Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

The Zacatin is always crowded. Now you meet a group of students on a tour from Salamanca, playing the guitar, the tambourine, castanets, and triangle, while they sing couplets full of fun and animation; then again your eye encounters a gang of gipsy women, with their blue flounced dresses studded with stars, their long yellow shawls, their hair in disorder, and their necks encircled with big coral or amber necklaces, or a file of donkeys loaded with enormous jars, and driven by a peasant from the Vega, as sun-burnt as an African.

The Zacatin leads into the Plaza Nueva, one side of which is taken up by the splendid palace of the Chancellor, remarkable for its columns of rustic order and the severe richness of its architecture. As soon as you have crossed the place, you begin to ascend the Calle de los Gomeres, at the end of which you find yourself on the limits of the jurisdiction of the Alhambra, and face to face with the Puerta de Granada, named Bib Leuxar by the Moors, with the Vermilion Towers on its right, built, as the learned world declares, on Phœnician sub-structures, and inhabited at present by basket-makers and potters.

Before proceeding further, we ought to warn our readers, who may perhaps think our descriptions, though scrupulously exact, beneath the idea they have formed of the Alhambra, that this palace and fortress of the ancient Moorish kings is very far from presenting the appearance lent to it by the imagination. We expected to see terrace superposed on terrace, open-worked minarets, and rows of boundless colonnades. But nothing of all this really exists: outside, there are only to be seen large massive towers of the colour of bricks or toasted bread, built at different epochs by Arabian princes; and within, all you see is a suite of chambers and galleries, decorated with extreme delicacy, but with nothing grand about them. Having made these remarks, we will continue our route.

After having passed the Puerta de Granada, you find yourself within the bounds of the fortress and under the jurisdiction of a special governor. There are two routes marked out in a wood of lofty trees. Let us take the one to the left, which leads to the fountain of Charles the Fifth: it is the steeper of the two, but then it is the shorter and the more picturesque. Water flows along rapidly in small trenches paved with kelp, and spreads around the bottom of the trees, which nearly all belong to species peculiar to the north, and the verdancy of which is of such moisture as to be truly delicious at so short a distance from Africa. The noise of the murmuring water joins itself to the hoarse hum of a hundred thousand grasshoppers or crickets, whose music never ceases, and which forcibly reminds you, in spite of the coolness of the place, of southern and torrid climes. Water springs forth everywhere; from beneath the trunks of the trees and through the cracks in the old walls. The hotter it is, the more abundant are the springs, for it is the snow which supplies them. This mixture of water, snow, and fire, renders the Granadian climate unparalleled throughout the world, and makes Granada a real terrestrial paradise; without being Moors, we might well have had applied to us, when we appeared oppressed by deep melancholy, the Arabian saying—"He is thinking of Granada."

At the end of the road, which continues to rise, you meet a large monumental fountain, which serves as a shouldering-piece, raised to the memory of the emperor Charles the Fifth: it is covered with numerous devices, coats of arms, names of victories, imperial eagles, mythological medallions, is of a heavy imposing richness, and in the Romanic-German style. Two shields, bearing the arms of the house of Mondejar, announce that Don Luis de Mendoza, marquis of this title, raised the monument in honour of the red-bearded Cæsar. This fountain, which is solidly constructed, supports the ascent which leads to the Gate of Justice, through which you enter the Alhambra proper.

The Gate of Justice was built by King Yusef Abul Hagiag, about the year of our Lord 1348: it owes its name to the custom the Mussulmans have of rendering justice on the threshold of their palaces; this custom possesses the advantage of being very majestic, and of allowing no one to enter the inner courts; for the maxim of Monsieur Royer-Collard, which says that "Private life ought to be walled in," was invented ages ago by the inhabitants of the East—that country of the sun, whence all light and wisdom come.

The name of tower might be given more properly than that of gate to this construction of King Yusef Abul Hagiag; for it is in reality a large square tower, rather high, and through which there is a large hollow arch in the form of a heart, to which a hieroglyphic key and hand, cut in two separate stones, impart a stern and cabalistic air. The key is a symbol held in great veneration by the Arabs, on account of a verse in the Koran beginning with the words "He has opened," and of several other hermetic significations; the hand is destined to destroy the influence of the Evil Eye, the jettatura, like the little coral hands which they wear at Naples as pins or watch appendages, to avert the power of sinister looks. There was an ancient prediction which asserted that Granada would never be taken until the hand had seized the key: it must be owned, however, to the shame of the prophet, that the two hieroglyphics are still in the same places; and that Boabdil, el rey chico, as he was called on account of his small stature, uttered outside the walls of conquered Granada the historical groan, suspiro del Moro, which has given its name to a rock of the Sierra de Elvira.

This massive and embattled tower, glazed with orange and red on a stiff sky-blue ground, and having behind it a whole abyss of vegetation, with the city built on a precipice, while beyond it are long ranges of mountains streaked with a thousand hues, like those of African porphyry, forms a truly majestic and splendid entrance to the Arabian palace. Under the gate is a guard-house, and poor ragged soldiers now take their siesta in the same place where the caliphs, seated on sofas of gold brocade, with their black eyes motionless in their marble faces and their hands buried in the folds of their silky beards, listened with a thoughtful and solemn air to the complaints of the believers. An altar, surmounted by an image of the Virgin, stands against the wall, as if to sanctify at the very entrance this ancient abode of the worshippers of Mahomet.

When you have passed through the gate, you enter a vast place called the Plaza de las Algives, in the middle of which is a well whose curb is surrounded by a sort of wooden shed covered with esparto-work, where you can go, for a cuarto, and drink large glasses of water as clear as a diamond, as cold as ice, and of the most delicious taste. The towers of Quebrada, the Homenaga, the Armeria, and of the Vela, whose bell announces the time at which the water is distributed; and stone parapets on which you can lean, in order to admire the wonderful view that stretches itself before you, surround one side of the place; the other side is occupied by the palace of Charles the Fifth, an immense monument of the Renaissance which would be admired anywhere else, but which is wished anywhere but here when you think that it covers a space once belonging to a part of the Alhambra, that was pulled down on purpose to make room for this heavy mass. This alcazar was designed, however, by Alonzo Berruguete: the trophies, bas-reliefs, and medallions on its façade have been executed with patience by a bold and spirited hand: the circular court with its marble columns, where the bull-fights, doubtless, took place, is certainly a magnificent piece of architecture, but non erat hic locus.