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National Geographic : 1950 Apr
Contents
Speaking of Spain Olive oil, a superlative energy food, is rich in calories. At the house of the proprietor of the olive grove I ate the regional dishes: migas, bread crumbs fried in olive oil; and a salad of orange slices steeped in oil. Presses Squeeze Oil from Olives To see the oil extracted, I went to an almazara. At the entrance to this mill an enormous mass of blue-black olives rose to the height of the roof. Inside, a huge conical roller ground up the entire fruit, including the pit, into a black gruel. Workmen then spread the heated paste on circular pierced mats of esparto, a tough grass that grows in mountainous country, which is also used to make baskets, harness, rugs, and myriad other things. Threading the mat on the central column of a hydraulic press, they stacked others over it like a pile of flapjacks. Already the man-high pile oozed oil, pressed out by its own weight; this oil and that from the first hydraulic pressing make the top grade olive oil. The second and third press ings produce successively inferior grades of oil. From the press the oil runs into a series of tile-lined vats. As it flows from vat to vat, water drains off at the bottom, and workers skim floating impurities off the top. The yellow-green olive oil, thus naturally settled and cleared, is known as virgin oil. Connois seurs prefer this oil for cooking. Mechanical and chemical refinings later produce all stages of purity to the colorless, tasteless medicinal oils. From Jaen the highroad continues through the mountains to Granada. On strategic high hills throughout this region stand square-sided stone towers. On these the Moors lighted signal fires to communicate from point to point. Ruins and structures all over Spain record the passing of Romans, Visigoths, and 800 years of the Moors, all of whom have left their traces on the rich culture of the land. On a series of terraces under the white line of the snows, Granada lies at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. Above the city, on its forest clad hill, stands the Alhambra, the sprawling fortress-palace of the Moors. Completed in the 14th century, the Alhambra remained the stronghold of the African Moslems until the reconquest of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.* At a time when nearly all Spain suffered from a severe drought, Granada was green and fresh with running water. The Moors built aqueducts and conduits to bring moun tain spring water from the town of Alfacar to the cisterns and fountains of the city, and the system still works. The downtown business section of Granada is modern. But if one climbs the steep hill to the Alhambra and passes under an old arch into the dark woods, one enters another period in time. In the somber twilight under the trees, students bend over books on roadside benches and lovers walk hand in hand along the paths. I entered the confines of the Alhambra through the great Justice Gate, a spearhead shaped opening in the walls in the base of a massive tower. In the spacious courtyard between the Moorish palace and the ugly unfinished Re naissance palace of Charles V, I saw groups of visitors, each with a guide intoning history in the language of his flock. The Alhambra consists of a sprawling suc cession of rooms, porches, towers, galleries, and courtyards (pages 430, 442-3, 454). On the walls delicate calligraphy traced in stucco gives an air of fragility to the structure. From ceilings hang stalactites of plaster. I found these oppressive in their rococo excess; in con trast to the light and airy feeling of the pierced windows and arches, the heavy treatment of the ceilings weighed me down. A plaque marks the suite of rooms where Washington Irving lived while writing his Alhambra. It must have been a pleasant place to live and write, overlooking the gardens and the city far below. Nightingales Sing in Alhambra Gardens One night I looked down on Granada from the hill of the Alhambra. From the balus trade on which I leaned, the hill dropped sheer to the first tiers of houses on the upper levels of the city. At street corners old lamps on scrollwork brackets threw keystones of yellow light divided by a black cross of shadow on the whitewashed walls. The city lay quiet, so still that the songs of nightingales rose clearly in the night. Here in the Alhambra gardens and woods I heard these European night singers for the first time. Their liquid song resembles that of our mockingbird, but seemed softer, sweeter, less metallic. It was spring when I was in Granada, and several nights I heard three or four amorous males singing at the same time. The Alhambra looks across a ravine to the old hillside quarter called the Albaicin. In its narrow, steep streets, balconies blossom with * See, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE: "On the Bypaths of Spain," March, 1929, and "From Granada to Gibraltar-A Tour of Southern Spain," August, 1924, both by Harry A. McBride. 437
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