THE ALHAMBRA.

which occupies the interior of the tower, and was the grand audiencechamber 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 sides of the saloon are deep windows cut through the immense thickness of the walls, the balconies of which look down upon the verdant

valley of the Darro, the streets
and convents of the Albaycin, and
command a prospect of the dis-
tant Vega.

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, accords 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.

Let us leave this side of the tower, and turn our eyes to the west. Here 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 its bold rocky promontory into the bosom of the plain,

VIEW FROM THE ALHAMBRA.

that the invading squadrons would come bursting into view, with flaunting banners, and the clangour of drums and trumpets. How changed is the scene! Instead of the glittering line of mailed warriors, we behold the patient train of the toilful muleteer, slowly moving along the skirts of the mountain.

Here, towards the south, the eye revels on the luxuriant beauties of the Vega; a blooming wilderness of grove and garden, and teeming orchard, with the Xenil winding through it in silver links, and feeding innumerable rills, conducted through ancient Moorish channels, which maintain the landscape in perpetual verdure. Here are the beloved bowers and gardens and rural retreats, for which the Moors fought with such desperate valour. The very farmhouses and hovels which are now inhabited by boors, retain traces of arabesques and other tasteful decorations, which show them to have been elegant residences in the days of the Moslems.

Beyond the embowered region of the Vega, you behold to the south a line of arid hills, down which a long train of mules is slowly moving. It was from the summit of one of those hills that Boabdil cast back his last look upon Granada, and gave vent to the agony of his soul. It is a spot famous in song and story-El sospiro del Moro-"The last sigh of the Moor."

Now 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 It is this glorious pile of mountains that 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 ardour of a tropical sun, and the cloudless azure of a southern sky. It is this aerial 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.

The Cathedral of Granada just misses being a grand and imposing edifice. It is built in the pseudo-classical style which prevailed in the sixteenth century. Its great height and width would be impressive but for its faulty proportions, and the hideous whitewash which covers the delicate creamcoloured stone gives it a mean and poverty-stricken look. The passion of the Spaniards for whitewash far exceeds that of our eighteenth-century churchwardens. Only a year or two ago they whitewashed the Generalliffe from end to end. The great interest of the Cathedral is to be found in the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella and the historical relics in the Capilla de los Reyes.

An inscription which is to be found in every part of the Cathedralas in many other churches in Spain-painfully illustrates the state of morality