There is a Moorish tradition, that a king who built this mighty pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with gold and silver for the purpose by means of alchymy; certainly never was there an edifice accomplished in a superior style of barbaric magnificence; and the stranger who, even at the present day, wanders among its silent and deserted courts and ruined halls, gazes with astonishment at its gilded and fretted domes and luxurious decorations, still retaining their brilliancy and beauty in spite of the ravages of time.
The Alhamrā, usually, but erroneously, denominated the Alhambra, is a vast pile of building about two thousand three hundred English feet in length; and its breadth, which is the same throughout, is about six hundred feet. It was erected by Mūhammed Abū Abdillāh, surnamed Alghālib Billāh, who superintended the edifice himself, and, when it was completed, made it the royal residence.
Although the glory and prosperity of Granada may be said to have departed with its old inhabitants, yet, happily, it still retains, in pretty good preservation, what formed its chief ornament in the time of the Moors. This is the Alhambra, the royal alcazar, or fortress and palace, which was founded by Mūhammed Abū. Abdillāh Ben Nasz, the second sovereign of Granada, defrayed the expense of the works by a tribute imposed upon his conquered subjects. He superintended the building in person, and when it was completed, he made it a royal residence[253]. The immediate successors of this prince also took delight in embellishing and making additions to the fabric. Since the conquest of Granada by the Christians, the Alhambra has undergone some alterations. It was for a time occasionally inhabited by the kings of Spain. Charles the Fifth caused a magnificent palace to be commenced within the walls; but owing to his wars and frequent absences from Spain, or, as some accounts say, to repeated shocks of earthquakes, a splendid suite of apartments, in the Spanish style, is all that resulted from an alleged intention to eclipse the palace of the Moslem kings. Like the rest of the Alhambra, it is falling rapidly to decay through neglect. At present the walls are defaced, the paintings faded, the wood-work is decayed, and festoons of cobwebs are seen hanging from the ceiling. In the works of the Arabs, on the contrary, the walls remain unaltered, except by the injuries inflicted by the hand of man. The beams and wood-work of the ceiling present no signs of decay; and spiders, flies, and all other insects, shun their apartments at every season. The art of rendering timber and paints durable, and of making porcelain, mosaics, arabesques, and other ornaments, began and ended in western Europe with the Spanish Arabs.
The palace has had no royal residents since the beginning of the last century, when Philip the Fifth was there for a short time with his queen.
The Alhambra is generally spoken of as a palace, but it is to be understood, that, in the extensive sense, the name applies to a fortress, a sort of city in itself.
The palace, situated upon the northern brow of a steep hill, overlooks the city of Granada on one side, and on the other commands an extensive view over a most charming country. All the wonders of this palace lie within its walls. Externally, according to the account of Swinburne, it appears as a large mass of irregular buildings, all huddled together without any apparent intention of forming one habitation. The walls are entirely unornamented, of gravel and pebbles coarsely daubed over with plaster. We cannot trace the successive courts and apartments, through which the visiter passes as he penetrates to the interior, or attempt to enumerate their separate claims to notice.
The general arrangement of the buildings which compose the palace is exceedingly simple. The courts, for instance, which in our mansions are dull and uninteresting, are here so planned, as to seem a continuation of a series of apartments; and as the whole is on the same level throughout, the prospect through the building, in its perfect state, must have been like a scene of enchantment or a dream; halls and galleries, porticoes and columns, arches, mosaics, with plants and flowers of various hues, being seen in various extensive views, through the haze arising from the spray of the fountains. In every part of the palace its inmates had water in abundance, with a perfect command over it, making it high, low, visible, or invisible, at pleasure.
In every department two currents of air were continually in motion. Also, by means of tubes of baked earth placed in the walls, warmth was diffused from subterranean furnaces; not only through the whole range of the baths, but to all the contiguous upper apartments where warmth was required. The doors were large, but rather sparingly introduced; and, except on the side towards the precipice, where the prospect is very grand, the windows are so placed as to confine the view to the interior of the palace. The object of this is declared in an inscription in one of the apartments, which says—"My windows admit the light, but exclude the view of external objects, lest the beauties of Nature should divert attention from the beauties of my work."
In this mansion the elaborate arabesques and mosaics which cover the ceilings, walls, and floor, give a consequence and interest even to the smallest apartment. Instead of being papered and wainscoted, the walls are provided with the peculiar ornament which, from the Arabs, has been denominated "arabesque." The receding ornaments are illuminated in just gradation with leaf-gold, pink, light blue, and dusky purple: the first colour is the nearest, the last is the most distant, from the eye; but the general surface is white. The domes and arcades are also covered with ornamented casts, which are as light as wood, and as durable as marble.
Besides the inscriptions above alluded to, there are various others. In the king's bath, and in various other parts of the Alhambra, is, "There is no conqueror but God;" and "Glory to our Lord, Sultan Abū Abdallāh!"