Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of
the tower. On the keystone of this arch is engraven a gigantic hand.
Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in
like manner, a gigantic key. Those who pretend to some knowledge of
Mohammedan symbols, affirm that the hand is the emblem of doctrine, the
five fingers designating the five principal commandments of the creed of
Islam, fasting, pilgrimage, alms-giving, ablution, and war against
infidels. The key, say they, is the emblem of the faith or of power; the
key of Daoud, or David, transmitted to the prophet. “And the key of the
house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open and none
shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open.” (Isaiah xxii. 22.)
The key we are told was emblazoned on the standard of the Moslems in
opposition to the Christian emblem of the cross, when they subdued Spain
or Andalusia. It betokened the conquering power invested in the prophet.
“He that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth;
and shutteth and no man openeth.” (Rev. iii. 7.)
A different explanation of these emblems, however, was given by the
legitimate son of the Alhambra, and one more in unison with the notions
of the common people, who attach something of mystery and magic to
everything Moorish, and have all kinds of superstitions connected with
this old Moslem fortress. According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed
down from the oldest inhabitants, and which he had from his father and
grandfather, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the
fate of the Alhambra depended. The Moorish king who built it was a great
magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had
laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had
remained standing for several years, in defiance of storms and
earthquakes, while almost all other buildings of the Moors had fallen to
ruin and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on to say, would
last until the hand on the outer arch should reach down and grasp the
key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures
buried beneath it by the Moors would be revealed.
Notwithstanding this ominous prediction, we ventured to pass through the
spell-bound gateway, feeling some little assurance against magic art in
the protection of the Virgin, a statue of whom we observed above the
portal.
After passing through the barbican, we ascended a narrow lane, winding
between walls, and came on an open esplanade within the fortress, called
the Plaza de los Algibes, or Place of the Cisterns, from great
reservoirs which undermine it, cut in the living rock by the Moors to
receive the water brought by conduits from the Darro, for the supply of
the fortress. Here, also, is a well of immense depth, furnishing the
purest and coldest of water,--another monument of the delicate taste of
the Moors, who were indefatigable in their exertions to obtain that
element in its crystal purity.
In front of this esplanade is the splendid pile commenced by Charles V.,
and intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the Moorish kings.
Much of the Oriental edifice intended for the winter season was
demolished to make way for this massive pile. The grand entrance was
blocked up; so that the present entrance to the Moorish palace is
through a simple and almost humble portal in a corner. With all the
massive grandeur and architectural merit of the palace of Charles V., we
regarded it as an arrogant intruder, and passing by it with a feeling
almost of scorn, rang at the Moslem portal.
While waiting for admittance, our self-imposed cicerone, Mateo Ximenes,
informed us that the royal palace was intrusted to the care of a worthy
old maiden dame called Doña Antonia-Molina, but who, according to
Spanish custom, went by the more neighborly appellation of Tia Antonia
(Aunt Antonia), who maintained the Moorish halls and gardens in order
and showed them to strangers. While we were talking, the door was opened
by a plump little black-eyed Andalusian damsel, whom Mateo addressed as
Dolores, but who from her bright looks and cheerful disposition
evidently merited a merrier name. Mateo informed me in a whisper that
she was the niece of Tia Antonia, and I found she was the good fairy who
was to conduct us through the enchanted palace. Under her guidance we
crossed the threshold, and were at once transported, as if by magic
wand, into other times and an Oriental realm, and were treading the
scenes of Arabian story. Nothing could be in greater contrast than the
unpromising exterior of the pile with the scene now before us. We found
ourselves in a vast patio or court, one hundred and fifty feet in
length, and upwards of eighty feet in breadth, paved with white marble,
and decorated at each end with light Moorish peristyles, one of which
supported an elegant gallery of fretted architecture. Along the
mouldings of the cornices and on various parts of the walls were
escutcheons and ciphers, and cufic and Arabic characters in high relief,
repeating the pious mottoes of the Moslem monarchs, the builders of the
Alhambra, or extolling their grandeur and munificence. Along the centre
of the court extended an immense basin or tank (estanque), a hundred and
twenty-four feet in length, twenty-seven in breadth, and five in depth,
receiving its water from two marble vases. Hence it is called the Court
of the Alberca (from al Beerkah, the Arabic for a pond or tank). Great
numbers of gold-fish were to be seen gleaming through the waters of the
basin, and it was bordered by hedges of roses.
Passing from the Court of the Alberca under a Moorish archway, we
entered the renowned Court of Lions. No part of the edifice gives a more
complete idea of its original beauty than this, for none has suffered so
little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands the fountain
famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond
drops; the twelve lions which support them, and give the court its name,
still cast forth crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The lions,
however, are unworthy of their fame, being of miserable sculpture, the
work probably of some Christian captive. The court is laid out in
flower-beds, instead of its ancient and appropriate pavement of tiles or
marble; the alteration, an instance of bad taste, was made by the French
when in possession of Granada. Round the four sides of the court are
light Arabian arcades of open filigree work, supported by slender
pillars of white marble, which it is supposed were originally gilded.
The architecture, like that in most parts of the interior of the palace,
is characterized by elegance rather than grandeur, bespeaking a
delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment.
When one looks upon the fairy traces of the peristyles, and the
apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe
that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of
earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful,
pilferings of the tasteful traveller: it is almost sufficient to excuse
the popular tradition, that the whole is protected by a magic charm.
On one side of the court a rich portal opens into the Hall of the
Abencerrages: so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illustrious
line who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some who doubt the
whole story, but our humble cicerone Mateo pointed out the very wicket
of the portal through which they were introduced one by one into the
Court of Lions, and the white marble fountain in the centre of the hall
beside which they were beheaded. He showed us also certain broad ruddy
stains on the pavement, traces of their blood, which, according to
popular belief, can never be effaced.
Finding we listened to him apparently with easy faith, he added, that
there was often heard at night, in the Court of Lions, a low confused
sound, resembling the murmuring of a multitude; and now and then a faint
tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. These sounds were made by
the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages; who nightly haunt the scene of
their suffering and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer.
The sounds in question had no doubt been produced, as I had afterwards
an opportunity of ascertaining, by the bubbling currents and tinkling
falls of water conducted under the pavement through pipes and channels
to supply the fountains; but I was too considerate to intimate such an
idea to the humble chronicler of the Alhambra.
Encouraged by my easy credulity, Mateo gave me the following as an
undoubted fact, which he had from his grandfather:--
There was once an invalid soldier, who had charge of the Alhambra to
show it to strangers; as he was one evening, about twilight, passing
through the Court of Lions, he heard footsteps on the Hall of the
Abencerrages; supposing some strangers to be lingering there, he
advanced to attend upon them, when to his astonishment he beheld four
Moors richly dressed, with gilded cuirasses and cimeters, and poniards
glittering with precious stones. They were walking to and fro, with
solemn pace; but paused and beckoned to him. The old soldier, however,
took to flight, and could never afterwards be prevailed upon to enter
the Alhambra. Thus it is that men sometimes turn their backs upon
fortune; for it is the firm opinion of Mateo, that the Moors intended to
reveal the place where their treasures lay buried. A successor to the
invalid soldier was more knowing; he came to the Alhambra poor; but at
the end of a year went off to Malaga, bought houses, set up a carriage,
and still lives there, one of the richest as well as oldest men of the
place; all which, Mateo sagely surmised, was in consequence of his
finding out the golden secret of these phantom Moors.
I now perceived I had made an invaluable acquaintance in this son of the
Alhambra, one who knew all the apocryphal history of the place, and
firmly believed in it, and whose memory was stuffed with a kind of
knowledge for which I have a lurking fancy, but which is too apt to be
considered rubbish by less indulgent philosophers. I determined to
cultivate the acquaintance of this learned Theban.
Immediately opposite the Hall of the Abencerrages, a portal, richly
adorned, leads into a hall of less tragical associations. It is light
and lofty, exquisitely graceful in its architecture, paved with white
marble, and bears the suggestive name of the Hall of the Two Sisters.
Some destroy the romance of the name by attributing it to two enormous
slabs of alabaster which lie side by side, and form a great part of the
pavement: an opinion strongly supported by Mateo Ximenes. Others are
disposed to give the name a more poetical significance, as the vague
memorial of Moorish beauties who once graced this hall, which was
evidently a part of the royal harem. This opinion I was happy to find
entertained by our little bright-eyed guide, Dolores, who pointed to a
balcony over an inner porch; which gallery, she had been told, belonged
to the women’s apartment. “You see, Señor,” said she, “it is all grated
and latticed, like the gallery in a convent chapel where the nuns hear
mass; for the Moorish kings,” added she, indignantly, “shut up their
wives just like nuns.”
The latticed “jalousies,” in fact, still remain, whence the dark-eyed
beauties of the harem might gaze unseen upon the zambras and other
dances and entertainments of the hall below.
On each side of this hall are recesses or alcoves for ottomans and
couches, on which the voluptuous lords of the Alhambra indulged in that
dreamy repose so dear to the Orientalists. A cupola or lantern admits a
tempered light from above and a free circulation of air; while on one
side is heard the refreshing sound of waters from the fountain of the
lions, and on the other side the soft plash from the basin in the garden
of Lindaraxa.
It is impossible to contemplate this scene, so perfectly Oriental,
without feeling the early associations of Arabian romance, and almost
expecting to see the white arm of some mysterious princess beckoning
from the gallery, or some dark eye sparkling through the lattice. The
abode of beauty is here as if it had been inhabited but yesterday; but
where are the two sisters, where the Zoraydas and Lindaraxas!
An abundant supply of water, brought from the mountains by old Moorish
aqueducts, circulates throughout the palace, supplying its baths and
fish-pools, sparkling in jets within its halls, or murmuring in channels
along the marble pavements. When it has paid its tribute to the royal
pile, and visited its gardens and parterres, it flows down the long
avenue leading to the city, tinkling in rills, gushing in fountains, and
maintaining a perpetual verdure in those groves that embower and
beautify the whole hill of the Alhambra.
Those only who have sojourned in the ardent climates of the South can
appreciate the delights of an abode combining the breezy coolness of the
mountain with the freshness and verdure of the valley. While the city
below pants with the noontide heat, and the parched Vega trembles to the
eye, the delicate airs from the Sierra Nevada play through these lofty
halls, bringing with them the sweetness of the surrounding gardens.
Everything invites to that indolent repose, the bliss of southern
climes; and while the half-shut eye looks out from shaded balconies upon
the glittering landscape, the ear is lulled by the rustling of groves
and the murmur of running streams.
I forbear for the present, however, to describe the other delightful
apartments of the palace. My object is merely to give the reader a
general introduction into an abode where, if so disposed, he may linger
and loiter with me day by day until we gradually become familiar with
all its localities.
NOTE ON MORISCO ARCHITECTURE
To an unpractised eye the light relievos and fanciful arabesques
which cover the walls of the Alhambra appear to have been
sculptured by the hand, with a minute and patient labor, an
inexhaustible variety of detail, yet a general uniformity and
harmony of design truly astonishing; and this may especially be
said of the vaults and cupolas, which are wrought like
honey-combs, or frostwork, with stalactites and pendants which
confound the beholder with the seeming intricacy of their patterns.
The astonishment ceases, however, when it is discovered that this
is all stucco-work; plates of plaster of Paris, cast in moulds and
skilfully joined so as to form patterns of every size and form.
This mode of diapering walls with arabesques, and stuccoing the
vaults with grotto-work, was invented in Damascus, but highly
improved by the Moors in Morocco, to whom Saracenic architecture
owes its most graceful and fanciful details. The process by which
all this fairy tracery was produced was ingeniously simple. The
wall in its naked state was divided off by lines crossing at right
angles, such as artists use in copying a picture; over these were
drawn a succession of intersecting segments of circles. By the aid
of these the artists could work with celerity and certainty, and
from the mere intersection of the plain and curved lines arose the
interminable variety of patterns and the general uniformity of
their character.[3]
Much gilding was used in the stucco-work, especially of the
cupolas; and the interstices were delicately pencilled with
brilliant colors, such as vermilion and lapis lazuli, laid on with
the whites of eggs. The primitive colors alone were used, says
Ford, by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Arabs, in the early period of
art; and they prevail in the Alhambra whenever the artist has been
Arabic or Moorish. It is remarkable how much of their original
brilliancy remains after the lapse of several centuries.
The lower part of the walls in the saloons, to the height of
several feet, is incrusted with glazed tiles, joined like the
plates of stucco-work, so as to form various patterns. On some of
them are emblazoned the escutcheons of the Moslem kings, traversed
with a band and motto. These glazed tiles (azulejos in Spanish,
az-zulaj in Arabic) are of Oriental origin; their coolness,
cleanliness, and freedom from vermin, render them admirably fitted
in sultry climates for paving halls and fountains, incrusting
bathing-rooms, and lining the walls of chambers. Ford is inclined
to give them great antiquity. From their prevailing colors,
sapphire and blue, he deduces that they may have formed the kind of
pavements alluded to in the sacred Scriptures:--“There was under
his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone” (Exod. xxiv.
10); and again, “Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and
lay thy foundations with sapphires” (Isaiah liv. 11).
These glazed or porcelain tiles were introduced into Spain at an
early date by the Moslems. Some are to be seen among the Moorish
ruins which have been there upwards of eight centuries.
Manufactures of them still exist in the Peninsula, and they are
much used in the best Spanish houses, especially in the southern
provinces, for paving and lining the summer apartments.
The Spaniards introduced them into the Netherlands when they had
possession of that country. The people of Holland adopted them
with avidity, as wonderfully suited to their passion for household
cleanliness; and thus these Oriental inventions, the azulejos of
the Spanish, the az-zulaj of the Arabs, have come to be commonly
known as Dutch tiles.
IMPORTANT NEGOTIATIONS
THE AUTHOR SUCCEEDS TO THE THRONE OF BOABDIL
The day was nearly spent before we could tear ourself from this region
of poetry and romance to descend to the city and return to the forlorn
realities of a Spanish posada. In a visit of ceremony to the Governor of
the Alhambra, to whom we had brought letters, we dwelt with enthusiasm
on the scenes we had witnessed, and could not but express surprise that
he should reside in the city when he had such a paradise at his command.
He pleaded the inconvenience of a residence in the palace from its
situation on the crest of a hill, distant from the seat of business and
the resorts of social intercourse. It did very well for monarchs, who
often had need of castle walls to defend them from their own subjects.
“But, señors,” added he, smiling, “if you think a residence there so
desirable, my apartments in the Alhambra are at your service.”
It is a common and almost indispensable point of politeness in a
Spaniard, to tell you his house is yours.--“Esta casa es siempre à la
disposicion de Vm.”--“This house is always at the command of your
Grace.” In fact, anything of his which you admire, is immediately
offered to you. It is equally a mark of good breeding in you not to
accept it; so we merely bowed our acknowledgments of the courtesy of the
Governor in offering us a royal palace. We were mistaken, however. The
Governor was in earnest. “You will find a rambling set of empty,
unfurnished rooms,” said he; “but Tia Antonia, who has charge of the
palace, may be able to put them in some kind of order, and to take care
of you while you are there. If you can make any arrangement with her for
your accommodation, and are content with scanty fare in a royal abode,
the palace of King Chico is at your service.”
We took the Governor at his word, and hastened up the steep Calle de los
Gomeres, and through the Great Gate of Justice, to negotiate with Dame
Antonia,--doubting at times if this were not a dream, and fearing at
times that the sage Dueña of the fortress might be slow to capitulate.
We knew we had one friend at least in the garrison, who would be in our
favor, the bright-eyed little Dolores, whose good graces we had
propitiated on our first visit; and who hailed our return to the palace
with her brightest looks.
All, however, went smoothly. The good Tia Antonia had a little furniture
to put in the rooms, but it was of the commonest kind. We assured her we
could bivouac on the floor. She could supply our table, but only in her
own simple way;--we wanted nothing better. Her niece, Dolores, would
wait upon us; and at the word we threw up our hats and the bargain was
complete.
The very next day we took up our abode in the palace, and never did
sovereigns share a divided throne with more perfect harmony. Several
days passed by like a dream, when my worthy associate, being summoned to
Madrid on diplomatic duties, was compelled to abdicate, leaving me sole
monarch of this shadowy realm. For myself, being in a manner a
hap-hazard loiterer about the world, and prone to linger in its pleasant
places, here have I been suffering day by day to steal away unheeded,
spell-bound, for aught I know, in this old enchanted pile. Having always
a companionable feeling for my reader, and being prone to live with him
on confidential terms, I shall make it a point to communicate to him my
reveries and researches during this state of delicious thraldom. If they
have the power of imparting to his imagination any of the witching
charms of the place, he will not repine at lingering with me for a
season in the legendary halls of the Alhambra.
And first it is proper to give him some idea of my domestic
arrangements: they are rather of a simple kind for the occupant of a
regal palace; but I trust they will be less liable to disastrous
reverses than those of my royal predecessors.
My quarters are at one end of the Governor’s apartment, a suite of empty
chambers, in front of the palace, looking out upon the great esplanade
called _la plaza de los algibes_ (the place of the cisterns); the
apartment is modern, but the end opposite to my sleeping-room
communicates with a cluster of little chambers, partly Moorish, partly
Spanish, allotted to the _châtelaine_ Doña Antonia and her family. In
consideration of keeping the palace in order, the good dame is allowed
all the perquisites received from visitors, and all the produce of the
gardens; excepting that she is expected to pay an occasional tribute of
fruits and flowers to the Governor. Her family consists of a nephew and
niece, the children of two different brothers. The nephew, Manuel
Molina, is a young man of sterling worth and Spanish gravity. He had
served in the army, both in Spain and the West Indies, but is now
studying medicine in the hope of one day or other becoming physician to
the fortress, a post worth at least one hundred and forty dollars a
year. The niece is the plump little black-eyed Dolores already
mentioned; and who, it is said, will one day inherit all her aunt’s
possessions, consisting of certain petty tenements in the fortress, in a
somewhat ruinous condition it is true, but which, I am privately
assured by Mateo Ximenes, yield a revenue of nearly one hundred and
fifty dollars; so that she is quite an heiress in the eyes of the ragged
son of the Alhambra. I am also informed by the same observant and
authentic personage, that a quiet courtship is going on between the
discreet Manuel and his bright-eyed cousin, and that nothing is wanting
to enable them to join their hands and expectations but his doctor’s
diploma, and a dispensation from the Pope on account of their
consanguinity.