The Alhambra 7

The Alhambra 7

Leaving our posada, and traversing the renowned square of the

Vivarrambla, once the scene of Moorish jousts and tournaments, now a

crowded market-place, we proceeded along the Zacatin, the main street of

what, in the time of the Moors, was the Great Bazaar, and where small

shops and narrow alleys still retain the Oriental character. Crossing an

open place in front of the palace of the captain-general, we ascended a

confined and winding street, the name of which reminded us of the

chivalric days of Granada. It is called the Calle, or street of the

Gomeres, from a Moorish family famous in chronicle and song. This street

led up to the Puerta de las Granadas, a massive gateway of Grecian

architecture, built by Charles V., forming the entrance to the domains

of the Alhambra.

 

At the gate were two or three ragged superannuated soldiers, dozing on a

stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages; while a

tall, meagre varlet, whose rusty-brown cloak was evidently intended to

conceal the ragged state of his nether garments, was lounging in the

sunshine and gossiping with an ancient sentinel on duty. He joined us as

we entered the gate, and offered his services to show us the fortress.

 

I have a traveller’s dislike to officious ciceroni, and did not

altogether like the garb of the applicant.

 

“You are well acquainted with the place, I presume?”

 

“Ninguno mas; pues, Señor, soy hijo de la Alhambra.” (Nobody better; in

fact, sir, I am a son of the Alhambra!)

 

The common Spaniards have certainly a most poetical way of expressing

themselves. “A son of the Alhambra!” the appellation caught me at once;

the very tattered garb of my new acquaintance assumed a dignity in my

eyes. It was emblematic of the fortunes of the place, and befitted the

progeny of a ruin.

 

I put some further questions to him, and found that his title was

legitimate. His family had lived in the fortress from generation to

generation ever since the time of the Conquest. His name was Mateo

Ximenes. “Then, perhaps,” said I, “you may be a descendant from the

great Cardinal Ximenes?”--“Dios Sabe! God knows, Señor! It may be so. We

are the oldest family in the Alhambra,--_Christianos Viejos_, old

Christians, without any taint of Moor or Jew. I know we belong to some

great family or other, but I forget whom. My father knows all about it:

he has the coat of arms hanging up in his cottage, up in the fortress.”

There is not any Spaniard, however poor, but has some claim to high

pedigree. The first title of this ragged worthy, however, had completely

captivated me; so I gladly accepted the services of the “son of the

Alhambra.”

 

We now found ourselves in a deep narrow ravine, filled with beautiful

groves, with a steep avenue, and various footpaths winding through it,

bordered with stone seats, and ornamented with fountains. To our left we

beheld the towers of the Alhambra beetling above us; to our right, on

the opposite side of the ravine, we were equally dominated by rival

towers on a rocky eminence. These, we were told, were the Torres

Vermejos, or vermilion towers, so called from their ruddy hue. No one

knows their origin. They are of a date much anterior to the Alhambra;

some suppose them to have been built by the Romans; others, by some

wandering colony of Phœnicians. Ascending the steep and shady avenue,

we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind of

barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the fortress. Within

the barbican was another group of veteran invalids, one mounting guard

at the portal, while the rest, wrapped in their tattered cloaks, slept

on the stone benches. This portal is called the Gate of Justice, from

the tribunal held within its porch during the Moslem domination, for the

immediate trial of petty causes: a custom common to the Oriental

nations, and occasionally alluded to in the Sacred scriptures. “Judges

and officers shalt thou make thee _in all thy gates_, and they shall

judge the people with just judgment.”

 

The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is formed by an immense

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