The Moors in Spain

by Stanley Lane-Poole

During this period of comparative tranquillity, Granada had taken the place of Cordova as the home of the arts and sciences. Its architects were renowned throughout Europe; they had built the marvellous "Red Palace," Alhambra, so called from the colour of the ferruginous soil on which it stands, and they had covered it with the splendid gold ornament and Arabesque mouldings which are still the wonder of artists of all countries.[26] Granada itself, with its two castles, was a pearl of price. It stands on the border of a rich plain, the famous "Vega," lying at the feet of the snowy "mountains of the moon," the Sierra Nevada. From the heights of the city, and still better from the Alhambra, which stands sentinel over the plain like the Acropolis of Athens, the eye ranges over this beautiful Vega, with its streams and vineyards, its orchards and orange groves. No city in Andalusia was more favoured in site or climate; the breezes from the snow mountains made the hottest summer tolerable, and the land was fertile beyond compare.

The site chosen by the Moors for their celebrated Red Palace is a terrace bounded by precipitous ravines, at the foot of which, to the north, flow the waters of the river Darro. Solid walls of stone covered with stucco, and strengthened at frequent intervals by towers, surround the terrace. The enclosed space is somewhat of the form of a lanceolate leaf lying on the table-land, with its greatest length (about half a mile) from east to west.

The visitor finds his way into the enclosure through a massive embattled tower of orange and red pierced by the Gate of Justice under which the khalifs, like the judges of the Hebrews, were wont to sit in judgment. Twenty-eight feet above the pavement, over the horseshoe arch, a cabalistic key and a gigantic hand are carved on two stones. Once inside the walls, the visitor finds himself in a square, on one side of which is an unfinished palace designed by Charles the Fifth. The corridor through which entrance is now gained to the Alhambra crosses an angle of this ruined structure and admits the visitor to the Court of the Myrtles, so called from the profusion of those shrubs which adorn its sides. A narrow passage ushers us into a court one hundred and forty feet long, and half as broad, flooded with sunlight and gay with gold-fish, which disport themselves in a long pond that fills the larger part of the space. Pillars and galleries adorn the sides and ends of the enclosure, and on the north the great square tower of Comares rises against the horizon. The court is a place of peace; the water scarcely makes a ripple as it gently oozes into the ample reservoir, and leaves it without a gurgle; the multitudinous goldfishes gleam and glitter in the profusion of sunshine; no suggestion of the outer world penetrates the stillness.

All is calm, but it is not the dull, cold calm of ruin and death; we can but feel a sense of companionship with the former masters of the palace and the grounds. We walk through the Barca, or boat-shaped antechamber, to the Hall of the Ambassadors, and imagine the khalif of the Omeyyads seated upon his throne at the end; while we gaze up into the lofty dome and allow our eyes to wander about the great apartment as we admire the medallions, the graceful characters of the Arabic inscriptions, the delicate patterns of the plaster-work with which the walls are adorned; the balconies, the white, blue, and gold of the cornice and ceiling; the circles, crowns, and stars moulded to imitate the vault of heaven. We stop before the window looking over the Darro to think how Ayesha once let Boabdil down in a basket from it five centuries ago; how Charles the Fifth said of the unfortunate Moor, "Ill-fated was the man who lost all this!" We bring up before us the discoverer of America, as tradition paints him, pleading in this place with the good Isabella for gracious permission to add another jewel to her crown—the bright gem of a New World. We climb to the terraced roof of the tower, following the narrow windings of the steep stairway once trodden by fair lady and gallant prince as they hastened to the lofty battlement to watch the approach of some army or anxiously to study the progress of a battle on the Vega. Our eyes search the broad expanse for that bridge of Pinos where Moor and Christian more than once fought for the mastery. We remember that it was at that spot that Isabella's messenger overtook the despairing Columbus, as he conveyed to him the queen's recall, when the mariner was plodding towards other realms to carry his bold proposition to other and, as he hoped, more gracious sovereigns. We care not that it is tradition only which fixes the spot; tradition and romance are a portion of the charm of the Alhambra.

In our search through the intricate plan of the pile, we find ourselves in the boudoir of the Sultana, the windows of which command the same prospect over the Vega, a scene to which distance lends its greatest charm. We are reminded on every side of the luxury of the olden time, when we see the apertures in the white marble floor near the entrance, through which perfumes arose from drugs, which tradition says were burned beneath the floor to make the air of the lady's apartment redolent with their sweet scents. We look down into the garden of the Lindaraja, upon which Irving also looked when he occupied those apartments which have become historic on his account. The garden itself is scarcely worthy of notice, for it is a little-cultivated court; but near by are the baths of the Sultans, with their delicate filigree work, intricate tracery, and brilliant mosaics. There is the fountain which ripples in gentle cadence, as if keeping time to the harmony that the musicians poured down from the balconies when the ladies of the harim enjoyed the pleasures of the Oriental bath, or rested themselves upon cloth of gold. Each bath, cut from a single mass of white marble, was placed in its own vaulted chamber, and lighted through openwork of stars and roses.

Perhaps the most celebrated portion of the entire palace is the Court of the Lions, which occupies a space somewhat smaller than that of the Court of the Myrtles. One hundred and twenty-eight white marble columns, arranged by threes and fours in symmetrical fashion, support galleries which rise to no very lofty height; but the extreme gracefulness and elegance of their varied capitals, the delicate traceries, the remnants of gold and colour, the raised orange-shaped cupolas, the graceful minarets, the innumerable arches, beautiful in their labyrinthine design, the empty basin into which the twelve stiff and unnatural "lions" once poured their constant streams of cooling waters, the alabaster reservoir, constitute a whole that poetry and romance have lauded even to extravagance.

From this beautiful court, through a door ornamented with rare designs, one is ushered into the Hall of the Abencerrages, named from the legend that in its precincts the chiefs of that family were beheaded by order of Boabdil. Convenient spots in the stone floor are exhibited to credulous visitors as evidences that the blood was there spilt. The sweet and peaceful light which enters the apartment by sixteen airy windows in the star-shaped stalactite roof, illuminating its arches ornamented in azure and scarlet, seem all inappropriate to such a scene of slaughter, and charity would lead us, if history did not, to doubt that the stain should rest upon the memory of Boabdil.