Washington Irving: The Complete Travel Sketches and Memoirs Collection. Washington Irving
Читать онлайн книгу.
“So then, Mateo, you have robbers and murderers even at the gates of the Alhambra?”
“Not at present, senor; that was formerly, when there used to be many loose fellows about the fortress; but they’ve all been weeded out. Not but that the gipsies who live in caves in the hillsides, just out of the fortress, are many of them fit for any thing; but we have had no murder about here for a long time past. The man who murdered the muleteer was hanged in the fortress.”
Our path continued up the barranco, with a bold, rugged height to our left, called the “Silla del Moro,” or Chair of the Moor, from the tradition already alluded to, that the unfortunate Boabdil fled thither during a popular insurrection, and remained all day seated on the rocky summit, looking mournfully down on his factious city.
We at length arrived on the highest part of the promontory above Granada, called the mountain of the sun. The evening was approaching; the setting sun just gilded the loftiest heights. Here and there a solitary shepherd might be descried driving his flock down the declivities, to be folded for the night; or a muleteer and his lagging animals, threading some mountain path, to arrive at the city gates before nightfall.
Presently the deep tones of the cathedral bell came swelling up the defiles, proclaiming the hour of “oration” or prayer. The note was responded to from the belfry of every church, and from the sweet bells of the convents among the mountains. The shepherd paused on the fold of the hill, the muleteer in the midst of the road, each took off his hat and remained motionless for a time, murmuring his evening prayer. There is always something pleasingly solemn in this custom, by which, at a melodious signal, every human being throughout the land unites at the same moment in a tribute of thanks to God for the mercies of the day. It spreads a transient sanctity over the land, and the sight of the sun sinking in all his glory, adds not a little to the solemnity of the scene.
In the present instance the effect was heightened by the wild and lonely nature of the place. We were on the naked and broken summit of the haunted mountain of the sun, where ruined tanks and cisterns, and the mouldering foundations of extensive buildings, spoke of former populousness, but where all was now silent and desolate.
As we were wandering about among these traces of old times, we came to a circular pit, penetrating deep into the bosom of the mountain; which Mateo pointed out as one of the wonders and mysteries of the place. I supposed it to be a well dug by the indefatigable Moors, to obtain their favorite element in its greatest purity. Mateo, however, had a different story, and one much more to his humor. According to a tradition, in which his father and grandfather firmly believed, this was an entrance to the subterranean caverns of the mountain, in which Boabdil and his court lay bound in magic spell; and whence they sallied forth at night, at allotted times, to revisit their ancient abodes.
“Ah, senor, this mountain is full of wonders of the kind. In another place there was a hole somewhat like this, and just within it hung an iron pot by a chain; nobody knew what was in that pot, for it was always covered up; but every body supposed it full of Moorish gold. Many tried to draw it forth, for it seemed just within reach; but the moment it was touched it would sink far, far down, and not come up again for some time. At last one who thought it must be enchanted touched it with the cross, by way of breaking the charm; and faith he did break it, for the pot sank out of sight and never was seen any more.
“All this is fact, senor; for my grandfather was an eyewitness.”
“What! Mateo; did he see the pot?”
“No, senor, but he saw the hole where the pot had hung.”
“It’s the same thing, Mateo.”
The deepening twilight, which, in this climate, is of short duration, admonished us to leave this haunted ground. As we descended the mountain defile, there was no longer herdsman nor muleteer to be seen, nor any thing to be heard but our own footsteps and the lonely chirping of the cricket. The shadows of the valley grew deeper and deeper, until all was dark around us. The lofty summit of the Sierra Nevada alone retained a lingering gleam of daylight; its snowy peaks glaring against the dark blue firmament, and seeming close to us, from the extreme purity of the atmosphere.
“How near the Sierra looks this evening!” said Mateo; “it seems as if you could touch it with your hand; and yet it is many long leagues off.” While he was speaking, a star appeared over the snowy summit of the mountain, the only one yet visible in the heavens, and so pure, so large, so bright and beautiful, as to call forth ejaculations of delight from honest Mateo.
“Que estrella hermosa! que clara y limpia es! — No pueda ser estrella mas brillante!” (“What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid — a star could not be more brilliant!”)
I have often remarked this sensibility of the common people of Spain to the charms of natural objects. The lustre of a star, the beauty or fragrance of a flower, the crystal purity of a fountain, will inspire them with a kind of poetical delight; and then, what euphonious words their magnificent language affords, with which to give utterance to their transports!
“But what lights are those, Mateo, which I see twinkling along the Sierra Nevada, just below the snowy region, and which might be taken for stars, only that they are ruddy, and against the dark side of the mountain?”
“Those, senor, are fires, made by the men who gather snow and ice for the supply of Granada. They go up every afternoon with mules and asses, and take turns, some to rest and warm themselves by the fires, while others fill the panniers with ice. They then set off down the mountains, so as to reach the gates of Granada before sunrise. That Sierra Nevada, senor, is a lump of ice in the middle of Andalusia, to keep it all cool in summer.”
It was now completely dark; we were passing through the barranco, where stood the cross of the murdered muleteer; when I beheld a number of lights moving at a distance, and apparently advancing up the ravine. On nearer approach, they proved to be torches borne by a train of uncouth figures arrayed in black: it would have been a procession dreary enough at any time, but was peculiarly so in this wild and solitary place.
Mateo drew near, and told me, in a low voice, that it was a funeral train bearing a corpse to the burying-ground among the hills.
As the procession passed by, the lugubrious light of the torches, falling on the rugged features and funeral-weeds of the attendants, had the most fantastic effect, but was perfectly ghastly, as it revealed the countenance of the corpse, which, according to the Spanish custom, was borne uncovered on an open bier. I remained for some time gazing after the dreary train as it wound up the dark defile of the mountain. It put me in mind of the old story of a procession of demons bearing the body of a sinner up the crater of Stromboli.
“Ah! senor,” cried Mateo, “I could tell you a story of a procession once seen among these mountains, but then you’d laugh at me, and say it was one of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor.”
“By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I relish more than a marvellous tale.”
“Well, senor, it is about one of those very men we have been talking of, who gather snow on the Sierra Nevada.
“You must know, that a great many years since, in my grandfather’s time, there was an old fellow, Tio Nicolo (Uncle Nicholas) by name, who had filled the panniers of his mule with snow and ice, and was returning down the mountain. Being very drowsy, he mounted upon the mule, and soon falling asleep, went with his head nodding and bobbing about from side to side, while his surefooted old mule stepped along the edge of precipices, and down steep and broken barrancos, just as safe and steady as if it had been on plain ground. At length, Tio Nicolo awoke, and gazed about him, and rubbed his eyes — and, in good truth, he had reason. The moon shone almost as bright as day, and he saw the city below him, as plain as your hand, and shining with its white buildings, like a silver platter in the moonshine; but, Lord! senor, it was nothing like the city he had left a few hours before! Instead of the cathedral, with its great dome and turrets, and the churches with their spires, and the convents with their pinnacles, all surmounted with the blessed cross, he saw nothing but Moorish mosques, and minarets, and cupolas, all topped off with glittering crescents, such as you see on the Barbary