The Alhambra 14
Still, the dismal howlings and ejaculations I had heard were not ideal;
they were soon accounted for, however, by my handmaid Dolores: being the
ravings of a poor maniac, a brother of her aunt, who was subject to
violent paroxysms, during which he was confined in a vaulted room
beneath the Hall of Ambassadors.
In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took place in the
scene and its associations. The moon, which when I took possession of my
new apartments was invisible, gradually gained each evening upon the
darkness of the night, and at length rolled in full splendor above the
towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall. The
garden beneath my window, before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted
up; the orange-and citron-trees were tipped with silver; the fountain
sparkled in the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly
visible.
I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the
walls,--“How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the earth
vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase of yon
alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but the moon in
her fulness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky!”
On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window inhaling the
sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered fortunes of those
whose history was dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around.
Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant cathedral
of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have sallied out on another tour
and wandered over the whole building; but how different from my first
tour! No longer dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy
foes; no longer recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open,
spacious, beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies;
Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of Moslem
Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who can do justice
to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a place? The temperature
of a summer midnight in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted
up into a purer atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of
spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere existence happiness.
But when moonlight is added to all this, the effect is like enchantment.
Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine
glories. Every rent and chasm of time; every mouldering tint and
weather-stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the
long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are illuminated
with a softened radiance,--we tread the enchanted palace of an Arabian
tale!
What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little airy pavilion of
the queen’s toilette (el tocador de la reyna), which, like a bird-cage,
overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from its light arcades upon
the moonlight prospect! To the right, the swelling mountains of the
Sierra Nevada, robbed of their ruggedness and softened into a fairy
land, with their snowy summits gleaming like silver clouds against the
deep blue sky. 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.
Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed loitering
about the courts and halls and balconies of this most suggestive pile;
“feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,” and enjoying that mixture
of reverie and sensation which steal away existence in a southern
climate; so that it has been almost morning before I have retired to
bed, and been lulled to sleep by the falling waters of the fountain of
Lindaraxa.
PANORAMA FROM THE TOWER OF COMARES
It is a serene and beautiful morning: the sun has not gained sufficient
power to destroy the freshness of the night. What a morning to mount to
the summit of the Tower of Comares, and take a bird’s-eye view of
Granada and its environs!
Come then, worthy reader and comrade, follow my steps into this
vestibule, ornamented with rich tracery, which opens into the Hall of
Ambassadors. We will not enter the hall, however, but turn to this small
door opening into the wall. Have a care! here are steep winding steps
and but scanty light; yet up this narrow, obscure, and spiral staircase,
the proud monarchs of Granada and their queens have often ascended to
the battlements to watch the approach of invading armies, or gaze with
anxious hearts on the battles in the Vega.
At length we have reached the terraced roof, and may take breath for a
moment, while we cast a general eye over the splendid panorama of city
and country; of rocky mountain, verdant valley, and fertile plain; of
castle, cathedral, Moorish towers, and Gothic domes, crumbling ruins,
and blooming groves. Let us approach the battlements, and cast our eyes
immediately below. See, on this side we have the whole plain of the
Alhambra laid open to us, and can look down into its courts and gardens.
At the foot of the tower is the Court of the Alberca, with its great
tank or fishpool, bordered with flowers; and yonder is the Court of
Lions, with its famous fountain, and its light Moorish arcades; and in
the centre of the pile is the little garden of Lindaraxa, buried in the
heart of the building, with its roses and citrons and shrubbery of
emerald green.
That belt of battlements, studded with square towers, straggling round
the whole brow of the hill, is the outer boundary of the fortress. Some
of the towers, you may perceive, are in ruins, and their massive
fragments buried among vines, fig-trees, and aloes.
Let us look on this northern side of the tower. It is a giddy height;
the very foundations of the tower rise above the groves of the steep
hill-side. And see! a long fissure in the massive walls shows that the
tower has been rent by some of the earthquakes which from time to time
have thrown Granada into consternation; and which, sooner or later, must
reduce this crumbling pile to a mere mass of ruin. The deep narrow glen
below us, which gradually widens as it opens from the mountains, is the
valley of the Darro; you see the little river winding its way under
embowered terraces, and among orchards and flower-gardens. It is a
stream famous in old times for yielding gold, and its sands are still
sifted occasionally, in search of the precious ore. Some of those white
pavilions, which here and there gleam from among groves and vineyards,
were rustic retreats of the Moors, to enjoy the refreshment of their
gardens. Well have they been compared by one of their poets to so many
pearls set in a bed of emeralds.
The airy palace, with its tall white towers and long arcades, which
breasts yon mountain, among pompous groves and hanging gardens, is the
Generalife, a summer palace of the Moorish kings, to which they resorted
during the sultry months to enjoy a still more breezy region than that
of the Alhambra. The naked summit of the height above it, where you
behold some shapeless ruins, is the Silla del Moro, or seat of the Moor,
so called from having been a retreat of the unfortunate Boabdil during
the time of an insurrection, where he seated himself, and looked down
mournfully upon his rebellious city.
A murmuring sound of water now and then rises from the valley. It is
from the aqueduct of yon Moorish mill, nearly at the foot of the hill.
The avenue of trees beyond is the Alameda, along the bank of the Darro,
a favorite resort in evenings, and a rendezvous of lovers in the summer
nights, when the guitar may be heard at a late hour from the benches
along its walls. At present you see none but a few loitering monks
there, and a group of water-carriers. The latter are burdened with
water-jars of ancient Oriental construction, such as were used by the
Moors. They have been filled at the cold and limpid spring called the
fountain of Avellanos. Yon mountain path leads to the fountain, a
favorite resort of Moslems as well as Christians; for this is said to be
the Adinamar (Aynu-l-adamar), the “Fountain of Tears,” mentioned by Ibn
Batuta the traveller, and celebrated in the histories and romances of
the Moors.
You start! ’tis nothing but a hawk that we have frightened from his
nest. This old tower is a complete breeding-place for vagrant birds; the
swallow and martlet abound in every chink and cranny, and circle about
it the whole day long; while at night, when all other birds have gone to
rest, the moping owl comes out of its lurking-place, and utters its
boding cry from the battlements. See how the hawk we have dislodged
sweeps away below us, skimming over the tops of the trees, and sailing
up to the ruins above the Generalife!
I see you raise your eyes to the snowy summit of yon pile of mountains,
shining like a white summer cloud in the blue sky. It is the Sierra
Nevada, the pride and delight of Granada; the source of her cooling
breezes and perpetual verdure, of her gushing fountains and perennial
streams. It is this glorious pile of mountains which gives to Granada
that combination of delights so rare in a southern city,--the fresh
vegetation and temperate airs of a northern climate, with the vivifying
ardor of a tropical sun, and the cloudless azure of a southern sky. It
is this aërial treasury of snow, which, melting in proportion to the
increase of the summer heat, sends down rivulets and streams through
every glen and gorge of the Alpuxarras, diffusing emerald verdure and
fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.
Those mountains may be well called the glory of Granada. They dominate
the whole extent of Andalusia, and may be seen from its most distant
parts. The muleteer hails them, as he views their frosty peaks from the
sultry level of the plain; and the Spanish mariner on the deck of his
bark, far, far off on the bosom of the blue Mediterranean, watches them
with a pensive eye, thinks of delightful Granada, and chants, in low
voice, some old romance about the Moors.
See to the south at the foot of those mountains a line of arid hills,
down which a long train of mules is slowly moving. Here was the closing
scene of Moslem domination. From the summit of one of those hills the
unfortunate Boabdil cast back his last look upon Granada, and gave vent
to the agony of his soul. It is the spot famous in song and story, “The
last sigh of the Moor.”
Further this way these arid hills slope down into the luxurious Vega,
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