Perhaps no one ever read Washington Irving's description of the Alhambra without experiencing an ardent desire to visit Granada. Although that exquisite pen-portrait reads more like romance than veritable history, yet it is minutely correct and absolutely literal, teeming with local color and atmospheric effect like the canvas of a Claude Lorraine or a Bierstadt. As we approached the ancient city, all early recollections of the glowing text were revived; nor had months of constant travel rendered us so blasé but that an eager anticipation thrilled every nerve. The train crept slowly along in the twilight with provoking deliberation, until we were finally deposited in the depot of the gray old capital, so intimately connected with the most romantic chapters of Spanish history. How vividly the days of Ferdinand and Isabella flashed before the mind's eye, mingled with which was the abortive career of Charles V. Here set the sun of Moorish glory. This was Granada, and here, close at hand, was that embodiment of poetry, the Alhambra.
The city once contained over half a million of people, but to-day it has scarcely sixty thousand,--like everything else material in Spain, growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less. After leaving the centre of the town, we drove some distance until the ground began to rise sharply, and we passed through a dense grove of tall elms planted many years ago by the Duke of Wellington. These trees have grown in such a rank, wild fashion, hung with ivy from the highest branches to the low interlacing stems, as to recall a Singapore jungle or the densely wooded district near Jeypore, in India. The trees have never been trimmed or thinned out since they were planted, and cannot, therefore, become individually grand, but they appear all the more natural for this seeming neglect. Presently the hotel, named the Washington Irving, was reached, an extremely neat and comfortable establishment. It was necessary to suppress our ardor and impatience, as night had settled down over Granada; and there being no moon, nothing could be seen to advantage outside of the house. We retired early, more fatigued by the slow, dragging railroad journey of seventy miles than after accomplishing the same distance over the primitive roads of California, behind four dashing horses in a jolting stage, between Madeira and Coarse Gold Gulch.