Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

WELL DE LAS ALGIVES, ALHAMBRA.

You enter the Alhambra by a corridor running through an angle of the palace of Charles the Fifth, and after a few windings you arrive at a large court indifferently known by the names of Patio de los Arrayanes (Court of Myrtles), of the Alberca (of the Reservoir), or of the Mezouar, an Arabian word signifying a bath for women.

On coming from these obscure passages into this large space inundated with light, you feel an effect similar to that produced by a diorama. It appears to you that an enchanter's wand has carried you to the East of four or five centuries back. Time, which changes all things in its progress, has in no way modified the aspect of these places, where the apparition of one of the old Moorish sultans, and of Tarfe the Moor in his white cloak, would not cause the least surprise.

In the middle of the court there is a large reservoir three or four feet deep, in the form of a parallelogram, bordered by two large beds of myrtles and shrubs, and terminated at each end by a sort of gallery, with slender columns supporting Moorish arches of very delicate workmanship. Fountains, the over-abundant water of which is conducted from the basins to the reservoir through a marble gutter, are placed under each gallery, and complete the symmetry of the decorations. To the left are the archives, and the chamber where, to the shame of the Granadians, is stowed away, among all sorts of rubbish, the magnificent vase of the Alhambra, a monument of inestimable rareness, nearly four feet in height, covered with ornaments and inscriptions, and fitted in itself to form the glory of a museum, but which Spanish heedlessness allows to lie uncared-for in an ignoble hole. One of the wings which form the handles was broken off a little time back. On this side also are passages leading to an ancient mosque, converted into a church under the protection of St. Mary of the Alhambra, at the time of the conquest. To the right are the rooms of the attendants, where the head of some dark Andalusian servantmaid, looking out of a narrow Moorish casement, now and then produces a very pleasing Oriental effect. At the bottom, above the ugly roof of round tiles, which have replaced the gilt tiles and cedar-beams of the Arabian roof, rises majestically the tower of Comares, the embattlements of which boldly shoot forth their vermilion denticulations into the beautifully limpid vault of heaven. This tower contains the Hall of Ambassadors, and communicates with the Patio de los Arrayanes by a sort of antechamber called the Barca, on account of its form.

The antechamber of the Hall of Ambassadors is worthy of its purpose; the nobleness of its arcades, the variety and interweavings of its arabesques, the mosaic-work of its walls, the delicacy of its stuccoed roof, furrowed like the stalactite ceiling of a grotto, painted blue, green, and yellow, of which there are still some traces left, form a whole of the most charming originality and strangeness.

On each side of the door leading to the Hall of Ambassadors, in the jamb itself of the arcade, and above the coating of varnished glass which decorates the lower part of the walls, and which is divided into triangles of glaring colours, are two white marble niches, looking like little chapels, and sculptured in a most delicate manner. It was here that the ancient Moors used to leave their slippers before entering, as a mark of deference, just as we take off our hat in places we respect.

The Hall of Ambassadors, one of the largest of the Alhambra, occupies all the interior of the tower of Comares. The roof, which is cedar, is full of those mathematical combinations so familiar to Arabian architects: all the pieces are placed so that their salient or re-entering angles form a great variety of designs; the walls disappear beneath a network of ornaments so close together, and so inextricably interwoven, that they can be compared to nothing more fitly than to several pieces of guipure placed one over another. Gothic architecture, with its stone lacework, and its open-worked roses, is nothing to this. Fish-knives, and paper embroidery executed with a fly-press, like that which confectioners use to cover their bonbons with, can alone give you an idea of it. One of the characteristics of the Moorish style is that it offers very few projections or profiles. All this ornamental work is executed on smooth surfaces, and scarcely ever projects more than four or five inches; it resembles a kind of tapestry worked on the wall itself. It has, too, one very distinguishing feature, and this is, the employment of writing as a means of decoration. It is true that Arabian writing, with its mysterious forms and distortions, is admirably fitted for this use. The inscriptions, which are nearly always suras of the Koran, or eulogiums on the different princes who have built and decorated the halls, are placed along the friezes, on the jambs of the doors, and round the arches of the windows, and are interspersed with flowers, foliage, net-work, and all the riches of Arabian calligraphy. Those in the Hall of Ambassadors signify "Glory to God, power and riches to believers;" or they sing the praises of Abu Nazar, who, "if he had been taken alive into heaven, would have made the brightness of the stars and planets pale"—a hyperbolical assertion, which seems to us rather too oriental. Other rows of inscriptions are filled with eulogiums of Abi Abd Allah, another sultan, who helped to build this part of the palace. The windows are loaded with pieces of poetry in honour of the limpidness of the waters of the reservoir, of the blooming condition of the shrubs, and of the perfume of the flowers that ornament the yard of the Mezouar, which is seen from the Hall of Ambassadors through the door and columns of the gallery.

The loopholes, with their interior balconies at a great height from the ground, and the roof of wood-work without any other ornaments but the zigzags and the cross-work formed by the placing of the timber, give the Hall of Ambassadors a severer aspect than the other halls of the palace have, but which is more in harmony with the purpose it was intended for. From the window at the back there is a beautiful view over the ravine of the Darro.