In this hall a temporary chapel was set up, and mass was celebrated, on the taking of the city by the Spaniards.
Crossing the Hall of the Two Sisters, we enter the beautiful Mirador de "Lindaraja," the most charming and elegant of all the apartments in the palace. Through three tall windows, once filled with coloured crystals, we look down into the pretty Patio de Daraxa, which, like the chamber, does not derive its name from an imaginary sultana, but from a word meaning "vestibule." It is a delightful garden, where shade is always to be obtained between the closely planted cypresses, orange, and peach trees, rising between twin hedges of box and bushes of rose and myrtle. In the centre is a seventeenth-century fountain. Here you will always find some artist committing to canvas his impressions of one of the fairest gardens men have fashioned for themselves.
The rooms on the other side of the patio were built by Charles V., and include the Tocador de la Reina, or Queen's Boudoir, a prettily decorated belvedere affording an entrancing view. It was in this room that Washington Irving took up his quarters. Théophile Gautier slept sometimes in the hall of the Abencerrages, sometimes in that of the Two Sisters, and was impressed by the eerieness of the palace at night. Yet there is not a manor-house in England or a château in France that is not more suggestive of the spectral and uncanny than these gilded halls and open courts. However, everyone has his own preconceptions of the weird and the picturesque.
From the Patio de Daraxa we enter the very interesting Baths, ably restored by the late Don Rafael Contreras. The Sala de las Camas, or chamber of repose, is among the most brilliantly decorated rooms in the palace, yet, as elsewhere in this neglected pile, the gilding is being suffered to fade and the tiling in the niches, I noticed, is loosening and breaking up. From a gallery running round the chamber, the music of the odalisques was wafted down to the sultan reclining in one of the divans below. He must have been in no hurry to leave this spot, where he dreamily puffed at his hubble-bubble and watched the play of the fountain. The light came from apertures in the superb artesonado ceiling. Without, on a stone seat, the eunuchs mounted guard and preserved their lord's repose from interruption. The actual baths are contained in two adjacent chambers. A staircase ascended to the Hall of the Two Sisters above, for the use, not improbably, of the ladies of the harem. On leaving the baths you may follow the tunnel across the uninteresting Patio de la Reja and beneath the Tower of Comares, to the Patio del Mexuar.
No visitor to the Alhambra must omit to walk round the outer wall or enceinte, and to inspect the towers. The Torre de las Damas, a fortified tower dating from the time of Yusuf I., was inhabited by Ismaïl, the brother of Mohammed V., and marked the palace limits on this side. It contains a tastefully decorated hall. Adjacent to it is a beautiful if gaudy little Mohammedan mihrab or oratory, approached through a private garden. Here was the house of Anastasio de Bracamonte, the esquire of the Conde de Tendilla, to whom was assigned the custody of the Alhambra at the Reconquest. The Puerta de Hierro, a little further on, was restored at the same time, and faces the gate and path leading to the Generalife. Passing the Torre de los Picos, we reach the Torre de la Cautiva, which contains a beautiful chamber, over which a lovely rosy tint is diffused by the tiles and stucco. The Torre de las Infantas, built by Mohammed VII., is a perfect example of an Oriental dwelling-house. Through the usual zigzag vestibule you reach a hall with a fountain in the centre and alcoves in three of the sides. The decoration is perhaps over elaborate. The towers on the other side of the enceinte were, as I have said, intended mainly for defence. Near the ruinous Torre del Agua, at the south-east extremity, a viaduct crosses the ravine from the Generalife, and some of the water precipitates itself over the brow of the hill in a mass of vivid living greenery. Further on, towards the Gate of Justice, is the Torre de los Siete Suelos, through which Boabdil is said to have made his last exit. It is supposed to extend far underground, and to contain much buried treasure. So at least Irving was told by the inhabitants, or possibly told them! Hence issues the Belludo, the spectral pack, which traverses the streets of Granada by night—also according to legend. This story of the Wild Huntsman crops up, in one form or another, in every part of Europe. There are the Dandy Dogs in Cornwall, the Wild Huntsman in Germany, Thibaut le Tricheur in the valley of the Loire, the Chasseur Noir of Fontainebleau, and so on. Folk-lore of this sort is easily fabricated. Foreigners in search of the picturesque ask the natives of such a place as this if ghosts do not haunt the ruins. The guide, anxious to please, says "Doubtless!" The foreigner goes on to tell him of spectres that affect this particular class of building at home; and the guide readily devises a local version of the yarn for the benefit of the next stranger. I have found that the peasantry in most European countries hear of their local traditions and folk-lore first through the medium of books. And these remarks apply with especial force to the people of Latin countries, whom, contrary to the received opinion, I know to be less imaginative and less superstitious than northerners. It is natural that the gloomy forests of Germany and Sweden, rather than the sunlit plains of Andalusia, should generate dark fancies.
Strictly speaking the Generalife, the Trianon of the Moorish kings, is a more beautiful place than the Alhambra, though it has no architectural merit. It became the property at the Reconquest of a Christianized Moor, Don Pedro de Granada, who claimed to be descended from the famous Ben Hud, and from whose family it passed into the possession of the Marquises of Campotejar. The approach lies along a magnificent avenue of cypresses and tall shrubs. Arrived at the entrance you are admitted by a very comely damsel, and allowed to wander about the lovely gardens by yourself and to stay there all day if you like. At the far end of the first court is a poor collection of portraits, among which is one—No. 11—absurdly supposed to be a portrait of Ben Hud (died about 1237), though the person is dressed in the costume of the fifteenth century. This is the portrait which English travellers, and even the usually correct Baedeker, persist in mistaking for Boabdil's.