Christians, the reduction of the last stronghold of the Moors became only a question of time. As we know, the surrender of Granada took place within four years after the fall of Loja.
But it is not the history of the Dominion and Expulsion, so much as the description of the Hall of the Abencerrages, that demands attention at present.
After the glories of the Sala de las Dos Hermanas, the Hall of the Abencerrages, elegant as it is, pales somewhat in interest. There are but few inscriptions here. It has been repeatedly “restored,” and much of the ornament which decorates the walls seems to have been transferred from the Hall of The Two Sisters. The arches, however, appear in their original state, and are most beautiful in general form, as in their surface decoration. The manner in which the arch-form gradually grows out from the shaft of the column is exquisite. In the centre of the Hall is the famous “Fountain,” with the waters of which the blood of the Abencerrage chieftains is said to have mingled.
The beautiful wooden doors to the Hall of the Abencerrages existed in their places, and in perfect condition till the summer of 1837, when they were removed and sawn in halves by the then resident Governor of the Alhambra for the purpose of stopping a gap in another part of the Palace; and, as they proved too large for the openings to which they were applied, the superfluous parts were broken up for firewood!
The doors are of white wood, with similar mouldings and ornaments on either side; the decorations were originally in colour, traces of which may still be discovered. The folding doors are hung on pivots, which are let into the socket of a marble slab below, and above into the soffit of a beam which crosses the colonnade of the Court of the Lions. This method of hanging the doors is precisely similar to that adopted in ancient temples, and is still practised throughout the East. The manner in which the bolt secures, at the same time, both flaps of the larger doors and the wicket, is full of ingenuity.
Don Rafaél Contreras caused these doors, or what remained of them, to be replaced in the position for which they were originally intended. He found the fragments amid the lumber of the palace! His own words are: “Nous l’avons restaurée en 1856, l’ayant trouvé brisée en quatre morceaux, abandonnée dans les magasins du palais”—They were found, broken into four pieces, in the lumber rooms of the palace.
PATIO DE LA ALBERCA—THE COURT OF THE FISH-POND.
This Court was called in former times Patio de los Arrayanes—the Court of the Myrtles—by reason of its beautiful flowering shrubs which gem either side of the Fishpond; trim myrtle hedges, and orange trees rising beside the water.