Southern Spain

memories eloquent of the grandeur of older days. The province bearing its name is bounded on the north by sterile ranges, while close to the so

e and there to over a thousand feet, a district of vineyards and

arro of the Moors-a stream that is heavily taxed by the farmers for purposes of irrigation. Théophile Gautier praised the river of Granada

p." Under the Moors the environs of Granada were in the highest state of cultivation, and they are still very productive. The land yields plenteous wine and oil. The chief crops are grains of various sorts. Hemp and flax flouri

egranates grow profusely. The cactus is cultivated for the production of the coc

Nevada remains to be developed. The Granadines are hardly a commercial population, though numerous crafts are practised in their city.

ROM THE G

the shade of luxuriant trees, amid handsome fountains, and by parterres decked richly with many flowers, the people of the city stroll upon summer even

, young and old dance together. At these tertulia, or evening parties, singing alternates with dancing the bolero and the jota. And later, when the lights are dim, and the wa

ted on January 2, when a procession is formed and proceeds to the Cathedral. Corpus Christi is a

haunted streets and silent ruins. The Arabs had a saying, referring to one who was sad, "He is thinking of Granada." It is this spirit, perhaps, which prevails in the patios of the Alhambra and amid the orange trees of

the province of Granada was the first district in Spain peopled by aliens. The founder of a town on the site of modern Granada is alleged to have been the mythical Iberus, who built Illiberis, which has been re

ay at the time of the coming of the Moors to the Iberian Peninsula. With

ough the Moorish authors relate that settlers from D

l_

NEVADA FROM THE

oreign rulers, the chief leader of the former being Omar Ben Hafs?n. Under his lieutenant, Nabil, an attack was made on Granada, and we read that some exultant verses written by the belligerents were attached to an arro

a of Cordova. A few years later Omar was conquered, and retiring to th

ish historian, states that Illiberis-or Elvira, as it was called at this time-was a dwindli

o, in the same quarter, where he probably resided. Badis proved an ambitious and warlike monarch, for he enlarged his dominions widely, and even subdued the resolute hillfolk of the Alpujarras. He conquered Malaga, and made plans to besiege Seville. But

the city and destroyed their church by fire. The unfortunate Christians appealed for help to Alfonso of Aragon, and the king came to their relief at the head of a strong army. In the combat at Anzul the Almoravides were worsted. Alfonso befor

TERIOR OF

assistance of the Sultan of Murcia and Valencia, whose troops attacked the Kasba, which was held by the Almohades. On the arrival of a second army, they made a sally and inflicted severe losses upon the soldiers of the sultan and his Christian allies. After this success, the Almohades endeavoured to pacify the unruly among their neighbours. Their governor, Sidi Abu Abrahim Ishak, was a tactful and benevolent leader. He improved the city, built a palac

years the State founded by him resisted the Christian hosts. Granada rose to the zenith of power and prosperity. Its first sultan was a man of high character, cour

ty years of age, and failing in strength through illness. A fall from his horse brought him to his end. He expired in the arms of his ally,

ended the throne in 1273. He was renowned for his wisdom in the law, and dur

STREET IN

religionists, Mohammed's career was one of strife. He died in 1302, able to boast that he had not lost a particle of the soil bequeathed to him by his father. Mohammed III. was, like his father, a forceful sovereign. He applied himself rigorously to the government of his territory, often spending the whole twenty-four hours in affairs of State. In 1306 he seized Ceuta, and brought a number of the conquered to Granada. But reverses came when the governor of Almeria rebelled and jo

ho seems to have had a fit of apoplexy, was thought to be dead when Mohammed III. was brought back to Granada. He was, however, alive upon the return of the lawful sove

olatium he was allowed to rule over the town of Guadix, whither he retired. Al Khattib rel

tory over the Castilians in 1319, when the princes Pedro and Juan were killed. Following up this success, he marched upo

erior officer. This act so incensed the chieftain that three days after he stabbed his ruler outside the Alhambra. Dying from the wound, Abu-l-Walid exacted an oath of fealt

ing the African army, which took in turn Marbella, Algeciras, and Ronda. He also def

-IN THE

e expansion of his kingdom. Under his rule Granada prospered and the condition of the people was bettered. Yusuf I. was disturbed in the tranquillity of his noble palace at Malaga by the appeals of the African potentat

August, 1360, about one hundred conspirators climbed the walls of the Kasba and after killing the wizir, proclaimed Isma?l as sultan. Mohammed, who was without the palace at the time, essayed to enter; but he was received with a flight of arrows, and mounting a horse he galloped away to Guadix. Here he w

onspirators, who was burning to take the reins of government in his own hands.

in the world would I sacrifice my country," cried the sultan. Thereupon the King of Castile retired, and Abu Sa?d, mistaking the reason of his return to Seville, went thither to beg his alliance. The story of the sultan's murder, at the i

ving city, and under the sultan's clement administration, it was the resort of traders of all nations and the centre of culture in the south. According

ALHAMBRA:

d them to their own country. This act appears to have incited his son Mohammed to rise against the throne. Yusuf was at first disposed to reli

er of Calatrava, headed an advance into the kingdom of Yusuf. The force was, however, entirely routed by the Moors. Soon after (1395) Yu

at the point of death, when the idea seized him to secure the government of Granada for his son by the assassination of his brother. The governor of Salobre?a was commanded to put to death the prince whom he had in his keeping. The doomed man asked leave to finish the game of chess in which he was engaged, and before either player could cry "Checkmate," the news came that the prince's brother was

seized and brought to Granada, where he was shown a letter from the ruler of Fez desiring that he might be despatched. With this request the generous Yusuf refused to comply. He released his capt

COURT OF T

ers who themselves fall victims to the poignards of their partisans. Sovereigns purchase their disputed crowns by selling the honour and independence of their country to the foreigner. To trace the miserable vicissitudes of t

has been laid by historians, Christian and Arab! Weak or foolhardy, the "Little King" fought like a Trojan against Ferdinand and Isabella for his country, and against his father and his uncle for his crown, at one and the same time. He was taken prisoner by Ferdinand and is said to have signed a treaty surrendering his dominions to the Catholic Sovereigns. This is rendered improbable by his comparatively generous treatment at the end of the war, when he had resisted the Spaniards to the uttermost, and fought them many times after his release from captivity. Desperate deeds of valour were done on both sides, though the strategy of the Spanish commanders does not appear to have been of a very high order, since, with the whole of Spain at their

VILLA ON

ed little short of eight centuries. It was as if the descendants of Harold Godwin were to arise and overthrow the existing English monarchy. But what is most remarkable is that the petty State

Moslems ensued. They revolted, and their revolt was quenched with their own blood. They were intimidated, browbeaten, imprisoned, condemned, and burned. Their language, costume, and creed were banned. They were ordered to embrace Christianity under pain of death, and forbidden to quit the country. They appealed to Egypt, but it

can anyone say that a united Spain would have been possible, with the fairest of her provinces and c

instinctively towards the Alhambra as the point of supreme interest. The famous pile is to the city what the M

e palace, but properly speaking is the name given to a fortified eminence lying to the south-east of the city, and including two palaces, a citadel, and a multitude of private residences. In its nature it may be compared with the Acropolis of Athens and the far-distant Castle of Bamborough. The name, as most people are aware, is derived from Kalat al hamra-"the Red Castle," to adopt a translation which I have never seen disputed. (While not pr

ALHAMBRA FRO

Towers, or Torres Bermejas; on the north-east rises the hill of the Generalife, laid out in gardens. The townward extrem

you will probably be waylaid by a theatrically-attired personage who will accost you in bad French with the information that he is the chief of the gipsies. The costume he wears was given to his father or grandfather by Fortuny-one of the rare examples of artists condescending to manufacture the picturesque.

hesitate to contradict. I must admit that the bird is as elusive as the "alpengluh," or as the hunter's moon at Tintern. It is always cool here on the slope of the Alhambra. Even the fierce rays of the Andalusian sun cannot penetrate the thick leafage. Rills bubbling forth from the red sides of the hill, or tumbling over its edge, keep the roots of the trees perennially moist and feed a dense under-growth. On summer afternoons this is the only spot in Granada where you may sit in comfort. Meanwhile, up and down in quick succession pass the sandalled water-carriers hurrying to fill their skins with the precious fluid and to dispense it in the scorched, thirsty town below. "Agua-a-a

S OF THE INFA

ancient and not very dilapidated towers, used as a military prison. They date, it is believed, from the days before the Zirite dynasty, but you will not be tempted to examine them attentively, for the

ods, Genil, Darro, and Beiro. The medallions represent Alexander the Great, Hercules slaying the hydra, Phryxus and Helle, and Daphne pursued by Apollo. The laurels growing out of the distressed damsel's head give her the appearance of a Sioux brave. A few steps beyond we reach the famous Puerta de la Justicia, so called because within it the Moorish sultans or their kadis administered justice-or it may have been merely law. This entrance is formed by two towers of reddish brick, placed back to back, and united by an upper storey. We look at once for the han

NEAR THE

e windows would have greatly embarrassed the defence. The area enclosed by the outer wall was divided, it seems, by two cross walls into what, in the medieval parlance, we would call the outer, middle and inner wards. To the last corresponded the citadel proper or Kasba (Alcazaba, the Spaniards call it), whose massive walls rise to your left on emerging from the Puerta de la Justicia. This is the oldest part of the fortress. It occupies the extremity of the plateau, which is marked by the tall, square Torre de la

there was anything more to see. His horizon was bounded by the Lepidoptera, on one side, and the Coleoptera (I think that is the word) on the other. After all, arch?olog

iven to towers in Spain. The open space before it, where the water-carriers gather round the well, was a comparatively deep ravine in Moorish times, and was not levelled up till after the fall of Boabdil. On the opposite side-facing the

RTA DEL VIN

a crowd of parasites and hangers-on. To-day the population is limited chiefly to one little street, composed of pensions, photographers' shops and estancos. The plan of the whole fortress no doubt varied from age to age, but in the main agreed with that according to which most European strongholds were constr

reach the Alhambra Palace, called pre-eminently by foreigners the Alhambra and by the Spaniards the Alcazar, or Palacio Arabe, you pass across the plaza, leaving the unfinished Palace of Charles V.

of form and ornament were undoubtedly borrowed-like their vaunted culture-from the more civilized nations with which they came in contact. With Morocco just across the strait, it is not safe to claim too much of native genius and refinement for the Moor. Whatever may have been the primitive models of Andalusian architecture, as time went by it lost much of the dignity and simplicity of its earliest examples-such as the Giralda and the Mezquita. The Moors of Granada had wearied of the fanaticism and austerity of Islam. If not precisely decadent, they ha

ALHAMBRA: TO

nded in the air. There is nothing imposing about the edifice, nothing stately. Its great charm consists in its decoration, which is wonderful and, in its own line, beyond all praise. It is based on the strictest geometrical plan, and every design and pattern may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem, and nothin

halls less monotonous than most people are likely to do. The beauty of the ornamentation consists in its exquisite symmetry, and this is not apparent to every comer, who may fail to realize with Mr

f Seville, in deprecation of the acclamations of his subjects. The newer parts are readily recognizable by the yoke and sheaf of arrows, the favourite devices of Fer

r at Seville. From this you enter the disused chapel, an uninteresting apartment consecrated in 1629. The Moorish decoration has almost completely disappeared, but much of the work in the little apartment adjacent, called the Sultan's Oratory, seems to be original. There never was a mosque here, but there may have bee

ated in a style which Contreras thought suggestive of Indian architecture. Fine lattice work closes the seven windows of the triforium. The upper gallery is equally graceful, but looks in imminent danger of collapse. Above a similar but single arcade at the opposite end of the court rises the square massive upper storey of the Tower of Comares, with its crenellated summit. To reach its interior we cross the gallery beneath a little dome painted with stars on a blue ground, and a long parallel apartment (Sala de la Barca) gutted by fire in 1890, and enter the spacious Hall of the Ambassadors (Sala de los Embajadores), the lar

. We can imagine it occupied, when no function was proceeding, by a few slaves dozing on mats or reclining dog-like on

OURT OF THE L

a of its original beauty and magnificence than this," says Washington Irving, "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; and the twelve lions which support them cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. [The fountain nowadays plays only once a year.] The architecture, like that of all other parts of the palace, is characterized by elegance rather than grand

t relate almost exclusively to the Virgin and saints. Spanish folk-lore knows nothing of fairies and goblins. The palace which Irving tells us the people regarded as enchanted had been used by them for years as a factory, a

are two charming little pavilions, with "half-orange" domes and basins in their marble flooring. The court is gravelled, and derives its name from the twelve marble animals that support the basin of the central fountain. These creatures are called lions, but why I am at a loss to understand. They look more like poodles than any other living quadrupeds. Ford humorously remarks: "Their faces are barbecued, and thei

NERALIFE: PATI

ndants, though in reality following a strict geometrical plan, exhibit complications and varieties that it is impossible for the eye to follow. The style may well have been suggested by the honey-comb. It is confusing, beautiful, glorious-certainly the most remarkable achievement o

against his father, Mulai Hasan. Later on their chief, Hamet, was suspected of intriguing with the Castilians; and, what was still more criminal in the eyes of a Moslem, of carrying on a love affair with one of the sultanas. A cypress in the gardens of the Generalife is pointed out as the lovers' trysting-place. The sultan resolved to make an end of this pestilent brood, but Hamet himself, warned at the eleventh hour, escaped the fate of his kinsmen. The frail sultana would have shared their fate, had

ERALIFE: COURT

he wooden ceiling. The colours (red, green, gold, etc.) are still vivid, but mildew is covering them in parts, and in places the gypsum is peeling off. These valuable specimens of Moorish art ought to have been taken down and placed under glass long ago. The first of the three represents ten bearded, robed, and turbaned personages, who may with some degree of probability be identified with the first sultans of the Nasrid dynasty. According to Oliver, the Moor in the green costume occupying the middle of one side is Al Ahmar, the founder of the race. Then, counting from his right, come Mohammed II., Nasr Abu-l-Juyyush, Mohammed IV., Sa?d Isma?l, Mohammed V. (in the red robe), Yusuf II., Yusuf I., Abu-l-Walid, and Mohammed III. The family likeness between these potentates is striking, and the red beards suggest a liberal use of the dye still largely used by the Oriental man of middle age. The other pictures are more interesting. The first represents hunting scenes. Moors a

et up, and mass was celebrated, on th

OCADOR DE

e Daraxa, which, like the chamber, does not derive its name from an imaginary sultana, but from a word meaning "vestibule." It is a delightful garden, where shade is always to be obtained between the closely planted cypresses, orange, and peach trees,

on Irving took up his quarters. Théophile Gautier slept sometimes in the hall of the Abencerrages, sometimes in that of the Two Sisters, and was impressed by the eerieness of the palace at night. Yet there is not a man

llery running round the chamber, the music of the odalisques was wafted down to the sultan reclining in one of the divans below. He must have been in no hurry to leave this spot, where he dreamily puffed at his hubble-bubble and watched the play of the fountain. The light came from apertures in the superb artesonado ceiling. Without, on a stone seat, the eunuchs mounted gua

TORRE DE

the usual zigzag vestibule you reach a hall with a fountain in the centre and alcoves in three of the sides. The decoration is perhaps over elaborate. The towers on the other side of the enceinte were, as I have said, intended mainly for defence. Near the ruinous Torre del Agua, at the south-east extremity, a viaduct crosses the ravine from the Generalife, and some of the water precipitates itself over the brow of the hill in a mass of vivid living greenery. Further on, towards the Gate of Justice, is the Torre de los Siete Suelos, through which Boabdil is said to have made his last exit. It is supposed to extend far underground, and to contain much buried treasure. So at least Irving was told by the inhabitants, or possibly told them! Hence issues the Belludo, the spectral pack, which traverses the streets of Granada by night-also according to legend. This story of the Wild Huntsman crops up, in one form or another, in every part of Europe. There are the Dandy Dogs in Cornwall

d into the possession of the Marquises of Campotejar. The approach lies along a magnificent avenue of cypresses and tall shrubs. Arrived at the entrance you are admitted by a very comely damsel, and allowed to wander about the lovely gardens by yourself and to stay there all day if you like. At the far end of the first c

ERALIFE: COURT

you reach the head of the first flight of steps-the sultana is alleged to have kept her tryst with Hamet, the Abencerrage. Not a bad place, this, for a lovers' meeting. You rise from one flower-laden terrace to another till you reach the ugly

he house is now used as a coal depot, but beneath the thick coating of grime you may discern the traces of graceful decorative work. The building is said to have been a corn exchange in Moorish days. More interesting are the vestiges of the ancient walls that girdled the oldest quarter, el viejo Albaicin. They were built in great part by Christian captives-perhaps by those whose chains are hung up on the wa

congeries of squalid houses, formless convents, and churches tottering to their fall. Whatever interest its antiquity may excite is lost in disgust at its wretchedness. On the outskirts dwell the gipsies-mostly in semi-underground burrows, and left very much to themselves by t

-CASA D

e said to have escaped from it when you reach the picturesque Carrera de Darro, the embankment of that narrow stream facing the Alhambra. Here may be seen a Moorish bath at one of the private houses, and-much more delightful to the artist-a broken Moorish bridge, the Puente del Cadi, to which a path led down from the Torre de las Armas. Against the little church near this point you will notice a white corner house with a handsome doorway in the Renaissance style. At the angle of the house is a balcony, bearing the odd inscription, "Esperandola del Cielo" ("Waiting for it from Heaven"). The words are accounted for by the following story: The house was built by Hernando d

REET IN TH

to have been full of animation in Gautier's time. That brilliant Frenchman speaks of meeting there parties of students from Salamanca, playing as they went on the guitar, triangles, and castanets-truly a singular mode of taking one's walks abroad, such as even the Spaniards of the 'thirties and 'forties must have marvelled at exceedingly. Are we to understand by this remarkable passage that the alumni of Salamanca formed processions like those of the Salvation Army, whenever they met by chance in the public street, or that, like the fine lady of Banbury Cross, they were determined to move nowhere without a musical accompaniment? At all events, the Zacatin is quiet enough nowadays. It st

ed to a high-class business. One of the chapels, however, is interesting. It contains the bones of "the magnificent cavalier, Fernando del Pulgar, Lord of El Salar," as the inscription records. This gallant knight, during the last siege of Granada, penetrated into the city with fifteen horsemen, and nailed a paper bearing the Ave Maria on the door of the mosque. This brave exploit earned for him and his descendants the right of remaining covered in

apel, founded in 1504 and completed in 1517, is a noble example of late Gothic. The exterior is very simple, the decoration consisting mainly of two highly ornate balustrades, surmounting each of the two stages. The well-known devices and monograms of the founders are interwoven with the decoration. Through a portal flanked by the figures of heralds we

NTERIOR O

sh consort are less lifelike, and the decoration is much more florid. It must be admitted that the Renaissance character of these sepulchral monuments contrasts rather oddly with the Gothic surroundings. The kneeling statues of the founders at the sides of the altar are believed to be actual likenesses. The reliefs on the retablo

sh five coffins-those of Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip, Joanna, and the Infante Miguel. Philip's coffin, it will be remembered, was carried about by his lovesick widow till she had to be parted from

d embroidered by her that floated over the city. A casket is shown which was filled with jewels which she pawned to procure funds for Columbus's first voyage of discovery. F

eeply resented by the chapter. Once when the Archbishop wished to visit the chapel, his attendant canons were refused admission. The irate prelate caused the chaplains to be arrest

HOUSES, CUES

h side, is a beautiful piece of work. The impression produced on entering the Cathedral is rather similar to that experienced on entering St. Peter's. There is an atmosphere of loftiness, luxury, and cold purity-like that clinging to the finest classical works. This is certainly the triumph of Spanish Renaissance architecture. The effect is, of course, utterly

pathos his genius finds its highest expression. In the chapel of Jesus Nazareno, Cano's "Via Crucis" does not suffer by comparison with three works of Ribera and a "St. Francis" by El Greco. The artist's studio may be seen in one of the towers flanking the west front of the Cathedral. He was a native of Granada, and a lay canon o

OLD AYUN

a Portuguese, Joao de Robles, who in the seventeenth century devoted himself with so much energy to the sick and suffering that his contemporaries esteemed him mad. You may see the cage in which he was confined at the hospital founded by Isabella the Catholic on the arid, ugly Plaza de Triunfo, near the Bull Ring. A column in the middle of the square marks the spot where Do?a Mariana Pineda was publicly garrotted in 1831. This lady is the great heroine of Granada. She perished a victim to the reactionary tendencies then prevalent in Spain. Spaniards were then crying "Hurrah for

present on such an occasion, and was so impressed by the evidences of mortality when the coffin was opened that he vowed he would never again serve an earthly master. He entered the Society of Jesus, and after his death was canonized under the

rhouse, founded in 1516 by the Great Captain. The cloisters are painted with scen

y Cano. In the sanctuary behind the altar coloured marbles, twisted and fluted, are combined in extravagant magnificence. Some of the slabs are richly veined with agate, and the hand of nature has traced some semblances of human and animal forms. In the adjo

EET IN THE

Don Pedro Vaca de Castro, who examined the books and declared them to contain the acts of the martyrs, Mesito and Hiscius, Tesiphus and Cecilius, put to death by the Romans and buried in the caves. His grace's pronouncement was not considered final, and theological opinion was sharply divided on the subject for many years. At last the continuance of the controversy was forbidden by Papal decree. It seems that doubt is now thrown even on the existence of the m

eeing on its own account, and it is the repository of the sword of Boabdil, which seems to have more claims to authenticity than most of the relics of the Little King. Descending towards the Puerta Real we pass the Cuarto de Santo Domingo, a private villa in which is incorporated all that remains of an Almohade palace. Near by, against the church of Santo Domingo, is an exceedingly picturesque little archway where one can fanc

NERALIFE: PATI

t if you will be tempted to-you will come to a very old Moorish palace called the Alcazar Genil, now the property of the Duke of Gor. Here, says Simonet, were lodged the Christian princes and knights who so often found an asylum at the court of Granada. In the gardens are tanks once used, it is believed, for mimic naval fights. In the same direction, I understand,

the Bab-en-Neshti or Puerta de los Molinos, through w

tay in Andalusia during the summer. It is only when you come to it from Seville or Cordova or Cadiz, that you realize how cool, in comparison, is this city on the plateau between the snow-clad mountains. Even before the sun has gone down, you can dine very pleasantly in the open, hearkening to the splash of the fountains, and inhaling the fragrance of t

ORNER IN TH