THE ALHAMBRA.

The narrow defile up which we were passing is called, according to Mateo, el Barranco de la Tiaja, or the ravine of the jar.

And why so, Mateo?" inquired I.

defiles, there was no longer herdsman or muleteer to steps and the lonely chirping of the cricket. The be seen, nor any thing to be heard but our own footshadows of the valleys grew deeper and deeper, until The lofty summit of the all was dark around us. Sierra Nevada alone retained a lingering gleam cf day-light, its snowy peaks glaring against the dark But what is the meaning of the cross I see yon-blue firmament; and seeming close to us, from the ler upon a heap of stones in that narrow part of the extreme purity of the atmosphere. ravine?"

Because, señor, a jar full of Moorish gold was The brain of poor Mateo ound here in old times." 's continually running upon these golden legends.

"Oh! that's nothing-a muleteer was murdered there some years since."

"So then, Mateo, you have robbers and murderers even at the gates of the Alhambra."

"Not at present, señor-that was formerly, when Not but there used to be many loose fellows about the fortress; but they've all been weeded out. that the gipsies, who live in caves in the hill-sides 1st out of the fortress, are, many of them, fit for any thing; but we have had no murder about here for a long time past. The man who murdered the muleteer was hanged in the fortress."

How near the Sierra looks this evening!" said
hand, and yet it is many long leagues off." While
Mateo, "it seems as if you could touch it with your
summit of the mountain, the only one yet visible in
he was speaking a star appeared over the snowy
the heavens, and so pure, so large, so bright and
honest Mateo.
beautiful as to call forth ejaculations of delight from

"Que lucero hermoso!-que claro y limpio es!
(What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid !-no
no pueda ser lucero mas brillante!"-
star could be more brilliant!)

I have often remarked this sensibility of the com-
mon people of Spain to the charms of natural objects
The lustre of a star-the beauty or fragrance of a

Our path continued up the barranco, with a bold, rugged height to our left, called the Silla del Moro, or chair of the Moor; from a tradition that the un-flower-the crystal purity of a fountain, will inspire fortunate Boabdil fled thither during a popular insurrection, and remained all day seated on the rocky summit, looking mournfully down upon his factious city.

We at length arrived on the highest part of the promontory above Granada, called the Mountain of the Sun. The evening was approaching; the setting sun just gilded the loftiest heights. Here and there a solitary shepherd might be descried driving his flock down the declivities to be folded for the night, or a muleteer and his lagging animals threading some mountain path, to arrive at the city gates before nightfall.

Presently the deep tones of the cathedral bell came swelling up the defiles, proclaiming the hour of Oracion, or prayer. The note was responded to from the belfry of every church, and from the sweet bells of the convents among the mountains. The shepherd paused on the fold of the hill, the muleteer in the midst of the road; each took off his hat, and remained motionless for a time, murmuring his evening prayer. There is always something solemn and pleasing in this custom; by which, at a melodious signal, every human being throughout the land, recites, at the same moment, a tribute of thanks to God for the mercies of the day. It diffuses a transient sanctity over the land, and the sight of the sun sinking in all his glory, adds not a little to the solemnity of the scene. In the present instance, the effect was heightened by the wild and lonely nature of the place. We were on the naked and broken summit of the haunted Mountain of the Sun, where ruined tanks and cisterns, and the mouldering foundations of extensive buildings, spoke of former populousness, but where all was now silent and desolate. As we were wandering among these traces of old times, Mateo pointed out to me a circular pit, that seemed to penetrate deep into the bosom of the mountain. It was evidently a deep well, dug by the indefatigable Moors, to obtain their favourite element in its greatest purity. Mateo, however, had a different story, and much more to his humour. This was, according to tradition, an entrance to the subterranean caverns of the mountain, in which Boabdil and his court lay bound in magic spell; and from whence they sallied forth at night, at allotted times. to revisit their ancient abodes.

The deepening twilight, which in this climate is of such short dutation, admonished us to leave this Saunted ground. As we descended the mountai

them with a kind of poetical delight-and then what
euphonous words their magnificent language affords,
"But what lights are those, Mateo, which I see
with which to give utterance to their transports!
twinkling along the Sierra Nevada, just below the
snowy region, and which might be taken for stars,
only that they are ruddy and against the dark side
of the mountain?"

"Those, Señor, are fires made by the men who gather snow and ice for the supply of Granada. They go up every afternoon with mules and asses, by the fires, while others fill their panniers with ice. and take turns, some to rest and warm themselves They then set off down the mountain, so as to reach the gates of Granada before sunrise. That Sierra Nevada, Señor, is a lump of ice in the middle of Andalusia, to keep it all cool in summer."

It was now completely dark; we were passing through the barranco where stood the cross of the murdered muleteer, when I beheld a number of lights moving at a distance and apparently advancing up the ravine. On nearer approach they proved to be torches borne by a train of uncouth figures arrayed in black; it would have been a procession dreary enough at any time, but was peculiarly so in this wild and solitary place.

Mateo drew near and told me in a low voice, that it was a funeral train bearing a corpse to the burying ground among the hills.

As the procession passed by, the lugubrious light of the torches, falling on the rugged features and funereal weeds of the attendants, had the most fantastic effect, but was perfectly ghastly as it revealed the countenance of the corpse, which, according to Spanish custom, was borne uncovered on an open bier. I remained for some time gazing after the dreary train as it wound up the dark defile of the mountain. It put me in mind of the old story of a procession of demons, bearing the body of a sinner up the crater of Stromboli.

"Ah, Señor," cried Mateo, "I could tell you a story of a procession once seen among these mountainsbut then you would laugh at me, and say it was one 'By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I relish of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor." more than a marvellous tale.”

"Well, Señor, it is about one of those very men we have been talking of, who gather snow on the Sierra Nevada. You must know that a great many 'years since. in my grandfather's time, there was an

By the time Mateo had finished the tale which I have more succinctly related, and which was interlarded with many comments, and spun out with minute details, we reached the gate of the Alhambra.

THE COURT OF LIONS.

THE peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace, is its power of calling up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus clothing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the imagination. As I delight to walk in these "vain shadows," I am

are most favourable to this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the Court of Lions and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time has fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and splendour exist in almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes have shaken the foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest towers, yet see-not one of those slender columns has beer. displaced, not an arch of that light and fragile colonnade has given way, and all the fairy fretwork of these domes, apparently as unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, yet exist after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hand of the Moslem artist.

old felow, Tio Nicolo by name, who had filled the panniers of his mules with snow and ice, and was returning down the mountain. Being very drowsy, he mounted upon the mule, and soon falling asleep, went with his head nodding and bobbing about from side to side, while his sure-footed old mule stepped along the edge of precipices, and down steep and broken barrancos just as safe and steady as if it had been on plain ground. At length Tio Nicolo awoke, and gazed about him, and rubbed his eyes-and in good truth he had reason-the moon shone almost as bright as day, and he saw the city below him, as plain as your hand, and shining with its white buildings like a silver platter in the moonshine; but lord! Señor!--it was nothing like the city he left a few hours before. Instead of the cathedral with its great dome and turrets, and the churches with their spires, and the convents with their pinnacles all sur-prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra which mounted with the blessed cross, he saw nothing but Moorish mosques, and minarets, and cupolas, all topped off with glittering crescents, such as you see on the Barbary flags. Well, Señor, as you may suppose, Tio Nicolo was mightily puzzled at all this, but while he was gazing down upon the city, a great army came marching up the mountain; winding along the ravines, sometimes in the moonshine, sometimes in the shade. As it drew nigh, he saw that there were horse and foot, all in Moorish armour. Tio Nicolo tried to scramble out of their way, but his old mule stood stock still and refused to budge, trembling at the same time like a leaf-for dumb beasts, Señor, are just as much frightened at such things as human beings. Well, Señor, the hobgoblin I write in the midst of these mementos of the army came marching by, there were men that past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated seemed to blow trumpets, nnd others to beat drums hall of the Abencerrages. The blood-stained founand strike cymbals, yet never a sound did they make; tain, the legendary monument of their massacre, is they all moved on without the least noise, just as I before me; the lofty jet almost casts its dew upon have seen painted armies move across the stage in my paper. How difficult to reconcile the ancient the theatre of Granada, and all looked as pale as tale of violence and blood, with the gentle and death. At last in the rear of the army, between two peaceful scene around. Every thing here appear black Moorish horsemen, rode the grand inquisitor calculated to inspire kind and happy feelings, for of Granada, on a mule as white as snow. Tio Nicolo every thing is delicate and beautiful. wondered to see him in such company; for the in- light falls tenderly from above, through the lantern quisitor was famous for his hatred of Moors, and in- of a dome tinted and wrought as if by fairy hands. deed of all kinds of infidels, Jews and heretics, and Through the ample and fretted arch of the portal, I used to hunt them out with fire and scourge-how-behold the Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine ever, Tio Nicolo felt himself safe, now that there was a priest of such sanctity at hand. So, making the sign of the cross, he called out for his benediction, when -hombre he received a blow that sent him and his old mule over the edge of a steep bank, down which they rolled, head over heels, to the bottom. Tio Nicolo did not come to his senses until long after sunrise, when he found himself at the bottom of a deep ravine, his mule grazing beside him, and his panniers of snow completely melted. He crawled back to Granada sorely bruised and battered, and was glad to find the city looking as usual, with Christian churches and crosses. When he told the story of his night's adventure every one laughed at him some said he had dreamt it all, as he dozed on his mule, others thought it all a fabrication of his own. But what was strange, Señor, and made people afterwards think more seriously of the matter, was, that the grand inquisitor died within the year. I have often heard my grandfather, the tailor, say that there was more meant by that hobgoblin army bearrg off the resemblance of the priest, than folks dared to surmise."

The very

gleaming along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. The lively swallow dives into the court, and then surging upwards, darts away twittering over the roof; the busy bee toils humming among the flower beds, and painted butterflies hover from plant to plant, and flutter up, and sport with each other in the sunny air.-It needs but a slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive beauty of the harem, loitering in these secluded haunts of oriental luxury.

He, however, who would behold this scene under an aspect more in unison with its fortunes, let him. come when the shadows of evening temper the brightness of the court and throw a gloom into the surrounding halls,-then nothing can be more se renely melancholy, or more in harmony with the tale of departed grandeur.

At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of Justice, whose deep shadowy arcades extend across the upper end of the court. Here were performed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella, and their th umphant court, the pompous ceremonies of hig! mass, on taking possession of the Alhambra. The very cross is still to be seen upon the wall, where the altar was erected, and where officiated the gran cardinal of Spain, and others of the highest religious dignitaries of the land.

I picture to myself the scene when this place was filled with the conquering host, that mixture of mi

THE ALHAMBRA.

tred prelate, and shorn monk, and steel-clad knight, | casion, and set them all to music. He who could
and silken courtier: when crosses and croziers and make the best verses, and she who had the most
religious standards were mingled with proud armo- tuneful voice, might be sure of favour and prefer-
ial ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of ment. In those days, if any one asked for bread
Spain, and flaunted in triumph through these Mos- the reply was, 'Make me a couplet;' and the poor.
lem halls. I picture to myself Columbus, the future est beggar, if he begged in rhyme, would often be
"And is the popular feeling for poetry," said I,
discoverer of a world, taking his modest stand in a rewarded with a piece of gold.'
remote corner, the humble and neglected spectator
of the pageant. I see in imagination the Catholic "entirely lost among you?"
Sovereigns prostrating themselves before the altar
and pouring forth thanks for their victory, while the
vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy and the deep-
toned Te Deum.

The transient illusion is over-the pageant melts
from the fancy-monarch, priest, and warrior return
into oblivion, with the poor Moslems over whom
they exulted. The hall of their triumph is waste
and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vaults,
and the owl hoots from the neighbouring tower of
Comares. The Court of the Lions has also its share
of supernatural legends. I have already mentioned
the belief in the murmuring of voices and clanking
of chains, made at night by the spirits of the mur-
dered Abencerrages. Mateo Ximenes, a few even-
ings since, at one of the gatherings in Dame An-
tonia's apartment, related a fact which happened
within the knowledge of his grandfather, the legend-
ary tailor. There was an invalid soldier, who had
charge of the Alhambra, to show it to strangers.
As he was one evening about twilight passing
through the Court of Lions, he heard footsteps in
the Hall of the Abencerrages. Supposing some
loungers to be lingering there, he advanced to at-
tend upon them, when, to his astonishment, he be-
held four Moors richly dressed, with gilded cuirasses
and scimitars, and poniards glittering with precious
The old
stones. They were walking to and fro with solemn
pace, but paused and beckoned to him.
soldier, however, took to flight; and could never aft-
erwards be prevailed upon to enter the Alhambra.
Thus it is that men sometimes turn their backs upon
fortune; for it is the firm opinion of Mateo that the
Moors intended to reveal the place where their treas-
ures lay buried. A successor to the invalid soldier
was more knowing; he came to the Alhambra poor,
but at the end of a year went off to Malaga, bought
horses, set up a carriage, and still lives there, one of
the righest as well as oldest men of the place: all
which, Mateo sagely surmises, was in consequence
of his finding out the golden secret of these phantom
Moors.

On entering the Court of the Lions, a few even-
It seemed,
ings since, I was startled at beholding a turbaned
Moor quietly seated near the fountain.
for a moment, as if one of the stories of Mateo Xi-
menes were realized, and some ancient inhabitant
of the Alhambra had broken the spell of centuries,
and become visible. It proved, however, to be a
mere ordinary mortal; a native of Tetuan in Barbary,
who had a shop in the Zacatin of Granada, where
he sold rhubarb, trinkets, and perfumes. As he
spoke Spanish fluently, I was enabled to hold con-
versation with him, and found him shrewd and in-
telligent. He told me that he came up the hill
occasionally in the summer, to pass a part of the day
in the Alhambra, which reminded him of the old
palaces in Barbary, which were built and adorned
in similar style, though with less magnificence.

As we walked about the palace he pointed out
several of the Arabic inscriptions, as possessing
much poetic beauty.

"Ah! Señor," said he, "when the Moors held Granada, they were a gayer people than they are now-a-days. They thought only of love, of music, and of poetry. They made stanzas upon every oc

46

By no means, Señor; the people of Barbary,
even those of the lower classes, still make couplets,
not rewarded as it was then: the rich prefer the
and good ones too, as in the old time, but talent is
As he was talking, his eye caught one of the
jingle of their gold to the sound of poetry or music."
inscriptions that foretold perpetuity to the power
Such might have
and glory of the Moslem monarchs, the masters of
"the Moslems might still
the pile. He shook his head and shrugged his
shoulders as he interpreted it.
been the case," said he;
The Spanish monarchs would
have been reigning in the Alhambra, had not
Boabdil been a traitor, and given up his capitol to
the Christians.
I endeavoured to vindicate the memory of the
never have been able to conquer it by open force."
unlucky Boabdil from this aspersion, and to show
that the dissensions which led to the downfall of the
Moorish throne, originated in the cruelty of his
tiger-hearted father; but the Moor would admit of
no palliation.

66

Abul Hassan," said he, "might have been cruel,
but he was brave, vigilant, and patriotic. Had he
been properly seconded, Granada would still have
been ours; but his son Boabdil thwarted his plans,
crippled his power, sowed treason in his palace, and
dissension in his camp. May the curse of God light
Moor left the Alhambra.
upon him for his treachery." With these words the

The indignation of my turbaned companion agrees
with an anecdote related by a friend, who, in the
course of a tour in Barbary, had an interview with
the pasha of Tetuan. The Moorish governor was
particular in his inquiries about the soil, the climate
and resources of Spain, and especially concerning
the favoured regions of Andalusia, the delights of
Granada and the remains of its royal palace. The
replies awakened all those fond recollections, so
deeply cherished by the Moors, of the power and
splendour of their ancient empire in Spain. Turning
beard, and broke forth in passionate lamentations
to his Moslem attendants, the pasha stroked his
that such a sceptre should have fallen from the sway
with the persuasion, that the power and prosperity
of true believers. He consoled himself, however,
of the Spanish nation were on the decline; that a
time would come when the Moors would reconquer
their rightful domains; and that the day was,
perhaps, not far distant, when Mohammedan wor
ship would again be offered up in the mosque of
Cordova, and a Mohammedan prince sit on his
throne in the Alhambra.

Such is the general aspiration and belief among the Moors of Barbary; who consider Spain, and especially Andalusia, their rightful heritage, of which they have been despoiled by treachery and violence. These ideas are fostered and perpetuated by the ed among the cities of Barbary. Several of these descendants of the exiled Moors of Granada, scatterreside in Tetuan, preserving their ancient names, marriage with any families who cannot claim the such as Paez, and Medina, and refraining from intersame high origin. Their vaunted lineage is regarded with a degree of popular deference rarely shown in Mohammedan communities to any hereditary distinction except in the royal line.

These families, it is said, continue to sigh after commonly called "The Civil Wars of Granada,“ the terrestrial paradise of their ancestors, and to put containing a pretended history of the feuds of the up prayers in their mosques on Fridays, imploring Zegries and Abencerrages during the last struggle Allah to hasten the time when Granada shall be of the Moorish empire. This work appeared origi restored to the faithful; an event to which they look nally in Spanish, and professed to be translated from forward as fondly and confidently as did the Chris- the Arabic by one Gines Perez de Hita, an inhabit tian crusaders to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. ant of Murcia. It has since passed into variou Nay, it is added, that some of them retain the an-languages, and Florian has taken from it much of cient maps and deeds of the estates and gardens of the fable of his Gonsalvo of Cordova. It has, intheir ancestors at Granada, and even the keys of the great measure, usurped the authority of real history, houses; holding them as evidences of their hered- and is currently believed by the people, and especiitary claims, to be produced at the anticipated day ally the peasantry of Granada. The whole of it, of restoration. however, is a mass of fiction, mingled with a few disfigured truths, which give it an air of veracity. It bears internal evidence of its falsity, the manners and customs of the Moors being extravagantly misrepresented in it, and scenes depicted totally incompatible with their habits and their faith, and which never could have been recorded by a Mahometan writer.

BOABDIL EL CHICO.

My conversation with the Moor in the Court of Lions set me to musing on the singular fate of Bo- I confess there seems to me something almost abdil. Never was surname more applicable than criminal in the wilful perversions of this work. that bestowed upon him by his subjects, of "El Great latitude is undoubtedly to be allowed to roZogoybi," or, "the unlucky." His misfortunes began mantic fiction, but there are limits which it must not almost in his cradle. In his tender youth he was pass, and the names of the distinguished dead, imprisoned and menaced with death by an inhuman which belong to history, are no more to be calumfather, and only escaped through a mother's strata- niated than those of the illustrious living. One gem; in after years his life was imbittered and re- would have thought, too, that the unfortunate Boabpeatedly endangered by the hostilities of a usurping dil had suffered enough for his justifiable hostility uncle; his reign was distracted by external invasions to Spaniards, by being stripped of his kingdom, and internal feuds; he was alternately the foe, the without having his name thus wantonly traduced prisoner, the friend, and always the dupe of Ferdi- and rendered a bye-word and a theme of infamy in nand, until conquered and dethroned by the min- his native land, and in the very mansion of his gled craft and force of that perfidious monarch. An fathers! exile from his native land, he took refuge with one of the princes of Africa, and fell obscurely in battle fighting in the cause of a stranger. His misfortunes ceased not with his death. If Boabdil cherished a desire to leave an honourable name on the historic page, how cruelly has he been defrauded of his hopes! Who is there that has turned the least attention to the romantic history of the Moorish domination in Spain, without kindling with indignation at the alleged atrocities of Boabdil? Who has not been touched with the woes of his lovely and gentle queen, subjected by him to a trial of life and death, on a false charge of infidelity? Who has not been shocked by the alleged murder of his sister and her two children, in a transport of passion? Who has not felt his blood boil at the inhuman massacre of the gallant Abencerrages, thirty-six of whom, it is affirmed, he caused to be beheaded in the Court of the Lions? All these charges have been reiterated in various forms; they have passed into ballads, dramas, and romances, until they have taken too thorough possession of the public mind to be eradicated.

There is not a foreigner of education that visits .ne Alhambra, but asks for the fountain where the Abencerrages were beheaded; and gazes with horror at the grated gallery where the queen is said to nave been confined; not a peasant of the Vega or the Sierra, but sings the story in rude couplets to the accompaniment of his guitar, while his hearers learn to execrate the very name of Boabdil.

Never, however, was name more foully and unjustly slandered. I have examined all the authentic chronicles and letters written by Spanish authors contemporary with Boabdil; some of whom were in the confidence of the Catholic sovereigns, and actually present in the camp throughout the war: I have examined all the Arabian authorities I could get access to through the medium of translation, and can find nothing to justify these dark and hateful accusations.

The whole of these tales may be traced to a work

It is not intended hereby to affirm that the transactions imputed to Boabdil are totally without historic foundation, but as far as they can be traced, they appear to have been the arts of his father, Abul Hassan, who is represented, by both Christian and Arabian chroniclers, as being of a cruel and ferocious nature. It was he who put to death the cavaliers of the illustrious line of the Abencerrages, upon suspicion of their being engaged in a conspiracy to dispossess him of his throne.

The story of the accusation of the queen of Boabdil, and of her confinement in one of the towers, may also be traced to an incident in the life of his tiger-hearted father. Abul Hassan, in his advanced age, married a beautiful Christian captive of noble descent, who took the Moorish appellation of Zorayda, by whom he had two sons. She was of an ambitious spirit, and anxious that her children should succeed to the crown. For this purpose she worked upon the suspicious temper of the king; inflaming him with jealousies of his children by his other wives and concubines, whom she accused of plotting against his throne and life. Some of them were slain by the ferocious father. Ayxa la Horra, the virtuous mother of Boabdil, who had once been his cherished favourite, became likewise the object of his suspicion. He confined her and her son in the tower of Comares, and would have sacrificed Boabdil to his fury, but that his tender mother lowered him from the tower, in the night, by means of the scarfs of herself and her attendants, and thus enabled him to escape to Guadix.

Such is the only shadow of a foundation that I can find for the story of the accused and captive queen ; and in this it appears that Boabdil was the persecuted instead of the persecutor.

Throughout the whole of his brief, turbulent, and disastrous reign, Boabdil gives evidences of a mild and amiable character. He in the first in stance won the hearts of the people by his affable and gracious manners; he was always peacea