SALA DE LA BARCA—HALL OF THE BARQUE.
Beyond where the fountain bubbles in the Court of the Fish-pond, is the oblong Hall of the Barque, which is still as radiant with colours as the edge of fading evening cloud. The rivers of poems that fret the walls sing the praises of some long dead Sultán, who conquered twenty fortresses, and whose excellence, running clear through his great deeds, was as the silk thread that carries a necklace of pearls.
“The ceiling of the Hall of the Barque,” says Owen Jones, “is a wagon-headed dome of wood, of the most elaborate patterns, receiving its support from pendentives of mathematical construction so curious, that they may be rendered susceptible of combinations as various as the melodies which may be produced from the seven notes of the musical scale; attesting the wonderful power and effect obtained by the repetition of the most simple elements.”
Alas! it must be added that this beautiful Hall was greatly injured by a fire, which took place in September, 1890.