When you issue from these dark passages into this large space flooded with light, the effect is similar to that produced by a diorama. You can almost fancy that an enchanter’s wand has transported you to the Orient of four or five centuries ago. Time, which changes everything in its flight, has altered nothing here, where the apparition of the Sultana Chaîne des cœurs and of the Moor Tarfe in his white cloak would not cause the least surprise....
The antechamber of the Hall of the Ambassadors is worthy of the purpose for which it was intended: the boldness of its arches, the variety and interlacing of its arabesques, the mosaics of its walls, and the work on its stuccoed ceiling, crowded like the stalactite roof of a grotto and painted with azure, green, and red, traces of which colours are still visible, produce an effect both charming and bizarre.
On each side of the door which leads to the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the jamb of the arch itself and where the facing of glazed tiles, whose triangles of glaring colours adorn the lower portion of the walls, are hollowed out, like little chapels, two niches of white marble sculptured with an extreme delicacy. It was here that the ancient Moors left their Turkish slippers before entering, as a mark of deference, just as we remove our hats in places that demand this respect.
THE ALHAMBRA.
The Hall of the Ambassadors, one of the largest in the Alhambra, fills the whole interior of the tower of Comares. The ceiling, composed of cedar, shows those mathematical combinations so common to the Arabian architect: all the bits are arranged in such a way that all their converging or diverging angles form an infinite variety of designs; the walls disappear under a network of ornaments, so packed together and so inextricably interwoven that I can think of no better comparison than pieces of lace placed one above the other. Gothic architecture, with its stone lace-work and its perforated roses, cannot compare with this. Fish-slices and the paper embroidery cut out with a punch, which the confectioners use to decorate their sweets, can alone give you any idea of it. One of the characteristics of the Moorish style is that it offers very few projections and profiles. All the ornamentation is developed on flat surfaces and is hardly ever more than four or five inches in relief; it is really like a kind of tapestry worked on the wall itself. One feature in particular distinguishes it—the employment of writing as a motive of decoration; it is true that Arabian letters, with their mysteriously winding forms, lend themselves remarkably to this use. The inscriptions, which are almost always suras of the Koran, or eulogies to various princes who have built and decorated these halls, unfold upon the friezes, on the jambs of the doors, and round the arches of the windows interspersed with flowers, boughs, network, and all the wealth of Arabian calligraphy. Those in the Halls of the Ambassadors signify “Glory to God, power and wealth to believers,” or consist of praises to Abu Nazar, who, “if he had been taken into Heaven while living, would have diminished the brightness of the stars and planets,” a hyperbolical assertion which seems to us a little too Oriental.
Other bands are filled with eulogies to Abu Abd Allah, another Sultan who ordered work upon this part of the Palace. The windows are bedizened with verses in honour of the limpid waters of the reservoir, of the freshness of the shrubbery, and the perfume of the flowers which ornament the Court of the Mezouar, which in fact is seen, from the Hall of the Ambassadors through the doors and little columns of the gallery.
The loop-holes of the interior balcony, pierced at a great height from the ground, and the ceiling of woodwork, devoid of ornaments except the zig-zags and the interlacings formed by the joining of the pieces, give the Hall of the Ambassadors a more severe aspect than any other halls in the Palace, and more in harmony with its purpose. From the back window you can enjoy a marvellous view over the ravine of the Darro....
From the Hall of the Ambassadors you go down a corridor of relatively modern construction to the tocador, or dressing-room of the queen. This is a small pavilion on the top of a tower used by the sultanas as an oratory, and from which you can enjoy a wonderful panorama. You notice at the entrance a slab of white marble perforated with little holes in order to let the smoke of the perfumes burned beneath the floor to pass through. You can still see on the walls the fantastic frescoes of Bartholomew de Ragis, Alonzo Perez, and Juan de la Fuente. Upon the frieze the ciphers of Isabella and Philip V. are intertwined with groups of Cupids. It is difficult to imagine anything more coquettish and charming than this room, with its small Moorish columns and its surbased arches, overhanging an abyss of azure, the bottom of which is studded with the roofs of Grenada and into which the breeze brings the perfumes from the Generalife,—that enormous cluster of oleanders blossoming in the foreground of the nearest hill,—and the plaintive cry of the peacocks walking upon the dismantled walls. How many hours have I passed there in that serene melancholy, so different from the melancholy of the North, with one leg hanging over the precipice and charging my eyes to photograph every form and every outline of this beautiful picture unfolded before them, and which, in all probability, they will never behold again! No description in words, or colours, can give the slightest hint of this brilliancy, this light, and these vivid tints. The most ordinary tones acquire the worth of jewels and everything else is on a corresponding scale. Towards the close of day, when the sun’s rays are oblique, the most inconceivable effects are produced: the mountains sparkle like heaps of rubies, topazes, and carbuncles; a golden dust bathes the ravines; and if, as is frequent in the summer, the labourers are burning stubble in the field, the wreaths of smoke, which rise slowly towards the sky, borrow the most magical reflections from the fires of the setting sun....
The Court of Lions is 120 feet long and 73 feet wide, while the surrounding galleries do not exceed 20 feet in height. These are formed by 128 columns of white marble, arranged in a symmetrical disorder of groups of fours and groups of threes; these columns, whose highly-worked capitals retain traces of gold and colour, support arches of extreme elegance and of a very unique form....