CHAPTEE XXX 



THE SIERRA NEVADA 



The Sierra Nevada with its striking skylines, crisp and clean-cut 

 against an azure background, is yearly surveyed by thousands of 

 tourists in southern Spain. The majority content themselves 

 with the distant view from the battlements of Alhambra or from 

 the summer-palace of Generalife. Few penetrate the alpine 

 solitude or scale peaks that look so near yet cost some toil to 

 gain. 



We are not ashamed to admit that these glorious sierras have in 

 themselves possessed for us attractions that transcend in interest 

 the accumulated art-treasures, the store of historic and legendary 

 lore that illumine the shattered relics of Moslem rule — of an 

 Empire City where during seven centuries the power and faith of 

 the Crescent dominated south-western Europe and the focal point 

 of mediaeval culture and chivalry. None, nevertheless, can long 

 sojourn in Granada wholly uninfluenced by its stirring past, by 

 the pathetic story of the fall of Moorish dominion, and the 

 words graven on countless stones till they seem to represent the 

 very spirit of this land, the words of the founder, King Alhama : 

 LA GALIB ILLA ALLAH = Oidy God is Victor. 



Abler pens have portrayed these things, and we will only 

 pause to touch on one dramatic episode — since its scene lies on our 

 course to the " high tops " — when Boabdil, last of the Caliphs, 

 paused in his flight across the vega to cast back a final glance 

 at the scene of his former greatness and lost empire. " You do 

 well," snarled Axia, his mother, " to weep over your kingdom 

 like a woman since you could not defend it like a man." That 

 the maternal reproach was undeserved was proved by Boabdil's 

 heroic death in battle, thirty years later, near Fez.^ 



^ Boabdil, we read, was a keen hunter, and dining his sojourn at Besmer frequently spent 

 weeks at a time among the mountains with his hawks and hounds. 



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