On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much verdancy, rises an uncultivated, scorched up, tawny mountain, tinged with dashes of red and yellow ochre; this mountain is called _La Silla del Moro_, on account of a few remains of some buildings on its summit. It was there that king Boabdil used to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with the Christian knights. The recollection of the Moors is still vivid at Granada. You would think that they had quitted the city but yesterday, and, if we may judge by what remains of them, it is really a pity that they ever quitted it at all. What southern Spain requires is African civilization, and not the civilization of Europe, which is not suited to the heat of the climate or to the passions it inspires. Constitutional mechanism can only agree with the temperate zones; above a heat of eighty degrees charters melt or blow up. As we have now done with the Alhambra and the Generalife, we will traverse the ravine of the Darro, and take a look as we go along the road leading to Monte Sagrado, at the dens of the _gitanos_, who are pretty numerous at Granada. This road is made through the hill of the Albaycin, which overhangs on one side. Gigantic Indian fig-trees, and enormous nopals raise their prickly heads, of the colour of verdigris, along its impoverished and white-coloured slopes; under the roots of these large unctuous plants, which seem to supply the place of chevaux-de-frise and spiked fences, are dug in the living rock, the dwellings of the gipsies. The entrance to these caverns is whitewashed; a light cord on which hangs a piece of frayed-out tapestry, serves as a door. It is there that the wild race swarms and multiplies; there, children, whose skins are darker than Havannah cigars, play in a state of nudity before the door, without any distinction as to sex, and roll themselves in the dust while uttering sharp and guttural cries. The _gitanos_ are generally blacksmiths, mule-shearers, veterinary doctors, and, above all, horse-dealers. They have a thousand receipts for putting mettle and strength into the most broken-winded and limping animals in the world: a _gitano_ would have made Rozinante gallop, and Sancho's ass would have caracoled under their hands. Their real trade, however, is that of stealing.