and its waters. A canal, paved with marble, runs through the whole length of the enclosure, and rolls its rapid and abundant waters beneath a series of arcades of foliage, formed by twisting and curiously-cut yews. Orange-trees and cypresses are planted on each side of it. It was at the foot of one of these cypresses, which is of a prodigious bulk, and which dates from the time of the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we are to believe the legend, often proved that bolts and bars are but slight guarantees for the virtue of sultanas. There is one thing, at least, very certain, and that is, that the yew is very thick, and very old. The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, ornamented with jets of water and marble columns, like the _patio_ of myrtles of the Alhambra. The canal suddenly makes a turn, and you then enter some other places embellished with pieces of water, and the walls of which still preserve traces of the frescoes of the sixteenth century, representing rustic pieces of architecture, and distant views. In the midst of one of the basins, a gigantic rose-bay, of the most incomparable beauty and splendour, is seen to bloom, like an immense flower-basket. At the time when I saw it, it appeared like an explosion of flowers, or the bouquet of a display of vegetable fireworks; its aspect, too, is so blooming and luxuriant, so glaring, if we may be allowed the expression, that it makes the hue of the most vermilion rose appear insipid. Its lovely flowers, shot with all the ardour of desire high up into the pure blue space of the heavens; and its noble-looking leaves, shaped expressly by nature to form a crown for the glorious deeds of heroism, and sprinkled by the spray of the water-jets, sparkled like emeralds glittering in the sun. Never did anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beautiful than this rose-bay of the Generalife.