Architecturally the Alhambra Palace has little merit. It is impossible to trace any order in the distribution of its parts, which ought not of course to be expected in a building repeatedly added to in the course of two and a half centuries. Moreover, a portion was demolished to make room for the Palace of Charles V. The Moorish builders were fond of conceits which our taste condemns. They liked to conceal the supports of a heavy tower, and to leave it seemingly suspended in the air. There is nothing imposing about the edifice, nothing stately. Its great charm consists in its decoration, which is wonderful and, in its own line, beyond all praise. It is based on the strictest geometrical plan, and every design and pattern may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem, and nothing accidental or extraneous is permitted. The same adhesion to sharply-defined principles is conspicuous in the colour-scheme. On the stucco only the primary colours are used; the secondary tints being reserved for the dados of mosaic or tile work. The green seen on the groundwork was originally blue. To-day, when the white parts have assumed the tint of old ivory and time has subdued the vivid colouring, the effect is more harmonious than it could have been originally.
Epigraphy, or long flowing inscriptions, proclaiming the merits of the sultans or of the chambers themselves, enters largely into the decoration. Those who can read these at a glance must find the halls less monotonous than most people are likely to do. The beauty of the ornamentation consists in its exquisite symmetry, and this is not apparent to every comer, who may fail to realize with Mr. Lomas "that the exact relation between the irregular widths of cloistering on the long and short sides of the court [of the Lions] is that of the squares upon the sides of a right-angled triangle"!
The inscription that most frequently recurs in the decoration is the famous "There is no conqueror but God"—the words used by Al Ahmar on his return from the siege of Seville, in deprecation of the acclamations of his subjects. The newer parts are readily recognizable by the yoke and sheaf of arrows, the favourite devices of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose initials, F and Y, are also seen; and by the Pillars of Hercules and the motto "Plus Oultre," denoting work executed by order of Charles V.
The oldest part of the building—by which I mean that which appears to have been the least altered—is round about the Patio de la Mezquita, more properly named "del Mexuar," after the divan or "meshwâr" that held its sittings here. The southern façade of this small court reminds one very much of the front of the Alcazar at Seville. From this you enter the disused chapel, an uninteresting apartment consecrated in 1629. The Moorish decoration has almost completely disappeared, but much of the work in the little apartment adjacent, called the Sultan's Oratory, seems to be original. There never was a mosque here, but there may have been a private praying-place. Yusuf I. is supposed to have been stabbed here. The tragic deed was more probably done at the great mosque outside the palace where the Alhambra parish church now stands. From the Patio del Mexuar a tunnel called the Viaducto leads to the Patio de la Reja, the Baths, and the Garden of Daraxa.
The Court of the Myrtles (Patio de las Arrayanes, or de la Alberca) is the first entered by the visitor. It is an oblong space, the middle of which is occupied by a tank of bright green water. This is bordered by trimly kept hedges of myrtle. The side walls are modern, and do not deserve attention. The front to the right on entering is very beautiful. It is composed of two arcaded galleries, one above the other, with a smaller closed gallery—a sort of triforium—interposed. The arches spring from marble columns, with variously decorated capitals. The central arch of the lowest gallery rises nearly to the cornice, and is decorated in a style which Contreras thought suggestive of Indian architecture. Fine lattice work closes the seven windows of the triforium. The upper gallery is equally graceful, but looks in imminent danger of collapse. Above a similar but single arcade at the opposite end of the court rises the square massive upper storey of the Tower of Comares, with its crenellated summit. To reach its interior we cross the gallery beneath a little dome painted with stars on a blue ground, and a long parallel apartment (Sala de la Barca) gutted by fire in 1890, and enter the spacious Hall of the Ambassadors (Sala de los Embajadores), the largest hall in the Alhambra. Here was held the final council which decided the fate of Islam in Spain. Looking upwards we behold the glorious airy dome of larch-wood with painted stars. The decoration is magnificent—mostly in red and black—and may be divided into four zones: (1) a dado of mosaic tiles or azulejos; (2) stucco work in eight horizontal bands, each of a different design; (3) a row of five windows once filled with stained glass on each side; (4) a carved wooden cornice, supporting the roof. On three sides of the hall are alcoves, each with a window, the one opposite the entrance having been near the Sultan's throne.
The Hall of the Ambassadors probably never looked very different from what it is now. It was never a private apartment. We can imagine it occupied, when no function was proceeding, by a few slaves dozing on mats or reclining dog-like on the richly carpeted floor, ready, however, to spring up and make the lowest of salaams as some bearded dignity entered.
