Although the upper parts of the walls are only coated with plaster, strengthened with reeds, centuries of neglect have not sufficed to destroy this slight, “aerie, faerie” thing of filigree, which has not even the appearance of durability. Wherever the destroyer has mutilated the fragile ornaments, “the temple-haunting
NORTH GALLERY IN THE COURT OF THE LIONS.
martlet, guest of summer,” builds his nest and careers in the delicate air, breaking, with his twitter, the silence of these sunny, now deserted courts, once made for Oriental delights, and even now the place in which to read the Arabian Nights, or spend a honeymoon—
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov’d mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d,
The air is delicate. [Macbeth, Act i., sc. 6]
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.