The exquisite façade of this Court is much disfigured by a modern gallery. From the portions which remain, however, the general design may be traced with tolerable certainty.
The inscriptions are few and unimportant, consisting, for the most part, of the constantly-recurring motto: “There is no Conqueror but God,” and some verses from the Koran.
The grand Mosque of the Alhambra was built in 1308 by Mohammed III., and was in good preservation until the occupation of the French, who, says Don Pascual de Gayángos, entirely destroyed it. It has been thus described by Ibnu-l-Khattíb, the Grand Wizír of Yúsuf I.: “It is ornamented with Mosaic work, and exquisite tracery of the most beautiful and intricate patterns, intermixed with silver flowers and graceful arches, supported by innumerable pillars of polished marble; indeed, what with the solidity of the structure, which the Sultán inspected in person, the elegance of the design, and the beauty of the proportions, the building has not its like in this country; and I have frequently heard our best architects say that they had never seen or heard of a building which can be compared to it.”
LA MEZQUITA—THE MOSQUE.
The old Mosque, afterwards a chapel, was “purged” and consecrated by Ferdinand and Isabella, and retains but few traces of its purpose during the Moorish Dominion. The door was once overlaid with bronze, and, like all the rest of the Palace, was stripped and spoiled by generations of guardian thieves, who allowed no one but themselves to steal. Above the door is still the exquisite-laced niche where the Korán used to be placed by the green-turbaned Moollahs. Near the entrance is an elaborate and beautiful niche, which was probably the Mihráb, or sanctuary of the Mosque. Whilst at his prayers in this Mihráb, the martyred Yúsuf—he who built the Gate of Justice in 1348, and who completed the Alhambra—fell a victim to the dagger of an assassin in the year 1354. The inscriptions in the Mosque, which were dumb to the conquerors, still protest for the old faith, and cry aloud from barge-board and netted rafter, “Be not one of the negligent.” “God is our refuge in every time of trouble.”
LOS BAÑOS—THE BATHS.
The plan of these Baths is very similar to the arrangement still used throughout the East.
CHAMBER OF REPOSE.
From the elegant little saloon at the entrance where the bathers unrobed, and whither they resorted after the bath, we pass, by a circuitous passage, in which are two smaller baths, into the general vapour-bath, paved with white marble, and lighted with openings in the form of stars, lined with glazed earthenware. This corresponds with the apartment called by the Arabs the hararah, or vapour-bath, and described in Lane’s Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians; and it was under the graceful arcades which support the dome that the bathers