our feet, let us abandon it, and descend and refresh | formed an empire unrivalled for its prosperity, by ourselves under the arcades by the fountain of the Lions.

REFLECTIONS

ON THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SPAIN.

ONE of my favourite resorts is the balcony of the central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, in the lofty tower of Comares. I have just been seated there, enjoying the close of a long brilliant day. The sun, as he sank behind the purple mountains | of Alhama, sent a stream of effulgence up the valley of the Darro, that spread a melancholy pomp over the ruddy towers of the Alhambra, while the Vega, covered with a slight sultry vapour that caught the setting ray, seemed spread out in the distance like a golden sea. Not a breath of air disturbed the stillness of the hour, and though the faint sound of music and merriment now and then arose from the gardens of the Darro, it but rendered more impressive the monumental silence of the pile which overshadowed me. It was one of those hours and scenes in which memory asserts an almost magical power, and, like the evening sun beaming on these mouldering towers, sends back her retrospective rays to light up the glories of the past.

any of the empires of Christendom; and diligently drawing round them the graces and refinements that marked the Arabian empire in the east at the time of its greatest civilization, they diffused the light of oriental knowledge through the western regions of benighted Europe.

The cities of Arabian Spain became the resort of Christian artisans, to instruct themselves in the useful arts. The universities of Toledo, Cordova, Seville, and Granada were sought by the pale student from other lands, to acquaint himself with the sciences of the Arabs, and the treasured lore of antiquity; the lovers of the gay sciences resorted to Cordova and Granada, to imbibe the poetry and music of the east ; and the steel-clad warriors of the north hastened thither, to accomplish themselves in the graceful exercises and courteous usages of chiv alry.

If the Moslem monuments in Spain; if the Mosque of Cordova, the Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra of Granada, still bear inscriptions fondly boasting of the power and permanency of their dominion, can the boast be derided as arrogant and vain? Generation after generation, century after century had passed away, and still they maintained possession of the land. A period had elapsed longer than that which has passed since England was subjugated by the Norman conqueror; and the descendants of Musa and Tarik might as little anticipate being driven into exile, across the same straits traversed by their triumphant ancestors, as the descendants of Rollo and William and their victorious peers may dream of being driven back to the shores of Nor

Spain was but a brilliant exotic that took no permanent root in the soil it embellished. Secured from all their neighbours of the west by impassable barriers of faith and manners, and separated by seas and deserts from their kindred of the east, they were an isolated people. Their whole existence was a prolonged though gallant and chivalric struggle for a foot-hold in a usurped land. They were the outposts and frontiers of Islamism. The peninsula was the great battle ground where the Gothic conquerors of the north and the Moslem conquerors of the east, met and strove for mastery; and the fiery courage of the Arab was at length subdued by the obstinate and persevering valour of the Goth.

As I sat watching the effect of the declining daylight upon this Moorish pile, I was led into a consideration of the light, elegant and voluptuous char-mandy. acter prevalent throughout its internal architecture, With all this, however, the Moslem empire in and to contrast it with the grand but gloomy solemnity of the Gothic edifices, reared by the Spanish conquerors. The very architecture thus bespeaks the opposite and irreconcilable natures of the two warlike people, who so long battled here for the mastery of the Peninsula. By degrees I fell into a course of musing upon the singular features of the Arabian or Morisco Spaniards, whose whole existence is as a tale that is told, and certainly forms one of the most anomalous yet splendid episodes in history. Potent and durable as was their dominion, we have no one distinct title by which to designate them. They were a nation, as it were, without a legitimate country or a name. A remote wave of the great Arabian inundation, cast upon the shores of Europe, they seemed to have all the impetus of the first rush of the torrent. Their course of conquest from the rock of Gibraltar to the cliffs of the Pyrenees, was as rapid and brilliant as the Moslem victories of Syria and Egypt. Nay, had they not been checked on the plains of Tours, all France, all Europe, might have been overrun with the same facility as the empires of the east, and the crescent might at this day have glittered on the fanes of Paris and of London.

Never was the annihilation of a people more complete than that of the Morisco Spaniards. Where are they? Ask the shores of Barbary and its desert places. The exiled remnant of their once powerful empire disappeared among the barbarians of Africa, and ceased to be a nation. They have not even left a distinct name behind them, though for nearly eight centuries they were a distinct people. The home of their adoption and of their occupation for ages refuses to acknowledge them but as invaders and Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees, the usurpers. A few broken monuments are all that mixed hordes of Asia and Africa that formed this remain to bear witness to their power and dominion, great irruption, gave up the Moslem principles of as solitary rocks left far in the interior bear testiconquest, and sought to establish in Spain a peace-mony to the extent of some vast inundation. Such ful and permanent dominion. As conquerors their is the Alhambra. A Moslem pile in the midst of a heroism was only equalled by their moderation; and Christian land; an oriental palace amidst the Gothic in both, for a time, they excelled the nations with edifices of the west; an elegant memento of a brave, whom they contended. Severed from their native intelligent and graceful people, who conquered, ruled, homes, they loved the land given them, as they sup- and passed away. posed, by Allah, and strove to embellish it with every thing that could administer to the happiness of man. Laying the foundations of their power in a system of wise and equitable laws, diligently cultivating the arts and sciences, and promoting agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, they gradually

THE HOUSEHOLD.

and of infinite good humour, with the loquacity and gossip of a village barber, and knows all the small talk of the place and its environs; but what he chiefly values himself on is his stock of local in formation, having the most marvellous stories to re late of every tower, and vault and gateway of the fortress, in all of which he places the most implicit faith.

IT is time that I give some idea of my domestic arrangements in this singular residen.ce. The royal palace of the Alhambra is intrusted to the care of a good old maiden dame called Doña Antonia Molina, but who, according to Spanish custom, goes by the Most of these he has derived, according to his more neighbourly appellation of Tia Antonia (Aunt own account, from his grandfather, a little legendAntonia). She maintains the Moorish halls and gar-ary tailor, who lived to the age of nearly a hundred dens in order, and shows them to strangers; in con- years, during which he made but two migrations besideration of which, she is allowed all the perqui-yond the precincts of the fortress. His shop, for the sites received from visitors and all the produce of the greater part of a century, was the resort of a kno! gardens, excepting that she is expected to pay an of venerable gossips, where they would pass half the occasional tribute of fruits and flowers to the gov-night talking about old times and the wonderful ernor. Her residence is in a corner of the palace, events and hidden secrets of the place. The whole and her family consists of a nephew and niece, the living, moving, thinking and acting of this little hischildren of two different brothers. The nephew, torical tailor, had thus been bounded by the walls of Manuel Molina, is a young man of sterling worth the Alhambra; within them he had been born, within and Spanish gravity. He has served in the armies them he lived, breathed and had his being, within both in Spain and the West Indies, but is now study- them he died and was buried. Fortunately for posing medicine in hopes of one day or other becoming terity his traditionary lore died not with him. The physician to the fortress, a post worth at least a hun- authentic Mateo, when an urchin, used to be an atdred and forty dollars a year. As to the niece, she tentive listener to the narratives of his grandfather is a plump little black-eyed Andalusian damsel and of the gossip group assembled round the shop named Dolores, but who from her bright looks and board, and is thus possessed of a stock of valuable cheerful disposition merits a merrier name. She is knowledge concerning the Alhambra, not to be the declared heiress of all her aunt's possessions, found in the books, and well worthy the attention of consisting of certain ruinous tenements in the for- every curious traveller. tress, yielding a revenue of about one hundred and fifty dollars. I had not been long in the Alhambra before I discovered that a quiet courtship was going on between the discreet Manuel and his bright-eyed cousin, and that nothing was wanting to enable them to join their hands and expectations, but that he should receive his doctor's diploma, and purchase a dispensation from the pope, on account of their consanguinity.

Such are the personages that contribute to my domestic comforts in the Alhambra, and I question whether any of the potentates, Moslem or Christian, who have preceded me in the palace, have been waited upon with greater fidelity or enjoyed a serener sway.

When I rise in the morning, Pepe, the stuttering lad, from the gardens, brings me a tribute of fresh culled flowers, which are afterwards arranged in vases by the skilful hand of Dolores, who takes no small pride in the decorations of my chamber. My meals are made wherever caprice dictates, sometimes in one of the Moorish halls, sometimes under the arcades of the Court of Lions, surrounded by flowers and fountains; and when I walk out I am conducted by the assiduous Mateo to the most romantic retreats of the mountains and delicious haunts of the adjacent valleys, not one of which but is the scene of some wonderful tale.

With the good dame Antonia I have made a treaty, according to which, she furnishes me with board and lodging, while the merry-hearted little Dolores keeps my apartment in order and officiates as handmaid at meal times. I have also at my command a tall, stuttering, yellow-haired lad named Pepe, who works in the garden, and would fain have acted as valet, but in this he was forestalled by Mateo Ximenes, "The son of the Alhambra." This alert and officious wight has managed, somehow or other, to stick by me, ever since I first encountered him at Though fond of passing the greater part of my the outer gate of the fortress, and to weave himself day alone, yet I occasionally repair in the evenings into all my plans, until he has fairly appointed and to the little domestic circle of Doña Antonia. This installed himself my valet, cicerone, guide, guard, and is generally held in an old Moorish chamber, that historio-graphic squire; and I have been obliged to serves for kitchen as well as hall, a rude fire-place improve the state of his wardrobe, that he may not having been made in one corner, the smoke from disgrace his various functions, so that he has cast which has discoloured the walls and almost obliteoff his old brown mantle, as a snake does his skin, rated the ancient arabesques. A window with a and now figures about the fortress with a smart An- balcony overhanging the balcony of the Darro, lets dalusian hat and jacket, to his infinite satisfaction in the cool evening breeze, and here I take my and the great astonishment of his comrades. The frugal supper of fruit and milk, and mingle with chief fault of honest Mateo is an over-anxiety to be the conversation of the family. There is a natural useful. Conscious of having foisted himself into my talent, or mother wit, as it is called, about the employ, and that my simple and quiet habits render Spaniards, which renders them intellectual and his situation a sinecure, he is at his wit's end to de- agreeable companions, whatever may be their convise modes of making himself important to my wel-dition in life, or however imperfect may have been fare. I am in a vanner the victim of his officious- their education; add to this, they are never vulgar ness; I cannot put my foot over the threshold of the nature has endowed them with an inherent dignity palace to stroll about the fortress, but he is at my of spirit. The good Tia Antonia is a woman of elbow to explain every thing I see, and if I venture strong and intelligent, though uncultivated mind, to ramble among the surrounding hills, he insists and the bright-eyed Dolores, though she has read upon attending me as a guard, though I vehemently but three or four books in the whole course of her suspect he would be more apt to trust to the length of his legs than the strength of his arms in case of attack. After all, however, the poor fellow is at times an amusing companion; he is simple-minded

life, has an engaging mixture of naivete and good sense, and often surprises me by the pungency of her artless sallies. Sometimes the nephew enter tains us by reading some old comedy of Calderon or

Lope de Vega, to which he is evidently prompted by | with a reverse Early this morning, as Dolores was a desire to improve, as well as amuse his cousin feeding the male pigeon, she took a fancy to give Dolores, though to his great mortification the little him a peep at the great world. Opening a window, damsel generally falls asleep before the first act is therefore, which looks down upon the valley of the completed. Sometimes Tia Antonia has a little Darro, she launched him at once beyond the walls bevy of humble friends and dependants, the inhabit- of the Alhambra. For the first time in his life the ants of the adjacent hamlet, or the wives of the invalid astonished bird had to try the full vigour of his soldiers. These look up to her with great deference wings. He swept down into the valley, and then as the custodian of the palace, and pay their court rising upwards with a surge, soared almost to the to her by bringing the news of the place, or the clouds. Never before had he risen to such a height rumours that may have straggled up from Granada. or experienced such delight in flying, and like a In listening to the evening gossipings, I have young spendthrift, just come to his estate, he seemed picked up many curious facts, illustrative of the giddy with excess of liberty, and with the boundless manners of the people and the peculiarities of the field of action suddenly opened to him. For the neighbourhood. whole day he has been circling about in capricious flights, from tower to tower and from tree to tree. Every attempt has been made in vain to lure him back, by scattering grain upon the roofs; he seen's to have lost all thought of hr me, of his tender helpmate and his callow young. To add to the anxiety of Dolores, he has been joined by two palomas ladrones, or robber pigeons, whose instinct it is to entice wandering pigeons to their own dove-cotes. The fugitive, like many other thoughtless youths on their first launching upon the world, seems quite fascinated with these knowing, but graceless, companions, who have undertaken to show him life and introduce him to society. He has been soaring with them over all the roofs and steeples of Granada. A thunder shower has passed over the city, but he has not sought his home; night has closed in, and still he comes not. To deepen the pathos of the affair, the female pigeon, after remaining several hours on the nest without being relieved, at length went forth to seek her recreant mate; but stayed away so long that the young ones perished for want of the warmth and shelter of the parent bosom.

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 an old Spanish story about the wars of Granada, that city has ever been a subject of my waking dreams, and often have I trod in fancy the romantic halls of the Alhambra. Behold for once a day dream realized; yet I can scarcely credit my senses or believe that I do indeed inhabit the palace of Boabdil, and look down from its balconies upon chivalric Granada. As I loiter through the oriental chambers, and hear the murmuring of fountains and the song of the nightingale: as I in-, hale the odour of the rose and feel the influence of the balmy climate, I am almost tempted to fancy myself in the Paradise of Mahomet, and that the plump little Dolores is one of the bright-eyed Houris, destined to administer to the happiness of true believers.

THE TRUANT.

SINCE writing the foregoing pages, we have had a scene of petty tribulation in the Alhambra which has thrown a cloud over the sunny countenance of Dolores. This little damsel has a female passion for pets of all kinds, from the superabundant kindness of her disposition. One of the ruined courts of the Alhambra is thronged with her favourites. A stately peacock and his hen seem to hold regal sway here, over pompous turkeys, querulous guinea fowls, and a rabble rout of common cocks and hens. The great delight of Dolores, however, has for some time past been centred in a youthful pair of pigeons, who have lately entered into the holy state of wedlock, and who have even supplanted a tortoise shell cat and kitten in her affections.

As a tenement for them to commence housekeeping she had fitted up a small chamber adjacent to the kitchen, the window of which looked into one of the quiet Moorish courts. Here they lived in happy ignorance of any world beyond the court and its sunny roofs. In vain they aspired to soar above the battlements, or to mount to the summit of the towers. Their virtuous union was at length crowned by two spotless and milk white eggs, to the great joy of their cherishing little mistress. Nothing could be rore praiseworthy than the conduct of the young married folks on this interesting occasion. They took turns to sit upon the nest until the eggs were hatched, and while their callow progeny required warmth and shelter. While one thus stayed at home, the other foraged abroad for food, and brought home abundant supplies.

This scene of conjugal felicity has suddenly met

At a late hour in the evening, word was brought to Dolores that the truant bird had been seen upon the towers of the Generaliffe. Now, it so happens that the Administrador of that ancient palace has likewise a dove-cote, among the inmates of which are said to be two or three of these inveigling birds, the terror of all neighbouring pigeon fanciers. Dolores immediately concluded that the two feathered sharpers who had been seen with her fugitive, were these bloods of the Generaliffe A council of war was forthwith held in the chamber of Tia Antonia. The Generaliffe is a distinct jurisdiction from the Alhambra, and of course some punctilio, if not jealousy, exists between their custodians. It was determined, therefore, to send Pepe, the stuttering lad of the gardens, as ambassador to the Administrador, requesting that if such fugitive should be found in his dominions, he might be given up as a subject of the Alhambra. Pepe departed, accordingly, on his diplomatic expedition, through the moonlight groves and avenues, but returned in an hour with the afflicting intelligence that no such bird was to be found in the dove-cote of the Generaliffe. The Administrador, however, pledged his sovereign bird, that if such vagrant should appear there, even at midnight, he should instantly be arrested and sent back prisoner to his little black-eyed mistress.

Thus stands this melancholy affair, which has occasioned much distress throughout the palace, and has sent the inconsolable Dolores to a sleepless pillow.

66

Sorrow endureth for a night," says the proverb, "but joy ariseth in the morning.' The first object that met my eyes on leaving my room this morning was Dolores with the truant pigeon in her hand, and her eyes sparkling with joy. He had appeared at an early hour on the battlements, hovering shyly about from roof to roof, but at length entered the window

ona surrendered himself prisoner. He gained little | dows were in the same shattered state as in the other credit, however, by his return, for the ravenous man- chambers. ner in which he devoured the food set before him, showed that, like the prodigal son, he had been inven home by sheer famine. Dolores upbraided him for his faithless conduct, calling him all manner of vagrant names, though woman-like, she fondled im at the same time to her bosom and covered him with kisses. I observed, however, that she had taken care to clip his wings to prevent all future soarings; a precaution which I mention for the benefit of all those who have truant wives or wandering husbands. More than one valuable moral might be drawn from the story of Dolores and her pigeon.

THE AUTHOR'S CHAMBER.

This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an oper gallery with balustrades, which ran at right angles along another side of the garden. The whole apartment had a delicacy and elegance in its decorations, and there was something so choice and sequestered in its situation, along this retired little garden, that awakened an interest in its history. I found, on in quiry, that it was an apartment fitted up by Italian artists, in the early part of the last century, at the time when Philip V. and the beautiful Elizabetta of Parma were expected at the Alhambra; and was destined for the queen and the ladies of her train. One of the loftiest chambers had been her sleeping room, and a narrow staircase leading from it, though now walled up, opened to the delightful belvedere, originally a mirador of the Moorish sultanas, but fitted up as a boudoir for the fair Elizabetta, and which still retains the name of the Tocador, or toilette of the queen. The sleeping room I have mentioned, commanded from one window a prospect of the Generaliffe, and its imbowered terraces; under anON taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end other window played the alabaster fountain of the cf a suite of empty chambers of modern architect- garden of Lindaraxa. That garden carried my ure, intended for the residence of the governor, thoughts still farther back, to the period of another was fitted up for my reception. It was in front reign of beauty; to the days of the Moorish sultanas. of the palace, looking forth upon the esplanade. How beauteous is this garden!" says an Arabic The farther end communicated with a cluster of lit-inscription, “where the flowers of the earth vie with tle chambers, partly Moorish, partly modern, inhabited by Tia Antonia and her family. These terminated in a large room which serves the good old dame for parlour, kitchen, and hall of audience. It had boasted of some splendour in time of the Centuries had elapsed, yet how much of this scene Moors, but a fire-place had been built in one corner, of apparently fragile beauty remained! The garden the smoke from which had discoloured the walls; of Lindaraxa was still adorned with flowers; the nearly obliterated the ornaments, and spread a som-fountain still presented its crystal mirror: it is true, bre tint over the whole. From these gloomy apart- the alabaster had lost its whiteness, and the basin ments, a narrow blind corridor and a dark winding beneath, overrun with weeds, had become the nesstaircase led down an angle of the tower of Co- tling place of the lizard; but there was something in inares; groping down which, and opening a small the very decay that enhanced the interest of the door at the bottom, you are suddenly dazzled by scene, speaking, as it did, of that mutability which is emerging into the brilliant antechamber of the hall the irrevocable lot of man and all his works. The of ambassadors, with the fountain of the court of the desolation, too, of these chambers, once the abode Alberca sparkling before you. of the proud and elegant Elizabetta, had a more touching charm for me than if I had beheld them in their pristine splendour, glittering with the pageantry of a court.-I determined at once to take up my quarters in this apartment.

I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern and frontier apartment of the palace, and longed to ensconce myself in the very heart of the building.

"

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!"

My determination excited great surprise in the family; who could not imagine any rational inducement for the choice of so solitary, remote and forlorn an apartment. The good Tia Antonia considered it highly dangerous. The neighbourhood, she said, was infested by vagrants; the caverns of the adjacent hills swarmed with gipsies; the palace was ruinous and easy to be entered in many parts; and the rumour of a stranger quartered alone in one of the ruined apartments, out of the hearing of the rest of the inhabitants, might tempt unwelcome visitors in the night, especially as foreigners are always supposed to be well stocked with money. Dolores represented the frightful loneliness of the place; nothing but bats and owls flitting about; then there were a fox and a wild cat that kept about the vaults and roamed about at night.

As I was rambling one day about the Moorish halls, I found, in a remote gallery, a door which I had not before noticed, communicating apparently with an extensive apartment, locked up from the public. Here then was a mystery. Here was the haunted wing of the castle. I procured the key, however, without difficulty. The door opened to a range of vacant chambers of European architecture; though built over a Moorish arcade, along the little garden of Lindaraxa. There were two lofty rooms, the ceilings of which were of deep panel-work of cedar, richly and skilfully carved with fruits and flowers, intermingled with grotesque masks or faces; but broken in many places. The walls had evidently, in ancient times, been hung with damask, but were now naked, and scrawled over with the insignificant names of aspiring travellers; the windows, which were dismantled and open to wind and weather, looked into the garden of Lindaraxa, and the orange and citron trees flung their branches into the chambers. Beyond these rooms were two saloons, less lofty, looking also into the garden. In the compartments of the panelled ceiling were baskets of With all these precautions, I must confess the first fruit and garlands of flowers, painted by no mean night I passed in these quarters was inexpressibly hard, and in tolerable preservation. The walls had dreary. I was escorted by the whole family to my also been painted in fresco in the Italian style, but chamber, and there taking leave of me, and retiring the paintings were nearly obliterated. The win-along the waste antechamber and echoing galleries,

I was not to be diverted from my humour, so calling in the assistance of a carpenter, and the ever officious Mateo Ximenes, the doors and windows were soon placed in a state of tolerable security.

reminded me of those hobgoblin stories, where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure of a haunted house.

Soon the thoughts of the fair Elizabetta and the beauties of her court, who had once graced these chambers, now by a perversion of fancy added to the gloom. Here was the scene of their transient gaiety and loveliness; here were the very traces of their elegance and enjoyment; but what and where were they?-Dust and ashes! tenants of the tomb! phantoms of the memory!

THE ALHAMBRA BY MOONLIGHT

I HAVE given a picture of my apartment on my first taking possession of it; a few evenings have produced a thorough change in the scene and in my feelings. The moon, which then was invisible, has gradually gained upon the nights, and now rolls in full splendour above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window is gently lighted up; the orange and citron trees are tipped with silver; the fountain sparkles in the moon beams, and even the blush of the rose is faintly visible.

A vague and indescribable awe was creeping over me. I would fain have ascribed it to the thoughts of robbers, awakened by the evening's conversation, out I felt that it was something more unusual and absurd. In a word, the long buried impressions of I have sat for hours at my window inhaling the the nursery were reviving and asserting their power sweetness of the garden, and musing on the cheover my imagination. Every thing began to be af-quered features of those whose history is dimly fected by the workings of my mind. The whisper- shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. ing of the wind among the citron trees beneath my Sometimes I have issued forth at midnight when window had something sinister. I cast my eyes into every thing was quiet, and have wandered over the the garden of Lindaraxa; the groves presented a whole building. Who can do justice to a moonlight gulf of shadows; the thickets had indistinct and night in such a climate, and in such a place! The ghastly shapes. I was glad to close the window; temperature of an Andalusian midnight, in summer but my chamber itself became infected. A bat had is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer found its way in, and flitted about my head and atmosphere; there is a serenity of soul, a buoyancy athwart my solitary lamp; the grotesque faces carved of spirits, an elasticity of frame that render mere exin the cedar ceiling seemed to mope and mow at me. istence enjoyment. The effect of moonlight, too, on Rousing myself, and half smiling at this tempora- the Alhambra has something like enchantment. ry weakness, I resolved to brave it, and, taking lamp Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering in hand, sallied forth to make a tour of the ancient tint and weather stain disappears; the marble repalace. Notwithstanding every mental exertion, the sumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades task was a severe one. The rays of my lamp ex-brighten in the moon beams; the halls are illumitended to but a limited distance around me; I walked as it were in a mere halo of light, and all beyond was thick darkness. The vaulted corridors were as caverns; the vaults of the halls were lost in gloom; what unseen foe might not be lurking before or behind me ; my own shadow playing about the walls, and the echoes of my own footsteps disturbed me.

nated with a softened radiance, until the whole edifice reminds one of the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale.

At such time I have ascended to the little pavilion, called the Queen's Toilette, to enjoy its varied and extensive prospect. To the right, the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada would gleam like silver In this excited state, as I was traversing the great clouds against the darker firmament, and all the Hall of Ambassadors, there were added real sounds to outlines of the mountain would be softened, yet delithese conjectural fancies. Low moans and indistinct cately defined. My delight, however, would be to ejaculations seemed to rise as it were from beneath lean over the parapet of the tocador, and gaze down my feet; I paused and listened. They then appear-upon Granada, spread out like a map below me: all ed to resound from without the tower. Sometimes buried in deep repose, and its white palaces and they resembled the howlings of an animal, at others convents sleeping as it were in the moonshine. they were stifled shrieks, mingled with articulate ravings. The thrilling effect of these sounds in that still hour and singular place, destroyed all inclination to continue my lonely perambulation. I returned to my chamber with more alacrity than I had sallied forth, and drew my breath more freely when once more within its walls, and the door bolted behind

me.

Sometimes I would hear the faint sounds of castanets from some party of dancers Ingering in the Alameda; at other times I have heard the dubious tones of a guitar, and the notes of a single voice rising from some solitary street, and have pictured to myself some youthful cavalier serenading his lady's window; a gallant custom of former days, but now sadly on the decline except in the remote towns and villages of Spain.

When I awoke in the morning, with the sun shining in at my window, and lighting up every part of Such are the scenes that have detained me for the building with its cheerful and truth-telling beams, many an hour loitering about the courts and balI could scarcely recall the shadows and fancies con-conies of the castle, enjoying that mixture of reverie jured up by the gloom of the preceding night; or and sensation which steal away existence in a southbelieve that the scenes around me, so naked and ap-ern climate—and it has been almost morning before parent, could have been clothed with such imaginary I have retired to my bed, and been lulled to sleep by horrors. the falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa.

Still the dismal howlings and ejaculations I had heard, were not ideal; but they were soon accounted for, 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.

INHABITANTS OF THE ALHAMBRA.

I HAVE often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted in the day of its pros perity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its decline, and that the palace of the king commor ; ends in being the nestling place of the beggar.