a province of Spain, which for a long time was a kingdom distinct from the rest of that country. See the article SPAIN.—It made a part of the ancient Baetica; and was inhabited by the Bastuli, the Sextiani, &c. At present it is sometimes called Upper Andalusia. It is bounded to the south and east by the Mediterranean, to the west and north by Lower Andalusia, and the north-east by Murcia. Its extent from west to east is two hundred and ten miles; but its greatest breadth exceeds not eighty. The air here is temperate and healthy; and though there are many mountains in the province, and some of them very high, yet they are almost everywhere covered with vines and fruit-trees, together with laurel, myrtle, sweet-basil, thyme, lavender, marjoram, and other aromatic herbs, which give an exquisite taste to the flesh of their sheep and cattle. A great deal of silk and sugar, flax and hemp, honey and wax, is also produced here; besides dates and acorns, superior to the finest nuts; good stone for building; several sorts of gems; sumach, used in dressing goat-hkins; and galls, of which a dye is made for leather. The valleys, with which the mountains are interspersed, are extremely beautiful and fertile. The inhabitants of some of the highest mountains are said to be descendants of the Moors; and, though they are become Roman Catholics, retain in a great measure, their ancient customs, manners, and language. The principal rivers in the province are the Genil or Xenil, and Guadalantin, besides which there are many lesser streams. Abundance of salt is made in this province; which, though neither so populous nor so well cultivated as when subject to the Moors, yet is as much so as any in Spain. It was the last of the kingdoms possessed by the Moors, and was not reduced and annexed to the crown of Castile until 1492.

the capital of the above province, is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, or the Snowy Mountain, in a wholesome air and fruitful country, an hundred and eighty-eight miles south of Madrid, in W. Long. 3. 40. N. Lat. 37. 17. It stands upon two hills separated by the Darro. The Genil runs under the walls, and these two rivers are formed from the melting of the snow with which the mountain is constantly covered. The Darro is said to carry with it small particles of gold; and its name, derived from dat aurum, may be alleged as a proof of this: the Genil, in like manner, rolls with its stream little pieces of silver. When Charles V. came to Granada in 1526, with the empress Isabella, the city presented him with a crown made of gold gathered from the Darro. The city is large and magnificent, containing a great number of very handsome public and private buildings. Its walls, which are adorned with many towers at equal distances, are said to be ten miles in compass. Here are two castles; the one built by the Moors, and the other by Charles V. and Philip II. They both command a very fine prospect; and the first is so large, that it looks like a city by itself; and, it is said, has room enough to accommodate forty thousand people, exclusive of the royal palace, and the convent of St Francis. Here is also a court of inquisition; a royal tribunal; and an university, founded in 1531; with the see of an archbishop, who has a revenue of forty thousand ducats per annum. A great many noblemen, clergymen, and wealthy citizens, reside in this city, of which the silk trade and manufacture is very great, and the arsenal is said to be the best furnished of any in Spain. The inhabitants, who are partly descended of the Moors, are well supplied with water. There are several fine squares, particularly that called the Bazarumba, or Plaza Mayor, where the bull-fights are held; and without the city is a large plain, full of towns and villages, called La Vega de Granada.

The Moors are said to regret nothing but Granada, amongst all the losses they have sustained in Spain; they mention it in all their evening prayers, and supplicate heaven heaven to restore it to their possession. The last Moorish ambassador who came into Spain obtained permission of the king to see Granada; he shed tears on entering the Alhambra, and could not refrain from exclaiming, that the folly of his ancestors had deprived them and their posterity of that delightful country.

Granada had formerly twenty gates: the first, that of Elvira, which still remains; the second, that of Bibalmazar, or of conference, because, with the Moors, it was a kind of place of resort where they conferred on affairs; the third, Vivarambla, so called from its leading to a grand square which still bears the same name; the fourth, Bib Racha, or of provisions; the fifth, Bitautubin, or the gate of the hermits, which led to different solitudes, the abodes of dervishes; the sixth, Bibmitre, or Biblacha, the first gate; the seventh, the mill gate; the eighth, that of the fun, because it opened to the east; the ninth, the gate of the Alhambra, called by the Moors Bib Luxar; the tenth, Bib Adam, or the gate of the bones of Adam; the twelfth, Bib Ciedra, the gate of the nobles; the Moors kept this gate shut for a long time, because it had been predicted that the enemies which should one day take the city, would enter by that gate; the thirteenth, is that of Faxalauza, or of the hill of almond trees; the fourteenth, the lion gate, in Arabic, Bib Elceei; the fifteenth, the coast gate, called by the Moors Alacabar; the sixteenth, Bib Albonut, or the gate of the Banners, at present the magdalen gate; the seventeenth, that of the Darro; the eighteenth, that of the Mofayca; the nineteenth, that called the gate of Ecce Homo; the twentieth, that by the side of the Alhambra.

The Moors have left more monuments in Granada than in any other city in Spain. From the great number of inscriptions in and about the city, and the fine edifices of the Alhambra and the Generalif, it might be supposed these people intended to make Granada the greatest depository of their religion, manners, customs, and magnificence. There is not a wall which does not bear some marks of their power; but, notwithstanding this abundance of monuments, the reign of the Moors in Spain is still buried in confusion and obscurity. The ignorance of the Spaniards, their superstition, and the hatred they bore the Moors, have much contributed to this darkness; they have either destroyed, or suffered to be effaced by time, everything which bore the mark of Mahometanism, instead of preserving the monuments of antiquity, which at the same time were those of their own glory; and it may be said, that chance alone, and the fidelity of their construction, much more than curiosity or a love of the arts, has preserved those which still exist, though daily going to ruin.

An account of the Alhambra has been already given under its name in the order of the alphabet. From the hall of Comares there mentioned, there is a modern little staircase; the old one, which corresponded to the beauty of the edifice, having been destroyed. At the top of the staircase is a gallery, a part of which is inclosed with an iron railing: this kind of cage is called the prison of the queen. It was here the wife of the last king of Granada was imprisoned. The Gomels and Legris, two families of distinction, bore false witness against her virtue, and occasioned the destruction of the greatest part of the Abencerrages, another powerful and numerous family of Granada of whom they were jealous. The history of this event is given as follows:

In the year 1491, Abdali, surnamed the Little, still reigned in Granada; but this city was upon the brink of ruin, for the principal families were divided against each other. The Moors had carried their arms against Jaen, and had been bravely repelled. Abdali was confiding himself in one of his pleasure houses for the ill success of his enterprise, when the Zegris, who long had been the secret enemies of the Abencerrages, took the opportunity of this defeat to represent them to the king as rebellious subjects, who employed their immense riches to gain the favour of the people and dethrone their sovereign. They accused Albin Hamet, the most rich and powerful among them, of having an adulterous commerce with the queen, and produced witnesses who affircted they had on a certain festival feast, at Generalif, under a bower of rose trees, Albin Hamet in the arms of that princess. The fury of Abdali may easily be imagined; he swore the destruction of the Abencerrages. But the Zegris, too prudent to let his anger break forth, advised him to dissemble, and not to suffer it to be known to that numerous and powerful family that he was informed of their perfidy. "It will be better," said they, "to entice them into the snare, and, before they can unite and put themselves into a state of defence, revenge upon their heads the insult offered to the crown." This advice was followed; Abdali went to the Alhambra, having ordered thirty of his guards to arm themselves, and the executioner to attend. The Abencerrages were sent for one by one, and beheaded as soon as they entered the hall of the lions, where there is still a large vase of alabaster, which was quickly filled with blood and the heads of expiring bodies. Thirty-five heads had already been struck off, and all the Abencerrages would have died in the same manner, had not a page, who had followed his master, and remained unperceived in the hurry of the execution, taken an opportunity of withdrawing and giving information to the rest of the unhappy family of what had passed. These immediately assembled their friends in arms, crying out through the city of Granada, "Treacon! treacon! Let the king die! he unjustly puts to death the Abencerrages!" The people, with whom they were favourites, did not hesitate in assisting them: fourteen thousand men were soon found in arms, and immediately proceeded towards the Alhambra, shouting all the way, Let the king die! Abdali, surprised his secret should have been so soon discovered, and severely repenting of having followed the pernicious counsels he had received, ordered the castle gates to be shut; but they were presently set on fire. Muley Hacen, who had been forced to abdicate the throne in favour of his son, hearing the tumult of the people, had one gate opened, and presented himself to appease the rage of the citizens; but he no sooner appeared, than he was lifted up by the multitude near the gate, who cried out, "Behold our king, we will have no other, long live Muley Hacen;" and leaving him surrounded by a strong guard, the Abencerrages, and other nobles, entered the castle, accompanied by upwards of an hundred soldiers. But they found the queen only, with her women, and in the utmost consternation at the sudden Granada, sudden revolution, of which she knew not the cause. They asked for the king; and being informed he was in the hall of the lions, entered it furiously, and found him defended by the Zegris and the Gomels, and in less than two hours killed upwards of two hundred of them. Abdali had the good fortune to escape. The bodies of the beheaded Abencerrages were laid upon black cloth, and carried to the city. Muza, brother to Abdali, and who by his great actions had gained the favour of the people, seeing the Abencerrages were revenged, found means to appease them; and having learned that the king had taken refuge in a mosque near the mountain now called Saint Helena, went and brought him back to the castle of the Alhambra. For several days nothing but sighs and groans were heard throughout the city. Abdali shut himself up in the castle, and refused to see the queen. Those who had accused her of adultery, however, persisted in their false accusation, and said, they would maintain, with arms in their hands, against all who should contradict them, that the queen was guilty. The unhappy princess was imprisoned, and the day arriving on which she was to perish by the hands of the executioner, when none among the Moors offering to defend her, she was advised to commit her cause to some Christian knights, who presented themselves at the time appointed, and conquered her false accusers, so that she was immediately set at liberty. The taking of Granada soon followed this combat; Muza and the Abencerrages having, it is said, facilitated the conquest of it by Ferdinand and Isabella.

From the Alhambra you enter the Generalif by a low gate, which favoured the escape of Abdali when Ferdinand took Granada. Generalif is said to signify, in Arabic, the house of love, of dance, and pleasure. It was built by a prince of the name of Omar, who was so fond of music, that he retired to this palace, entirely to give himself up to that amusement. The Generalif is the most pleasing situation in the environs of Granada. It is built upon a very high mountain, whence waters rush from every side, which escape in torrents, and fall in beautiful cascades in the courts, gardens, and halls of that ancient palace. The gardens form an amphitheatre, and are full of trees venerable from their antiquity. Two cypresses in particular are noted, called the Cypresses of the Queen, because it was near them the perfidious Gomel impeached the virtue of that princess and the honour of the Abencerrages. Of this place, travellers observe, that the writers of romances have never imagined a scene equal to it.

Granada was formerly called Iliberia, and founded, if we will believe some writers, by Liberia, a great-grand-daughter of Hercules, daughter of Hifpan, and wife to Hesperus, a Grecian prince, and brother to Atalanta. Others, who support their assertions by proofs to the full as satisfactory, maintain that it was founded by Iberus, grandson of Tubal, and that it took the name of Granada, or Garnata, from Nata the daughter of Liberia; this word being composed of Gar (which in the language of the time signified grotto) and Nata; that is, "the grotto of Nata," because that princess studied astrology and natural history, and delighted in the country. It is certain that such a person as Nata, or Natayda, existed in the first ages of the foundation of Granada; and that in the place where the Alhambra now stands, there was a temple dedicated to Natalia. The date of the foundation of Granada is said to be 2883 years before Christ. We know that in the time of the Romans it was a municipal colony.—A description in Latin of Granada, such as it was in 1560, written by a merchant of Antwerp, named George Hofnahel, who travelled into Spain, is to be found in the work intitled Civitates orbis terrarum, printed at Cologne in 1576. This book also contains a good plan of the city of Granada.

or Grenada, one of the Caribbee islands. See Grenada.

a town of Mexico, in America, in the province of Nicaragua, and in the audience of Guatemala, seated on the lake Nicaragua, 70 miles from the South sea. It was taken twice by the French buccaneers, and pillaged. The inhabitants carry on a great trade by means of the lake, which communicates with the North sea. W. Long. 87. 46. N. Lat. 10. 12.

New, a province of South America, in Terra Firma, about 75 miles in length, and as much in breadth. It is bounded on the north by Cartagena and St Martha, on the east by Venezuela, on the south by Popayan, and on the west by Darien. It contains mines of gold, copper, and iron; horses, mules, good pastures, corn, and fruits. It belongs to the Spaniards, and Santa-Fe de Bagota is the capital town.