The lattice window of the upper story gives light to a corridor leading to apartments appropriated to the fair odalisques. It was through these lattices that the beauties of the hareem viewed
UPPER BALCONY OF THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.
the splendid fêtes enacted for their entertainment in the great hall below, but in which they could participate only as distant spectators. These gratings are precisely similar in their construction to those which are now seen in the hareems of the East.
The long series of inscriptions in the Hall of The Two Sisters were much mutilated, and in some cases utterly destroyed, in a barbarous attempt at decoration—rien n’est sacré pour un sapeur—made by the Ayuntamiento of Granada in 1832, when the Infante, Don Francisco de Paula visited the city. Fortunately, so far as the text goes, the sentences may be found in Antigüedades Arabes de España.[9] The greatest pains have been expended upon the inscriptions which address themselves to the eye of the connoisseur by the beautiful forms of the characters; exercise his intellect by the effort of deciphering their curious and
HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS, FROM THE “LINDARAJA” BALCONY.
complex involutions, and reward his imagination by the beauty of the sentiments and the music of their composition.
Many will be grateful to see some specimens of the verses from the Hall of The Two Sisters:—
“I am the garden, and every morn am I revealed in new beauty. Observe attentively how I am adorn’d, and thou wilt reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration;