Almora

“ 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. ”

“ The rich and powerful of the land contended who should entertain and do honor to her; or rather, who should secure the charms of her lute to draw fashionable throngs to their saloons. Wherever she went her vigilant aunt kept a dragon watch at her elbow, awing the throngs of impassioned admirers who hung in raptures on her strains. The report of her wonderful powers spread from city to city. Malaga, Seville, Cordova, all became successively mad on the theme; nothing was talked of throughout Andalusia but the beautiful minstrel of the Alhambra. ”

“ The windows let in golden sunshine, and you look over bright yellow avenues of elms and panoramic views of plain and mountain. The Alhambra is quite near. Here you have a glimpse of battlement, superb in colour and outline, there a tower. The air is light, and warm, and balmy. Everybody has a pleasant smile and a brisk air, and goes about singing. The rooms are sunny, and have charming views, and the Alhambra is close by! It seems too good to be true.
After a bath and some excellent tea and bread and butter, the first we had tasted in Spain, and a little rest, we asked for Señor Bensaken. ”

“ Occasionally one finds him slipping. In his landscape, the purple mountains of Alhama rise wherever he considers them most effective in the picture; and the snow considerately never melts from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, which I have seen all brown at midsummer. He could look only through the magnifying glass of tradition at the hand and key on the Gate of Justice: symbols so gigantic in fiction, so insignificant in fact that one might miss them altogether, did not every book, paper, and paragraph, every cadging, swindling tout—I mean guide—in Granada bid one look for them. ”

“ On this day all Granada is abandoned to revelry. The alarm-bell on the Terre de la Campana, or watch-tower of the Alhambra, keeps up a clangor from morn till night; and happy is the damsel that can ring that bell; it is a charm to secure a husband in the course of the year.
The sound, which can be heard over the whole Vega, and to the top of the mountains, summons the peasantry to the festivities. Throughout the day the Alhambra is thrown open to the public. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The struggle was at an end; the town lay at the mercy of the Spaniards; it was given up to plunder, and immense was the booty taken. Gold and silver, rare jewels, rich silks, and costly goods were found in abundance; horses and cattle, grain, oil, and honey, all the productions of the kingdom, in fact, were there in quantities; for Alhama was the richest town in the Moorish territory, and from its strength and situation was called the Key of Granada. The soldiers were not content with plunder. Thinking that they could not hold the place, they destroyed all they could not carry away. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Divest Alhama, however, of its historical recollections, of its hot water, its poetry, and romance, and it is one of the dullest, dirtiest, and most sultry towns of southern Spain. The streets are narrow, houses poor, and churches and convents dilapidated. ”

“ 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 earthern vessels, are ascending and descending the steep woody avenues of the Alhambra, from early dawn until a late hour of the night. ”

“ She had been educated in a convent, and had recently been transferred from her sacred asylum to the immediate guardianship of her aunt, under whose overshadowing care she vegetated in obscurity, like an opening rose blooming beneath a brier. Nor indeed is this comparison entirely accidental; for, to tell the truth, her fresh and dawning beauty had caught the public eye, even in her seclusion, and, with that poetical turn common to the people of Andalusia, the peasantry of the 336 neighbourhood had given her the appellation of "the Rose of the Alhambra." ”

“ Here passed away the Korán—there in the Cross was borne—
And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the Moorish horn;{452}
Te Deum Laudamus! was up the Alcala sung:
Down from th’ Alhambra’s minarets were all the crescents flung;
The arms thereon of Aragon they with Castile’s display;
One king comes in in triumph—one weeping goes away!
Thus cried the weeper, while his hands his old white beard did tear,
“Farewell, farewell, Granada! thou city without peer! ”

“ From the edge of Granada city a long green aisle between exotic elms leads easily upward to the domain of the Alhambra. In its deep-shaded groves, so near yet seeming so far removed from the stony face of thirsty Spain, reigns a dream-inviting stillness, a quiet enhanced rather than broken by the murmur of captive brooks. ”

“ This monotony is broken by the famous Alameda, which, with its rows of immense trees whose foliage meets and interlaces overhead, its handsome fountains, its garden filled with roses, myrtle and jessamine, and its glimpses of the snowy Sierra Nevada from amid the tropical vegetation, makes it one of the finest and most picturesque promenades in Spain. During the daytime the Alameda is deserted, but in the evening it is crowded with a laughing, bustling multitude; and, in the habit of keeping late hours,{136} the people of Granada are every bit as fashionable as those of Madrid or Seville. ”

“ 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, the 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. ”

“ Thee and thine, thy crown and realm, One last wreck shall overwhelm. Woe is me, Alhama!
He who holds no laws in awe, He must perish by the law; And Granada must be won, And thyself with her undone.’ Woe is me, Alhama!
Fire flashed from out the old Moor's eyes, The monarch's wrath began to rise, Because he answered, and because He spake exceeding well of laws. Woe is me, Alhama!
‘There is no law to say such things As may disgust the ear of kings:’ Thus, snorting with his choler, said The Moorish King, and doomed him dead. Woe is me, Alhama! ”

“ Referring to the end of the [3] tenth century, this author wrote that “Almería is the key of profit and of all prosperity. Within her walls dwell cunning weavers who produce in quantities magnificent silken cloths inwoven with gold thread.” Other important centres of this trade and craft were Málaga, Baeza, Alicante, Seville, and Granada. Rassis wrote of Málaga: “She has a fertile territory, wherein is made the finest sirgo in the world. From here they trade in it with every part of Spain. Here too is made the finest of all linens, and that which the women best esteem.” ”

“ And then to lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond all these the vapory Vega fading away like a dreamland in the distance.
Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise from the Alameda, where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night. Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover serenading his lady’s window. ”

“ The creations of the Moors in Spain form the most remarkable chapter in human art. To me, Spain has been a new discovery; a sudden revelation of a world within a world; the monuments of an extinct or departed race standing alone in a desert. The generation that now possesses the soil has nothing of the genius or taste or spirit of the barbaric tribes that were once their masters. And the Alhambra at Granada, the Mosque at Cordova, and the 4Alcazar at Seville, look like the wrecks of a stranded empire, whose people live only in their glorious ruins. ”

“ The Alhambra, like many Moorish buildings, is severely simple on the outside; but when you enter your senses are captivated by the exquisite beauty of design and decoration that stretches out before you as you go through the courts and halls of this wonder palace. While in the whole it presents an effect of uniformity, there is infinite variety in detail, and there are countless forms of beauty about you that captivate the mind and fill the soul with delight. ”

“ TO the majority of travellers who visit Spain the Alhambra is Granada. They visit the city in order to see the wonders of the old Moorish palace, and unless they can spend many months in the neighbourhood they have no time to see anything else. A celebrated French artist declared that a man might worthily devote a life-time to the study of the Alhambra. Washington Irving, who lived for six years in Spain, and nearly the whole of it in Granada, complained, in 1829, that the Alhambra had been so often described that little remained to be said. ”

“ Whenever the world has required it, this perennial flood of spirituality has overflowed and deluged the world. Gifts of political knowledge can be made with the blast of trumpets and the march of cohorts. Gifts of secular knowledge and social knowledge can be made with fire and sword. But spiritual knowledge can only be given in silence like the dew that falls unseen and unheard, yet bringing into bloom masses of roses. This has been the gift of India to the world again and again. ”

“ In point of situation, the royal villa, or “pleasaunce,” of the Moorish Kings of Granada, is fully equal to the site chosen for the erection of the Alhambra. It stands upon an acclivity, behind which are lovely gardens, extensively timbered with trees of gigantic growth, where nightingales sing themselves hoarse in shrubberies rendered luxuriant by soft, refreshing rivulets. In the Generalife may be seen many Cufic inscriptions: the white tiles with golden scrolls occur nowhere else. ”

“ Ball shaped myrtles surround the little fountain, listening to the babbling of its silver waters, and in the twigs the song of birds greeting nature in her holiday garments.
Wondrous peace broods o’er this land. Through trees and halls and wall arches there is a magnificent view of the Alhambra and the multi-coloured houses of the town at its feet, and further on to the picturesque Albaicin, and over cactus-grown Sacromonte with its gypsy cave-dwellings, and still further to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. ”

“ The tout ensemble was very Moorish and oriental, and indeed in ancient times San Lucar was a celebrated stronghold of the Moors, and next to Almeria, the most frequented of their commercial places in Spain. Everything, indeed, in these parts of Andalusia, is perfectly oriental. Behold the heavens, as cloudless and as brightly azure as those of Ind; the fiery sun which tans the fairest cheek in a moment, and which fills the air with flickering flame ”