Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 3, March 1852

by Various

Nor was the earth below less gracious than the heaven above it; for the scene, over which that cloudless sun was setting so serenely, was no other than the lovely vegas of Granada, watered with its sparkling rivulets, tributaries to the broad and fair Xenil; waving with its almost tropical luxuriance of foliage, odorous with the sweets of ten thousand gardens—verily the paradise of earth surrounding, as with a girdle of immortal beauty, the loveliest of earthly cities, crowned by the wonder of wonders, the glorious Alhambra. So much has been already written in many tongues, both in prose and verse, of the glories of this inimitable spot—still inimitable, even under the indolent and careless culture of the Spaniard, yet how unlike to what it was under its Moorish masters—above all so eloquently has it been described by the graceful pen of Irving, that all the details of its scenery, nay! of its architecture and internal decorations, are, it may be presumed, as familiar to the mind of the reader, as many places which he has actually seen with his own eyes. To dwell longer, therefore, on the features of that sweet, mountain-girdled plain on which the sunbeams lingered, as though they loved it, would be superfluous at least, if not impertinent. Not so, to depict one who gazed across that plain under that lovely sunset, soft herself as the genial clime, serenely bright as the calm eventide—the Lady Ayesha, a princess of the unmixed race, a visitor from the distant walls of Mequiñez to the kindred royalty, which in the person of the unfortunate but as yet unconquered Boabdil, still sat sublime on the fairy towers of the Alhambra.

She sat alone in a small octagonal apartment in the very summit of one of the loftiest of the palace turrets, overlooking and commanding a view so extensive, that the eye swam dazzled or ere it reached the hills, which bounded it on every side. Walled, vaulted, floored with pure snow-white marble, all wrought and pierced with that exquisite arabesque tracery, which made the cold, hard stone resemble the finest and most delicate lace-work; lighted on each of its eight sides by a tall window, headed by the peculiar horse-shoe arch of Moorish architecture, and surrounded a little lower down the turret by a balcony, filled as a hanging garden with every loved and lovely plant and flower, no happier retreat could be devised for Southern beauty; none half so beautiful, half so luxurious, is dreamed of in her most voluptuous musings by the most famed fair one of our utilitarian days and country.

Notwithstanding the extreme height of the tower, which rose full a hundred feet above the inferior buildings of the royal residence, it yet possessed its fountain, fed from a reservoir in the roof, itself supplied by the aid of machinery from the sources of those silver rivulets of the Xenil and Darro, which might be seen glittering in the level plain almost a thousand feet below; and the constant merry plash of its sparkling waters, as they leaped and fell in a shower of diamonds into their alabaster basin, together with the waving of the broad, fan-like palm-leaves in light coming air around the open casements, and the rich clusters of clematis, passion-flower and jessamine which hung their blossoms around every traceried column, rendered it difficult to conceive that so great a distance intervened between that bower of beauty and the solid earth, with all the choicest charms of which it was environed and invested.

Half-seated, half-reclining on a broad, low step of marble, which ran all around the apartment, covered with rich cushions and foot-cloths of brocade, such as would now be cheaply purchased at its weight in gold, with her shoulders supported by the low parapet of the window immediately behind her, gazed the Lady Ayesha over the glimmering landscape, all as she untwined with the rosy, henna-tinted tips of her small, slender fingers the thick plaits of her luxuriant raven hair. For in truth, and for once, the epithet raven was not misapplied to those soft, silky, glistening masses, which were not of the cold and hueless black, but of that nameless and indescribable hue which is never seen but in the hair of women of Moorish or Irish blood—and in the latter probably as originated of the former—black indeed, but black warmed and glowing with a rich metallic purplish lustre, unlike any thing on earth but the changeful hues that dance on the dark plumage of several of the feathered tribes. But though her long, languid eyes of that perfect almond form, so much prized by the beauty-loving Moors, fringed with lashes so long and dark as to require no aid of that Arabian dye to set off the liquid lustre which they curtained, were riveted with a serene and steady fixedness on a remote spot in the plain, it was by no means evident that they took note of that on which they lingered; nor did she even appear conscious of her occupation, as wave after wave of her soft tresses fell disentwined into her lap. For there was too much of tranquillity, approaching even to abstraction, in the fixedness of her eye, in the statue-like immobility of her perfectly regular features, and in the whole pose of her figure, to accord with any thoughts so frivolous as those of the mere decoration of the person, how beautiful soever it might be.

As one gazed on her—had there been any there to gaze—it was impossible not to perceive that, within that fair form and under those impassive features, there was—what with Oriental women is not at all times the case—a sentient and intellectual soul, and that soul at this time engrossed in some deep and powerful strain of meditative thought.

And oh! how beautiful she was. The perfect oval of her regular face, the straight, Grecian outline of her chisseled features, the dark clearness of her pure, transparent complexion, through which, though ordinarily colorless, every transient motion of the blood mantled in crimson, the slender, yet exquisitely rounded figure, the soft curves of her plump and shapely arms, were all as nearly perfect as mortality can approach to perfection.

The dress, moreover, which she wore—as far removed as possible, by the way, from the ungraceful and hideous monstrosity which a set of crazy notoriety-mongers have been striving to introduce among us as the costume of Oriental ladies—set off her foreign-looking charms by its own foreign eccentricity, no less than by the barbaric splendor of its materials.

A low, flat Fezzan cap of rich crimson velvet, superbly embroidered in gold and pearls, was set lightly, a little on one side, upon her luxuriant black tresses, and from it depended a long tassel, exquisitely wrought of grains of native gold and seed-pearls, down to her left shoulder, contrasting in strong relief the glossy darkness of the hair, by the brilliancy of its white and gold. Immense pendants of pearl hung from the roseate tips of each small ear, and a string of the same inestimable gems, not one of them inferior in size to a large currant, formed four distinct necklaces upon her chest, beside a fifth and longer coil, which hung down almost to her waist. A jellick, as it was called, or, as we should term it now, a chemisette of the finest Indian muslin, wrought as its name indicates at Mosul on the Tigris, embroidered with threads of gold, alone covered her glowing bosom; but above it she wore an open, sleeveless Dymar of gorgeous green brocade, with hanging filigree buttons of gold; and shrouding all her lower limbs, to the very tips of the small, slippered feet, as she lay half-crouched on her divan, an under robe or tunic of blush-colored Persian silk with broad, perpendicular stripes of dead gold, the sleeves of which, close to the elbow, fell thence downward, open like those of the modern gown worn by bachelors of arts. No appearance of trowsers, no marked cutting line, nothing tight or definite or rigid, nothing harsh, stiff or masculine was to be discovered on the nearest scrutiny. A superb Cashmere shawl was wound about her waist at the junction of the under robe and chemisette, and its loose ends blended admirably with the floating draperies and harmonized with the wavy ease which was the principal characteristic of the dress, the attitude, the pose, the woman.

To complete the picture, a Moorish Bernoose, or mantle of scarlet woolen, almost as fine as gauze, with borders of golden lace, lay heaped behind her; and nestled in its folds, a filigree jewel-case with boxes and bottles of perfumes and cosmetics, and half-open drawers of glittering gems and ornaments befitting her high rank; while on the parapet, beside her head, stood a huge vase of superb porcelain filled with the dark, glossy leaves and snow-white blossoms of the gold-eyed lotus, the perfume of which would have been too strong for endurance but for the free circulation of the balmy air on every side, and the cool freshness of the dashing water, which mingled with its overpowering fragrance and dissipated its intensity.

Such was the Leila Ayesha, the daughter of the Sultan of Mequiñez, the great Muley Abderahman, the best and bravest of his race; who in this, almost the last extremity of his kinsman, Boabdil of Granada, had sent an embassy with compliments and splendid gifts, accompanying and conveying his fair child, the best loved of all his children, on her visit to the heroic mother of the last Moorish king of Granada.