The terraces of this garden are in the form of an amphitheatre, and the lingering remains of their once beautiful Mosaic pavements are still to be seen. The walks are now darkly umbrageous, from the interwoven branches of gigantic cypresses and aged myrtles, beneath whose {147} grateful shades the kings and queens of Grenada have so often wandered. Then blooming groves and forests of fruit-trees were agreeably intermingled with graceful domes and marble pavilions: then the sweet perfume of the countless flowers that mingled their varied dyes in delightful confusion, floated in the soft air. Then the delicate tendrils of the vine clasped the supporting branches of the orange, and both together hung the mingled gold and purple of their clustering fruits over the bright waters that from marble founts
"Gushed up to sun and air!"
Then valour and beauty strayed side by side, beneath embowering branches, the fire of the one attempered to gentleness by the softer graces of the other, and the souls of both elevated and purified by nature's holy and resistless influences.
But now the luxuriant vine lies prostrate, its climbing trunk and clinging tendrils rudely torn from their once firm support: even the voice of the fountain no longer warbles in the same gladsome tone as of yore; the mouldering fragments of the polished column and sculptured dome are now strewed on the earth; the sighing of the gentle breeze no longer awake: is the soft breath {148} of responding flowers; the loveliness and the glory of the Home of Love are vanished away for ever; and the crumbling stones of the tesselated pavements echo naught but the lingering footfall of the solitary stranger, who wanders thither to enjoy those mournful charms of which the destroyer cannot divest a spot that must ever appeal so strongly to the vision and the heart, to the memory and the imagination.
It is painful to quit the Alhambra and the Generalif, to return to the ravages, incursions, and sanguinary quarrels of the Moors and Christians.
It was the fate of Mohammed III. (surnamed the Blind) to be obliged at the same time to repress the rebellious movements of his own subjects and repel the invasions of his Catholic neighbours. Compelled by the infirmity from which he derived his appellation to choose a prime minister, he bestowed that important post upon Farady, the husband of his sister, a judicious statesman and a brave soldier, who for some time prosperously continued the war against the Castilians, and finally concluded it by an honourable peace.
But the courtiers, jealous of the glory and {149} envious of the good-fortune of the favourite, formed a conspiracy against his master, and instigated revolts among the people. To complete his calamities, foreign war again broke forth; the King of Castile, Ferdinand IV., surnamed the Summoned,[7] united with the King of Aragon in attacking the Grenadians.[8]
Gibraltar was taken by the Castilians, and the conqueror expelled its Moorish inhabitants from its walls. Among the unfortunate exiles who departed from the city was an old man, who, perceiving Ferdinand, approached him, leaning on his staff: "King of Castile," he said to him, "what injury have I done to thee or thine? Thy great-grandfather Ferdinand drove me from my native Seville: I sought an asylum at Xeres; thy grandfather Alphonso banished me from thence: retiring within the walls of Tariffe,[9] thy father Sancho exiled me from that city. At last I came to find a grave at the extremity of Spain, on the shore of Gibraltar; but thy hatred hath pursued me even here: tell me now of one place on earth where I can die unmolested by the Christians!"
{150}
"Cross the sea!" replied the Spanish prince; and he caused the aged petitioner to be conveyed to Africa.