Wanderings in Spain

This Señor Zapata was, with respect to his clothes, something like Cardillac with respect to his jewels. He was always sorely grieved at having to give them up to his customers. When he came to try on my suit, he was so delighted with the splendid appearance of the flower-pot he had embroidered in the middle of the back on the brown cloth ground, that he broke out into exclamations of the most frantic joy, and began to commit all sorts of extravagances. But all at once the thought that he should have to leave this chef-d'œuvre in my hands put a stop to his hilarity, and his features suddenly became overcast. Under the pretext of making I know not what alteration, he wrapped the garment up in a handkerchief, gave it to his apprentice, for a Spanish tailor would think himself dishonoured if he carried his own parcels, and casting at me a fierce, ironical look, hurried away as if a thousand demons were pursuing him. The next day he came back alone, and, taking from a leathern purse the money I had paid him, he told me that it grieved him so much to part with his jacket, that he preferred to return me my duros. It was only after I had observed that this costume would give the Parisians a great idea of his talent, and create him a reputation in Paris, that he consented to let me have it.

The women have had the good taste not to discard the mantilla, the most delicious style of head-dress for the display of Spanish features; gracefully enveloped in their black lace, they go about the streets and public walks, with nothing on their heads but the mantilla, and a red pink at each temple, and glide along the walls, while skilfully using their fans, with the most incomparable grace and agility. A bonnet is a rare thing in Granada. The women of fashion have, it is true, some jonquil, or poppy-coloured thing, carefully put away in a bonnet-box, to be kept for grand occasions; but such occasions, thank Heaven, are very rare, and the horrible bonnets only see the light on the saint's day of the Queen, or at the solemn sittings of the Lyceum. May our fashions never invade the city of the caliphs, and may we never see realized the terrible menace contained in the two words, "Modista Francesa," painted in black at the entrance of a public square! Persons of a grave character will, doubtless, think us very futile, and ridicule our grief about the extinction of the picturesque, but then we are of opinion, that patent leather boots and mackintoshes contribute very little to civilization, and we even look upon civilization itself as a thing far from desirable. It is a melancholy spectacle for a poet, an artist, and a philosopher, to see both form and colour disappear from the world, lines become confused, tints confounded, and the most disheartening uniformity invade everything, under the pretext of I know not what progress. When all things are alike, there will be no further need for travelling, but, by a happy coincidence, that will be the very time when railways will be in full activity. What will be the good of making a long journey at the rate of ten leagues an hour, to go and look at a number of streets lighted, like the Rue de la Paix, with gas, and full of well-to-do citizens? We do not think that it was for this that Nature modelled each country in a different shape, supplied it with plants peculiar to itself, and peopled the world with races dissimilar to each other in conformation, colour, and language. It is giving a bad interpretation to the meaning for which the world was created, to wish it to force the same livery on men of every climate; and yet this is one of the errors of European civilization: a coat with long narrow tails makes a man look much uglier than any other costume would, and keeps him quite as barbarous. The poor Turks of Sultan Mahmoud have certainly cut a fine figure since the reform made in their old Asiatic costume, and the progress of knowledge among them has been prodigious indeed!

In order to reach the parade, you must go along the Carrera del Darro and cross the Plaza del Teatro, where there is a funereal column raised to the memory of Joaquin Maïquez by Julian Romea, Matilda Diez, and other dramatic artistes: the façade of the Arsenal, a structure of bad taste, besmeared with yellow and decorated with statues of grenadiers painted mouse-grey, looks on the square.

The Alameda of Granada is certainly one of the most agreeable places in the world; it is called the Saloon, a singular name for a parade; fancy a long walk furnished with several rows of trees of a verdancy unique in Spain, and terminating at each end by a monumental fountain, the top basins of which support on their shoulders aquatic gods, curious by their deformity, and delightfully barbarous. These fountains, contrary to the custom of such constructions, throw out the water in large sheets, which, evaporating in the form of fine rain and mist, spreads around a most delicious coolness. In the side walks run streams of crystalline transparency, encased in beds of different coloured pebbles. A large parterre, ornamented with jets of water and crowded with shrubs and flowers, myrtles, roses, jasmines, with all the riches, in fact, of the Granadian Flora, occupies the space between the Saloon and the Xenil, and stretches as far as the bridge constructed by General Sebastiani at the time of the French invasion. The Xenil runs from the Sierra Neveda in its marble bed, through woods of laurel of the most incomparable beauty. Glass and crystal form comparisons too opaque and too thick to give a true idea of the purity of the water which, but the evening before, was still flowing in sheets of silver on the white shoulders of the Sierra Neveda. It is like a torrent of diamonds in a state of fusion.

The fashionable world of Granada assemble on the Saloon, between seven and eight in the evening; the carriages follow along the road, but they are for the most part empty, as the Spaniards are very fond of walking, and in spite of their pride, deign to use their own legs. Nothing can be more charming than to see the young women and young girls pass to and fro in little groups, dressed in their mantillas, with their arms bare, real flowers in their hair, satin shoes on their feet, and a fan in their hand, followed at some distance by their friends and sweethearts, for, as we have already said, when speaking of the Prado at Madrid, it is not customary in Spain for the women to take the arms of the men. This habit of walking alone gives them a bold, elegant, and free deportment unknown to our women, who are always hanging to some arm or other. As artists say, they carry themselves beautifully. This perpetual separation of the men from the women, at least in public, already smacks of the East.

A sight of which the people of the North can have no idea, is the Alameda of Granada at sunset. The Sierra Neveda, whose denticulated ridges face the city on this side, assumes the most unimaginable hues. Its whole steep and rugged flank and all its peaks, struck by the light, become of a rose-colour, dazzling to behold; ideal, fabulous, shot with silver, and streaked with iris and opal-like reflections, which would make the freshest tints on the artist's palette appear thick and dirty: the hues of mother-of-pearl, the transparency of the ruby, and veins of agate and advanturine that would defy all the fairy jewellery of the "Thousand-and-one Nights," are to be seen there. The hollows, crevices, anfractuosities, and all the places which the rays of the setting sun cannot reach are of a blue colour which vies with the azure of the sky and sea, with the lapis-lazuli and the sapphire; this contrast of hue between light and shade produces a wonderful effect: the mountain seems to have put on an immense robe of shot silk spangled and bordered with silver; little by little, the bright colours disappear and turn to violet mezzotintos, darkness invades the lower ridges, the light withdraws towards the summit, and all the plain has long since been in obscurity, while the silver diadem of the Sierra still shines out in the serenity of the sky, beneath the parting kiss sent it by the sun.

The company take a turn or two more and then disperse, some going to take sherbet or agraz at the café of Don Pedro Hurtado, where you get the best ice in Granada, and others to the tertulia at their friends' and acquaintances' houses.

This is the gayest and most lively part of the day at Granada. The shops of the aguadores and sellers of ices in the open street are illuminated by a multitude of lamps and lanterns; the street lamps and the lights placed before the images of the madonnas vie in splendour and number with the stars, and this is saying something: if it happens to be moonlight, you can easily see to read the most microscopical print. The light is blue instead of being yellow, and that is all.

Thanks to the lady who had saved me from dying of hunger in the diligence, and who introduced us to several of her friends, we were soon well known in Granada. We led a delicious life there. It would be impossible to receive a more cordial, frank, and amiable welcome than we did; at the end of five or six days we were on the most intimate terms with every one, and according to the Spanish custom, we were always called by our Christian names; at Granada I was Don Teofilo, my friend gloried in the appellation of Don Eugenio, and we were both at liberty to designate the ladies and young girls of the houses in which we were received, by the familiar names of Carmen, Teresa, Gala, &c.; this familiarity clashes in no way with the most polished manners and the most respectful attention.

We went to tertulia every evening from eight o'clock till twelve; to-day at one house, to-morrow at another. The tertulia is held in the patio, surrounded by alabaster columns and ornamented by a jet of water, the basin of which is encircled with pots of flowers and boxes of shrubs, down whose leaves the water falls in large beads. Five or six lamps are hung up along the walls: sofas, and straw or cane-bottomed chairs furnish the galleries, with here and there a guitar. The piano occupies one corner, and in another stand card-tables. Every one, on entering, goes to pay his compliments to the mistress and master of the house, who never fail to offer you a cup of chocolate, that good taste tells you to refuse, and a cigarette, which is sometimes accepted. When this duty is over, you retire to a corner of the patio, and join the group which has most attraction for you. The parents and old people play at trecillo, the young men talk with the young girls, recite the octaves and the decastichs they have composed during the day, and are scolded and forced to do penance for the crimes they may have committed the evening before; such, for instance, as having danced too often with a pretty cousin, or cast too ardent a glance towards a proscribed balcony, with numerous other peccadilloes. If, on the contrary, they have been very good, they are rewarded for the rose they have brought with the pink in the young girls' breast or hair, and their squeeze of the hand is replied to by a gentle look and a slight pressure of the fingers, when all go up into the balcony to listen to the Retreat beaten by the troops. Love seems to be the sole business of Granada. You have only to speak two or three times to a young girl, and the entire city immediately declare you to be novio and novia, – that is, affianced, and make a thousand innocent jokes about the passion they have invented for you; which jokes, innocent though they be, do not fail, however, to make you somewhat uneasy, by bringing visions of conjugal life before your eyes. All this gallantry is, however, more apparent than real; in spite of languishing glances, burning looks, tender or impassioned conversations, pretty little shortenings of your name, and the querido (beloved) with which it is preceded, you must not conceive any too flattering ideas. A Frenchman to whom a woman of the world were to say the quarter of what a young Granadian girl says to one of her numerous novios, without the least importance being attached to it, would think himself already in Paradise; but he would soon find his mistake, for if he became too bold, he would be instantly called to order, and summoned to state his matrimonial intentions before the nearest relatives. This honest liberty of language, so far removed from the forced and artificial manners of the nations of the north, is preferable to hypocrisy of speech, which always hides, at bottom, some coarse thought or other. At Granada, to pay attentions to a married woman seems quite extraordinary; while nothing appears more natural there than to pay court to a young girl. It is the contrary in France: no one ever addresses, there, a word to young, unmarried ladies, and this is what so often renders marriages unhappy. In Spain, a novio sees his novia two or three times a day, speaks to her without witnesses, accompanies her in her walks, and comes to talk with her in the evening through the bars of the balcony, or the window of the ground-floor. He thus has time to become acquainted with her, to study her character, and does not buy, as the saying is, a pig in a poke.

When the conversation flags, one of the gentlemen takes down a guitar, and, scratching the cords with his nails and keeping time with the palm of his hand on the centre of the instrument, begins to sing some gay Andalusian song or some comic couplet, interspersed with Ay! and Ola! curiously modulated and productive of a very singular effect. Then a lady sits down to the piano, and plays a morceau from Bellini, who appears to be the favourite maestro of the Spaniards, or sings a romance of Breton de los Herreros, the great versifier of Madrid. The evening is terminated by a little extempore ball, at which, alas! they dance neither jota, nor fandango, nor bolero, these dances being abandoned to peasants, servants, and gipsies; but they dance quadrilles, rigadoons, and sometimes they waltz. At our request, however, two young ladies of the house volunteered to execute the bolero one evening; but, before they commenced, they took care to close the door and windows of the patio, which are generally left open, so afraid were they of being accused of bad taste and local colouring. In general, the Spaniards grow angry on being spoken to of cachuchas, castanets, majos, manolas, monks, smugglers, and bull-fights, though they have, in reality, a great liking for all these things, so truly national and characteristic. They ask you, with an air of apparent vexation, if you do not think that they are as far advanced in civilization as yourself? To such an extent has the deplorable mania of imitating everything, French or English, penetrated everywhere! At present, Spain represents the Voltaire-Touquet system and the Constitutionnel of 1825; that is, it is hostile to all colouring and to all poetry. Be it remembered, however, that we are only speaking of the self-styled enlightened class inhabiting the cities.

As soon as the quadrilles are over, you take your leave by saying, "A los pies de vd." to the lady of the house, and "Beso à vd. la mano" to her husband; to which they reply, "Buenas noches," and "Beso à vd. la suya:" and then again on the threshold, as a last adieu, "Hasta mañana" (till to-morrow); which is an invitation to return. In spite of their familiar ways, the people of even the lower classes, the peasants and vagrants, make use towards one another of the most exquisite urbanity, which forms a strong contrast with the uncouthness of our own rabble. It is true that a stab might be the result of an offensive expression, and this is certainly one way of making all interlocutors use a good deal of circumspection. It is worthy of remark that French politeness, formerly proverbial, has disappeared since swords have ceased to be worn. The laws against duelling will end by making us the rudest nation in the world.

On returning home, you meet, under the windows and balconies, numbers of young gallants enveloped in their hooded cloaks, and staying there to pelar la paba (pluck the turkey), that is, to talk with their novias through the bars. These nocturnal conversations often last till two or three o'clock in the morning, which is nothing astonishing, since the Spaniards spend a part of the day in sleep. You sometimes tumble also on a serenade composed of three or four musicians, but more generally of the sighing swain only, who sings couplets as he accompanies himself on the guitar, with his sombrero drawn over his eyes, and his feet resting on a stone or a step. Formerly two serenades in the same street would not have been tolerated. The first comer claimed the right of remaining there alone, and forbade every other guitar, except his own, to tinkle in silence of the night. Such pretensions were maintained at the point of the sword, or by the knife, unless the patrol happened to be passing. In this case the two rivals coalesced, in order to charge the patrol, with the understanding that they were to renew their own private combat by and by. The susceptibility of serenaders has greatly diminished, and every one can at present tranquilly rascar el jamon (scrape the ham) under the window of his mistress.

If the night is dark you must take care not to put your foot into the stomach of some honourable hidalgo, rolled up in his mantle, which serves him for garment, bed, and house. During the summer nights the granite steps of the theatre are covered with a mass of blackguards who have no other place to go to. Each of them has his particular step, which serves as his apartment, where he is always sure to be found. They sleep there under the blue vault of heaven, with the stars for night lights, with no bugs to annoy them, and defy the sting of the mosquito by the coriaceous nature of their tanned skin, which is bronzed by the fiery sun of Andalusia, and certainly quite as dark as that of the darkest mulattoes.

The following is, without much variation, the life we led. The morning was devoted to visiting different parts of the city, to a walk to the Alhambra or the Generalife; we then went, of necessity, to call on the ladies at whose houses we had passed the previous evening. When we called but twice a day they told us we were ungrateful, and received us with so much kindness that we came to the conclusion that we really were fierce savage beings, and extremely negligent.

Our passion for the Alhambra was such that, not satisfied with visiting it every day, we were desirous of altogether taking up our abode there; not, however, in the neighbouring houses, which are let at very high prices to the English, but in the palace itself; and, thanks to the interest of our Granadian friends, the authorities, without giving us formal permission, promised not to perceive us. We remained there four days and four nights, which constituted, without any doubt, the happiest moments of my existence.

In order to reach the Alhambra, we will pass, if you please, through the square of the Vivarambla, where Gazal, the valiant Moor, used to hunt the bull, and where the houses, with their wooden balconies and miradores, present a vague appearance of so many hen-coops. The fish-market occupies one corner of the square, the middle of which forms an open space, surrounded with stone seats, peopled with money-changers, vendors of alcarrazas, earthen pots, water melons, mercery, ballads, knives, chaplets, and other little articles that can be sold in the open air. The Zacatin, which has preserved its picturesque name, connects the Vivarambla with the Plaza Nueva. It is in this street, bordered by lateral lanes, and covered with canvass tendidos, that all the commerce of Granada moves and buzzes; hatters, tailors, and shoemakers, lacemen and cloth merchants, occupy nearly all the shops, which possess as yet nothing of the improvements of modern art, and remind you of the old pillars of the Paris markets.

The Zacatin is always crowded. Now you meet a group of students on a tour from Salamanca, playing the guitar, the tambourine, castanets, and triangle, while they sing couplets full of fun and animation; then again your eye encounters a gang of gipsy women, with their blue flounced dresses studded with stars, their long yellow shawls, their hair in disorder, and their necks encircled with big coral or amber necklaces, or a file of donkeys loaded with enormous jars, and driven by a peasant from the Vega, as sun-burnt as an African.

The Zacatin leads into the Plaza Nueva, one side of which is taken up by the splendid palace of the Chancellor, remarkable for its columns of rustic order and the severe richness of its architecture. As soon as you have crossed the place, you begin to ascend the Calle de los Gomeres, at the end of which you find yourself on the limits of the jurisdiction of the Alhambra, and face to face with the Puerta de Granada, named Bib Leuxar by the Moors, with the Vermilion Towers on its right, built, as the learned world declares, on Phœnician sub-structures, and inhabited at present by basket-makers and potters.

Before proceeding further, we ought to warn our readers, who may perhaps think our descriptions, though scrupulously exact, beneath the idea they have formed of the Alhambra, that this palace and fortress of the ancient Moorish kings is very far from presenting the appearance lent to it by the imagination. We expected to see terrace superposed on terrace, open-worked minarets, and rows of boundless colonnades. But nothing of all this really exists: outside, there are only to be seen large massive towers of the colour of bricks or toasted bread, built at different epochs by Arabian princes; and within, all you see is a suite of chambers and galleries, decorated with extreme delicacy, but with nothing grand about them. Having made these remarks, we will continue our route.

After having passed the Puerta de Granada, you find yourself within the bounds of the fortress and under the jurisdiction of a special governor. There are two routes marked out in a wood of lofty trees. Let us take the one to the left, which leads to the fountain of Charles the Fifth: it is the steeper of the two, but then it is the shorter and the more picturesque. Water flows along rapidly in small trenches paved with kelp, and spreads around the bottom of the trees, which nearly all belong to species peculiar to the north, and the verdancy of which is of such moisture as to be truly delicious at so short a distance from Africa. The noise of the murmuring water joins itself to the hoarse hum of a hundred thousand grasshoppers or crickets, whose music never ceases, and which forcibly reminds you, in spite of the coolness of the place, of southern and torrid climes. Water springs forth everywhere; from beneath the trunks of the trees and through the cracks in the old walls. The hotter it is, the more abundant are the springs, for it is the snow which supplies them. This mixture of water, snow, and fire, renders the Granadian climate unparalleled throughout the world, and makes Granada a real terrestrial paradise; without being Moors, we might well have had applied to us, when we appeared oppressed by deep melancholy, the Arabian saying – "He is thinking of Granada."

At the end of the road, which continues to rise, you meet a large monumental fountain, which serves as a shouldering-piece, raised to the memory of the emperor Charles the Fifth: it is covered with numerous devices, coats of arms, names of victories, imperial eagles, mythological medallions, is of a heavy imposing richness, and in the Romanic-German style. Two shields, bearing the arms of the house of Mondejar, announce that Don Luis de Mendoza, marquis of this title, raised the monument in honour of the red-bearded Cæsar. This fountain, which is solidly constructed, supports the ascent which leads to the Gate of Justice, through which you enter the Alhambra proper.

The Gate of Justice was built by King Yusef Abul Hagiag, about the year of our Lord 1348: it owes its name to the custom the Mussulmans have of rendering justice on the threshold of their palaces; this custom possesses the advantage of being very majestic, and of allowing no one to enter the inner courts; for the maxim of Monsieur Royer-Collard, which says that "Private life ought to be walled in," was invented ages ago by the inhabitants of the East – that country of the sun, whence all light and wisdom come.

The name of tower might be given more properly than that of gate to this construction of King Yusef Abul Hagiag; for it is in reality a large square tower, rather high, and through which there is a large hollow arch in the form of a heart, to which a hieroglyphic key and hand, cut in two separate stones, impart a stern and cabalistic air. The key is a symbol held in great veneration by the Arabs, on account of a verse in the Koran beginning with the words "He has opened," and of several other hermetic significations; the hand is destined to destroy the influence of the Evil Eye, the jettatura, like the little coral hands which they wear at Naples as pins or watch appendages, to avert the power of sinister looks. There was an ancient prediction which asserted that Granada would never be taken until the hand had seized the key: it must be owned, however, to the shame of the prophet, that the two hieroglyphics are still in the same places; and that Boabdil, el rey chico, as he was called on account of his small stature, uttered outside the walls of conquered Granada the historical groan, suspiro del Moro, which has given its name to a rock of the Sierra de Elvira.

This massive and embattled tower, glazed with orange and red on a stiff sky-blue ground, and having behind it a whole abyss of vegetation, with the city built on a precipice, while beyond it are long ranges of mountains streaked with a thousand hues, like those of African porphyry, forms a truly majestic and splendid entrance to the Arabian palace. Under the gate is a guard-house, and poor ragged soldiers now take their siesta in the same place where the caliphs, seated on sofas of gold brocade, with their black eyes motionless in their marble faces and their hands buried in the folds of their silky beards, listened with a thoughtful and solemn air to the complaints of the believers. An altar, surmounted by an image of the Virgin, stands against the wall, as if to sanctify at the very entrance this ancient abode of the worshippers of Mahomet.

When you have passed through the gate, you enter a vast place called the Plaza de las Algives, in the middle of which is a well whose curb is surrounded by a sort of wooden shed covered with esparto-work, where you can go, for a cuarto, and drink large glasses of water as clear as a diamond, as cold as ice, and of the most delicious taste. The towers of Quebrada, the Homenaga, the Armeria, and of the Vela, whose bell announces the time at which the water is distributed; and stone parapets on which you can lean, in order to admire the wonderful view that stretches itself before you, surround one side of the place; the other side is occupied by the palace of Charles the Fifth, an immense monument of the Renaissance which would be admired anywhere else, but which is wished anywhere but here when you think that it covers a space once belonging to a part of the Alhambra, that was pulled down on purpose to make room for this heavy mass. This alcazar was designed, however, by Alonzo Berruguete: the trophies, bas-reliefs, and medallions on its façade have been executed with patience by a bold and spirited hand: the circular court with its marble columns, where the bull-fights, doubtless, took place, is certainly a magnificent piece of architecture, but non erat hic locus.

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.

Now that we have given this description, we think it our duty to destroy another illusion. All these magnificent things are made neither of marble nor of alabaster, nor even of stone, but simply of plaster! This interferes very much with the ideas of fairy splendour that the name alone of the Alhambra creates in the most positive imaginations; but it is true, for all that. With the exception of the columns, which are nearly all made of a single piece, and which are hardly ever more than from six to eight feet in height, of a few flag-stones, of the smaller basins of the fountains, and of the little chapels where the slippers used to be left, there has not been a single bit of marble employed in the construction of the Alhambra. The same thing may be said of the Generalife: the Arabs surpassed all other nations in the art of moulding, hardening, and carving plaster, which acquired in their hands the firmness of stucco, without having its disagreeable shiny appearance.

The greater part of these ornaments were made in casts, so that they could be reproduced without any great trouble as often as the symmetry of the place required it. Nothing would be easier than to reproduce an exact likeness of any hall of the Alhambra; to do this, it would suffice to take casts of all the ornaments contained in it. Two arcades of the Hall of Justice, which had fallen down, have been reconstructed by some Granadian workmen, in a manner which leaves nothing to be desired. If we were anything of a millionaire, one of our fancies would be to have a duplicate of the Court of Lions in one of our parks.

On leaving the Hall of Ambassadors, you follow a passage of modern structure, comparatively speaking, and you arrive at the tocador, or dressing-room of the queen. This is a small pavilion situated on the top of a tower, which formerly served the sultanas for an oratory, whence you enjoy the sight of an admirable panorama. At the entrance you perceive a slab of white marble, perforated with small holes to allow the smoke of the perfumes that were burnt beneath the floor to pass through. On the walls are still seen some fantastic frescoes, executed by Bartholomew de Ragis, Alonzo Perez, and Juan de la Fuente. On the frieze the ciphers of Isabella and Philip V. are intertwined, one with another, together with groups of Cupids. It is impossible to conceive anything more coquettish or charming than this closet, suspended as it is, with its little Moorish pillars, and its surbased arches, over an abyss of azure, the bottom of which is studded with the house-tops of Granada, and whither the breeze wafts the perfumes of the Generalife, that enormous tuft of rose-bays blooming on the brow of the neighbouring hills, and the plaintive cry of the peacocks walking on the dismantled walls. How many hours have I not spent there, wrapped in that serene melancholy so different from the melancholy of the north, with one leg dangling over the precipice, and straining my eyes in order to leave unexamined no form or contour of the picture that lay before them, and which they will, doubtless, never see again. No pen or pencil will ever be able to give a true idea of that brilliancy, of that light, of that vividness of hues. The most commonplace tones assume the appearance of jewels, and everything is on the same scale. Towards the end of the day, when the sun is oblique, the most inconceivable effects are produced: the mountains sparkle like heaps of rubies, topazes and carbuncles; dust, which looks like dust of gold, fills the intervals, and if, as is often the case in summer, the labourers are burning stubble in the plain, the smoke, while rising slowly towards the sky, borrows the most magical reflections from the rays of the setting sun. I am surprised that Spanish painters, have, in general, made their pictures so dark, and have almost exclusively employed themselves in imitating Caravaggio and the masters of the sombre school. The pictures of Decamps and Marilhat, who only painted views of Asia or Africa, give a truer idea of Spain than all the pictures fetched, at a great expense, from the Peninsula.

We will traverse the garden of Lindaraja without stopping, for it is nothing but an uncultivated piece of ground, strewed with rubbish, and bristling with brushwood; we will therefore visit, for an instant, the Bath-room of the Sultana, which is coated with square pieces of mosaic-work of glazed clay, and bordered with filigree-work that would make the most complicated madrepores blush. A fountain is in the middle of the room, and two alcoves are in the wall. It was here that the Moorish Sultanas used to come to repose themselves on square pieces of golden cloth, after having enjoyed the pleasure and luxury of an oriental bath. The galleries or balconies, in which the singers and musicians used to be placed, are still seen, and are at a height of about fifteen feet from the ground. The baths themselves resemble large troughs, and each of them is made out of one piece of white marble; they are placed in little vaulted closets, lighted by open-worked stars or roses. For fear of becoming irksome by repetition, we will not speak of the Hall of Secrets, whose acoustic powers are productive of a very curious effect, and the corners of whose walls are blackened by the noses of those inquisitive persons who go and whisper, in one corner, some impertinence that is faithfully carried to another; nor of the Hall of the Nymphs, over the door of which is an excellent bas-relief of Jupiter changed into a swan and caressing Leda, and which said bas-relief is most extraordinarily free in its composition, and very audacious in its execution; nor of the apartments of Charles the Fifth, which are in a dreadful state of devastation, and which possess nothing curious, with the exception of their roofs, studded with the ambitious device of Non plus ultra; but we will go direct to the Court of Lions, the most curious and best preserved part of the Alhambra.

English engravings and the numerous drawings which have been published of the Court of Lions convey but a very incomplete and false idea of it: nearly all of them fail to give the proper proportions, and, in consequence of the over-loading necessitated by the fact of representing the infinite details of Arabian architecture, suggest the idea of a monument of much greater importance.

The Court of Lions is a hundred and twenty feet long, seventy-three broad, while the galleries which surround it are not more than twenty-two feet high. They are formed by a hundred and twenty-eight columns of white marble placed in a symmetrical disorder of four and four, and of three and three, together: these columns, the capitals of which are full of work and still preserve traces of gold and colour, support arches of extreme elegance and of quite a unique shape.

On entering, the Hall of Justice, the roof of which is a monument of art of the most inestimable rarity and worth, immediately attracts your attention, as it forms the back of the parallelogram. There you see the only Arabian pictures, perhaps, which have come down to us. One of them represents the Court of Lions itself, with the fountain, which is very apparent, but gilt: some personages, whom the oldness of the painting does not allow you to distinguish clearly, seem to be engaged in a joust or passage of arms.

The subject of the other appears to be a sort of divan where the Moorish kings of Granada are assembled, and whose white burnous, olive-coloured faces, red mouths, and mysteriously dark eyes, are still easily discernible. These paintings, as is asserted, are executed on prepared leather, pasted on cedar panels, and serve to prove that the precept of the Koran which forbids the likenesses of animated beings being taken was not always scrupulously observed by the Moors, even if the twelve lions of the fountain were not there to confirm this assertion.

To the left, halfway up the gallery, is the Hall of the Two Sisters, which is the fellow to the Hall of the Abencerrages. This name of las Dos Hermanas is given it from two immense flagstones of white Macael marble, equal in size and perfectly alike, which form part of the pavement. The vaulted roof, or cupola, which the Spaniards expressively call media naranja (half an orange), is a miracle of work and patience. It is like a honeycomb, or the stalactites of a grotto, or the bunches of soap-bubbles which children blow out through a straw. The myriads of little vaults, of domes three or four feet high which grow out of one another, crossing and intersecting each other's edges, seem rather the effect of fortuitous crystallization than the work of a human hand; the blue, red, and green in the hollows of the mouldings are still nearly as bright as if they had only just been put on. The walls, like those of the Hall of Ambassadors, are covered, from the frieze to the height of a man, with stucco-work of the most complicated and delicate description. The bottom of the walls is coated with those square pieces of glazed clay of which the black, yellow, and green angles, combined with the white ground, form a mosaic-work. The middle of the apartment, according to the invariable custom of the Arabs, whose habitations seem to be nothing but large ornamented fountains, is occupied by a basin and a jet of water. There are four fountains under the Gate of Justice, a like number under the entrance-gate, and another in the Hall of the Abencerrages, without counting the Taza de los Leones, which, not satisfied with vomiting water through the mouths of its twelve monsters, throws up another torrent towards the sky out of the cap which surmounts it. All this water flows through small trenches made in the flooring of the halls and the pavement of the courts, to the foot of the Fountain of Lions, where it disappears in a subterraneous conduit. This is certainly a kind of dwelling in which you would never be annoyed by the dust, and it is a matter of conjecture how these halls could be inhabited in the winter. The large cedar doors were no doubt then shut, the marble floor was perhaps covered with a thick carpet, and fires of fruit-stones and odoriferous wood lighted in the braseros, and it was thus that the return of the fine season was waited for, which is never long in coming at Granada.

We will not describe the Hall of the Abencerrages, which is almost similar to that of the Two Sisters, and contains nothing particular, with the exception of its ancient door of wood arranged in lozenges, which dates from the time of the Moors. At the Alcazar of Seville there is another one made exactly in the same style.

The Taza de los Leones enjoys, in Arabian poetry, a wonderful reputation, and no terms of praise are thought too high for these superb animals: I must own, however, that it would be difficult to find anything less resembling lions than these productions of African fancy; the paws are mere wedges, similar to those bits of wood, of hardly any shape, which are used to thrust into the bellies of paste-board dogs to make them keep their equilibrium; the muzzles, streaked with transversal lines, doubtless to represent the whiskers, are exactly like the snout of a hippopotamus; and the eyes are designed in so primitive a manner, that they remind you of the shapeless attempts of children. Nevertheless, these twelve lions, if we look upon them not as lions, but as chimeras, as a caprice in ornamenting, produce, with the basins they support, a picturesque effect full of elegance, which aids you to comprehend their reputation, and the praises contained in the following Arabian inscription, of twenty-four verses of twenty-two syllables each, engraved on the sides of the basin into which the waters of the upper basin fall. We ask our readers' pardon for the somewhat barbarous fidelity of the translation: —

"O you who gaze on the lions fixed to their places! remark that they only require life to be perfect. And you to whom this Alcazar and this kingdom fall as an inheritance, take them from the noble hands who have governed them, without displeasure and without resistance. May God preserve you for the work which you come to perform, and protect you for ever from the revenge of your enemy! Honour and glory be yours. O Mohammed! our king, endowed with great virtues, by the aid of which you have conquered all! May God never permit this fine garden, the image of your virtues, to have a rival that surpasses it! The substance which tints the basin of the fountain is like mother-of-pearl beneath the clear sparkling water; the flowing stream resembles melting silver, for the limpidness of the water and the whiteness of the stone have no equals; they might be likened unto a drop of transparent essence on a face of alabaster. It would be difficult to follow its course. Look at the water and look at the basin, and you will not be able to distinguish whether it is the water that is motionless or the marble that ripples. Like the prisoner of love, whose visage is covered with vexation and fear by the look of the envious, so is the jealous water indignant at the stone, and the stone envious of the water. To this inexhaustible stream may be compared the hand of our king, who is as liberal and as generous as the lion is valiant and strong."

It was in the basin of the Fountain of Lions that the heads of the thirty-six Abencerrages, whom the Zegris had drawn there by stratagem, fell. The rest of the Abencerrages would have shared the same fate, had it not been for the devotedness of a little page, who ran at the risk of his life to warn them against entering the fatal court. On having your attention directed to the bottom of the basin, you perceive large reddish spots, an indelible accusation left by the victims against their executioners. Unfortunately, the erudite world declares that the Abencerrages and the Zegris have never existed. With respect to this I am completely guided by romances, popular traditions, and the novel of Monsieur de Châteaubriand, and I firmly believe that these purple-looking marks are blood and not rust.

We had established our head-quarters in the Court of Lions; our furniture consisted of two mattresses, which we rolled up in a corner in the day-time, of a brass lamp, of an earthenware jar, and of a few bottles of sherry that we kept in a fountain to render the wine cool. We slept one night in the Hall of the Two Sisters, and the next in that of the Abencerrages, but it was not without some slight fear, as I lay stretched on my cloak, that I looked at the white rays of the moon, which appeared quite astonished at crossing the yellow and flickering flame of a lamp, shoot through the openings of the roof into the water of the basin and across the shining ground.

The popular traditions collected by Washington Irving in his "Tales of the Alhambra," now came into my mind; the stories of the "Headless Horse" and of the "Hairy Phantom," gravely related by Father Echeverria, appeared to me very probable, above all, when the light was out. The likelihood of the legends appears much greater in the night-time, when these dark places are filled with uncertain reflections, which give to all objects of a vague outline a fantastic appearance: doubt is the son of the day, faith the daughter of the night; and what astonishes me is, that St. Thomas believed in our Saviour after having felt his wound. I am not sure that I myself did not see the Abencerrages walking about in the moonlight, with their heads under their arms, along the galleries; at all events, the shadows of the columns assumed forms diabolically suspicious, and the breeze, as it passed through the arcades, so resembled the breathing of a human being, that it made you doubt.

One Sunday morning, about four or five o'clock, we felt ourselves, while yet asleep, inundated on our mattresses with a fine and soaking rain. This was owing to the conduits of the water-jets having opened earlier than usual, in honour of a prince of Saxe Coburg, who was come to view the Alhambra, and who, they said, was to marry the young queen, as soon as she was of age.

We had scarcely time to rise and dress before the prince arrived, with two or three persons of his suite. He was half mad with rage. The keepers, in order to receive him in a proper manner, had fitted to every fountain the most ridiculous pieces of mechanism and hydraulic instruments imaginable. One of these inventions aimed, by the means of a little white tin carriage and lead soldiers, which were turned by the force of the water, at representing the journey of the queen to Valencia. You may judge of the prince's satisfaction at this ingenious and constitutional piece of refinement. The Fray Gerundio, a satirical journal of Madrid, persecuted this poor prince with marked animosity. It taxed him, among other crimes, with haggling too much about the charges in his hotel bills, and with having appeared at the theatre in the costume of a majo, with a pointed hat on his head.