and overhanging the steep hill-side, which descends abruptly to the banks of the Darro. A Moorish archway admits us into a vast and lofty hall, which occupies the interior of the tower, and was the grand audience-chamber of the Moslem monarchs, thence called the Hall of Ambassadors. It still bears the traces of past magnificence. The walls are richly stuccoed, and decorated with Arabesques; the vaulted ceiling of cedar-wood, almost lost in obscurity, from its height, still gleams with rich gilding, and the brilliant tints of the Arabian pencil. On three

On the outer wall of the Alhambra, overhanging the narrow glen, with its thickets of fig-trees, pomegranates, and myrtles, which divides it from the Generalliffe, is a tower of great beauty though seldom visited. It is called La Torre de las Infantas, the Tower of the Princesses, from having been, according to tradition, the residence of the daughters of the Moorish kings. The interior is equal for beauty of architecture and delicacy of ornament to any part of the palace. The elegance of the central hall, with its marble fountain, its lofty arches, and richly fretted dome, accord with the story of its having been the abode of royal beauty.

An abundant supply of water, brought from the mountains by old Moorish aqueducts, circulates throughout the palace, supplying its baths and fishpools, sparkling in jets within its halls, or murmuring in channels along the marble pavements. When it has paid its tribute to the royal pile, and visited its gardens and parterres, it flows down the long avenue leading to the city, tinkling in rills, gushing in fountains, and maintaining a perpetual verdure in those groves that embower and beautify the hill of the Alhambra.

The reader has had a sketch of the interior of the Alhambra, and may be desirous of a general idea of its vicinity. We will mount the Tower of Comares, and take a bird's-eye view of Granada and its environs.

From the summit, we have immediately below us the whole plan of the Alhambra laid open, and can look down into its courts and gardens. At the foot of the tower is the Court of the Alberca, with its fishpool, bordered with flowers; and yonder is the Court of Lions, with its fountains 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.

On the northern side of the tower is a giddy height, the very foundations of which rise above the groves of the steep hill-side. A long fissure in the massive walls shows that the tower has been rent by earthquakes. The deep, narrow glen below us, which gradually widens as it opens from the mountains, is the valley of the Darro. It is a stream famous in old times for yielding gold, and its sands are still sifted, occasionally, in search of the precious ore.

The airy palace, with its tall white towers and long arcades, which breasts yon mountain, among pompous groves and hanging gardens, is the Generalliffe, 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 an insurrection, where he seated himself, and looked down mournfully upon his rebellious city.

Here

Let us leave this side of the tower, and turn our eyes to the west. you behold, in the distance, a range of mountains bounding the Vega, the ancient barrier between Moslem Granada and the land of the Christians. Among their heights you may still discern warrior towns, whose grey walls and battlements seem of a piece with the rocks on which they are built; while here and there is a solitary Atalaya, or watch-tower, mounted on some lofty point, and looking down, as it were, from the sky into the valleys on either side. It was down the defiles of these mountains, by the pass of Lope, that the Christian armies descended into the Vega. It was round the base of yon grey and naked mountain, almost insulated from the rest, and stretching