The city was surrounded by high walls, three leagues in circuit,
furnished with twelve gates and a thousand and thirty towers. Its
elevation above the sea and the neighborhood of the Sierra Nevada
crowned with perpetual snows tempered the fervid rays of summer,
so that while other cities were panting with the sultry and stifling
heat of the dog-days, the most salubrious breezes played through
the marble halls of Granada.

The glory of the city, however, was its Vega or plain, which spread
out to a circumference of thirty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty
mountains, and was proudly compared to the famous plain of Damascus.
It was a vast garden of delight, refreshed by numerous fountains and
by the silver windings of the Xenil. The labor and ingenuity of the
Moors had diverted the waters of this river into thousands of rills
and streams, and diffused them over the whole surface of the plain.
Indeed, they had wrought up this happy region to a degree of
wonderful prosperity, and took a pride in decorating it as if it had
been a favorite mistress. The hills were clothed with orchards and
vineyards, the valleys embroidered with gardens, and the wide plains
covered with waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the orange,
the citron, the fig, and the pomegranate, with great plantations of
mulberry trees, from which was produced the finest silk. The vine
clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clusters about
the peasant's cottage, and the groves were rejoiced by the perpetual
song of the nightingale. In a word, so beautiful was the earth, so
pure the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious region that
the Moors imagined the paradise of their Prophet to be situated in
that part of the heaven which overhung the kingdom of Granada.