On the north side of the court is the Hall of the Two Sisters, unsurpassed in the elegance of its decorations. Its divans are models of taste and richness, its enamels are the most curious in Spain. The broad inscriptions, that, twined with buds and leaves, are so conspicuous, are poems in praise of the builder, and amid the snowy arabesques appears at frequent intervals his shield, bearing the devout motto of the Alhamares, “There is no conqueror but God.”
Did space permit, much might be said of the subterranean apartments of the Alhambra,—the cisterns, the baths, the dungeons, the magazines; of the little oratories or mosques, mementos of the piety of the Moslem; of the isolated towers, each forming a miniature palace, with guard-room and courts and hall of state, their boudoirs cooled by the spray from alabaster fountains, their walls incrusted with precious mosaics resembling tissues of brocade. In the corridor under the Tower of Comares the two discreet statues immortalized by Irving gaze yet upon the niche where the treasure was discovered by the little Sanchica. Unlike most of the legends to which Moorish fancy has given rise, this story is substantially true, for three immense jars of finished workmanship and full of coins and jewels were found here soon after the Conquest. Two of them were afterwards lost by neglect; the third, the famous vase of the Alhambra, unique in design, is preserved, though in a damaged condition, in a room near the Court of the Lions.
Of the numerous suburban villas that offered rest and seclusion to the princes of Granada, but one, the Generalife, or Garden of the Architect, now exists. It is situated much higher than the adjoining fortifications, and, completely commanding the city, was a point of the greatest strategic importance during the siege. Owned by a descendant of Boabdil, who has not entirely forgotten the customs of his princely line, the grounds of the Generalife present not a few of the distinctive characteristics of Moorish horticulture. Most prominent in the landscape are the venerable cypresses which have stood here for centuries, and by the trunk of the largest well-founded tradition says the daring Aben Hamet whispered words of illicit love in the ears of the frail sultana.
So extensive are the alterations which ignorance and barbarism have made in the Alhambra that its original plan cannot now be determined. We know that it contained five grand courts, of which only two remain, and that of the area enclosed by the outer wall scarce a foot of space was not occupied by buildings, the latter as late as 1625 affording shelter to six thousand souls who in that year attempted to turn the palace into a ribbon-factory. The royal residence was divided into several departments, each having its alcalde, or mayor, who was responsible to the governor of the fortress. One quarter was assigned to the sultan’s family, another to the religious functionaries and doctors of the law, another to the garrison. Upon the highest point of the hill were lodged the muftis, or expounders of the Koran, and in the midst of their dwellings rose the tapering minarets of the great mosque, whose rare marbles and columns with capitals of massy silver caused it to be justly regarded as one of the wonders of the Moslem world. Instead of the coarse tiles whose weight is crushing the galleries, the roofs were covered with thin plates of porcelain corresponding with the gay mosaics of the pavements and the walls. The taste of the Oriental was visible everywhere, in cascades and fountains, in groves where myrtle and cypress were trimmed in all manner of fantastic shapes,—pyramids, grottoes, obelisks, stalactitic arches,—in aromatic hedges diffusing a succession of delicate perfumes, in beds where flowers of glowing colors traced texts and legends on a ground of brightest green. Seventy thousand gold ducats—one hundred and forty thousand dollars, equal to four times that amount at the present day—were expended annually upon the palace, to which additions were made by each succeeding monarch, until arrested by the fatal dissensions that heralded the overthrow of the Saracen power.
No Arab names of the apartments of the Alhambra have come down to us: those by which they are at present designated are modern and entirely imaginary. We are even ignorant as to the uses of many rooms, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the parts of the original structure from those of later date erected with materials taken from the demolished winter palace. These mutilations, that, under the pretext of “improvements,” were effected in the reign of Charles V. and his immediate successors, have rendered a complete restoration impossible. Enough remains, however, to show the immense progress made by the Moors in architecture during the latter half of the fourteenth century, appropriately named the Hispano-Arab age of gold. The changes undergone by the various orders before the arch peculiar to Granada was developed are clearly defined and worthy of attention; and not less interesting is the study of the fragile and elaborate arabesques.
It is remarkable that such magical results were produced by the simplest means; for Arab ornamentation, far from being as complicated as it appears, is subject to certain plain geometrical rules. The figures, which at first sight show but a maze of lines and curves, can be easily resolved into the square and the circle; the shawls of Cashmere have afforded the patterns of the intricate floral designs lavished in such bewildering variety; the stalactitic cornices and domes are modelled after the sections of a pomegranate divested of its seeds. All the countries which the armies of Islam had overrun in their wonderful career seem to have furnished suggestions to the architects of the Alhambra. The huge stone blocks of the gates, fitted with perfect accuracy, are copied from the masonry of the Roman, who built for eternity; the hanging gardens are the gardens of Babylon; the lions that support the basin in the famous court are Phœnician; the fountain itself is an imitation of the brazen laver of Solomon, mentioned in the thirty-fourth sura of the Koran; the tarkish, or stucco-work, was invented at Damascus; the hand of the Persian artist is visible upon the glittering walls of the Tower of Comares. Nor did the Moor, ever proud of his origin and tenacious of the prejudices of his race, though separated hundreds of leagues from the home of his ancestors and domiciled for centuries in a foreign land, reject the influence of their traditions in the decoration of his palaces. The lotus of Egypt and the palm of Arabia are interwoven in the foliage of every fretted hall; the letters of the Cufic alphabet—singularly adapted to ornament—proclaim the doctrines of Islam from cornice and capital; while the profusion of water and verdure proves that the Saracen, though surrounded by the luxuriant vegetation of the Vega, beheld a grove or a fountain with the same emotions as did the weary camel-driver when, uttering a prayer of thanksgiving to Allah, he hailed with delight the refreshing oasis shining amid the dull gray sands of the desert.
“Quien no ha visto Granada
No ha visto nada,”—[B]
so saith the Andalusian proverb; but, aside from the Alhambra, the city boasts but few attractions. The streets are filthy beyond description, and so narrow that two persons can hardly ride abreast; the houses have a dilapidated appearance, and the people an air of dejected poverty. Long Venetian blinds hang over the balconies, and through their interstices peer the charming Granadinas, displaying in lustrous eyes and jet-black tresses their Moorish ancestry. At the side of almost every door is an altar, where a plaster image, arrayed in blue and tinsel, amid a cloud of votos and paper flowers, stares vacantly at the passer-by.
The Granadan dress is wholly Spanish, far different from that of the western provinces, where Parisian fashions are fast supplanting the showy national costume. The ladies wear lace mantillas and close-fitting skirts of light-colored silk, and are never seen without the coquettish fan, which no one knows how to wield so well as the charming Spanish woman. As for the men, they are almost invariably muffled in a cloak that hides them to the very eyes, except on some grand holiday, when they appear in all the splendor of plush jacket and scarlet sash, adding much to the brilliancy of the gay and noisy throng. When riding, the lady usually mounts behind her lover, and, with nothing to steady her but a scarf fastened to the crupper, will gallop unconcernedly over mountain-roads and through crooked lanes at the greatest speed. At the festivals is exhibited to the best advantage the character of the idle and music-loving Andalusian, from the lounging dandy, praising in bad extempore verses the beauty of some bar-maid in the little wine-shop, to the dishevelled gypsy, equally ready to sing a song or pick the pocket of the careless and admiring stranger.