looking down as if it were from the sky, into the valleys on either side. It was down the defiles of these mountains, by the pass of Lope, that the Christian armies descended into the Vega. It was round the base of yon gray and naked mountain, almost insulated from the rest, and stretching its bald, rocky promontory into the bosom of the plain, that the invading squadrons would come bursting into view, with flaunting banners and the clangor of drums and trumpets. How changed is the scene! Instead of the glittering line of mailed warriors, we behold the patient train of the toilful muleteer, slowly moving along the skirts of the mountain.

Behind that promontory is the eventful bridge of Pinos, renowned for many a bloody strife between Moors and Christians; but still more renowned as being the place where Columbus was overtaken and called back by the messenger of Queen Isabella just as he was departing in despair to carry his project of discovery to the court of France.

Behold another place famous in the history of the discoverer: yon line of walls and towers, gleaming in the morning sun in the very center of the Vega; the city of Santa Fe, built by the Catholic sovereigns during the siege of Granada, after a conflagration had destroyed their camp. It was to these walls that Columbus was called back by the heroic queen, and within them the treaty was concluded that led to the discovery of the Western World.

Here, toward the south, the eye revels on the

luxuriant beauties of the Vega, a blooming wilderness of grove and garden, and teeming orchards, with the Xenil winding through it in silver links and feeding innumerable rills, conducted through ancient Moorish channels, which maintain the landscape in perpetual verdure. Here are the beloved bowers and gardens and rural retreats for which the Moors fought with such desperate valor. The very farmhouses and hovels which are now inhabited by the boors retain traces of arabesques and other tasteful decorations, which show them to have been elegant residences in the days of the Moslems.

Beyond the embowered region of the Vega you behold, to the south, a line of arid hills down which a long train of mules is slowly moving. It was from the summit of one of those hills that the unfortunate Boabdil cast back his last look upon Granada and gave vent to the agony of his soul. It is the spot famous in song and story, "The last sigh of the Moor."

Now raise your eyes to the snowy summit of yon pile of mountains, shining like a white summer cloud on the blue sky. It is the Sierra Nevada, the pride and delight of Granada; the source of her cooling breezes and perpetual verdure, of her gushing fountains and perennial streams. It is this glorious pile of mountains that gives to Granada that combination of delights so rare in a southern city: the fresh vegetation and the temperate airs of a northern climate, with the vivifying ardor of a tropical sun, and the cloudless azure of a southern sky.

It is this aërial treasury of snow, which, melting in proportion to the increase of the summer heat, sends down rivulets and streams through every glen and gorge of the Alxuxarras, diffusing emerald verdure and fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.

These mountains may well be called the glory of Granada. They dominate the whole extent of Andalusia, and may be seen from its most distant parts. The muleteer hails them as he views their frosty peaks from the sultry level of the plain; and the Spanish mariner on the deck of his bark, far, far off on the bosom of the blue Mediterranean, watches them with a pensive eye, thinks of delightful Granada, and chants in low voice some old romance about the Moors.

But enough, the sun is high above the mountains, and is pouring his full fervor upon our heads. Already the terraced roof of the town is hot beneath our feet; let us abandon it, and descend and refresh ourselves under the arcades by the fountain of the Lions.

HERVÉ RIEL

ROBERT BROWNING

NOTE,-This poem of Browning's furnishes its own historical setting; it gives date and places and names. All, in fact, that it does not tell us is that the battle at Cape la Hogue was a part of the struggle between England and France undertaken because Louis XIV of France would not acknowledge William III as king of England.

The poem is written in characteristic Browning style. You have read in the earlier volumes An Incident of the French Camp, How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and are therefore familiar with Browning's custom of leaving out words, using odd, informal words which another man might think out of place in poetry, and employing strange, sometimes jerky, meters.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,

Did the English fight the French-woe to France!

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,

Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the Rance,

With the English fleet in view.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;

Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And they signalled to the place
"Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick―or, quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!"

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;

"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they:

"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,

Shall the "Formidable" here with her twelve and eighty guns

Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,

Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,

And with flow at full beside?

Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was called a council straight.
Brief and bitter the debate: