With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 3

by Unknown

Here, under the protection of a race of sovereigns who rivalled each other in promoting the happiness of their subjects, a new impulse was imparted to the study of astronomy and medicine, and literature and the mechanical arts found in the tastes and habits of a luxurious people an ample field for their development. And here began the third and most glorious period of Arab art as displayed in its application to architecture, which, appropriating to itself all that was valuable in the experience of former ages,—ages which had witnessed the erection of the Mosque of Cordova and the Giralda of Seville,—soon disclosed a splendor and variety of decoration peculiarly its own, and, after filling the kingdom with its monuments, attained its climax in the creation of that masterpiece of human skill, the fairy palace of the Alhambra....

The Alhambra, the stronghold of a prince who united the triple functions of civil, military, and religious head of his people, stands on an isolated hill five hundred feet above the plain, or Vega. This hill, which romantic native writers love to compare to a granada, or pomegranate, thence deriving the name of their favorite city, is half a mile long by eight hundred feet wide, and is entirely surrounded by walls. Traversing a grove of elms that covers the slope nearest the Genil, we reach the Gate of Justice, a massive tower forming the entrance to the fortress. The seat of the kadi, or civil magistrate, who here settled all disputes not deemed important enough to be carried before the sultan, the Gate of Justice was regarded with peculiar veneration by the Moors. Innumerable are the legends connected with this spot, many of them traceable to the mysterious hand and key carved upon the outer and inner arches of the portal. The hand, an unfailing talisman against the evil eye, was symbolical of the five precepts of Islam,—prayer, fasting, alms, ablution, and the pilgrimage to Mecca; the key referred to the dominion given to the Prophet over heaven and hell, and was the badge of the kings of Andalusia. The old gate is well preserved; the cement covering the masonry is as smooth as when laid on; the ponderous bronze doors which opened to admit the Christian armies on the memorable 2d of January, 1492, are still in their places, so also are the racks that sustained the lances of the Moorish guard.

We next enter the Plaza de los Algibes, a square of comparatively modern date, which lies between the palace and the Alcazaba or citadel,—these two portions of the sultan’s residence having been originally separated by a wall, of which the gate, now called the Puerta del Vino, alone remains. Fronting the venerable Moorish battlements rises the façade of the palace of Charles V., with the arms and trophies of the most arrogant and crafty of emperors.

[This structure was erected with the aid of money wrung from the Moors themselves, as a bribe to the emperor and his officials to suspend the work of the Inquisition.]

The winter residence of the Moors, that seems to have equalled the remainder in magnificence, and was probably of greater extent, was razed, the fountains were removed, the doors and balustrades broken up, and the stuccoes carted away as rubbish. Founded thus in the misery of the most intelligent and thrifty portion of his subjects, and upon the ruins of that unrivalled palace,—the boast and glory of the Western empire of the Khalifs,—the ill-omened design of Charles V. was destined never to be carried to completion. His attention soon became engrossed by the discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru, and this costly toy, neglected and forgotten, was long utilized as a ring for bull-fighting, being now degraded to the vilest uses of the beggars of Granada.

The gorgeousness of Moorish architecture, which, with its enamelled tile-work, its gilded domes and filigree arcades, speaks so eloquently of Oriental luxury, bursts suddenly upon us as we pass, by a narrow gate-way opened in the seventeenth century, from the Plaza de los Algibes into the Court of the Myrtles. On the right is the portico of what was once the winter palace, on the left the Tower of Comares, containing the Hall of the Embassadors, the largest apartment of the Alhambra. The great basin occupying the centre of the court is bordered by hedges of myrtle interspersed with orange-trees. Arabic inscriptions cover the walls and galleries, and in the latter appear the identical jalousies which once screened from vulgar gaze the voluptuous charms of the wives and favorites of the sultan. This court, the only part of the building to which the public were ever admitted, was the theatre of frequent intrigues of the hostile factions that contended for the mastery even while the common enemy was thundering at the gates, and to whose bitter feuds, as much as to the valor of the Christian arms, should be attributed the downfall of the kingdom. In the Court of the Myrtles were received the flower of the Castilian chivalry, who upon grand occasions came to compete for the prize of knightly skill and courtesy in the famous Plaza de la Bibarrambla; here were entertained the picturesque envoys of the distant East, bringing greeting from the lords of Cairo and Ispahan; here the captive bishop of Jaen defied the monarch, and was sent to labor with his fellow-slaves upon the fortifications of the city; and here the fiery old Abul Hacen, surrounded by his harem, listened with gloomy forebodings to the predictions of the astrologer announcing the loss of his empire and the extinction of his race, and endeavored to forget his fears in the stirring ballads of his ancestors, or in the caresses of the beautiful Zorayda, the “Star of the Morning.”

The Hall of the Embassadors occupies the whole of the Tower of Comares, and was used for coronations and royal festivals. From the balconies which replace the curious Moorish lattices of its alcoves we look down upon the gypsy quarter of the Albaycin, and the cypress groves that fringe the banks of the Darro, so named from its sands of gold. In this brilliant hall, during the closing days of the siege, Aixa, the mother of Boabdil, learned for the first time that he had been arranging for a capitulation; and, leading him to one of the windows, she threw open the gilded lattice and bade him look below. The last rays of the sun disappearing behind the Sierra Elvira lighted up the landscape, and through the purple haze, which hung like a veil over the lovely Vega, sparkled the domes of mosque and villa and the battlements of many a shapely tower and minaret. It was the hour of prayer, and the shrill tones of the muezzin, as turning towards each point of the compass he summoned the faithful to their devotions, mingling with the clash of arms and the cheers of the populace as they hailed the return of some valiant band from the successful foray, rose faintly to the lofty ramparts of the castle. A wilderness of orchards and vineyards which the ravages of war had spared still covered the mountain-side. The score of palaces with which the voluptuous Alhamares had embellished the environs of the capital still displayed their wonted beauty; though over more than one floated the hated banner of the infidel, whose intrenched lines appeared in the distance, encircling like a band of steel the walls of the devoted city. The quaint houses, red and white, with terraced roofs, and embowered amid verdant groves, recalled the simile of the poet who likened Granada to “a silver vase full of hyacinths and emeralds.” The Genil and the Darro, which the ancient Syrian invader had pronounced rivals of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, could be traced for leagues, as, after turning the wheels of more than three hundred mills, they distributed their refreshing waters, until lost in the innumerable canals that, like a net-work of glittering threads, spread far and wide over the fertile plain.

As the cowardly king gazed in silence on a scene which, including the fairest portion of his dominions, offered a view unequalled in the world, his mother, who united the courage of a soldier with the vindictiveness of the renegade, indignantly said, “See what you are about to surrender, and remember that all of your ancestors died kings of Granada, and that their line will end with you.” The tears stood in Boabdil’s eyes as he turned away, but the remonstrance had come too late. The truce was already signed; and three days later, attended by his mournful retinue, he left the fortress by the Gate of the Seven Stories, and departed for his little principality in the Alpujarras.

The Court of the Lions, which communicates with the Court of the Myrtles by means of a short passage, is rectangular in form, and is surrounded by galleries and pavilions supported by columns of white marble. To the right is the Hall of the Abencerrages, where, tradition says, the chiefs of this noble tribe were beheaded one by one in the presence of Boabdil; and beyond is the Hall of Justice, noted as the place where the rites of the Christian religion were first celebrated after the Conquest. It was used as a chapel while the cathedral was building, and differs in plan from the other halls, being divided into a suite of rooms crowned with little cupolas. The ceilings of its alcoves are covered with rude paintings of unknown origin, almost obliterated by time and neglect.

The Court of the Lions, renowned in ballad and chronicle, is the culminating point of the beauties of the Alhambra. No pen can describe them, no pencil can delineate them. The strange Cufic letters, the lace-work of the graceful arches, the stalactitic pendants of the domes blazing with scarlet and gold, the texts of the Koran meeting the glance at every turn, the long colonnades through which slant the rays of sunlight from the jalousies above, the chequered floors, the gorgeous tiles incrusting pilaster and wall, dazzle the eye with their splendor. And if now, with their ornaments cracked and faded, stained with damp and defaced by vandal travellers, these scenes can so enthrall the mind, what were they in the days of their glory, when the gilded arcades rang with the laughter of the houris imprisoned here, and black eunuchs, in silken robes and armed with jewel-hilted scimitars, guarded with jealous care these treasures of the harem!