Alhambra

“ Perhaps there never was a monument more characteristic of an age and people than the Alhambra; a rugged fortress without, a voluptuous palace within; war frowning from its battlements; poetry breathing throughout the fairy architecture of its halls. One is irresistibly transported in imagination to those times when Moslem Spain was a region of light amid Christian, yet benighted Europe; externally a warrior power fighting for existence; internally a realm devoted to literature, science, and the arts ”

“ The Alhambra—the Acropolis of Granada—is, indeed, a pearl of great price in the estimation of all travellers, exciting in the breast of the stranger the most absorbing interest and concentrated devotion. To realise the full spell—the mystery and the magic of the Alhambra—one must live in the building by day and contemplate it—like the ruins of fair Melrose—by{7} moonlight, when all is still. “Who can do justice,” says Washington Irving, “to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such a place! The temperature of an Andalusian midnight in summer is perfectly ethereal. ”

“ Throughout the day the Alhambra is thrown open to the public. Its halls and courts, where the Moorish monarchs once held sway, resound with the guitar and castanet, and gay groups, in the fanciful dresses of Andalusia, perform their traditional dances inherited from the Moors.
A grand procession, emblematic of the taking possession of the city, moves through the principal streets. The banner of Ferdinand and Isabella, that precious relic of the Conquest, is brought forth from its depository, and borne in triumph by the Alferez mayor, or grand standard-bearer. ”

“ The bell from the watch-tower of the Alhambra tolled midnight. There was a deep tranquillity as if all nature slept; excepting the low tinkling sound of an unseen stream that ran under the covert of the bushes. The breathing sweetness of the atmosphere 387 was lulling her to sleep, when her eye was caught by something glittering at a distance, and to her surprise she beheld a long cavalcade of Moorish warriors pouring down the mountain-side and along the leafy avenues. ”

“ It is a fairy tale for men and women of all countries and religions—a realization of beauty, the most inconceivable and the most intoxicating—a sweet and subtle embodiment of Eastern thought and art. The Alhambra is so ruined as a whole, and yet so perfect in parts, so bare here, so rich in colour there, so desolate and yet so haunted by voices, that it reminds one most, I think, of beautiful antique jewellery. Some of the jewels have dropped out, the gold is tarnished, the clasp is broken, the crown is bent, but gaze a little while, and all becomes as it once was. ”

“ Never was the annihilation of a nation more complete. Where are they? The exiled remnant of a once powerful people became assimilated with the predatory hordes of Barbary and the desert southward. A few broken monuments are all that remain to bear witness to their power and dominion in Europe.
Such is the Alhambra; an epoch marking relic—a Moslem pile in the midst of a Christian land; an Oriental palace amidst the Gothic edifices of the West; an elegant memento of a brave, intelligent, and graceful people who conquered, ruled, and passed away. ”

“ Ages have gone by since its foundation, kingdoms have been overthrown, and whole generations have passed away, but the Alhambra still remains a proud record of the Moslem's power. It is the last monument of their glory, amidst the changes that have long since taken place, and that still proclaim their fall.
The city commands an extensive view of the surrounding country, and the eye wanders with delight over the picturesque and varied scenery which opens on every side. Far as the eye can reach, a fertile plain teeming with life exhibits nature in her most lovely and fascinating forms ”

“ THE ancient citadel and residence of the Moorish monarchs of Granada is, indisputably, the most curious, and in some ways the most marvellous building that exists in the whole world. In its period, its architectural style, and artistic effect, it is not without its counterpart in Southern Spain; but the Alhambra was conceived and constructed on so colossal a scale that it is accepted as the last word in Arabian workmanship. From the outside it appears to be a forbidding fortress, and, indeed, its walls are of prodigious strength ”

“ The innumerable sentences abounding everywhere in the Alhambra are so harmonious and interweaving—producing such cross-lights of poetry and praise, merging naturally and gracefully when the mind is torpid or indifferent to them, into mere surface ornament—that they are never out of place, but present always an unsatiating charm. ”

“ And here it must be noted that the Alhambra is a fortress following on round the crown of a broad hill rising over Granada, and is entirely formed of fortified walls and innumerable Moorish{307} towers of extraordinary solidity and various sizes, covering a vast platform divided into arcaded courts of exquisite beauty, and that there is no solid building at all, but lovely suites of halls following on, formed to the taste of an Oriental people living in the open air. ”

“ But for the Alhambra, Granada would be left to the gipsies and the mendicants. But the Alhambra makes the town the Mecca of all travelling Christians. To behold the palace on the hill, the ‘red fortress,’ the last stronghold of the Moors, it is worth while enduring a good deal more than the persecutions of the most degraded population in all Spain. As one wanders through these world-renowned ruins and gazes in admiration and awe at the glorious handiwork of a race that was swept out of Spain hundreds of years ago, one pinches one’s self to see if it is a dream or a reality. ”

“ Others, among whom I was one, took their seats in an open gallery or colonnade commanding a vast prospect; with the Alhambra, the city, and the Vega, far below, and the distant horizon of mountains—a dreamy world, all glimmering to the eye in summer sunshine. While thus seated, the all-pervading tinkling of the guitar and click of the castanets came stealing up from the valley of the Darro, and half-way down the mountain we descried a festive party under the trees, enjoying themselves in true Andalusian style; some lying on the grass, others dancing to the music. ”

“ Nowhere else and never since has Islam reached such a pitch of refinement. The Alhambra stands as the high-water mark of its art and civilisation.
There will never be produced a new Alhambra, any more than a new Parthenon or new Pyramids; for these great buildings were the expressions of ideas and aspirations peculiar to societies which have long ago perished. Thus, the Red Palace of Granada is not interesting merely as a Mohammedan edifice left isolated in the far west of Europe, but as the monument of a people and a civilisation long dead and gone. ”

“ The wells made by the Moors are always in repute, for it is well known what pains they took to penetrate to the purest and sweetest springs and fountains. The one of which we now speak is famous throughout Granada, insomuch that water-carriers, some bearing great water-jars on their shoulders, others driving asses before them laden with earthen vessels, are ascending and descending the steep woody avenues of the Alhambra, from early dawn until a late hour of the night. ”

“ Here, about the year 1248, the founder of the Granadan dynasty, Ibn Alhamar, began to build that glorious palace, the Alhambra, which was completed by his grandson, Mohammed III, [94] seventy years later. Within the surrounding walls defended by ninety towers the king held court, with a retinue that constituted the nucleus of a small town in itself. The founder of the Alhambra assembled here artists and artisans from every part of the Moslem world: from Damascus and Bagdad, Cairo and Morocco; and their genius here evolved one of the most beautiful structures ever created by man. ”

“ On the brow of the lofty hill of the Albaycin, the highest part of Granada, and which rises from the narrow valley of the Darro, directly opposite to the Alhambra, stands all that is left of what was once a royal palace of the Moors. ”

“ The Spaniard, inglorious and decayed, is now but the showman to this magnificence; time has seen his greatness come and go, as came and went the greatness of the Moor, but still, for all its fragility, the Alhambra stands hardly less beautiful. Travellers have always been astonished at the small size of the Alhambra, especially of the Court of Lions; for here, though the proportion is admirable the scale is tiny; and many have supposed that the Moors were of less imposing physique than modern Europeans. ”

“ All that is valuable in the economic institutions of society, in its multitudinous inventions, in its facility of intercommunication, in the excellence of its fabrics, in the perfection of its agricultural operations, has long been recognized as dependent upon the practical and judicious application of the principles of science. Of these considerations, the Alhambra, which was the centre of the most accomplished and progressive community of the Middle Ages, is particularly suggestive. It is a monument of national genius. ”

“ INHABITANTS OF THE ALHAMBRA I HAVE often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its decline, and that the palace of a king commonly ends in being the nestling-place of the beggar.
The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition. Whenever a tower falls to decay, it is seized upon by some tatterdemalion family, who become joint-tenants, with the bats and owls, of its gilded halls; and hang their rags, those standards of poverty, out of its windows and loopholes. ”

“ At the ends are arcades, borne by marble columns with capitals of surpassing beauty. It is very quiet and very restful; the placid water gives an indescribable sensation of delight, and at the end mirrors the slender columns and the decorated arches so that in reflection you see the entrance to a second palace, which is filled with mysterious, beautiful things. But in the Alhambra the imagination finds itself at last out of its depth, it cannot conjure up chambers more beautiful than the reality presents. It serves only to recall the old inhabitants to the deserted halls. ”

“ It seems that the pure and airy situation of this fortress has rendered it, like the castle of Macbeth, a prolific breeding-place for swallows and martlets, who sport about its towers in myriads, with the holiday glee of urchins just let loose from school. To entrap these birds in their giddy circlings, with hooks baited with flies, is one of the favorite amusements of the ragged “sons of the Alhambra,” who, with the good-for-nothing ingenuity of arrant idlers, have thus invented the art of angling in the sky. ”

“ These are simple details of simple pleasures; it is the nature of the place alone that gives them interest and importance. I tread haunted ground, and am surrounded by romantic associations. From earliest boyhood, when, on the banks of the Hudson, I first pored over the pages of old Gines Perez de Hytas's apocryphal but chivalresque history of the civil wars of Granada, and the feuds of its gallant cavaliers, Zegries and Abencerrages, that city has ever been a subject of my waking dreams; and often have I trod in fancy the romantic halls of the Alhambra. ”

“ The Alhambra may be likened to an exquisite opera which can only be appreciated to the full when one is under the spell of its magic influence. But as the witchery of an inspired score can be recalled by the sound of an air whistled in the street, so—it is my {viii} hope—the pale ghost of this Moorish fairy-land may live again in the memories of travellers through the medium of this pictorial epitome. ”

“ The heat of the sun was tempered by cool breezes from the mountains. Before us extended the glorious vega. In the distance was romantic Granada surmounted by the ruddy towers of the Alhambra, while far above it the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada shone like silver. ”

“ During the recent troubles in Spain, when Granada was in the hands of the French, the Alhambra was garrisoned by their troops, and the palace was occasionally inhabited by the French commander. With that enlightened taste which has ever distinguished the French nation in their conquests, this monument of Moorish elegance and grandeur was rescued from the absolute ruin and desolation that were overwhelming it. ”

“ It was about this time, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, and just after his return from the siege of Seville (1248) , that Mohammed commenced the splendid Palace of the Alhambra, superintending the building of it in person, mingling frequently amongst the artists and workmen, and directing their labour. He stored the gardens with the rarest plants, and with the most beautiful aromatic shrubs and flowers. ”

“ The Alhambra is an ancient fortress or castellated palace of the Moorish kings of Granada, where they held dominion over this their boasted terrestrial paradise, and made their last stand for empire in Spain. The palace occupies but a portion of the fortress, the walls of which, studded with towers, stretch irregularly round the whole crest of a lofty hill that overlooks the city, and forms a spur of the Sierra Nevada, or snowy mountain. ”

“ Episodes like these tinged our dreams of the Alhambra with novel dashes of living reality. Even the tedious bustle of a Spanish town, too, has its attractions. The moving figures on the steep Albaycin streets, that perpetually break into flights of steps; the blocks of pressed snow brought in mule panniers every night from the Sierra to cool sugar-water and risadas of orange at the cafés; peasants coming in to the beautiful old grain market with gaudy mantles over their shoulders, stuffing into their sashes a variety of purchases, and becoming corpulent with a day's transactions ”