THE JOURNEY.
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In the spring of 1829, the author of this work,
whom curiosity had brought into Spain, made a
rambling expedition from Seville to Granada, in
company with a friend, a member of the Russian
embassy at Madrid. Accident had thrown us together
from distant regions of the globe, and a similarity
of taste led us to wander together among
the romantic mountains of Andalusia. Should
these pages meet his eye, wherever thrown by
the duties of his station, whether mingling in the
pageantry of courts or meditating on the truer
glories of nature, may they recal the scenes of
our adventurous companionship, and with them the
remembrance of one, in whom neither time nor
distance will obliterate the recollection of his gentleness
and worth.
And here, before setting forth, let me indulge
in a few previous remarks on Spanish scenery
and Spanish travelling. Many are apt to picture
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Spain to their imaginations as a soft southern region
decked out with all the luxuriant charms of
voluptuous Italy. On the contrary, though there
are exceptions in some of the maratime provinces,
yet, for the greater part, it is a stern, melancholy
country, with rugged mountains and long,
naked, sweeping plains, destitute of trees, and invariably
silent and lonesome, partaking of the savage
and solitary character of Africa. What adds to this
silence and loneliness, is the absence of singing
birds, a natural consequence of the want of groves
and hedges. The vulture and the eagle are seen
wheeling about the mountain cliffs and soaring over
the plains, and groups of shy bustards stalk about
the heaths, but the myriads of smaller birds, which
animate the whole face of other countries, are met
with in but few provinces of Spain, and in them
chiefly among the orchards and gardens which surround
the habitations of man.
In the exterior provinces, the traveller occasionally
traverses great tracts cultivated with grain as
far as the eye can reach, waving at times with verdure,
at other times naked and sun-burnt; but he
looks round in vain for the hand that has tilled the
soil; at length he perceives some village perched
on a steep hill, or rugged crag, with mouldering
battlements and ruined watch-tower; a strong-hold,
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in old times, against civil war or Moorish inroad;
for the custom among the peasantry of congregating
together for mutual protection, is still kept up in
most parts of Spain, in consequence of the maraudings
of roving freebooters.
But though a great part of Spain is deficient in
the garniture of groves and forests, and the softer
charms of ornamental cultivation, yet its scenery
has something of a high and lofty character to compensate
the want. It partakes something of the
attributes of its people, and I think that I better
understand the proud, hardy, frugal and abstemious
Spaniard, his manly defiance of hardships, and contempt
of effeminate indulgences, since I have seen
the country he inhabits.
There is something, too, in the sternly simple
features of the Spanish landscape, that impresses
on the soul a feeling of sublimity. The immense
plains of the Castiles and La Mancha, extending as
far as the eye can reach, derive an interest from
their very nakedness and immensity, and have something
of the solemn grandeur of the ocean. In
ranging over these boundless wastes, the eye catches
sight, here and there, of a straggling herd of cattle
attended by a lonely herdsman, motionless as a statue,
with his long slender pike tapering up like a
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lance into the air; or beholds a long train of mules
slowly moving along the waste like a train of camels
in the desert, or a single herdsman, armed
with blunderbuss and stiletto, and prowling over
the plain. Thus, the country, the habits, the very
looks of the people, have something of the Arabian
character. The general insecurity of the country
is evinced in the universal use of weapons. The
herdsman in the field, the shepherd in the plain
has his musket and his knife. The wealthy villager
rarely ventures to the market-town without
his trabucho; and, perhaps, a servant on foot with
a blunderbuss on his shoulder; and the most petty
journey is undertaken with the preparations of a
warlike enterprise.
The dangers of the road produce, also, a mode of
travelling, resembling, on a diminutive scale, the
caravans of the East. The arrieros or carriers,
congregate in troops, and set off in large and well-armed
trains on appointed days, while individual
travellers swell their number, and contribute to
their strength. In this primitive way is the commerce
of the country carried on. The muleteer
is the general medium of traffic, and the legitimate
wanderer of the land, traversing the Peninsula from
the Pyrenees and the Asturias, to the Alpuxarras,
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the Serrania de Ronda, and even to the gates of Gibraltar.
He lives frugally and hardily; his alforjas
(or saddle-bags,) of coarse cloth, hold his scanty stock
of provisions; a leathern bottle hanging at his saddle-bow,
contains wine or water for a supply across
barren mountains, and thirsty plains; a mule cloth
spread upon the ground is his bed at night, and his
pack-saddle is his pillow. His low but clear-limbed
and sinewy form betokens strength; his complexion
is dark and sun-burnt; his eye resolute, but quiet
in its expression, except when kindled by sudden
emotion; his demeanour is frank, manly, and courteous,
and he never passes you without a grave salutation—
“Dios guarda à usted!”—“Vay usted
con Dios caballero!”—“God guard you!”—“God
be with you! cavalier!”
As these men have often their whole fortune at
stake upon the burden of their mules, they have
their weapons at hand, slung to their saddles, and
ready to be snatched down for desperate defence.
But their united numbers render them secure against
petty bands of marauders, and the solitary bandalero,
armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Andalusian
steed, hovers about them, like a pirate
about a merchant convoy, without daring to make
an assault.
The Spanish muleteer has an inexhaustible
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stock of songs and ballads, with which to beguile
his incessant way-faring. The airs are rude and
simple, consisting of but few inflexions. These he
chants forth with a loud voice, and long drawling
cadence, seated sideways on his mule, who seems
to listen with infinite gravity, and to keep time
with his paces, to the tune. The couplets thus
chanted are often old traditional romances about
the Moors; or some legend of a saint; or some love
ditty; or, what is still more frequent, some ballad
about a bold contrabandista, or hardy bandalero;
for the smuggler and the robber are poetical heroes
among the common people of Spain. Often the
song of the muleteer is composed at the instant,
and relates to some local scene, or some incident
of the journey. This talent of singing and improvising
is frequent in Spain, and is said to have been
inherited from the Moors. There is something
wildly pleasing in listening to these ditties among
the rude and lonely scenes they illustrate, accompanied
as they are, by the occasional jingle of the
mule-bell.
It has a most picturesque effect, also, to meet a
train of muleteers in some mountain pass. First
you hear the bells of the leading mules, breaking
with their simple melody the stillness of the airy
height; or, perhaps, the voice of the muleteer
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admonishing some tardy or wandering animal, or
chanting, at the full stretch of his lungs, some traditionary
ballad. At length you see the mules
slowly winding along the cragged defile, sometimes
descending precipitous cliffs, so as to present themselves
in full relief against the sky, sometimes
toiling up the deep arid chasms below you. As
they approach, you descry their gay decorations of
worsted tufts, tassels, and saddle-cloths; while, as
they pass by, the ever ready trabucho, slung behind
their packs and saddles, gives a hint of the
insecurity of the road.
The ancient kingdom of Granada into which we
are about to penetrate, is one of the most mountainous
regions of Spain. Vast sierras or chains
of mountains, destitute of shrub or tree, and mottled
with variegated marbles and granites, elevate
their sun-burnt summits against a deep blue sky,
yet in their rugged bosoms lie engulfed the most
verdant and fertile valley, where the desert and
the garden strive for mastery, and the very rock,
as it were, compelled to yield the fig, the orange,
and the citron, and to blossom with the myrtle and
the rose.
In the wild passes of these mountains, the sight
of walled towns and villages built like eagles' nests
among the cliffs, and surrounded by Moorish
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battlements, or of ruined watch-towers perched on
lofty peaks, carry the mind back to the chivalrous
days of Christian and Moslem warfare, and to the
romantic struggle for the conquest of Granada. In
traversing their lofty Sierras, the traveller is often
obliged to alight and lead his horse up and down
the steep and jagged ascents and descents, resembling
the broken steps of a staircase. Sometimes
the road winds along dizzy precipices, without parapet
to guard him from the gulfs below, and then
will plunge down steep and dark and dangerous
declivities. Sometimes it struggles through rugged
barrancos, or ravines, worn by water torrents;
the obscure paths of the Contrabandista, while ever
and anon, the ominous cross, the memento of robbery
and murder, erected on a mound of stones at
some lonely part of the road, admonishes the traveller
that he is among the haunts of banditti; perhaps,
at that very moment, under the eye of some
lurking bandalero. Sometimes, in winding through
the narrow valleys, he is startled by a hoarse bellowing,
and beholds above him, on some green fold
of the mountain side, a herd of fierce Andalusian
bulls, destined for the combat of the arena. There
is something awful in the contemplation of these
terrific animals, clothed with tremendous strength,
and ranging their native pastures, in untamed
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wildness: strangers almost to the face of man. They
know no one but the solitary herdsman who attends
upon them, and even he at times dares not
venture to approach them. The low bellowings of
these bulls, and their menacing aspect as they look
down from their rocky height, give additional wildness
to the savage scenery around.
I have been betrayed unconsciously into a longer
disquisition than I had intended on the several features
of Spanish travelling; but there is a romance
about all the recollections of the Peninsula that is
dear to the imagination.
It was on the first of May that my companion
and myself set forth from Seville, on our route to
Granada. We had made all due preparations for
the nature of our journey, which lay through
mountainous regions where the roads are little better
than mere mule paths, and too frequently beset
by robbers. The most valuable part of our
luggage had been forwarded by the arrieros; we
retained merely clothing and necessaries for the
journey, and money for the expenses of the road,
with a sufficient surplus of the latter to satisfy the
expectations of robbers, should we be assailed, and to
save ourselves from the rough treatment that awaits
the too wary and empty handed traveller. A couple
of stout hired steeds were provided for
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ourselves, and a third for our scanty luggage, and for
the conveyance of a sturdy Biscayan lad of about
twenty years of age, who was to guide us through
the perplexed mazes of the mountain roads, to
take care of our horses, to act occasionally as our
valet, and at all times as our guard; for he had
a formidable trabucho, or carbine, to defend us
from rateros, or solitary footpads, about which
weapon he made much vain-glorious boast, though,
to the discredit of his generalship, I must say, that
it generally hung unloaded behind his saddle. He
was, however, a faithful, cheery, kind-hearted creature,
full of saws and proverbs as that miracle of
squires, the renowned Sancho himself, whose name
we bestowed upon him; and, like a true Spaniard,
though treated by us with companionable familiarity,
he never for a moment in his utmost hilarity,
outstripped the bounds of respectful decorum.
Thus equipped and attended, we set out on our
journey with a genuine disposition to be pleased:
with such a disposition, what a country is Spain for
a traveller, where the most miserable inn is as full
of adventure as an enchanted castle, and every
meal is in itself an achievement! Let others repine
at the lack of turnpike roads and sumptuous
hotels, and all the elaborate comforts of a country
cultivated into tameness and common-place, but
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give me the rude mountain scramble, the roving haphazard
way-faring, the frank, hospitable, though
half wild manners, that give such a true game flavour
to romantic Spain!
Our first evening's entertainment had a relish of
the kind. We arrived after sunset at a little town
among the hills, after a fatiguing journey over a
wide houseless plain, where we had been repeatedly
drenched with showers. In the inn were
quartered a party of Miguelistas, who were patrolling
the country in pursuit of robbers. The appearance
of foreigners like ourselves was unusual
in this remote town. Mine host with two or three
old gossipping comrades in brown cloaks studied
our passports in a corner of the posada, while an
Alguazil took notes by the dim light of a lamp.
The passports were in foreign languages, and perplexed
them, but our Squire Sancho assisted them
in their studies, and magnified our importance with
the grandiloquence of a Spaniard. In the mean
time the magnificent distribution of a few cigars
had won the hearts of all around us. In a little
while the whole community seemed put in agitation
to make us welcome. The Corregidor himself
waited upon us, and a great rush-bottomed armed
chair was ostentatiously bolstered into our room by
our landlady, for the accommodation of that
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important personage. The commander of the patrol
took supper with us: a surly, talking, laughing,
swaggering Andaluz, who had made a campaign in
South America, and recounted his exploits in love
and war with much pomp of phrase and vehemence
of gesticulation, and mysterious rolling of the eye.
He told us he had a list of all the robbers in the
country, and meant to ferret out every mother's son
of them; he offered us at the same time some of
his soldiers as an escort. “One is enough to protect
you, Signors, the robbers know me, and know my
men; the sight of one is enough to spread terror
through a whole sierra.” We thanked him for his
offer, but assured him, in his own strain, that with
the protection of our redoubtable Squire Sancho,
we were not afraid of all the ladrones of Andalusia.
While we were supping with our Andalusian
friend, we heard the notes of a guitar and the
click of castanets, and presently, a chorus of voices,
singing a popular air. In fact, mine host had gathered
together the amateur singers and musicians
and the rustic belles of the neighbourhood, and
on going forth, the court-yard of the inn presented
a scene of true Spanish festivity. We took our
seats with mine host and hostess and the commander
of the patrol, under the archway of the court.
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The guitar passed from hand to hand, but a jovial
shoemaker was the Orpheus of the place. He was
a pleasant looking fellow with huge black whiskers
and a roguish eye. His sleeves were rolled up to
his elbows; he touched the guitar with masterly
skill, and sang little amorous ditties with an expressive
leer at the women, with whom he was evidently
a favourite. He afterwards danced a fandango
with a buxom Andalusian damsel, to the great delight
of the spectators. But none of the females
present could compare with mine host's pretty
daughter Josefa, who had slipped away and made
her toilette for the occasion, and had adorned her
head with roses; and also distinguished herself in
a bolero with a handsome young dragoon. We
had ordered our host to let wine and refreshments
circulate freely among the company, yet, though
there was a motley assemblage of soldiers, muleteers
and villagers, no one exceeded the bounds of
sober enjoyment. The scene was a study for a
painter: the picturesque group of dancers; the
troopers in their half military dresses, the peasantry
wrapped in their brown cloaks, nor must I omit
to mention the old meagre Alguazil in a short black
cloak, who took no notice of any thing going on,
but sat in a corner diligently writing by the dim
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light of a huge copper lamp that might have figured
in the days of Don Quixote.
I am not writing a regular narrative, and do
not pretend to give the varied events of several
days' rambling over hill and dale, and moor and
mountain. We travelled in true contrabandista
style, taking every thing, rough and smooth, as we
found it, and mingling with all classes and conditions
in a kind of vagabond companionship. It is
the true way to travel in Spain. Knowing the
scanty larders of the inns, and the naked tracts of
country the traveller has often to traverse, we had
taken care, on starting, to have the alforjas, or saddle-bags
of our Squire well stocked with cold provisions,
and his beta, or leathern bottle, which was
of portly dimensions, filled to the neck with choice
Valdepenas wine. As this was a munition for our
campaign more important than even his trabucho,
we exhorted him to have an eye to it, and I will
do him the justice to say that his namesake, the
trencher-loving Sancho himself, could not excel
him as a provident purveyor. Though the alforjas
and beta were repeatedly and vigorously assailed
throughout the journey, they appeared to have a
miraculous property of being never empty; for our
vigilant Squire took care to sack every thing that
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remained from our evening repasts at the inns, to
supply our next day's luncheon.
What luxurious noontide repasts have we made
on the green sward by the side of a brook or fountain
under a shady tree, and then what delicious
siestas on our cloaks spread out on the herbage!
We paused one day at noon, for a repast of the
kind. It was in a pleasant little green meadow,
surrounded by hills covered with olive trees. Our
cloaks were spread on the grass under an elm tree,
by the side of a babbling rivulet: our horses were
tethered where they might crop the herbage, and
Sancho produced his alforjas with an air of triumph.
They contained the contributions of four days' journeying,
but had been signally enriched by the foraging
of the previous evening, in a plenteous inn
at Antequera. Our Squire drew forth the heterogeneous
contents one by one, and they seemed to
have no end. First came forth a shoulder of roasted
kid, very little the worse for wear, then an entire
partridge, then a great morsel of salted codfish
wrapped in paper, then the residue of a ham,
then the half of a pullet, together with several rolls
of bread and a rabble route of oranges, figs, raisins,
and walnuts. His beta also had been recruited
with some excellent wine of Malaga. At every
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fresh apparition from his larder, he could enjoy our
ludicrous surprise, throwing himself back on the
grass and shouting with laughter.
Nothing pleased this simple-hearted varlet more
than to be compared, for his devotion to the trencher,
to the renowned squire of Don Quixote. He
was well versed in the history of the Don, and,
like most of the common people of Spain, he firmly
believed it to be a true history.
“All that, however, happened a long time ago,
Signor,” said he to me, one day, with an inquiring
look.
“A very long time,” was the reply.
“I dare say, more than a thousand years?”—
still looking dubiously.
“I dare say? not less.”
The squire was satisfied.
As we were making our repast above described,
and diverting ourselves with the simple drollery of
our squire, a solitary beggar approached us, who
had almost the look of a pilgrim. He was evidently
very old, with a gray beard, and supported himself
on a staff, yet age had not borne him down;
he was tall and erect, and had the wreck of a fine
form. He wore a round Andalusian hat, a sheep-skin
jacket, and leathern breeches, gaiters and
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sandals. His dress, though old and patched, was
decent, his demeanour manly, and he addressed us
with that grave courtesy that is to be remarked in
the lowest Spaniard. We were in a favourable
mood for such a visiter, and in a freak of capricious
charity gave him some silver, a loaf of fine
wheaten bread, and a goblet of our choice wine of
Malaga. He received them thankfully, but without
any grovelling tribute of gratitude. Tasting
the wine, he held it up to the light, with a slight
beam of surprise in his eye; then quaffing it off at
a draught; “It is many years,” said he, “since I
have tasted such wine. It is a cordial to an old
man's heart.” Then looking at the beautiful
wheaten loaf; “Bendita sea tal pan!” (blessed be
such bread!) So saying, he put it in his wallet.
We urged him to eat it on the spot. “No, Signors,”
replied he, “the wine I had to drink, or
leave; but the bread I must take home to share
with my family.”
Our man Sancho sought our eye, and reading
permission there, gave the old man some of the
ample fragments of our repast; on condition, however,
that he should sit down and make a meal.
He accordingly took his seat at some little distance
from us, and began to eat, slowly, and with a
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sobriety and decorum that would have become a hidalgo.
There was altogether a measured manner
and a quiet self-possession about the old man that
made me think he had seen better days; his language,
too, though simple, had occasionally something
picturesque and almost poetical in the phraseology.
I set him down for some broken down cavalier.
I was mistaken, it was nothing but the innate
courtesy of a Spaniard, and the poetical turn
of thought and language often to be found in the
lowest classes of this clear witted people. For fifty
years, he told us, he had been a shepherd, but now
he was out of employ, and destitute. “When I
was a young man,” said he, “nothing could harm or
trouble me. I was always well, always gay; but
now I am seventy-nine years of age, and a beggar,
and my heart begins to fail me.”
Still he was not a regular mendicant, it was not
until recently that want had driven him to this degradation,
and he gave a touching picture of the
struggle between hunger and pride, when abject
destitution first came upon him. He was returning
from Malaga, without money; he had not tasted
food for some time, and was crossing one of the
great plains of Spain, where there were but few
habitations. When almost dead with hunger, he
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applied at the door of a venta, or country inn.
“Perdona usted per Dios hermano!” (excuse us, brother,
for God's sake!) was the reply;—the usual
mode in Spain of refusing a beggar. “I turned
away,” said he, “with shame greater than my
hunger, for my heart was yet too proud. I came
to a river with high banks and deep rapid current,
and felt tempted to throw myself in; what should
such an old worthless wretched man as I live for!”
But, when I was on the brink of the current, I
thought on the blessed Virgin, and turned away. I
travelled on until I saw a country-seat, at a little
distance from the road, and entered the outer gate of
the court-yard. The door was shut, but there were
two young signoras at a window. I approached,
and begged: “Perdona usted per Dios hermano!”
(excuse us, brother, for God's sake!) and the window
closed. I crept out of the court-yard; but
hunger overcame me, and my heart gave way. I
thought my hour was at hand. So I laid myself
down at the gate, commended myself to the holy
Virgin, and covered my head to die. In a little
while afterwards, the master of the house came
home. Seeing me lying at his gate, he uncovered
my head, had pity on my gray hairs, took me into
his house and gave me food. So, Signors, you see
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that we should always put confidence in the protection
of the Virgin.
The old man was on his way to his native place
Archidona, which was close by the summit of a
steep and rugged mountain. He pointed to the
ruins of its old Moorish castle. That castle, he
said, was inhabited by a Moorish king at the time
of the wars of Granada. Queen Isabella invaded
it with a great army, but the king looked down
from his castle among the clouds, and laughed her
to scorn. Upon this, the Virgin appeared to the
queen, and guided her and her army up a mysterious
path of the mountain, which had never
before been known. When the Moor saw her
coming, he was astonished, and springing with his
horse from a precipice was dashed to pieces. The
marks of his horse's hoofs, said the old man, are to
be seen on the margin of the rock to this day. And
see, Signors, yonder is the road by which the
queen and her army mounted; you see it like a
riband up the mountain side; but the miracle is,
that, though it can be seen at a distance, when
you come near, it disappears. The ideal road to
which he pointed, was evidently a sandy ravine of
the mountain, which looked narrow and defined at
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a distance, but became broad and indistinct on an
approach. As the old man's heart warmed with
wine and wassail, he went on to tell us a story of the
buried treasure left under the earth by the Moorish
king. His own house was next to the foundations
of the castle. The curate and notary dreamt
three times of the treasure, and went to work at
the place pointed out in their dreams. His own son-in-law
heard the sound of their pick-axes and
spades at night. What they found nobody knows;
they became suddenly rich, but kept their own secret.
Thus the old man had once been next door
to fortune, but was doomed never to get under the
same roof.
I have remarked that the stories of treasure buried
by the Moors, which prevail throughout Spain,
are most current among the poorest people. It is
thus kind nature consoles with shadows for the lack
of substantials. The thirsty man dreams of fountains
and roaring streams, the hungry man of ideal
banquets, and the poor man of heaps of hidden
gold; nothing certainly is more magnificent than
the imagination of a beggar.
The last travelling sketch which I shall give is
a curious scene at the little city of Loxa. This
was a famous belligerent frontier post, in the time
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of the Moors, and repulsed Ferdinand from its
walls. It was the strong-hold of old Ali Atar, the
father-in-law of Boabdil, when that fiery veteran
sallied forth with his son-in-law, on that disastrous
inroad, that ended in the death of the chieftain,
and the capture of the monarch. Loxa is wildly
situated in a broken mountain pass, on the banks
of the Xenil, among rocks and groves, and meadows
and gardens. The people seem still to retain the
bold fiery spirit of the olden time. Our inn was
suited to the place. It was kept by a young, handsome,
Andalusian widow, whose trim busquina of
black silk fringed with bugles, set off the play of a
graceful form, and round pliant limbs. Her step
was firm and elastic, her dark eye was full of fire,
and the coquetry of her air, and varied ornaments
of her person showed that she was accustomed
to be admired.
She was well matched by a brother, nearly about
her own age; they were perfect models of the Andalusian
majo and maja. He was tall, vigorous, and
well formed, with a clear, olive complexion, a dark
beaming eye, and curling, chestnut whiskers, that
met under his chin. He was gallantly dressed in a
short green velvet jacket, fitted to his shape, profusely
decorated with silver buttons, with a white
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handkerchief in each pocket. He had breeches
of the same, with rows of buttons from the hips to
the knees; a pink silk handkerchief round his neck,
gathered through a ring, on the bosom of a neatly
plaited shirt; a sash round the waist to match; bottinas
or spatterdashes of the finest russet leather,
elegantly worked and open at the calves to show
his stockings, and russet shoes setting off a well
shaped foot.
As he was standing at the door, a horseman rode
up and entered into low and earnest conversation
with him. He was dressed in similar style, and almost
with equal finery. A man about thirty,
square built, with strong Roman features, handsome,
though slightly pitted with the small-pox,
with a free, bold and somewhat daring air. His
powerful black horse was decorated with tassels
and fanciful trappings, and a couple of broad-mouthed
blunderbusses hung behind the saddle. He
had the air of those contrabandistas that I have
seen in the mountains of Ronda, and, evidently, had
a good understanding with the brother of mine
hostess; nay, if I mistake not, he was a favourite
admirer of the widow. In fact, the whole inn, and
its inmates had something of a contrabandista aspect,
and the blunderbuss stood in a corner beside
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the guitar. The horseman I have mentioned,
passed his evening in the posada, and sang several
bold mountain romances with great spirit.
As we were at supper, two poor Asturians put
in in distress, begging food and a night's lodging.
They had been waylaid by robbers, as they came
from a fair among the mountains, robbed of a horse,
which carried all their stock in trade, stripped of
their money and most of their apparel, beaten for
having offered resistance, and left almost naked in
the road. My companion, with a prompt generosity,
natural to him, ordered them a supper and a
bed, and gave them a supply of money to help them
forward towards their home.
As the evening advanced, the dramatis personæ
thickened. A large man, about sixty years of age,
of powerful frame, came strolling in, to gossip with
mine hostess. He was dressed in the ordinary
Andalusian costume, but had a huge sabre tucked
under his arm, wore large moustaches and had
something of a lofty swaggering air. Every one
seemed to regard him with great deference.
Our man, Sancho, whispered to us that he was
Don Ventura Rodriguez, the hero and champion
of Loxa, famous for his prowess and the strength
of his arm. In the time of the French invasion,
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he surprized six troopers who were asleep. He
first secured their horses, then attacked them with
his sabre; killed some, and took the rest prisoners.
For this exploit, the king allows him a peceta, (the
fifth of a duro, or dollar,) per day, and has dignified
him with the title of Don.
I was amused to notice his swelling language
and demeanour. He was evidently a thorough
Andalusian, boastful as he was brave. His sabre
was always in his hand, or under his arm. He carries
it always about with him as a child does a
doll, calls it his Santa Teresa, and says, that when
he draws it, “tembla la tierra!” (the earth trembles!)
I sat until a late hour listening to the varied
themes of this motley groupe, who mingled together
with the unreserve of a Spanish posada. We
had contrabandista songs, stories of robbers, guerilla
exploits, and Moorish legends. The last one
from our handsome landlady, who gave a poetical
account of the infiernos, or infernal regions
of Loxa—dark caverns, in which subterraneous
streams and waterfalls make a mysterious sound.
The common people say they are money coiners,
shut up there from the time of the Moors, and that
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the Moorish kings kept their treasures in these caverns.
Were it the purport of this work, I could fill its
pages with the incidents and scenes of our rambling
expedition, but other themes invite me. Journeying
in this manner, we at length emerged from
the mountains, and entered upon the beautiful
Vega of Granada. Here we took our last midday's
repast under a grove of olive trees, on the
borders of a rivulet, with the old Moorish capital
in the distance, dominated by the ruddy towers of
the Alhambra, while far above it the snowy summits
of the Sierra Nevada shone like silver. The
day was without a cloud, and the heat of the sun
tempered by cool breezes from the mountains; after
our repast, we spread our cloaks and took our
last siesta, lulled by the humming of bees among
the flowers, and the notes of the ring doves from
the neighbouring olive trees. When the sultry
hours were past, we resumed our journey, and after
passing between hedges of aloes and Indian
figs, and through a wilderness of gardens, arrived
about sun-set at the gates of Granada.
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To the traveller imbued with a feeling for the
historical and poetical, the Alhambra of Granada is
as much an object of veneration as is the Caaba, or
sacred house of Mecca, to all true Moslem pilgrims.
How many legends and traditions, true and fabulous,
how many songs and romances, Spanish and Arabian,
of love and war and chivalry, are associated
with this romantic pile! The reader may judge,
therefore, of our delight, when, shortly after our arrival
in Granada, the governor of Alhambra gave us
permission to occupy his vacant apartments in the
Moorish palace. My companion was soon summoned
away by the duties of his station, but I remained
for several months spell-bound in the old
enchanted pile. The following papers are the result
of my reveries and researches, during that delicious
thraldom. If they have the power of imparting
any of the witching charms of the place to
the imagination of the reader, he will not repine
at lingering with me for a season in the legendary
halls of the Alhambra.
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GOVERNMENT OF THE ALHAMBRA.
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The Alhambra is an ancient fortress or castellated
palace of the Moorish kings of Granada,
where they held dominion over this their boasted terrestrial
paradise, and made their last stand for empire
in Spain. The palace occupies but a portion
of the fortress, the walls of which, studded with
towers, stretch irregularly round the whole crest of
a lofty hill that overlooks the city, and forms a
spire of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountain.
In the time of the Moors, the fortress was capable
of containing an army of forty thousand men
within its precincts, and served occasionally as a
strong-hold of the sovereigns against their rebellious
subjects. After the kingdom had passed into
the hands of the Christians, the Alhambra continued
a royal demesne, and was occasionally
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inhabited by the Castilian monarchs. The Emperor
Charles V., began a sumptuous palace within its
walls, but was deterred from completing it by repeated
shocks of earthquakes. The last royal residents
were Philip V. and his beautiful Queen
Elizabetta, of Parma, early in the eighteenth century.
Great preparations were made for their reception.
The palace and gardens were placed in a
state of repair; and a new suite of apartments
erected, and decorated by artists brought from Italy.
The sojourn of the sovereigns was transient;
and, after their departure, the palace once more
became desolate. Still the place was maintained
with some military state. The governor held it
immediately from the crown: its jurisdiction extended
down into the suburbs of the city, and was
independent of the captain general of Granada.
A considerable garrison was kept up; the governor
had his apartments in the old Moorish palace, and
never descended into Granada without some military
parade. The fortress, in fact, was a little town
of itself, having several streets of houses within its
walls, together with a Franciscan convent and a
parochial church.
The desertion of the court, however, was a fatal
-- 043 --
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blow to the Alhambra. Its beautiful walls became
desolate, and some of them fell to ruin: the gardens
were destroyed, and the fountains ceased to
play. By degrees the dwellings became filled up
with a loose and lawless population; contrabandistas,
who availed themselves of its independent jurisdiction,
to carry on a wide and daring course of
smuggling, and thieves and rogues of all sorts, who
made this their place of refuge, from whence they
might depredate upon Granada and its vicinity.
The strong arm of government at length interposed.
The whole community was thoroughly sifted; none
were suffered to remain but such as were of honest
character and had legitimate right to a residence;
the greater part of the houses were demolished,
and a mere hamlet left, with the parochial
church and the Franciscan convent.
During the recent troubles in Spain, when Granada
was in the hands of the French, the Alhambra
was garrisoned by their troops, and the palace
was occasionally inhabited by the French commander.
With that enlightened taste which has ever
distinguished the French nation in their conquests,
this monument of Moorish elegance and grandeur
was rescued from the absolute ruin and desolation
that were overwhelming it. The roofs were
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repaired, the saloons and galleries protected from
the weather, the gardens cultivated, the water-courses
restored, the fountains once more made to
throw up their sparkling showers: and Spain may
thank her invaders for having preserved to her the
most beautiful and interesting of her historical monuments.
On the departure of the French, they blew up
several towers of the outer wall, and left the fortifications
scarcely tenable. Since that time, the military
importance of the post is at an end. The
garrison is a handful of invalid soldiers, whose principal
duty is to guard some of the outer towers,
which serve, occasionally, as a prison of state; and
the governor, abandoning the lofty hill of the Alhambra,
resides in the centre of Granada, for the more
convenient despatch of his official duties. I cannot
conclude this brief notice of the state of the
fortress, without bearing testimony to the honourable
exertions of its present commander Don Francisco
de Salis Serna, who is tasking all the limited
resources at his command, to put the palace in a
state of repair; and by his judicious precautions,
has for some time arrested its too certain decay.
Had his predecessors discharged the duties of their
station with equal fidelity, the Alhambra might
-- 045 --
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yet have remained in almost its pristine beauty;
were government to second him with means equal
to his zeal, this edifice might still be preserved to
adorn the land, and to attract the curious and enlightened
of every clime, for many generations.
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INTERIOR OF THE ALHAMBRA.
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The Alhambra has been so often and so minutely
described by travellers, that a mere sketch will
probably be sufficient for the reader to refresh his
recollection; I will give, therefore, a brief account
of our visit to it the morning after our arrival in
Granada.
Leaving our posada of La Espada, we traversed
the renowned square of the Vivarrambla, once the
scene of Moorish jousts and tournaments, now a
crowded market place. From thence we proceeded
along the Zacatin, the main street of what was
the great Bazaar, in the time of the Moors, where
the small shops and narrow alleys still retain their
Oriental character. Crossing an open place in
front of the palace of the captain-general, we ascended
a confined and winding street, the name of
-- 048 --
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which reminded us of the chivalric days of Granada.
It is called the Calle, or street of the Gomeres:
from a Moorish family, famous in chronicle
and song. This street led up to a mansion gateway
of Grecian architecture, built by Charles V.,
forming the entrance to the domains of the Alhambra.
At the gate were two or three ragged and superannuated
soldiers dozing on a stone bench, the
successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages;
while a tall, meagre varlet, whose rusty brown
cloak was, evidently, intended to conceal the ragged
state of his nether garments, was lounging in
the sunshine, and gossipping with an ancient sentinel,
on duty. He joined us as we entered the
gate, and offered his services to show us the fortress.
I have a traveller's dislike to officious ciceroni,
and did not altogether like the garb of the applicant:
“You are well acquainted with the place, I
presume?”
“Ninguno mas—pues, señor, soy hijo de la Alhambra.”
(Nobody better—in fact, sir, I am a son of the
Alhambra.)
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The common Spaniards have certainly a most
poetical way of expressing themselves—“A son of
the Alhambra:” the appellation caught me at once;
the very tattered garb of my new acquaintance
assumed a dignity in my eyes. It was emblematic
of the features of the place, and became the progeny
of a ruin.
I put some farther questions to him, and found
his title was legitimate. His family had lived in
the fortress from generation to generation ever
since the time of the conquest. His name was
Mateo Ximenes. “Then, perhaps,” said I, “you
may be a descendant from the great Cardinal
Ximenes.”
“Dios sabe! God knows, señor. It may be so.
We are the oldest family in the Alhambra. Viejos
Cristianos, old Christians, without any taint of
Moor or Jew. I know we belong to some great family
or other, but I forget who. My father knows
all about it. He has the coat of arms hanging up
in his cottage, up in the fortress.”—There is never
a Spaniard, however poor, but has some claim to
high pedigree. The first title of this ragged worthy,
however, had completely captivated me, so I
gladly accepted the services of the “son of the
Alhambra.”
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We now found ourselves in a deep narrow ravine,
filled with beautiful groves, with a steep
avenue and various foot-paths winding through
it, bordered with stone seats and ornamented with
fountains. To our left, we beheld the towers of the
Alhambra beetling above us; to our right, on the
opposite side of the ravine, we were equally dominated
by rival towers on a rocky eminence. These,
we were told, were the Torres Vermejos, or Vermilion
towers, so called from their ruddy hue. No
one knows their origin. They are of a date much
anterior to the Alhambra. Some suppose them to
have been built by the Romans; others, by some
wandering colony of Phœnicians. Ascending the
steep and shady avenue, we arrived at the foot of a
huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind of barbican,
through which passed the main entrance to the
fortress. Within the barbican was another groupe
of veteran invalids, one mounting guard at the portal,
while the rest, wrapped in their tattered
cloaks, slept on the stone benches. This portal is
called the Gate of Justice, from the tribunal held
within its porch during the Moslem domination,
for the immediate trial of petty causes; a custom
common to the Oriental nations, and occasionally
alluded to in the sacred Scriptures.
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The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is
formed by an immense Arabian arch of the horse-shoe
form, which springs to half the height of the
tower. On the key-stone of this arch is engraven a
gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the key-stone
of the portal, is engraven, in like manner, a
gigantic key. Those who pretend to some knowledge
of Mahometan symbols, affirm, that the hand
is the emblem of doctrine, and the key, of faith;
the latter, they add, was emblazoned on the standard
of the Moslems when they subdued Andalusia,
in opposition to the Christian emblem of the cross.
A different explanation, however, was given by the
legitimate “son of the Alhambra,” and one more
in unison with the notions of the common people,
who attach something of mystery and magic to
every thing Moorish, and have all kinds of superstitions
connected with this old Moslem fortress.
According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed
down from the oldest inhabitants, and which he had
from his father and grandfather, that the hand and
key were magical devices on which the fate of the
Alhambra depended. The Moorish king who built
it was a great magician, and, as some believed, had
sold himself to the devil, and had laid the whole
fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had
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remained standing for several hundred years, in defiance
of storms and earthquakes, while almost all
the other buildings of the Moors had fallen to ruin
and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on
to say, would last until the hand on the outer arch
should reach down and grasp the key, when the
whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures
buried beneath it by the Moors, would be
revealed.
Notwithstanding this ominous prediction, we ventured
to pass through the spell-bound gateway,
feeling some little assurance against magic art in
the protection of the Virgin, a statue of whom we
observed above the portal.
After passing through the Barbican, we ascended
a narrow lane, winding between walls, and
came on an open esplanade within the fortress,
called the Plaza de los Algibes, or Place of the
Cisterns, from great reservoirs which undermine
it, cut in the living rock by the Moors, for the supply
of the fortress. Here, also, is a well of immense
depth, furnishing the purest and coldest of
water,—another monument of the delicate taste
of the Moors, who were indefatigable in their exertions
to obtain that element in its crystal purity.
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In front of this esplanade is the splendid pile,
commenced by Charles V., intended, it is said, to
eclipse the residence of the Moslem kings. With
all its grandeur and architectural merit, it appeared
to us like an arrogant intrusion, and passing
by it we entered a simple unostentatious portal,
opening into the interior of the Moorish palace.
The transition was almost magical; it seemed as
if we were at once transported into other times
and another realm, and were treading the scenes
of Arabian story. We found ourselves in a great
court paved with white marble and decorated at
each end with light Moorish peristyles. It is
called the court of the Alberca. In the centre
was an immense basin, or fish-pool, a hundred and
thirty feet in length, by thirty in breadth, stocked
with gold-fish, and bordered by hedges of roses.
At the upper end of this court, rose the great tower
of Comares.
From the lower end, we passed through a Moorish
arch-way into the renowned Court of Lions.
There is no part of the edifice that gives us a more
complete idea of its original beauty and magnificence
than this; for none has suffered so little from
the ravages of time. In the centre stands the
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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 court is
laid out in flower beds, and surrounded by light
Arabian arcades of open filigree work, supported by
slender pillars of white marble. The architecture,
like that of all the other parts of the palace, is
characterized by elegance, rather than grandeur,
bespeaking a delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition
to indolent enjoyment. When we look
upon the fairy tracery of the peristyles, and the
apparently fragile fret-work of the walls, it is difficult
to believe that so much has survived the
wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes,
the violence of war, and the quiet, though
no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveller.
It is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition,
that the whole is protected by a magic
charm.
On one side of the court, a portal richly adorned
opens into a lofty hall paved with white marble,
and called the Hall of the two Sisters. A cupola or
lantern admits a tempered light from above, and a
free circulation of air. The lower part of the
walls is incrusted with beautiful Moorish tiles, on
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some of which are emblazoned the escutcheons of
the Moorish monarchs: the upper part is faced
with the fine stucco work invented at Damascus,
consisting of large plates cast in moulds and
artfully joined, so as to have the appearance of
having been laboriously sculptured by the hand into
light relievos and fanciful arabesques, intermingled
with texts of the Koran, and poetical inscriptions
in Arabian and Celtic characters. These decorations
of the walls and cupolas are richly gilded,
and the interstices panneled with lapis lazuli and
other brilliant and enduring colours. On each
side of the wall are recesses for ottomans and
arches. Above an inner porch, is a balcony which
communicated with the women's apartment. The
latticed balconies still remain, from whence the
dark-eyed beauties of the harem might gaze unseen
upon the entertainments of the hall below.
It is impossible to contemplate this once favourite
abode of Oriental manners, without feeling the
early associations of Arabian romance, and almost
expecting to see the white arm of some mysterious
princess beckoning from the balcony, or some dark
eye sparkling through the lattice. The abode of
beauty is here, as if it had been inhabited but yesterday—
but where are the Zoraydas and Linderaxas!
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On the opposite side of the court of Lions, is the
hall of the Abencerrages, so called from the gallant
cavaliers of that illustrious line, who were here
perfidiously massacred. There are some who
doubt the whole truth of this story, but our humble
attendant, Mateo, pointed out the very wicket
of the portal through which they are said to have
been introduced, one by one, and the white marble
fountain in the centre of the hall, where they
were beheaded. He showed us also certain broad
ruddy stains in the pavement, traces of their blood,
which, according to popular belief, can never be
effaced. Finding we listened to him with easy
faith, he added, that there was often heard at night,
in the Court of the Lions, a low confused sound, resembling
the murmurings of a multitude; with now
and then a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of
chains. These noises are probably produced by
the bubbling currents and tinkling falls of water,
conducted under the pavement through pipes and
channels to supply the fountains; but according to
the legend of the son of the Alhambra, they are
made by the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages,
who nightly haunt the scene of their suffering, and
invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer.
From the Court of Lions, we retraced our steps
through the court of the Alberca, or great
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fish-pool, crossing which, we proceeded to the tower of
Comares, so called from the name of the Arabian
architect. It is of massive strength, and lofty
height, domineering over the rest of the edifice,
and overhanging the steep hill side, which descends
abruptly to the banks of the Darro. A Moorish
archway admitted 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 wall
are richly stuccoed and decorated with arabesques,
the vaulted ceilings of cedar wood, almost lost in
obscurity from its height, still gleam 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, looking down upon
the verdant valley of the Darro, the streets and
convents of the Albaycin, and command a prospect
of the distant Vega. I might go on to describe the
other delightful apartments of this side of the palace;
the Tocador or toilet of the Queen, an open
belvedere on the summit of the tower, where the
Moorish sultanas enjoyed the pure breezes from
the mountain and the prospect of the surrounding
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paradise. The secluded little patio or garden of
Lindaraxa, with its alabaster fountain, its thickets
of roses and myrtles, of citrons and oranges. The
cool halls and grottoes of the baths, where the
glare and heat of day are tempered into a self-mysterious
light and a pervading freshness. But I
appear to dwell minutely on these scenes. My
object is merely to give the reader a general introduction
into an abode, where, if disposed, he
may linger and loiter with me through the remainder
of this work, gradually becoming familiar
with all its beauties.
An abundant supply of water, brought from the
mountains by old Moorish aqueducts, circulates
throughout the palace, supplying its baths and fish-pools,
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 pastures, 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 whole hill of the Alhambra.
Those, only, who have sojourned in the ardent
climates of the South, can appreciate the delights
of an abode combining the breezy coolness of the
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mountain with the freshness and verdure of the
valley.
While the city below pants with the noon-tide
heat, and the parched Vega trembles to the eye,
the delicate airs from the Sierra Nevada play
through the lofty halls, bringing with them the
sweetness of the surrounding gardens. Every thing
invites to that indolent repose, the bliss of Southern
climes; and while the half shut eye looks out from
shaded balconies upon the glittering landscape, the
ear is lulled by the rustling of groves, and the murmur
of running streams.
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THE TOWER OF COMARES.
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The reader has had a sketch of the interior of
the Alhambra, and may be desirous of a general
idea of its vicinity. The morning is serene and
lovely; the sun has not gained sufficient power to
destroy the freshness of the night; we will mount
to the summit of the tower of Comares, and take a
bird's eye view of Granada and its environs.
Come, then, worthy reader and comrade, follow
my steps into this vestibule ornamented with rich
tracery, which opens to the hall of Ambassadors.
We will not enter the hall, however, but turn to
the left, to this small door, opening in the wall.
Have a care! here are steep winding steps and but
scanty light. Yet, up this narrow, obscure and
winding staircase, the proud monarchs of Granada
and their queens have often ascended to the
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battlements of the tower to watch the approach of Christian
armies; or to gaze on the battles in the Vega.
At length we are upon the terraced roof, and may
take breath for a moment, while we cast a general
eye over the splendid panorama of city and country,
of rocky mountain, verdant valley and fertile plain;
of castle, cathedral, Moorish towers and Gothic
domes, crumbling ruins and blooming groves.
Let us approach the battlements and cast our
eyes immediately below. See,—on this we have
the whole plan of the Alhambra laid open to us, and
can look down into its courts and gardens. At the
foot of the tower is the Court of the Alberca with its
great tank or fish-pool bordered with flowers; and
yonder is the Court of Lions, with its famous fountain,
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.
That belt of battlements studded with square
towers, straggling round the whole brow of the
hill, is the outer boundary of the fortress. Some of
the towers, you may perceive are in ruins, and
their massive fragments are buried among vines,
fig-trees and aloes.
Let us look on this northern side of the tower.
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It is a giddy height; the very foundations of the
tower rise above the groves of the steep hill-side.
And see, a long fissure in the massive walls shows
that the tower has been rent by some of the earthquakes,
which from time to time have thrown Granada
into consternation; and which, sooner or
later, must reduce this crumbling pile to a mere
mass of ruin. The deep narrow glen below us,
which gradually widens as it opens from the mountains,
is the valley of the Darro; you see the little
river winding its way under embowered terraces,
and among orchards and flower gardens. It is a
stream famous in old times for yielding gold, and
its sands are still sifted, occasionally, in search of the
precious ore.
Some of those white pavilions which here and
there gleam from among groves and vineyards,
were rustic retreats of the Moors, to enjoy the refreshment
of their gardens.
The airy palace with its tall white towers and
long arcades, which breast you mountain, among
pompous groves and hanging gardens, is the Generaliffe,
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
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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 the time of an insurrection, where he
seated himself and looked down mournfully upon
his rebellious city.
A murmuring sound of water now and then
rises from the valley. It is from the aqueduct of
yon Moorish mill nearly at the foot of the hill.
The avenue of trees beyond, is the Alameda along
the bank of the Darro, a favourite resort in evenings,
and a rendezvous of lovers in the summer
nights, when the guitar may be heard at a late
hour from the benches along its walks. At present
there are but a few loitering monks to be seen
there, and a group of water carriers from the
fountain of Avellanos.
You start! 'Tis nothing but a hawk we have
frightened from his nest. This old tower is a complete
brooding-place for vagrant birds. The swallow
and martlet abound in every chink and cranny,
and circle about it the whole day long; while at
night, when all other birds have gone to rest, the
moping owl comes out of its lurking place, and utters
its boding cry from the battlements. See
how the hawk we have dislodged sweeps away
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below us, skimming over the tops of the trees,
and sailing up to ruins above the Generaliffe.
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 the heights
you may still discern warrior towns, whose gray
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 if 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 gray and naked
mountain, almost insulated from the rest, and
stretching its bald rocky promontory into the bosom
of the plain, 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.
Behind that promontory, is the eventful bridge
-- 066 --
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of Pinos, renowned for many a bloody strife between
Moors and Christians; but still more renowned as
being the place where Columbus was overtaken
and called back by the messenger of Queen Isabella,
just as he was departing in despair to carry
his project of discovery to the court of France.
Behold another place famous in the history of
the discoverer: yon line of walls and towers, gleaming
in the morning sun in the very centre of the
Vega; the city of Santa Fe, built by the Catholic
sovereigns during the siege of Granada, after a
conflagration had destroyed their camp. It was to
these walls that Columbus was called back by
the heroic queen, and within them the treaty was
concluded that led to the discovery of the Western
World.
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 farm-houses and hovels which
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are now inhabited by the 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 the
unfortunate Boabdil cast back his last look upon
Granada and gave vent to the agony of his soul.
It is the spot famous in song and story, “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 on 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 glorious pile of mountains that gives to Granada
that combination of delights so rare in a southern
city. The fresh vegetation, and the 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
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through every glen and gorge of the Alpuxarras,
diffusing emerald verdure and fertility throughout
a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.
These mountains may well be called the glory
of Granada. They dominate the whole extent of
Andalusia, and may be seen from its most distant
parts. The muleteer hails them as he views their
frosty peaks from the sultry level of the plain; and
the Spanish mariner on the deck of his bark, far,
far off, on the bosom of the blue Mediterranean,
watches them with a pensive eye, thinks of delightful
Granada, and chants in low voice some
old romance about the Moors.
But enough, the sun is high above the mountains,
and is pouring his full fervour upon our heads. Already
the terraced roof of the town is hot beneath
our feet; let us abandon it, and descend and refresh
ourselves under the arcades by the fountain
of the Lions.
-- 069 --
REFLECTIONS ON THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SPAIN.
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
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
-- 070 --
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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.
As I sat watching the effect of the declining day-light
upon this Moorish pile, I was led into a consideration
of the light, elegant and voluptuous character
prevalent throughout its internal architecture,
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
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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.
Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees, the
mixed hordes of Asia and Africa that formed this
great irruption, gave up the Moslem principles of
conquest, and sought to establish in Spain a peaceful
and permanent dominion. As conquerors their
heroism was only equalled by their moderation; and
in both, for a time, they excelled the nations with
whom they contended. Severed from their native
homes, they loved the land given them, as they
supposed, 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
formed an empire unrivalled for its prosperity,
by any of the empires of Christendom; and
-- 072 --
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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 chivalry.
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
-- 073 --
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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 Normandy.
With all this, however, the Moslem empire in
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.
Never was the annihilation of a people more
complete than that of the Morisco Spaniards.
Where are they? Ask the shores of Barbary and
-- 074 --
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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 usurpers. A few broken
monuments are all that remain to bear witness
to their power and dominion, as solitary rocks
left far in the interior bear testimony to the extent
of some vast inundation. Such is the Alhambra.
A Moslem pile in the midst of a Christian land; an
oriental palace amidst the Gothic edifices of the
west; an elegant memento of a brave, intelligent
and graceful people, who conquered, ruled, and
passed away.
-- 075 --
THE HOUSEHOLD.
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
It is time that I give some idea of my domestic
arrangements in this singular residence. 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 more neighbourly appellation of Tia
Antonia (Aunt Antonia.) She maintains the Moorish
halls and gardens in order, and shows them to
strangers; in consideration of which, she is allowed
all the perquisites received from visiters and all the
produce of the gardens, excepting that she is expected
to pay an occasional tribute of fruits and
flowers to the governor. Her residence is in a corner
of the palace, and her family consists of a nephew
and niece, the children of two different brothers.
The nephew, Manuel Molina, is a young
-- 076 --
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man of sterling worth and Spanish gravity. He
has served in the armies both in Spain and the
West Indies, but is now studying medicine in hopes
of one day or other becoming physician to the fortress,
a post worth at least a hundred and forty
dollars a year. As to the niece, she is a plump little
black-eyed Andalusian damsel named Dolores,
but who from her bright looks and cheerful disposition
merits a merrier name. She is the declared
heiress of all her aunt's possessions, consisting of
certain ruinous tenements in the fortress, 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.
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
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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 the outer gate of the fortress,
and to weave himself into all my plans, until he
has fairly appointed and installed himself my valet,
cicerone, guide, guard and historio-graphic squire;
and I have been obliged to improve the state of
his wardrobe, that he may not disgrace his various
functions, so that he has cast off his old brown mantle,
as a snake does his skin, and now figures about
the fortress with a smart Andalusian hat and jacket,
to his infinite satisfaction and the great astonishment
of his comrades. The chief fault of honest
Mateo is an over anxiety to be useful. Conscious
of having foisted himself into my employ,
and that my simple and quiet habits render his situation
a sinecure, he is at his wit's end to devise
modes of making himself important to my welfare.
I am in a manner the victim of his officiousness; I
cannot put my foot over the threshold of the palace
to stroll about the fortress, but he is at my elbow
to explain every thing I see, and if I venture
to ramble among the surrounding hills, he insists
-- 078 --
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upon attending me as a guard, though I vehehemently
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 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 information, having the most marvellous
stories to relate of every tower, and vault
and gateway of the fortress, in all of which he
places the most implicit faith.
Most of these he has derived, according to his own
account, from his grandfather, a little legendary tailor,
who lived to the age of nearly a hundred years,
during which he made but two migrations beyond
the precincts of the fortress. His shop, for the
greater part of a century, was the resort of a knot
of venerable gossips, where they would pass half
the night talking about old times and the wonderful
events and hidden secrets of the place.
The whole living, moving, thinking and acting of
this little historical tailor, had thus been bounded
by the walls of the Alhambra; within them he had
been born, within them he lived, breathed and
-- 079 --
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had his being, within them he died and was buried.
Fortunately for posterity his traditionary
lore died not with him. The authentic Mateo.
when an urchin, used to be an attentive listener
to the narratives of his grandfather and of the
gossip group assembled round the shop board, and
is thus possessed of a stock of valuable knowledge
concerning the Alhambra, not to be found in the
books, and well worthy the attention of every curious
traveller.
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
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romantic retreats of the mountains and delicious
haunts of the adjacent valleys, not one of which,
but is the scene of some wonderful tale.
Though fond of passing the greater part of my
day alone, yet I occasionally repair in the evenings
to the little domestic circle of Doña Antonia. This
is generally held in an old Moorish chamber, that
serves for kitchen as well as hall, a rude fire-place
having been made in one corner, the smoke from
which, has discoloured the walls and almost obliterated
the ancient arabesques. A window with a
balcony overhanging the valley of the Darro, lets
in the cool evening breeze, and here I take my
frugal supper of fruit and milk, and mingle with
the conversation of the family. There is a natural
talent, or mother wit, as it is called, about the
Spaniards, which renders them intellectual and
agreeable companions, whatever may be their condition
in life, or however imperfect may have
been their education; add to this, they are never
vulgar; nature has endowed them with an inherent
dignity of spirit. The good Tia Antonia is a
woman of strong and intelligent, though uncultivated
mind, and the bright-eyed Dolores, though
she has read but three or four books in the whole
course of her life, has an engaging mixture of
-- 081 --
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naivete and good sense, and often surprises me by
the pungency of her artless sallies. Sometimes
the nephew entertains us by reading some old comedy
of Calderon or Lope de Vega, to which he is
evidently prompted by a desire to improve as well
as amuse his cousin Dolores, though to his great
mortification the little damsel generally falls asleep
before the first act is completed. Sometimes Tia
Antonia has a little bevy of humble friends and dependants,
the inhabitants of the adjacent hamlet,
or the wives of the invalid soldiers. These look up
to her with great deference as the custodian of the
palace, and pay their court to her by bringing the
news of the place, or the rumours that may have
straggled up from Granada. In listening to the
evening gossipings, I have picked up many curious
facts, illustrative of the manners of the people and
the peculiarities of the neighbourhood.
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
-- 082 --
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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 inhale 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.
-- 083 --
THE TRUANT.
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
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 house-keeping
she had fitted up a small chamber
-- 084 --
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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 more praise-worthy
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 staid at home, the
other foraged abroad for food, and brought home
abundant supplies.
This scene of conjugal felicity has suddenly met
with a reverse. Early this morning, as Dolores was
feeding the male pigeon, she took a fancy to give
him a peep at the great world. Opening a window,
therefore, which looks down upon the valley
of the Darro, she launched him at once beyond
the walls of the Alhambra. For the first time in his
life the astonished bird had to try the full vigour
of his wings. He swept down into the valley, and
then rising upwards with a surge, soared almost to
-- 085 --
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the clouds. Never before had he risen to such a
height or experienced such delight in flying, and
like a young spendthrift, just come to his estate,
he seemed giddy with excess of liberty, and with
the boundless field of action suddenly opened to
him. For the 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 seems to have lost all thought
of home, 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
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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.
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
-- 087 --
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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.
—“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 and surrendered himself
prisoner. He gained little credit, however, by
his return, for the ravenous manner in which he
devoured the food set before him, showed that,
like the prodigal son, he had been driven home by
sheer famine. Dolores upbraided him for his faithless
conduct, calling him all manner of vagrant
names, though woman-like, she fondled him at the
same time to her bosom and covered him with
kisses. I observed, however, that she had taken
-- 088 --
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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.
-- 089 --
THE AUTHOR'S CHAMBER.
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one
end of a suite of empty chambers of modern architecture,
intended for the residence of the governor,
was fitted up for my reception. It was in
front of the palace, looking forth upon the esplanade.
The farther end communicated with a cluster of
little 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
Moors, but a fire-place had been built in one corner,
the smoke from which had discoloured the
walls; nearly obliterated the ornaments, and spread
a sombre tint over the whole. From these gloomy
apartments, a narrow blind corridor and a dark
winding stair-case led down an angle of the tower
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of Comares; groping down which, and opening a
small door at the bottom, you are suddenly dazzled
by emerging into the brilliant antechamber of the
hall of ambassadors, with the fountain of the court
of the Alberca sparkling before you.
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.
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
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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 fruit and garlands of flowers,
painted by no mean hand, and in tolerable preservation.
The walls had also been painted in
fresco in the Italian style, but the paintings were
nearly obliterated. The windows were in the same
shattered state as in the other chambers.
This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an
open 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 inquiry, 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
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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 another
window played the alabaster fountain of the
garden of Lindaraxa. That garden carried my
thoughts still farther back, to the period of another
reign of beauty; to the days of the Moorish sultanas.
“How beauteous is this garden!” says an
Arabic inscription, “where the flowers of the earth
vie with 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!”
Centuries had elapsed, yet how much of this
scene of apparently fragile beauty remained! The
garden of Lindaraxa was still adorned with flowers;
the fountain still presented its crystal mirror:
it is true, the alabaster had lost its whiteness, and
the basin beneath, overrun with weeds, had become
the nestling place of the lizard; but there
was something in the very decay that enhanced
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the interest of the scene, speaking, as it did, of
that mutability which is the irrevocable lot of man
and all his works. The desolation, too, of these
chambers, once the abode 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.
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 visiters 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
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a wild cat that kept about the vaults and roamed
about at night.
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.
With all these precautions, I must confess the
first night I passed in these quarters was inexpressibly
dreary. I was escorted by the whole family
to my chamber, and there taking leave of me, and
retiring along the waste antechamber and echoing
galleries, 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!
A vague and indescribable awe was creeping
over me. I would fain have ascribed it to the
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thoughts of robbers, awakened by the evening's
conversation, but I felt that it was something more
unusual and absurd. In a word, the long buried
impressions of the nursery were reviving and asserting
their power over my imagination. Every
thing began to be affected by the workings of my
mind. The whispering of the wind among the citron
trees beneath my window had something sinister.
I cast my eyes into the garden of Lindaraxa;
the groves presented a gulf of shadows;
the thickets had indistinct and ghastly shapes. I
was glad to close the window; but my chamber
itself became infected. A bat had found its way
in, and flitted about my head and athwart my
solitary lamp; the grotesque faces carved in the
cedar ceiling seemed to mope and mow at me.
Rousing myself, and half smiling at this temporary
weakness, I resolved to brave it, and, taking
lamp in hand, sallied forth to make a tour of the
ancient palace. Notwithstanding every mental
exertion, the task was a severe one. The rays of
my lamp extended 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
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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.
In this excited state, as I was traversing the
great Hall of Ambassadors, there were added
real sounds to these conjectural fancies. Low
moans and indistinct ejaculations seemed to rise
as it were from beneath my feet; I paused and
listened. They then appeared to resound from
without the tower. Sometimes they resembled
the howlings of an animal, at others 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.
When I awoke in the morning, with the sun
shining in at my window, and lighting up every
part of the building with its cheerful and truth-telling
beams, I could scarcely recal the shadows
and fancies conjured up by the gloom of the
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preceding night; or believe that the scenes around me,
so naked and apparent, could have been clothed
with such imaginary horrors.
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.
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THE ALHAMBRA BY MOONLIGHT.
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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.
I have sat for hours at my window inhaling the
sweetness of the garden, and musing on the chequered
features of those whose history is dimly
shadowed out in the elegant memorials around.
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Sometimes I have issued forth at midnight when
every thing was quiet, and have wandered over
the whole building. Who can do justice to a
moonlight night in such a climate, and in such a
place! The temperature of an Andalusian midnight,
in summer, is perfectly etherial. We seem
lifted up into a purer atmosphere; there is a serenity
of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity
of frame that render mere existence enjoyment.
The effect of moonlight, too, on the Alhambra
has something like enchantment. Every rent and
chasm of time, every mouldering tint and weather
stain disappears; the marble resumes its original
whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in
the moon beams; the halls are illuminated 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
clouds against the darker firmament, and all the
outlines of the mountain would be softened, yet delicately
defined. My delight, however, would be
to lean over the parapet of the tocador, and gaze
down upon Granada, spread out like a map below
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me: all buried in deep repose, and its white palaces
and convents sleeping as it were in the moonshine.
Sometimes I would hear the faint sounds of castanets
from some party of dancers lingering 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.
Such are the scenes that have detained me for
many an hour loitering about the courts and balconies
of the castle, enjoying that mixture of reverie
and sensation which steal away existence in a
southern climate—and it has been almost morning
before I have retired to my bed, and been lulled
to sleep by the falling waters of the fountain of
Lindaraxa.
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-- 103 --
INHABITANTS OF THE ALHAMBRA.
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I have often observed that the more proudly a
mansion has been tenanted in the day of its prosperity,
the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its
decline, and that the palace of the king commonly
ends in being the nestling place of the beggar.
The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition:
whenever a tower falls to decay, it is seized
upon by some tatterdemalion family, who become
joint tenants with the bats and owls of its gilded
halls, and hang their rags, those standards of poverty,
out of its windows and loop-holes.
I have amused myself with remarking some of
the motley characters that have thus usurped the
ancient abode of royalty, and who seem as if placed
here to give a farcical termination to the drama
of human pride. One of these even bears the
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mockery of a royal title. It is a little old woman
named Maria Antonia Sabonea, but who goes by
the appellation of la Reyna Cuquina, or the cockle
queen. She is small enough to be a fairy, and a fairy
she may be for aught I can find out, for on one
seems to know her origin. Her habitation is a kind of
closet under the outer staircase of the palace, and
she sits in the cool stone corridor plying her needle
and singing from morning till night, with a ready
joke for every one that passes, for though one of
the poorest, she is one of the merriest little women
breathing. Her great merit is a gift for story telling;
having, I verily believe, as many stories at
her command as the inexhaustible Scheherezade
of the thousand and one nights. Some of these
I have heard her relate in the evening tertulias
of Doña Antonia, at which she occasionally is an
humble attendant.
That there must be some fairy gift about this
mysterious little old woman, would appear from
her extraordinary luck, since, notwithstanding her
being very little, very ugly, and very poor, she has
had, according to her own account, five husbands and
a half; reckoning as a half, one, a young dragoon
who died during courtship.
A rival personage to this little fairy queen is a
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portly old fellow with a bottle nose, who goes about
in a rusty garb, with a cocked hat of oil skin and
a red cockade. He is one of the legitimate sons of the
Alhambra, and has lived here all his life, filling
various offices; such as deputy Alguazil, sexton of
the parochial church, and marker of a five's court
established at the foot of one of the towers. He is
as poor as a rat, but as proud as he is ragged, boasting
of his descent from the illustrious house of Aguilar,
from which sprang Gonsalvo of Cordova, the
Grand captain. Nay, he actually bears the name
of Alonzo de Aguilar, so renowned in the history
of the conquest, though the graceless wags of the fortress
have given him the title of el Padre Santo, or
the Holy Father, the usual appellation of the pope,
which I had thought too sacred in the eyes of true
catholics to be thus ludicrously applied. It is a
whimsical caprice of fortune, to present in the grotesque
person of this tatterdemalion a namesake
and descendant of the proud Alonzo de Aguilar, the
mirror of Andalusian chivalry, leading an almost
mendicant exstence about this once haughty fortress,
which his ancestor aided to reduce; yet such
might have been the lot of the decendants of Agamemnon
and Achilles, had they lingered about the
ruins of Troy.
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Of this motley community I find the family of
my gossiping squire Mateo Ximenes to form, from
their numbers at least, a very important part.
His boast of being a son of the Alhambra is not unfounded.
This family has inhabited the fortress ever
since the time of the conquest, handing down a hereditary
poverty from father to son, not one of them
having ever been known to be worth a marevedi.
His father, by trade a riband weaver, and who succeeded
the historical tailor as the head of the family,
is now near seventy years of age, and lives in a hovel
of reeds and plaster, built by his own hands, just
above the iron gate. The furniture consists of a crazy
bed, a table, and two or three chairs; a wooden
chest, containing his clothes, and the archives of his
family; that is to say, a few papers concerning old
law-suits which he cannot read; but the pride of
his heart is a blazon of the arms of the family, brilliantly
coloured and suspended in a frame against
the wall, clearly demonstrating by its quarterings
the various noble houses with which this poverty-stricken
brood claim affinity.
As to Mateo himself, he has done his utmost
to perpetuate his line; having a wife, and a numerous
progeny who inhabit an almost dismantled
hovel in the hamlet. How they manage to
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subsist, He only who sees into all mysteries can
tell—the subsistence of a Spanish family of the
kind is always a riddle to me; yet they do subsist,
and, what is more, appear to enjoy their existence.
The wife takes her holyday stroll in the Paseo of
Granada, with a child in her arms, and half a
dozen at her heels, and the eldest daughter, now
verging into womanhood, dresses her hair with
flowers, and dances gaily to the castanets.
There are two classes of people to whom life
seems one long holyday, the very rich and the
very poor; one because they need do nothing, the
other because they have nothing to do; but there
are none who understand the art of doing nothing
and living upon nothing better than the poor classes
of Spain. Climate does one half and temperament
the rest. Give a Spaniard the shade in summer,
and the sun in winter, a little bread, garlic,
oil and garbanzos, an old brown cloak and a guitar,
and let the world roll on as it pleases. Talk of
poverty, with him it has no disgrace. It sits upon
him with a grandioso style, like his ragged cloak.
He is a hidalgo even when in rags.
The “Sons of the Alhambra” are an eminent
illustration of this practical philosophy. As the
Moors imagined that the celestial paradise hung
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over this favoured spot, so I am inclined, at times,
to fancy that a gleam of the golden age still lingers
about this ragged community. They possess nothing,
they do nothing, they care for nothing.
Yet, though apparently idle all the week, they
are as observant of all holydays and saints' days as
the most laborious artisan. They attend all fêtes
and dancings in Granada and its vicinity, light bonfires
on the hills of St. John's eve and have lately
danced away the moonlight nights, on the harvest
home of a small field of wheat within the precincts
of the fortress.
Before concluding these remarks I must mention
one of the amusements of the place which has
particularly struck me. I had repeatedly observed
a long lean fellow perched on the top of
one of the towers manœuvring two or three fishing
rods, as though he was angling for the stars. I
was for some time perplexed by the evolutions of
this aerial fisherman, and my perplexity increased
on observing others employed in like manner, on
different parts of the battlements and bastions; it
was not until I consulted Mateo Ximenes that I
solved the mystery.
It seems that the pure and airy situation of this
fortress has rendered it, like the castle of
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Macbeth, a prolific breeding-place for swallows and
martlets, who sport about its towers in myriads,
with the holyday glee of urchins just let loose from
school. To entrap these birds in their giddy circlings,
with hooks baited with flies, is one of the
favourite amusements of the ragged “Sons of the
Alhambra,” who, with the good for nothing ingenuity
of arrant idlers, have thus invented the art
of angling in the sky.
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-- 111 --
THE BALCONY.
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In the Hall of Ambassadors, at the central window,
there is a balcony of which I have already
made mention. It projects like a cage from the
face of the tower, high in mid-air, above the tops
of the trees that grow on the steep hill-side. It
answers me as a kind of observatory, where I often
take my seat to consider, not merely the heavens
above, but the “earth beneath.” Beside the magnificent
prospect which it commands, of mountain.
valley and Vega, there is a busy little scene of human
life laid open to inspection immediately below.
At the foot of the hill is an alameda or public
walk, which, though not so fashionable as the
more modern and splendid paseo of the Xenil, still
boasts a varied and picturesque concourse, especially
on holydays and Sundays. Hither resort the
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small gentry of the suburbs, together with priests
and friars who walk for appetite and digestion;
majos and majas, the beaux and belles of the lower
classes in their Andalusian dresses; swaggering contrabandistas,
and sometimes half-muffled and mysterious
loungers of the higher ranks, on some silent
assignation.
It is a moving picture of Spanish life which I
delight to study; and as the naturalist has his microscope
to assist him in his curious investigations,
so I have a small pocket telescope which brings
the countenances of the motley groupes so close as
almost at times to make me think I can divine
their conversation by the play and expression of
their features. I am thus, in a manner, an invisible
observer, and without quitting my solitude, can
throw myself in an instant into the midst of society—
a rare advantage to one of somewhat shy and quiet
habits.
Then there is a considerable suburb lying below
the Alhambra, filling the narrow gorge of the valley,
and extending up the opposite hill of the Albaycin.
Many of the houses are built in the Moorish
style, round patios or courts cooled by fountains
and open to the sky; and as the inhabitants pass
much of their time in these courts and on the
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terraced roofs during the summer season, it follows
that many a glance at their domestic life may be
obtained by an aerial spectator like myself, who
can look down on them from the cluds.
I enjoy, in some degree, the advantages of the
student in the famous old Spanish story, who beheld
all Madrid unroofed for his inspection; and
my gossipping squire Mateo Ximenes, officiates
occasionally as my Asmodeus, to give me anecdotes
of the different mansions and their inhabitants.
I prefer, however, to form conjectural histories
for myself; and thus can sit up aloft for hours,
weaving from casual incidents and indications that
pass under my eye, the whole tissue of schemes, intrigues
and occupations, carrying on by certain of
the busy mortals below us. There is scarce a pretty
face or striking figure that I daily see, about which
I have not thus gradually framed a dramatic story;
though some of my characters will occasionally act
in direct opposition to the part assigned them, and
disconcert my whole drama.
A few days since as I was reconnoitring with
my glass the streets of the Albaycin, I beheld the
procession of a novice about to take the veil; and
remarked various circumstances that excited the
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strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being
thus about to be consigned to a living tomb.
I ascertained, to my satisfaction, that she was beautiful;
and, by the paleness of her cheek, that she
was a victim, rather than a votary. She was arrayed
in bridal garments, and decked with a chaplet
of white flowers; but her heart evidently revolted
at this mockery of a spiritual union, and
yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern looking
man walked near her in the procession; it was
evidently the tyrannical father, who, from some
bigoted or sordid motive, had compelled this sacrifice.
Amidst the crowd was a dark, handsome,
youth, in Andalusian garb, who seemed to fix on
her an eye of agony. It was doubtless the secret
lover from whom she was for ever to be separated.
My indignation rose as I noted the malignant exultation
painted in the countenances of the attendant
monks and friars. The procession arrived
at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for
the last time upon the chaplet of the poor novice
as she crossed the fatal threshold and disappeared
from sight. The throng poured in with cowl and
cross and minstrelsy. The lover paused for a moment
at the door, I could understand the tumult
of his feelings, but he mastered them and entered.
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There was a long interval—I pictured to myself
the scene passing within.—The poor novice despoiled
of her transient finery—clothed in the conventual
garb; the bridal chaplet taken from her
brow; her beautiful head shorn of its long silken
tresses—I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow—
I saw her extended on her bier; the death pall
spread over; the funeral service performed that
proclaimed her dead to the world; her sighs were
drowned in the wailing anthem of the nuns and
the sepulchral tones of the organ—the father
looked, unmoved, without a tear—the lover—no—
my fancy refused to portray the anguish of the lover—
there the picture remained a blank—The
ceremony was over: the crowd again issued forth
to behold the day and mingle in the joyous stir of
life—but the victim with her bridal chaplet was
no longer there—the door of the convent closed
that secured her from the world for ever. I saw
the father and the lover issue forth—they were in
earnest conversation—the young man was violent
in his gestures, when the wall of a house intervened
and shut them from my sight.
That evening I noticed a solitary light twinkling
from a remote lattice of the convent. There,
said I, the unhappy novice sits weeping in her
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cell, while her lover paces the street below in unavailing
anguish.
—The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations
and destroyed in an instant, the cobweb tissue
of my fancy. With his usual zeal he had
gathered facts concerning the scene that had interested
me. The heroine of my romance was
neither young nor handsome—she had no love—
she had entered the convent of her own free will,
as a respectable asylum, and was one of the cheerfulest
residents within its walls!
I felt at first half vexed with the nun for being
thus happy in her cell, in contradiction to all the
rules of romance; but diverted my spleen by
watching for a day or two, the pretty coquetries
of a dark-eyed brunette, who, from the covert of
a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs and a
silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious correspondence
with a handsome, dark, well-whiskered
cavalier, in the street beneath her window.
Sometimes I saw him, at an early hour, stealing
forth, wrapped to the eyes in a mantle. Sometimes
he loitered at the corner, in various disguises,
apparently waiting for a private signal to
slip into the bower. Then there was a tinkling
of a guitar at night, and a lantern shifted from
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place to place in the balcony. I imagined another
romantic intrigue like that of Almaviva, but
was again disconcerted in all my suppositions by
being informed that the supposed lover was the
husband of the lady, and a noted contrabandista:
and that all his mysterious signs and movements
had doubtless some smuggling scheme in view.
Scarce had the gray dawn streaked the sky
and the earliest cock crowed from the cottages of
the hill-side, when the suburbs gave sign of reviving
animation; for the fresh hours of dawning
are precious in the summer season in a sultry climate.
All are anxious to get the start of the sun
in the business of the day. The muleteer drives
forth his loaded train for the journey; the traveller
slings his carbine behind his saddle and
mounts his steed at the gate of the hostel. The
brown peasant urges his loitering donkeys, laden
with panniers of sunny fruit and fresh dewy vegetables;
for already the thrifty housewives are
hastening to the market.
The sun is up and sparkles along the valley,
topping the transparent foliage of the groves. The
matin bells resound melodiously through the pure
bright air, announcing the hour of devotion. The
muleteer halts his burdened animals before the
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chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and
enters with hat in hand, smoothing his coal black
hair, to hear a mass and put up a prayer for a prosperous
wayfaring across the Sierra.
And now steals forth with fairy foot the gentle
Señora, in trim busquina; with restless fan in hand
and dark eye flashing from beneath her gracefully
folded mantilla. She seeks some well frequented
church to offer up her orisons; but the nicely adjusted
dress; the dainty shoe and cobweb stocking;
the raven tresses scrupulously braided, the
fresh plucked rose that gleams among them like
a gem, show that earth divides with heaven the
empire of her thoughts.
As the morning advances, the din of labour augments
on every side; the streets are thronged with
man and steed, and beast of burden; the universal
movement produces a hum and murmur like the
surges of the ocean. As the sun ascends to his
meridian the hum and bustle gradually decline:
at the height of noon there is a pause; the panting
city sinks into lassitude, and for several hours there
is a general repose. The windows are closed;
the curtains drawn; the inhabitants retired into
the coolest recesses of their mansions. The fullfed
monk snores in his dormitory. The brawny
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porter lies stretched on the pavement beside his burden.
The peasant and the labourer sleep beneath
the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the sultry
chirping of the locust. The streets are deserted
except by the water carrier, who refreshes the
ear by proclaiming the merits of his sparkling
beverage,—“Colder than mountain snow.”
As the sun declines there is again a gradual reviving,
and when the vesper bell rings out his sinking
knell, all nature seems to rejoice that the tyrant
of the day has fallen.
Now begins the bustle of enjoyment. The citizens
pour forth to breathe the evening air, and
revel away the brief twilight in the walks and
gardens of the Darro and the Xenil.
As the night closes, the motley scene assumes
new features. Light after light gradually twinkles
forth; here a taper from a balconied window;
there a votive lamp before the image of a saint.
Thus by degrees the city emerges from the pervading
gloom, and sparkles with scattered lights
like the starry firmament. Now break forth from
court, and garden, and street, and lane, the tinkling
of innumerable guitars and the clicking of castanets,
blending at this lofty height, in a faint and
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general concert. “Enjoy the moment,” is the
creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at
no time does he practise it more zealously than in
the balmy nights of summer, wooing his mistress
with the dance, the love ditty and the passionate
serenade.
I was seated one evening in the balcony enjoying
the light breeze that came rustling along the
side of the hill among the tree-tops, when my
humble historiographer Mateo, who was at my elbow,
pointed out a spacious house in an obscure
street of the Albaycin, about which he related, as
nearly as I can recollect, the following anecdote—
THE ADVENTURE OF THE MASON.
There was once upon a time a poor mason, or
bricklayer in Granada, who kept all the saints'
days and holydays, and saint Monday into the bargain,
and yet, with all his devotion, he grew poorer
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and poorer, and could scarcely earn bread for
his numerous family. One night he was roused
from his first sleep by a knocking at his door. He
opened it and beheld before him a tall meagre cadaverous
looking priest. “Hark ye, honest friend,”
said the stranger, “I have observed that you are
a good Christian, and one to be trusted; will you
undertake a job this very night?”
“With all my heart, Señor Padre, on condition
that I am paid accordingly.”
“That you shall be, but you must suffer yourself
to be blindfolded.”
To this the mason made no objection; so being
hoodwinked, he was led by the priest through various
rough lanes and winding passages until they
stopped before the portal of a house. The priest
then applied a key, turned a creaking lock and
opened what sounded like a ponderous door. They
entered, the door was closed and bolted, and the
mason was conducted through an echoing corridor
and spacious hall, to an interior part of the building.
Here the bandage was removed from his
eyes, and he found himself in a patio, or court, dimly
lighted by a single lamp.
In the centre was the dry basin of an old Moorish
fountain, under which the priest requested him
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to form a small vault, bricks and mortar being at
hand for the purpose. He accordingly worked all
night, but without finishing the job. Just before
day-break the priest put a piece of gold into his
hand, and having again blindfolded him, conducted
him back to his dwelling.
“Are you willing,” said he, “to return and complete
your work?”
“Gladly, Señor Padre, provided I am as well
paid.”
“Well then, to-morrow at midnight I will call
again.”
He did so, and the vault was completed. “Now,”
said the priest, “you must help me to bring forth
the bodies that are to be buried in this vault.”
The poor mason's hair rose on his head at these
words; he followed the priest with trembling steps,
into a retired chamber of the mansion, expecting
to behold some ghastly spectacle of death, but was
relieved, on perceiving three or four portly jars
standing in one corner. They were evidently full
of money, and it was with great labour that he
and the priest carried them forth and consigned
them to their tomb. The vault was then closed,
the pavement replaced and all traces of the work
obliterated.
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The mason was again hoodwinked and led forth
by a route different from that by which he had
come. After they had wandered for a long time
through a perplexed maze of lanes and alleys,
they halted. The priest then put two pieces of
gold into his hand. “Wait here,” said he, “until
you hear the cathedral bell toll for matins. If you
presume to uncover your eyes before that time.
evil will befal you.” So saying he departed.
The mason waited faithfully, amusing himself
by weighing the gold pieces in his hand and clinking
them against each other. The moment the
cathedral bell rung its matin peal, he uncovered
his eyes and found himself on the banks of the Xenil;
from whence he made the best of his way
home, and revelled with his family for a whole
fortnight on the profits of his two nights' work,
after which he was as poor as ever.
He continued to work a little and pray a good
deal, and keep holydays and saints' days from year
to year, while his family grew up as gaunt and
ragged as a crew of gipsies.
As he was seated one morning at the door of
his hovel, he was accosted by a rich old curmudgeon
who was noted for owning many houses and
being a griping landlord.
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The man of money eyed him for a moment, from
beneath a pair of shagged eye-brows.
“I am told, friend, that you are very poor.”
“There is no denying the fact, Señor; it speaks
for itself.”
“I presume, then, you will be glad of a job, and
will work cheap.”
“As cheap, my master, as any mason in Granada.”
“That's what I want. I have an old house
fallen to decay, that costs me more money than it
is worth to keep it in repair, for nobody will live
in it; so I must contrive to patch it up and keep
it together at as small expense as possible.”
The mason was accordingly conducted to a huge
deserted house that seemed going to ruin. Passing
through several empty halls and chambers, he entered
an inner court where his eye was caught by
an old Moorish fountain.
He paused for a moment. “It seems,” said he, “as
if I had been in this place before; but it is like a
dream—Pray who occupied this house formerly?”
“A pest upon him!” cried the landlord. “It
was an old miserly priest, who cared for nobody
but himself. He was said to be immensely rich,
and, having no relations, it was thought he would
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leave all his treasure to the church. He died
suddenly, and the priests and friars thronged to
take possession of his wealth, but nothing could
they find but a few ducats in a leathern purse.
The worst luck has fallen on me; for since his
death, the old fellow continues to occupy my house
without paying rent, and there's no taking the law
of a dead man. The people pretend to hear at
night the clinking of gold all night long in the
chamber where the old priest slept, as if he were
counting over his money, and sometimes a groaning
and moaning about the court. Whether true
or false, these stories have brought a bad name
on my house, and not a tenant will remain in it.”
“Enough,” said the mason sturdily—“Let me
live in your house rent free until some better tenant
presents, and I will engage to put it in repair
and quiet the troubled spirits that disturb it. I
am a good Christian and a poor man, and am not
to be daunted by the devil himself, even though
he come in the shape of a big bag of money.”
The offer of the honest mason was gladly accepted;
he moved with his family into the house,
and fulfilled all his engagements. By little and
little he restored it to its former state. The clinking
of gold was no longer heard at night in the
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chamber of the defunct priest, but began to be
heard by day in the pocket of the living mason.
In a word, he increased rapidly in wealth, to the
admiration of all his neighbours, and became one of
the richest men in Granada. He gave large sums
to the church, by way, no doubt, of satisfying his
conscience, and never revealed the secret of the
wealth until on his death-bed, to his son and heir.
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A RAMBLE AMONG THE HILLS.
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I frequently amuse myself towards the close
of the day, when the heat has subsided, with taking
long rambles about the neighbouring hills and the
deep umbrageous valleys, accompanied by my historiographer
Squire Mateo, to whose passion for
gossiping, I, on such occasions, give the most unbounded
license; and there is scarce a rock or ruin,
or broken fountain, or lonely glen, about which he
has not some marvellous story; or, above all, some
golden legend; for never was poor devil so munificent
in dispensing hidden treasures.
A few evenings since we took a long stroll of the
kind, in which Mateo was more than usually communicative.
It was towards sunset that we sallied
forth from the great Gate of Justice, and
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ascending an alley of trees, Mateo paused under a clump
of fig and pomegranate trees at the foot of a huge
ruined tower, called the Tower of the Seven Vaults,
(de los siete suelos.) Here, pointing to a low arch-way
at the foundation of the tower, he informed
me, in an under tone, was the lurking-place of a
monstrous sprite or hobgoblin called the Belludo,
which had infested the tower ever since the time
of the Moors; guarding, it is supposed, the treasures
of a Moorish king. Sometimes it issues forth
in the dead of the night, and scours the avenues
of the Alhambra and the streets of Granada in the
shape of a headless horse, pursued by six dogs, with
terrific yells and howlings.
“But have you ever met with it yourself, Mateo,
in any of your rambles?”
“No, señor; but my grandfather, the tailor,
knew several persons who had seen it; for it went
about much more in his time than at present:
sometimes in one shape, sometimes in another.
Every body in Granada has heard of the Belludo,
for the old women and nurses frighten the children
with it when they cry. Some say it is the spirit
of a cruel Moorish king, who killed his six sons,
and buried them in these vaults, and that they
hunt him at nights in revenge.”
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Mateo went on to tell many particulars about
this redoubtable hobgoblin, which has, in fact, been
time out of mind a favourite theme of nursery tale
and popular tradition in Granada, and is mentioned
in some of the antiquated guide books. When he
had finished, we passed on, skirting the fruitful orchards
of the Generaliffe; among the trees of which
two or three nightingales were pouring forth a
rich strain of melody. Behind these orchards we
passed a number of Moorish tanks, with a door cut
into the rocky bosom of the hill, but closed up.
These tanks Mateo informed me were favourite
bathing-places of himself and his comrades in boyhood,
until frightened away by a story of a hideous
Moor, who used to issue forth from the door in the
rock to entrap unwary bathers.
Leaving these haunted tanks behind us, we
pursued our ramble up a solitary mule-path that
wound among the hills, and soon found ourselves
amidst wild and melancholy mountains, destitute
of trees, and here and there tinted with scanty
verdure. Every thing within sight was severe and
sterile, and it was scarcely possible to realize the
idea that but a short distance behind us was the
Generaliffe, with its blooming orchards and terraced
gardens, and that we were in the vicinity of
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delicious Granada, that city of groves and fountains.
But such is the nature of Spain—wild and
stern the moment it escapes from cultivation, the
desert and the garden are ever side by side.
The narrow defile up which we were passing is
called, according to Mateo, el Barranco de la Tinaja,
or the ravine of the jar.
“And why so, Mateo?” inquired I.
“Because, señor, a jar full of Moorish gold was
found here in old times.” The brain of poor Mateo
is continually running upon these golden legends.
“But what is the meaning of the cross I see yonder
upon a heap of stones in that narrow part of
the ravine?”
“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
there used to be many loose fellows about the fortress;
but they've all been weeded out. Not but that
the gipsies who live in caves in the hill-sides just
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.”
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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 unfortunate 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,
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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.
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The deepening twilight, which in this climate is
of such short duration, admonished us to leave this
haunted ground. As we descended the mountain
defiles, there was no longer herdsman or muleteer
to be seen, nor any thing to be heard but our own
foot-steps and the lonely chirping of the cricket.
The shadows of the valleys grew deeper and deeper,
until all was dark around us. The lofty summit
of the Sierra Nevada alone retained a lingering
gleam of day-light, its snowy peaks glaring against
the dark blue firmament; and seeming close to us,
from the extreme purity of the atmosphere.
“How near the Sierra looks this evening!” said
Mateo, “it seems as if you could touch it with your
hand, and yet it is many long leagues off.” While
he was speaking a star appeared over the snowy
summit of the mountain, the only one yet visible
in the heavens, and so pure, so large, so bright
and beautiful as to call forth ejaculations of delight
from honest Mateo.
“Que lucero hermoso!—que claro y limpio es!—
no pueda ser lucero mas brillante!”—
(What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid!—
no star could be more brilliant!)
I have often remarked this sensibility of the
common people of Spain to the charms of natural
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objects—The lustre of a star—the beauty or fragrance
of a flower—the crystal purity of a fountain,
will inspire them with a kind of poetical delight—
and then what euphonous words their magnificent
language affords, with which to give utterance
to their transports!
“But what lights are those, Mateo, which I see
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,
and take turns, some to rest and warm themselves
by the fires, while others fill their panniers with
ice. They then set off down the mountain, so as
to reach the gates of Granada before sun-rise.
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
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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 mountains—
but then you would laugh at me, and say it was
one of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor.”
“By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I relish
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
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Sierra Nevada. You must know that a great
many years since, in my grandfather's time, there
was an old fellow, 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 surmounted
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
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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 army came marching by; there were
men that seemed to blow trumpets, and others to
beat drums and strike cymbals, yet never a sound
did they make; they all moved on without the
least noise, just as I have seen painted armies move
across the stage in the theatre of Granada, and all
looked as pale as death. At last in the rear of the
army, between two black Moorish horsemen, rode
the grand inquisitor of Granada, on a mule as white
as snow. Tio Nicolo wondered to see him in such
company; for the inquisitor was famous for his hatred
of Moors, and indeed, of all kinds of infidels,
Jews and heretics, and used to hunt them out with
fire and scourge—however, Tio Nicolo felt himself
safe, now that there was a priest of such sanctity
at hand. So, making the sign of the cross, he
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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 sun-rise,
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 bearing off the resemblance of the
priest, than folks dared to surmise.”
“Then you would insinuate, friend Mateo, that
there is a kind of Moorish limbo, or purgatory, in
the bowels of these mountains; to which the padre
inquisitor was borne off.”
“God forbid—Señor!—I know nothing of the
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matter—I only relate what I heard from my
grandfather.”
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.
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THE COURT OF LIONS.
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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 prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra
which 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 been displaced, not an arch of that
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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.
I write in the midst of these mementos of the
past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the
fated hall of the Abencerrages. The blood-stained
fountain, the legendary monument of their massacre,
is before me; the lofty jet almost casts its
dew upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile
the ancient tale of violence and blood, with the
gentle and peaceful scene around. Every thing
here appears calculated to inspire kind and happy
feelings, for every thing is delicate and beautiful.
The very light falls tenderly from above, through
the lantern of a dome tinted and wrought as if by
fairy hands. Through the ample and fretted arch
of the portal, I behold the Court of Lions, with
brilliant sunshine 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
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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
serenely 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
triumphant court, the pompous ceremonies of high
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
grand 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 mitred prelate, and shorn monk, and steel-clad
knight, and silken courtier: when crosses and croziers,
and religious standards were mingled with
proud armorial ensigns and the banners of the
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haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted in triumph
through these Moslem halls. I picture to myself
Columbus, the future discoverer of a world, taking
his modest stand in a remote corner, the humble
and neglected spectator of the pageant. I see in
imagination the Catholic 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 murdered Abencerrages. Mateo Ximenes,
a few evenings since, at one of the gatherings in
Dame Antonia's apartment, related a fact which
happened within the knowledge of his grandfather
the legendary tailor. There was an invalid soldier,
who had charge of the Alhambra, to show it
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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 attend upon them, when, to his astonishment,
he beheld four Moors richly dressed, with
gilded cuirasses and scimitars, and poniards glittering
with precious stones. They were walking to
and fro with solemn pace, but paused and beckoned
to him. The old soldier, however, took to
flight; and could never afterwards 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 treasures 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 richest 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 evenings
since, I was startled at beholding a turbaned
Moor quietly seated near the fountain. It seemed,
for a moment, as if one of the stories of Mateo
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Ximenes 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
conversation with him, and found him shrewd and
intelligent. 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 occasion,
and set them all to music. He who could
make the best verses, and she who had the most
tuneful voice, might be sure of favour and preferment.
In those days, if any one asked for bread,
the reply was, `Make me a couplet;' and the poorest
beggar, if he begged in rhyme, would often be
rewarded with a piece of gold.”
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“And is the popular feeling for poetry,” said I,
“entirely lost among you?”
“By no means, Señor; the people of Barbary,
even those of the lower classes still make couplets,
and good ones too, as in the old time, but talent is
not rewarded as it was then: the rich prefer the
jingle of their gold to the sound of poetry or
music.”
As he was talking, his eye caught one of the
inscriptions that foretold perpetuity to the power
and glory of the moslem monarchs, the masters of
the pile. He shook his head and shrugged his
shoulders as he interpreted it. “Such might have
been the case,” said he; “the moslems might still
have been reigning in the Alhambra, had not
Boabdil been a traitor, and given up his capitol to
the Christians. The Spanish monarchs would never
have been able to conquer it by open force.”
I endeavoured to vindicate the memory of the
unlucky Boabdil from this aspersion, and to show
that the dissensions which led to the downfal of the
Moorish throne, originated in the cruelty of his tiger-hearted
father; but the Moor would admit of
no palliation.
“Abul Hassan,” said he, “might have been
cruel, but he was brave, vigilant, and patriotic.
Had he been properly seconded, Granada would
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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 upon him for his treachery.” With
these words the Moor left the Alhambra.
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 to his moslem attendants,
the pasha stroked his beard, and broke forth
in passionate lamentations that such a sceptre
should have fallen from the sway of true believers.
He consoled himself, however, with the persuasion,
that the power and prosperity 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 Mahommedan worship would again
be offered up in the mosque of Cordova, and a
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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 descendants of the exiled Moors of
Granada, scattered among the cities of Barbary.
Several of these reside in Tetuan, preserving their
ancient names, such as Paez, and Medina, and refraining
from intermarriage with any families who
cannot claim the same 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 the
terrestrial paradise of their ancestors, and to put up
prayers in their mosques on Fridays, imploring Allah
to hasten the time when Granada shall be restored
to the faithful; an event to which they look
forward as fondly and confidently as did the Christian
crusaders to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.
Nay, it is added, that some of them retain
the ancient maps and deeds of the estates and
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gardens of their ancestors at Granada, and even the
keys of the houses; holding them as evidences of
their hereditary claims, to be produced at the anticipated
day of restoration.
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BOABDIL EL CHICO.
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My conversation with the Moor in the Court of
Lions, set me to musing on the singular fate of Boabdil.
Never was surname more applicable than
that bestowed upon him by his subjects, of “El
Zogoybi,” or, “the unlucky.” His misfortunes
began almost in his cradle. In his tender youth
he was imprisoned and menaced with death by
an inhuman father, and only escaped through a
mother's stratagem; in after years his life was imbittered
and repeatedly endangered by the hostilities
of a usurping uncle; his reign was distracted
by external invasions and internal feuds; he was
alternately the foe, the prisoner, the friend, and
always the dupe of Ferdinand, until conquered and
dethroned by the mingled craft and force of that
perfidious monarch. An exile from his native
land, he took refuge with one of the princes of
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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
the 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 have been confined; not a peasant of the
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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 commonly called “The Civil Wars of Granada,”
containing a pretended history of the feuds
of the Zegries and Abencerrages during the last
struggle of the Moorish empire. This work appeared
originally in Spanish, and professed to be
translated from the Arabic by one Gines Perez de
Hita, an inhabitant of Murcia. It has since passed
into various languages, and Florian has taken from
it much of the fable of his Gonsalvo of Cordova.
It has in a great measure, usurped the authority
of real history, and is currently believed by the
people, and especially the peasantry of Granada.
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The whole of it, 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.
I confess there seems to me something almost
criminal in the wilful perversions of this work.
Great latitude is undoubtedly to be allowed to romantic
fiction, but there are limits which it must
not pass, and the names of the distinguished dead,
which belong to history, are no more to be calumniated
than those of the illustrious living. One
would have thought too, that the unfortunate Boabdil
had suffered enough for his justifiable hostility
to Spaniards, by being stripped of his kingdom,
without having his name thus wantonly traduced
and rendered a bye-word and a theme of infamy
in his native land, and in the very mansion of his
fathers!
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
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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.
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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 instance,
won the hearts of the people by his affable
and gracious manners; he was always peaceable,
and never inflicted any severity of punishment
upon those who occasionally rebelled against him.
He was personally brave, but he wanted moral
courage, and in times of difficulty and perplexity,
was wavering and irresolute. This feebleness of
spirit hastened his downfal, while it deprived him
of that heroic grace which would have given a
grandeur and dignity to his fate, and rendered
him worthy of closing the splendid drama of the
Moslem domination in Spain.
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MEMENTOS OF BOABDIL.
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While my mind was still warm with the subject
of the unfortunate Boabdil, I set forth to trace
the mementos connected with his story, which yet
exist in this scene of his sovereignty and his misfortunes.
In the picture gallery of the Palace of the
Generaliffe, hangs his portrait. The face is mild,
handsome and somewhat melancholy, with a fair
complexion and yellow hair; if it be a true representation
of the man, he may have been wavering
and uncertain, but there is nothing of cruelty or unkindness
in his aspect.
I next visited the dungeon wherein he was confined
in his youthful days, when his cruel father
meditated his destruction. It is a vaulted room
in the tower of Comares, under the Hall of Ambassadors.
A similar room, separated by a narrow
passage, was the prison of his mother, the virtuous
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Ayxa la Horra. The walls are of prodigious thickness,
and the small windows secured by iron bars.
A narrow stone gallery, with a low parapet, extends
round three sides of the tower just below the
windows, but at a considerable height from the
ground. From this gallery, it is presumed, the
queen lowered her son with the scarfs of herself
and her female attendants, during the darkness of
night, to the hill-side, at the foot of which waited
a domestic with a fleet steed to bear the prince to
the mountains.
As I paced this gallery, my imagination pictured
the anxious queen leaning over the parapet, and
listening, with the throbbings of a mother's heart,
to the last echo of the horses' hoofs, as her son
scoured along the narrow valley of the Darro.
My next search was for the gate by which Boabdil
departed from the Alhambra, when about to
surrender his capital. With the melancholy caprice
of a broken spirit, he requested of the catholic
monarchs that no one afterwards might be
permitted to pass through this gate. His prayer,
according to ancient chronicles, was complied with,
through the sympathy of Isabella, and the gate
walled up. For some time I inquired in vain for
such a portal, at length my humble attendant,
Mateo, learned among the old residents of the
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fortress, that a ruinous gateway still existed, by
which, according to tradition, the Moorish king
had left the fortress, but which had never been
open within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
He conducted me to the spot. The gateway is
in the centre of what was once an immense tower,
called la Torre de los Siete Suelos, or, the Tower of
the Seven Moors. It is a place famous in the superstitious
stories of the neighbourhood, for being the
scene of strange apparitions and Moorish enchantments.
This once redoubtable tower, is now a mere
wreck, having been blown up with gunpowder,
by the French, when they abandoned the fortress.
Great masses of the wall lie scattered about, buried
in the luxuriant herbage, or overshadowed by
vines and fig-trees. The arch of the gateway,
though rent by the shock, still remains; but the
last wish of poor Boabdil has been again, though
unintentionally, fulfilled, for the portal has been
closed up by loose stones gathered from the ruins,
and remains impassable.
Following up the route of the Moslem monarch
as it remains on record, I crossed on horseback,
the hill of Les Martyrs, keeping along the garden
of the convent of the same name, and thence down
a rugged ravine, beset by thickets of aloes and
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Indian figs, and lined by caves and hovels swarming
with gipsies. It was the road taken by Boabdil to
avoid passing through the city. The descent was
so steep and broken that I was obliged to dismount
and lead my horse.
Emerging from the ravine, and passing by the
Puerta de los Molinos, (the Gate of the Mills,) I
issued forth upon the public promenade, called the
Prado, and pursuing the course of the Xenil, arrived
at a small Moorish mosque, now converted
into the chapel, or hermitage of San Sebastian. A
tablet on the wall relates that on this spot Boabdil
surrendered the keys of Granada to the Castilian
sovereigns.
From thence, I rode slowly across the Vega to a
village where the family and household of the unhappy
king had awaited him; for he had sent them
forward on the preceding night from the Alhambra,
that his mother and wife might not participate
in his personal humiliation, or be exposed
to the gaze of the conquerors.
Following on in the route of the melancholy
band of royal exiles, I arrived at the foot of a chain
of barren and dreary heights, forming the skirt of
the Alpuxarra mountains. From the summit of
one of these, the unfortunate Boabdil took his last
look at Granada. It bears a name expressive of
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his sorrows—La Cuesta de las Lagrimas, (the Hill
of Tears.) Beyond it a sandy road winds across
a rugged cheerless waste, doubly dismal to the unhappy
monarch, as it led to exile; behind, in the
distance, lies the “enamelled Vega,” with the Xenil
shining among its bowers, and Granada beyond.
I spurred my horse to the summit of a rock,
where Boabdil uttered his last sorrowful exclamation,
as he turned his eyes from taking their farewell
gaze. It is still denominated el ultimo suspiro
del Moro, (the last sigh of the Moor.) Who can
wonder at his anguish at being expelled from such
a kingdom and such an abode? With the Alhambra
he seemed to be yielding up all the honours
of his line, and all the glories and delights of life.
It was here, too, that his affliction was imbittered
by the reproach of his mother Ayxa, who
had so often assisted him in times of peril, and had
vainly sought to instil into him her own resolute
spirit. “You do well,” said she, “to weep as a
woman over what you could not defend as a man!”—
A speech that savours more of the pride of the
princess, than the tenderness of the mother.
When this anecdote was related to Charles V.,
by Bishop Guevara, the emperor joined in the expression
of scorn at the weakness of the wavering
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Boabdil. “Had I been he, or he been I,” said the
haughty potentate, “I would rather have made
this Alhambra my sepulchre, than have lived without
a kingdom in the Alpuxarras.”
How easys it is for them in power and prosperity
to preach heroism to the vanquished! How little
can they understand that life itself may rise in
value with the unfortunate, when naught but life
remains.
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THE TOWER OF LAS INFANTS.
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In an evening's stroll up a narrow glen, overshadowed
by fig-trees, pomegranates and myrtles,
that divides the land of the fortress from those of
the Generaliffe, I was struck with the romantic
appearance of a Moorish tower in the outer wall
of the Alhambra, that rose high above the tree-tops,
and caught the ruddy rays of the setting sun.
A solitary window, at a great height, commanded
a view of the glen, and as I was regarding it a
young female looked out, with her head adorned
with flowers. She was evidently superior to the
usual class of people that inhabit the old towers
of the fortress; and this sudden and picturesque
glimpse of her, reminded me of the descriptions of
captive beauties in fairy tales. The fanciful associations
of my mind were increased on being informed
by my attendant, Mateo, that this was the tower of
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the Princesses, (la Torre de las Infantas) so called
from having been, according to tradition, the residence
of the daughters of the Moorish kings. I
have since visited the tower. It is not generally
shown to strangers, though well worthy attention,
for the interior is equal for beauty of architecture
and delicacy of ornament, to any part of the palace.
The elegance of its central hall with its
marble fountain, its lofty arches and richly fretted
dome; the arabesques and stucco work of the small,
but well proportioned chambers, though injured by
time and neglect, all accord with the story of its
being anciently the abode of royal beauty.
The little old fairy queen who lives under the
staircase of the Alhambra, and frequents the evening
tertulias of Dame Antonia, tells some fanciful
traditions about three Moorish princesses who were
once shut up in this tower by their father, a tyrant
king of Granada, and were only permitted to
ride out at night about the hills, when no one was
permitted to come in their way, under pain of
death. They still, according to her account, may
be seen occasionally when the moon is in the full,
riding in lonely places along the mountain side, on
palfreys richly caparisoned, and sparkling with
jewels, but they vanish on being spoken to.
—But before I relate any thing farther
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respecting these princesses, the reader may be anxious to
know something about the fair inhabitant of the
tower with her head drest with flowers, who looked
out from the lofty window. She proved to be the
newly married spouse of the worthy adjutant of invalids;
who, though well stricken in years, had had
the courage to take to his bosom a young and buxom
Andalusian damsel. May the good old cavalier
be happy in his choice, and find the tower of
the Princesses a more secure residence for female
beauty than it seems to have proved in the time
of the Moslems, if we may believe the following
legend.
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-- 167 --
THE HOUSE OF THE WEATHERCOCK.
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On the brow of the lofty hill of the Albaycin,
the highest part of the city of Granada, stand
the remains of what was once a royal palace,
founded shortly after the conquest of Spain by the
Arabs. It is now converted into a manufactory,
and has fallen into such obscurity that it cost me
much trouble to find it, notwithstanding that I had
the assistance of the sagacious and all-knowing
Mateo Ximenes. This edifice still bears the name
by which it has been known for centuries, namely,
la Casa del Gallo de Viento; that is, the House of
the Weathercock.
It was so called from a bronze figure of a warrior
on horseback, armed with shield and spear,
erected on one of its turrets, and turning with every
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wind; bearing an Arabic motto, which, translated
into Spanish, was as follows:
Dici el Sabio Aben Habuz
Que asi se defiende el Anduluz,
In this way, says Aben Habuz the wise,
The Andalusian his foe defies.
This Aben Habuz was a captain who served in
the invading army of Taric, and was left as alcayde
of Granada. He is supposed to have intended
this warlike effigy as a perpetual memorial to the
Moorish inhabitants, that surrounded as they were
by foes, and subject to sudden invasion, their safety
depended upon being always ready for the
field.
Other traditions, however, give a different account
of this Aben Habuz and his palace, and affirm
that his bronze horseman was originally a
talisman of great virtue, though in after ages it
lost its magic properties and degenerated into a
weathercock. The following are the traditions
alluded to.
-- 169 --
THE LEGEND OF THE ARABIAN ASTROLOGER.
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In old times, many hundred years ago, there
was a Moorish king named Aben Habuz, who
reigned over the kingdom of Granada. He was
a retired conqueror, that is to say, one who, having
in his more youthful days led a life of constant foray
and depredation, now that he was grown old
and superannuated, “languished for repose,” and
desired nothing more than to live at peace with all
the world, to husband his laurels, and to enjoy in
quiet the possessions he had wrested from his
neighbours.
It so happened, however, that this most reasonable
and pacific old monarch, had young rivals to deal
with—princes full of his early passion for fame
and fighting, and who had some scores to settle
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which he had run up with their fathers; he had
also some turbulent and discontented districts of
his own territories among the Alpuxarra mountains,
which, during the days of his vigour, he had
treated with a high hand; and which, now that
he languished for repose, were prone to rise in rebellion
and to threaten to march to Granada and
drive him from his throne. To make the matter
worse, as Granada is surrounded by wild and
craggy mountains which hide the approach of an
enemy, the unfortunate Aben Habuz was kept in
a constant state of vigilance and alarm, not knowing
in what quarter hostilities might break out.
It was in vain that he built watch towers on
the mountains and stationed guards at every pass,
with orders to make fires by night, and smoke by
day, on the approach of an enemy. His alert
foes would baffle every precaution, and come
breaking out of some unthought-of defile,—ravage
his lands beneath his very nose, and then make off
with prisoners and booty to the mountains. Was
ever peaceable and retired conqueror in a more
uncomfortable predicament!
While the pacific Aben Habuz was harassed by
these perplexities and molestations, an ancient Arabian
physician arrived at his court. His gray
beard descended to his girdle, and he had every
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mark of extreme age, yet he had travelled almost
the whole way from Egypt on foot, with no other
aid than a staff marked with hieroglyphics. His
fame had preceded him. His name was Ibrahim
Ebn Abu Ayub; he was said to have lived ever
since the days of Mahomet, and to be the son of
Abu Ayub, the last of the companions of the prophet.
He had, when a child, followed the conquering
army of Amru into Egypt, where he had
remained many years studying the dark sciences,
and particularly magic, among the Egyptian
priests. It was moreover said that he had found
out the secret of prolonging life, by means of
which he had arrived to the great age of upwards
of two centuries; though, as he did not discover
the secret until well stricken in years, he could
only perpetuate his gray hairs and wrinkles.
This wonderful old man was very honourably
entertained by the king; who, like most superannuated
monarchs, began to take physicians into great
favour. He would have assigned him an apartment
in his palace, but the astrologer preferred a
cave in the side of the hill, which rises above the
city of Granada, being the same on which the Alhambra
has since been built. He caused the cave
to be enlarged so as to form a spacious and lofty
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hall with a circular hole at the top, through which,
as through a well, he could see the heavens and
behold the stars even at mid-day. The walls of
this hall were covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics,
with cabalistic symbols, and with the figures of
the stars in their signs. This hall he furnished
with many implements, fabricated under his direction
by cunning artificers of Granada, but the occult
properties of which were only known to himself.
In a little while the sage Ibrahim became
the bosom counsellor of the king, to whom he applied
for advice in every emergency. Aben Habuz
was once inveighing against the injustice of his
neighbours, and bewailing the restless vigilance he
had to observe to guard himself against their invasions;—
when he had finished, the astrologer remainedsilent
for a moment and then replied, “Know,
O king, that when I was in Egypt I beheld a great
marvel devised by a pagan priestess of old. On
a mountain above the city of Borsa, and overlooking
the great valley of the Nile, was a figure of
a ram, and above it a figure of a cock, both of
molten brass and turning upon a pivot. Whenever
the country was threatened with invasion, the
ram would turn in the direction of the enemy and
the cock would crow; upon this the inhabitants of
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the city knew of the danger, and of the quarter
from which it was approaching, and could take
timely notice to guard against it.
“God is great!” exclaimed the pacific Aben Habuz,
“what a treasure would be such a ram to
keep an eye upon these mountains around me, and
then such a cock to crow in time of danger! Allah
Achbar! how securely I might sleep in my palace
with such sentinels on the top!”
“Listen, O king,” continued the astrologer, gravely:
“When the victorious Amru (God's peace be
upon him!) conquered the city of Borsa, this talisman
was destroyed; but I was present, and examined
it, and studied its secret and mystery, and
can make one of like, and even of greater virtues.”
“O wise son of Abu Ayub,” cried Aben Habuz,
“better were such a talisman than all the watch-towers
on the hills, and sentinels upon the borders.
Give me such a safeguard, and the riches of my
treasury are at thy command.”
The astrologer immediately set to work to gratify
the wishes of the monarch, shutting himself up in
his astrological hall, and exerting the necromantic
arts he had learnt in Egypt, he summoned to his assistance
the spirits and demons of the Nile. By his
command they transported to his presence a mummy
from a sepulchral chamber in the centre of
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one of the Pyramids. It was the mummy of the
priest who had aided by magic art in rearing that
stupendous pile.
The astrologer opened the outer cases of the
mummy, and unfolded its many wrappers. On the
breast of the corpse was a book written in Chaldaic
characters. He seized it with trembling hand,
then returning the mummy to its case, ordered the
demons to transport it again to its dark and silent
sepulchre in the Pyramid, there to await the final
day of resurrection and judgment.
This book, say the traditions, was the book of
knowledge given by God to Adam after his fall.
It had been handed down from generation to generation,
to king Solomon the Wise, and by the
aid of the wonderful secrets in magic and art revealed
in it, he had built the temple of Jerusalem.
How it had come into the possession of the builder
of the Pyramids, He only knows who knows all
things.
Instructed by this mystic volume, and aided by
the genii which it subjected to his command, the
astrologer soon erected a great tower upon the top
of the palace of Aben Habuz, which stood on the
brow of the hill of the Albaycin. The tower was
built of stones brought from Egypt, and taken, it
is said, from one of the Pyramids. In the upper
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part of the tower was a circular hall, with windows
looking toward every point of the compass,
and before each window was a table, on which
was arranged, as on a chess-board, a mimic army
of horse and foot, with the effigy of the potentate
that ruled in that direction; all carved of wood.
To each of these tables there was a small lance,
no bigger than a bodkin, on which were engraved
certain mysterious Chaldaic characters. This hall
was kept constantly closed by a gate of brass with
a great lock of steel, the key of which was in possession
of the king.
On the top of the tower was a bronze figure of
a Moorish horseman, fixed on a pivot, with a shield
on one arm, and his lance elevated perpendicularly.
The face of this horseman was towards the city,
as if keeping guard over it; but if any foe were at
hand, the figure would turn in that direction and
would level the lance as if for action.
When this talisman was finished, Aben Habuz
was all impatient to try its virtues; and longed as
ardently for an invasion as he had ever sighed after
repose. His desire was soon gratified. Tidings
were brought early one morning, by the sentinel
appointed to watch the tower, that the face of
the brazen horseman was turned towards the
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mountains of Elvira, and that his lance pointed directly
against the pass of Lopè.
“Let the drums and trumpets sound to arms,
and all Granada be put on the alert,”—said Aben
Habuz.
“O king,” said the astrologer, “let not your
city be disquieted, nor your warriors called to
arms; we need no aid of force to deliver you
from your enemies. Dismiss your attendants and
let us proceed alone to the secret hall of the
tower.”
The ancient Aben Habuz mounted the staircase
of the tower, leaning on the arm of the still more
ancient Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub. They unlocked
the brazen door and entered. The window that
looked towards the pass of Lopè was open. “In
this direction,” said the astrologer, “lies the danger—
approach, O king, and behold the mystery of
the table.”
King Aben Habuz approached the seeming chess-board,
on which were arranged the small wooden
effigies; when lo! they were all in motion. The
horses pranced and curveted, the warriors brandished
their weapons, and there was a faint sound
of drums and trumpets, and a clang of arms and
neighing of steeds, but all no louder, nor more
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distinct, than the hum of the bee or summer-fly in the
drowsy ear of him who lies at noon-tide in the
shade.
“Behold, O king,” said the astrologer, “a proof
that thy enemies are even now in the field. They
must be advancing through yonder mountains by
the pass of Lopè. Would you produce a panic
and confusion amongst them, and cause them to
abandon their enterprise and retreat without loss
of life, strike these effigies with the butt end of
this magic lance; but would you cause bloody
feud and carnage among them, strike with the
point.”
A livid streak passed across the countenance of
the pacific Aben Habuz; he seized the mimic
lance with trembling eagerness, and tottered towards
the table; his gray beard wagged with
chuckling exultation. “Son of Abu Ayub,” exclaimed
he, “I think we will have a little blood!”
So saying he thrust the magic lance into some
of the pigmy effigies, and belaboured others with
the butt end; upon which the former fell, as
dead, upon the board, and the rest turning upon
each other, began pell-mell, a chance medley
fight.
It was with difficulty the astrologer could stay
the hand of the most pacific of monarchs, and
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prevent him from absolutely exterminating his foes.
At length he prevailed upon him to leave the tower,
and to send out scouts to the mountains by the
pass of Lopè.
They returned with the intelligence that a
Christian army had advanced through the heart
of the Sierra, almost within sight of Granada,
when a dissension having broken out among them,
they had turned their weapons against each other,
and after much slaughter, had retreated over the
border.
Aben Habuz was transported with joy on thus
proving the efficacy of the talisman. “At length,”
said he, “I shall lead a life of tranquillity, and have
all my enemies in my power. Oh! wise son of
Abu Ayub, what can I bestow on thee in reward
for such a blessing?”
“The wants of an old man and a philosopher, O
king, are few and simple—grant me but the means
of fitting up my cave as a suitable hermitage, and
I am content.”
“How noble is the moderation of the truly
wise!” exclaimed Aben Habuz, secretly pleased at
the cheapness of the recompense. He summoned
his treasurer, and bade him dispense whatever
sums might be required by Ibrahim to complete
and furnish his hermitage.
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The astrologer now gave orders to have various
chambers hewn out of the solid rock, so as to form
ranges of apartments connected with his astrological
hall. These he caused to be furnished with
luxurious ottomans and divans; and the walls to be
hung with the richest silks of Damascus. “I am
an old man,” said he, “and can no longer rest my
bones on stone couches; and these damp walls require
covering.”
He also had baths constructed and provided with
all kinds of perfumery and aromatic oils; “for a
bath,” said he, “is necessary to counteract the rigidity
of age, and to restore freshness and suppleness
to the frame withered by study.”
He caused the apartments to be hung with innumerable
silver and crystal lamps, which he
filled with a fragrant oil prepared according to
a receipt discovered by him in the tombs of Egypt.
This oil was perpetual in its nature, and diffused a
soft radiance like the tempered light of day.
“The light of the sun,” said he, “is too garish
and violent for the eyes of an old man; and the
light of the lamp is more congenial to the studies
of a philosopher.”
The treasurer of King Aben Habuz groaned at
the sums daily demanded to fit up this hermitage,
and he carried his complaints to the king. The
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royal word, however, was given—Aben Habuz
shrugged his shoulders.—“We must have patience,”
said he; “this old man has taken his idea
of a philosophic retreat from the interior of the
Pyramids and the vast ruins of Egypt; but all things
have an end, and so will the furnishing of his cavern.”
The king was in the right, the hermitage was
at length complete and formed a sumptuous subterranean
palace. “I am now content,” said Ibrahim
Ebn Abu Ayub, to the treasurer; “I will shut
myself up in my cell and devote my time to study.
I desire nothing more,—nothing,—except a trifling
solace to amuse me at the intervals of mental labour.”
“Oh! wise Ibrahim, ask what thou wilt; I am bound
to furnish all that is necessary for thy solitude.”
“I would fain have then a few dancing women,”
said the philosopher.”
“Dancing women!” echoed the treasurer with
surprise.
“Dancing women,” replied the sage, gravely: “a
few will suffice; for I am an old man and a philosopher,
of simple habits and easily satisfied. Let
them, however, be young and fair to look upon—
for the sight of youth and beauty is refreshing to
old age.”
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While the philosophic Ibrahim Ebn Ayub
passed his time thus sagely in his hermitage, the
pacific Aben Habuz carried on furious campaigns
in effigy in his tower. It was a glorious thing for
an old man like himself, of quiet habits, to have
war made easy, and to be enabled to amuse himself
in his chamber by brushing away whole armies
like so many swarms of flies. For a time he
rioted in the indulgence of his humours, and even
taunted and insulted his neighbours to induce them
to make incursions; but by degrees they grew
wary from repeated disasters, until no one ventured
to invade his territories. For many months
the bronze horseman remained on the peace establishment
with his lance elevated in the air, and
the worthy old monarch began to repine at the
want of his accustomed sport, and to grow peevish
at his monotonous tranquillity.
At length, one day, the talismanic horseman
veered suddenly round, and, lowering his lance,
made a dead point towards the mountains of Guadix.
Aben Habuz hastened to his tower, but the magic
table in that direction remained quiet—not a single
warrior was in motion. Perplexed at the circumstance,
he sent forth a troop of horse to scour
the mountains and reconnoitre. They returned
after three days' absence. Rodovan, the captain
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of the troop, addressed the king: “We have
searched every mountain pass,” said he, “but not
a helm or spear was stirring. All that we have
found in the course of our foray was a Christian
damsel of surpassing beauty, sleeping at noon tide
beside a fountain, whom we have brought away
captive.”
“A damsel of surpassing beauty!” exclaimed
Aben Habuz, his eyes gleaming with animation:
“let her be conducted into my presence.” “Pardon
me, O king!” replied Rodovan, “but our warfare
at present is scanty; and yields but little harvest.
I had hoped this chance gleaning would
have been allowed for my services.
“Chance gleaning!” cried Aben Habuz, “What!—
a damsel of surpassing beauty! By the head of
my father! it is the choice fruits of warfare, only
to be garnered up into the royal keeping.—Let
the damsel be brought hither instantly.”
The beautiful damsel was accordingly conducted
into his presence. She was arrayed in the Gothic
style, with all the luxury of ornament that had
prevailed among the Gothic Spaniards at the time
of the Arabian conquest. Pearls of dazzling
whiteness were entwined with her raven tresses;
and jewels sparkled on her forehead, rivalling
the lustre of her eyes. Around her neck was a
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golden chain, to which was suspended a silver lyre
which hung by her side.
The flashes of her dark refulgent eye were like
sparks of fire on the withered, yet combustible
breast of Aben Habuz, and set it in a flame.
The swimming voluptuousness of her gait made
his senses reel. “Fairest of women,” cried he,
with rapture, “who and what art thou?”—
“The daughter of one of the Gothic princes
who lately ruled over this land. The armies of
my father have been destroyed as if by magic
among these mountains, he has been driven into
exile, and his daughter is a slave.”
“Be comforted, beautiful princess—thou art no
longer a slave, but a sovereign; turn thine eyes
graciously upon Aben Habuz, and reign over him
and his dominions.”
“Beware, O king,” whispered Ibrahim Ebn Abu
Ayub; “this may be some spirit conjured up by
the magicians of the Goths, and sent for thy undoing.
Or it may be one of those northern sorceresses,
who assume the most seducing forms to beguile
the unwary. Methinks I read witchcraft in
her eye, and sorcery in every movement. Let my
sovereign beware—this must be the enemy pointed
out by the talisman.” “Son of Abu Ayub,” replied
the king, “you are a wise man and a
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conjuror, I grant—but you are little versed in the ways
of woman. In the knowledge of the sex, I will
yield to no man; no, not to the wise Solomon himself,
notwithstanding the number of his wives and
his concubines. As to this damsel, I see much
comfort in her for my old days, even such comfort
as David, the father of Solomon, found in the society
of Abishag the Shunamite.”
“Hearken, O king,” rejoined the astrologer, suddenly
changing his tone—“I have given thee
many triumphs over thy enemies, and by means of
my talisman, yet thou hast never given me share
of the spoils; grant me this one stray captive to solace
me in my retirement, and I am content.”
“What!” cried Aben Habuz, “more women!
hast thou not already dancing women to solace
thee—what more wouldst thou desire.”
“Dancing women, have I, it is true; but I have
none that sing; and music is a balm to old age—
This captive, I perceive, beareth a silver lyre, and
must be skilled in minstrelsy. Give her to me, I
pray thee, to sooth my senses after the toil of
study.”
The ire of the pacific monarch was kindled, and
he loaded the philosopher with reproaches. The
latter retired indignantly to his hermitage; but ere
he departed, he again warned the monarch to
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beware of his beautiful captive. Where, in fact, is
the old man in love that will listen to counsel?
Aben Habuz had felt the full power of the witchery
of the eye, and the sorcery of movement, and
the more he gazed, the more he was enamoured.
He resigned himself to the full sway of his passions.
His only study, was how to render himself
amiable in the eyes of the Gothic beauty. He had
not youth, it is true, to recommend him, but then
he had riches; and when a lover is no longer young,
he becomes generous. The Zacatin of Granada,
was ransacked for the most precious merchandise
of the East. Silks, jewels, precious gems and exquisite
perfumes, all that Asia and Africa yielded
of rich and rare, were lavished upon the princess.
She received all as her due, and regarded them
with the indifference of one accustomed to magnificence.
All kinds of spectacles and festivities
were devised for her entertainment; minstrelsy,
dancing, tournaments, bull-fights.—Granada, for a
time, was a scene of perpetual pageant. The
Gothic princess seemed to take a delight in causing
expense, as if she sought to drain the treasures of
the monarch. There were no bounds to her caprice,
or to the extravagance of her ideas. Yet,
notwithstanding all this munificence, the
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venerable Aben Habuz could not flatter himself that he
had made any impression on her heart. She never
frowned on him, it is true, but she had a singular
way of baffling his tender advances. Whenever
he began to plead his passion, she struck her silver
lyre. There was a mystic charm in the sound:
on hearing of it, an irresistible drowsiness seized
upon the superannuated lover, he fell asleep, and
only woke, when the temporary fumes of passion
had evaporated. Still the dream of love had a
bewitching power over his senses; so he continued
to dream on; while all Granada scoffed at his infatuation,
and groaned at the treasures lavished
for a song.
At length a danger burst over the head of Aben
Habuz, against which, his talisman yielded him no
warning. A rebellion broke out in the very heart
of his capital; headed by the bold Rodovan. Aben
Habuz was, for a time, besieged in his palace, and
it was not without the greatest difficulty that he
repelled his assailants and quelled the insurrection.
He now felt himself compelled once more to resort
to the assistance of the astrologer. He found
him still shut up in his hermitage, chewing the cud
of resentment. “O wise son of Abu Ayub,” said
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he, “what thou hast foretold, has, in some sort,
come to pass. This Gothic princess has brought
trouble and danger upon me.”
“Is the king then disposed to put her away from
him?” said the astrologer with animation.
“Sooner would I part with my kingdom!” replied
Aben Habuz.
“What then is the need of disturbing me in my
philosophical retirement?” said the astrologer, peevishly.
“Be not angry, O sagest of philosophers. I
would fain have one more exertion of thy magic
art. Devise some means by which I may be secure
from internal treason, as well as outward
war—some safe retreat, where I may take refuge
and be at peace.
The astrologer ruminated for a moment, and a
subtle gleam shone from his eye under his bushy
eye-brows.
“Thou hast heard, no doubt, O king,” said he,
“of the palace and garden of Irem, whereof mention
is made in that chapter of the Koran entitled
`the dawn of day.”'
“I have heard of that garden,—marvellous
things are related of it by the pilgrims who visit
Mecca, but I have thought them wild fables, such
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as those are prone to tell who visit remote regions.”
“Listen, O king, and thou shalt know the mystery
of that garden. In my younger days I was
in Arabia the Happy, tending my father's camels.
One of them strayed away from the rest, and was
lost. I searched for it for several days about the
deserts of Aden, until wearied and faint, I laid
myself down and slept under a palm tree by the
side of a scanty well. When I awoke, I found
myself at the gate of a city. I entered and beheld
noble streets and squares and market places,
but all were silent and without an inhabitant. I
wandered on until I came to a sumptuous palace,
with a garden adorned with fountains and fish-ponds;
and groves and flowers; and orchards laden
with delicious fruit; but still no one was to be
seen. Upon which, appalled at this loneliness, I
hastened to depart, and, after issuing forth at the
gate of the city, I turned to look upon the place,
but it was no longer to be seen, nothing but the
silent desert extended before my eyes.
In the neighbourhood I met with an aged dervise,
learned in the traditions and secrets of the
land, and related to him what had befallen me.
`This,' said he, `is the far famed garden of Irem,
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one of the wonders of the desert. It only appears
at times to some wanderer like thyself, gladdening
him with the sight of towers and palaces, and garden
walls overhung with richly laden fruit trees,
and then vanishes, leaving nothing but a lonely
desert.—And this is the story of it:—In old times,
when this country was inhabited by the Addiles,
king Sheddad, the son of Ad, the great grandson
of Noah, founded here a splendid city. When
it was finished, and he saw its grandeur, his
heart was puffed up with pride and arrogance,
and he determined to build a royal palace, with
gardens that should rival all that was related
in the Koran of the celestial paradise. But the
curse of heaven fell upon him for his presumption.
He and his subjects were swept from the earth,
and his splendid city, and palace, and garden, were
laid under a perpetual spell, that hides them from
the human sight, excepting that they are seen at
intervals; by way of keeping his sin in perpetual
remembrance.'
“This story, O king, and the wonders I had seen,
ever dwell in my mind, and, in after years, when
I had been in Egypt and made myself master of all
kinds of magic spells, I determined to return and
visit the garden of Irem. I did so, and found it
revealed to my instructed sight. I took possession
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of the palace of Sheddad, and passed several days
in his mock paradise. The genii who watch over
the place, were obedient to my magic power, and
revealed to me the spells by which the whole garden
had been, as it were, conjured into existence,
and by which it was rendered invisible. Such
spells, O king, are within the scope of my art.
What sayest thou? Wouldst thou have a palace
and garden like those of Irem, filled with all manner
of delights, but hidden from the eyes of mortals?”
“O, wise son of Abu Ayub,” exclaimed Aben
Habuz, trembling with eagerness—“Contrive me
such a paradise, and ask any reward, even to the
half of my kingdom.”
“Alas,” replied the other, “thou knowest I am
an old man, and a philosopher, and easily satisfied;
all the reward I ask, is the first beast of burden,
with its load, that shall enter the magic portal
of the palace.”
The monarch gladly agreed to so moderate a
stipulation, and the astrologer began his work. On
the summit of the hill immediately above his subterranean
hermitage he caused a great gateway
or barbican to be erected; opening through the
centre of a strong tower. There was an outer
vestibule or porch with a lofty arch, and within
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it a portal secured by massive gates. On the
key stone of the portal the astrologer with his own
hand, wrought the figure of a huge key, and on
the key-stone of the outer arch of the vestibule,
which was loftier than that of the portal, he
carved a gigantic hand. These were potent talismans,
over which he repeated many sentences in
an unknown tongue.
When this gateway was finished, he shut himself
up for two days in his astrological hall, engaged
in secret incantations: on the third he ascended
the hill, and passed the whole day on its
summit. At a late hour of the night he came
down and presented himself before Aben Habuz.
“At length, O king,” said he, “my labour is accomplished.
On the summit of the hill stands one of
the most delectable palaces that ever the head of
man devised, or the heart of man desired. It contains
sumptuous halls and galleries, delicious gardens,
cool fountains and fragrant baths; in a word,
the whole mountain is converted into a paradise.
Like the garden of Irem, it is protected by a mighty
charm, which hides it from the view and search of
mortals, excepting such as possess the secret of its
talismans.”
“Enough,” cried Aben Habuz, joyfully; “
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tomorrow morning, bright and early, we will ascend
and take possession.” The happy monarch scarcely
slept that night. Scarcely had the rays of the
sun begun to play about the snowy summit of the
Sierra Nevada, when he mounted his steed, and
accompanied only by a few chosen attendants ascended
a steep and narrow road leading up the hill.
Beside him, on a white palfrey, rode the Gothic
princess, her dress sparkling with jewels, while
round her neck was suspended her silver lyre.
The astrologer walked on the other side of the
king, assisting his steps with his hieroglyphic staff,
for he never mounted steed of any kind.
Aben Habuz looked to see the towers of the
promised palace brightening above him, and the
embowered terraces of its gardens stretching along
the heights, but as yet, nothing of the kind was to
be descried. “That is the mystery and safeguard
of the place,” said the astrologer, “nothing can be
discerned until you have passed the spell-bound
gateway, and been put in possession of the place.”
As they approached the gateway, the astrologer
paused, and pointed out to the king the mystic
hand and key carved upon the portal and the
arch. “These,” said he, “are the talismans which
guard the entrance to this paradise. Until
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yonder hand shall reach down and seize that key, neither
mortal power, nor magic artifice, can prevail
against the lord of this mountain.”
While Aben Habuz was gazing with open mouth
and silent wonder at these mystic talismans, the
palfrey of the princess proceeded on, and bore her
in at the portal, to the very centre of the barbican.
“Behold,” cried the astrologer, “my promised
reward!—the first animal with its burden, that
should enter the magic gateway.”
Aben Habuz smiled at what he considered a
pleasantry of the ancient man; but when he found
him to be in earnest, his gray beard trembled with
indignation.
“Son of Abu Ayub,” said he, sternly, “what
equivocation is this? Thou knowest the meaning
of my promise, the first beast of burden, with its
load, that should enter this portal. Take the
strongest mule in my stables, load it with the most
precious things of my treasury, and it is thine; but
dare not to raise thy thoughts to her, who is the
delight of my heart.”
“What need I of wealth,” cried the astrologer,
scornfully; “have I not the book of knowledge of
Solomon the Wise, and through it, the command
of the secret treasures of the earth? The princess
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is mine by right; thy royal word is pledged; I claim
her as my own.”
The princess sat upon her palfrey, in the pride
of youth and beauty, and a light smile of scorn
curled her rosy lip, at this dispute, between two gray
beards for her charms. The wrath of the monarch
got the better of his discretion. “Base son of the
desert,” cried he, “thou mayest be master of many
arts, but know me for thy master—and presume
not to juggle with thy king.”
“My master!” echoed the astrologer, “my
king! The monarch of a mole-hill to claim sway
over him who possesses the talismans of Solomon.
Farewell, Aben Habuz; reign over thy petty kingdom,
and revel in thy paradise of fools—for me, I
will laugh at thee in my philosophic retirement.
So saying, he seized the bridle of the palfrey,
smote the earth with his staff, and sank with the
Gothic princess through the centre of the barbican.
The earth closed over them, and no trace remained
of the opening by which they had descended. Aben
Habuz was struck dumb for a time with astonishment.
Recovering himself, he ordered a thousand
workmen to dig with pickaxe and spade into the
ground where the astrologer had disappeared.
They digged and digged, but in vain; the flinty
bosom of the hill resisted their implements; or if
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they did penetrate a little way, the earth filled in
again as fast as they threw it out. Aben Habuz
sought the mouth of the cavern at the foot of the
hill, leading to the subterranean palace of the astrologer,
but it was no where to be found: where
once had been an entrance, was now a solid surface
of primeval rock. With the disappearance
of Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub ceased the benefit of
his talismans. The bronze horseman remained
fixed with his face turned toward the hill, and his
spear pointed to the spot where the astrologer had
descended, as if there still lurked the deadliest foe
of Aben Habuz. From time to time the sound of
music and the tones of a female voice could be
faintly heard from the bosom of the hill, and a peasant
one day brought word to the king, that in the
preceding night he had found a fissure in the
rock, by which he had crept in until he looked
down into a subterranean hall, in which sat the
astrologer on a magnificent divan, slumbering and
nodding to the silver lyre of the princess, which
seemed to hold a magic sway over his senses.
Aben Habuz sought for the fissure in the rock,
but it was again closed. He renewed the attempt
to unearth his rival, but all in vain. The
spell of the hand and key was too potent to be
counteracted by human power. As to the summit
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of the mountain, the site of the promised palace
and garden, it remained a naked waste: either the
boasted Elysium was hidden from sight by enchantment,
or was a mere fable of the astrologer.
The world charitably supposed the latter, and
some used to call the place, “the king's folly,”
while others named it, “the fool's Paradise.”
To add to the chagrin of Aben Habuz, the
neighbours, whom he had defied and taunted, and
cut up at his leisure, while master of the talismanic
horseman, finding him no longer protected by
magic spell, made inroads into his territories from
all sides, and the remainder of the life of the most
pacific of monarchs, was a tissue of turmoils.
At length, Aben Habuz died and was buried.
Ages have since rolled away. The Alhambra
has been built on the eventful mountain, and in
some measure realizes the fabled delights of the
garden of Irem. The spell-bound gateway still
exists, protected, no doubt, by the mystic hand and
key, and now forms the gate of justice, the grand
entrance to the fortress. Under that gateway, it
is said, the old astrologer remains in his subterraranean
hall; nodding on his divan, lulled by the
silver lyre of the princess.
The old invalid sentinels, who mount guard at
the gate, hear the strains occasionally in the
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summer nights, and, yielding to their soporific power,
doze quietly at their posts. Nay, so drowsy an
influence pervades the place, that even those who
watch by day, may generally be seen nodding on
the stone benches of the barbican, or sleeping under
the neighbouring trees; so that it is, in fact, the
drowsiest military post in all Christendom. All
this, say the ancient legends, will endure; from
age to age the princess will remain captive to the
astrologer, and the astrologer bound up in magic
slumber by the princess, until the last day; unless
the mystic hand shall grasp the fated key, and
dispel the whole charm of this enchanted mountain.
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LEGEND OF THE THREE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESSES.
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In old times there reigned a Moorish king in
Granada, whose name was Mohamed, to which,
his subjects added the appellation of el Haygari,
or “the left-handed.” Some say he was so called,
on account of his being really more expert with his
sinister, than his dexter hand; others, because he
was prone to take every thing by the wrong end;
or, in other words, to mar wherever he meddled.
Certain it is, either through misfortune or mismanagement,
he was continually in trouble. Thrice
was he driven from his throne, and on one occasion,
barely escaped to Africa with his life, in the disguise
of a fisherman. Still he was as brave as he
was blundering, and, though left-handed, wielded
his scimitar to such purpose, that he each time
re-established himself upon his throne, by dint of
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hard fighting. Instead, however, of learning wisdom
from adversity, he hardened his neck, and
stiffened his left-arm in wilfulness. The evils of
a public nature which he thus brought upon himself
and his kingdom, may be learned by those
who will delve into the Arabian annals of Granada;
the present legend deals but with his domestic
policy.
As this Mohamed was one day riding forth, with
a train of his courtiers, by the foot of the mountain
of Elvira, he met a band of horsemen returning
from a foray into the land of the Christians. They
were conducting a long string of mules laden with
spoil, and many captives of both sexes, among
whom, the monarch was struck with the appearance
of a beautiful damsel richly attired, who sat
weeping, on a low palfrey, and heeded not the
consoling words of a duenna, who rode beside
her.
The monarch was struck with her beauty, and
on inquiring of the captain of the troop, found that
she was the daughter of the alcayde of a frontier
fortress that had been surprised and sacked in the
course of the foray.
Mohamed claimed her, as his royal share of the
booty, and had her conveyed to his harem in the
Alhambra. There every thing was devised to
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sooth her melancholy, and the monarch, more and
more enamoured, sought to make her his queen.
The Spanish maid at first repulsed his addresses.
He was an infidel—he was the open foe of her
country—what was worse, he was stricken in
years!
The monarch finding his assiduities of no avail,
determined to enlist in his favour the duenna, who
had been captured with the lady. She was an
Andalusian by birth, whose Christian name is forgotten,
being mentioned in Moorish legends, by no
other appellation, than that of the discreet Cadiga—
and discreet, in truth she was, as her whole history
makes evident. No sooner had the Moorish
king held a little private conversation with her,
than she saw at once the cogency of his reasoning,
and undertook his cause with her young mistress.
“Go to, now!” cried she; “what is there in all this
to weep and wail about?—Is it not better to be
mistress of this beautiful palace with all its gardens
and fountains, than to be shut up within your
father's old frontier tower. As to this Mohamed being
an infidel—what is that to the purpose? You
marry him—not his religion. And if he is waxing
a little old, the sooner will you be a widow and
mistress of yourself. At any rate you are in his
power—and must either be a queen or a slave—
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When in the hands of a robber, it is better to sell
one's merchandise for a fair price, than to have it
taken by main force.”
The arguments of the discreet Cadiga prevailed.
The Spanish lady dried her tears and became the
spouse of Mohamed the left-handed. She even
conformed in appearance to the faith of her royal
husband, and her discreet duenna immediately became
a zealous convert to the moslem doctrines;
it was then the latter received the Arabian name
of Cadiga, and was permitted to remain in the
confidential employ of her mistress.
In due process of time, the Moorish king was
made the proud and happy father of three lovely
daughters, all born at a birth. He could have
wished they had been sons, but consoled himself
with the idea that three daughters at a birth, were
pretty well for a man somewhat stricken in years,
and left-handed.
As usual with all moslem monarchs, he summoned
his astrologers on this happy event. They
cast the nativities of the three princesses, and
shook their heads. “Daughters, O king,” said
they, “are always precarious property; but these
will most need your watchfulness when they arrive
at a marriageable age—At that time gather
them under your wing, and trust them to no other
guardianship.”
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Mohamed the left-handed, was acknowledged
by his courtiers to be a wise king, and was certainly
so considered by himself. The prediction
of the astrologers, caused him but little disquiet,
trusting to his ingenuity to guard his daughters
and outwit the fates.
The threefold birth was the last matrimonial
trophy of the monarch; his queen bore him no
more children, and died within a few years, bequeathing
her infant daughters to his love, and to
the fidelity of the discreet Cadiga.
Many years had yet to elapse before the princesses
would arrive at that period of danger, the
marriageable age. “It is good, however, to be cautious
in time,” said the shrewd monarch; so he determined
to have them reared in the royal castle
of Salobreña. This was a sumptuous palace, incrusted,
as it were in a powerful Moorish fortress,
on the summit of a hill that overlooks the Mediterranean
sea.
It was a royal retreat, in which the moslem monarchs
shut up such of their relations as might endanger
their safety; allowing them all kinds of luxuries
and amusements, in the midst of which they
passed their lives in voluptuous indolence.
Here the princesses remained, immured from
the world, but surrounded by enjoyments; and
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attended by female slaves who anticipated their
wishes. They had delightful gardens for their recreation,
filled with the rarest fruits and flowers,
with aromatic groves and perfumed baths. On
three sides the castle looked down upon a rich
valley, enamelled with all kinds of culture, and
bounded by the lofty Alpuxarra mountains; on the
other side it overlooked the broad sunny sea.
In this delicious abode, in a propitious climate
and under a cloudless sky, the three princesses
grew up into wondrous beauty; but, though all
reared alike, they gave early tokens of diversity of
character. Their names were Zayda, Zorayda,
and Zorahayda; and such was the order of seniority,
for there had been precisely three minutes
between their births.
Zayda, the eldest, was of an intrepid spirit, and
took the lead of her sisters in every thing, as she
had done in entering first into the world. She
was curious and inquisitive, and fond of getting at
the bottom of things.
Zorayda had a great feeling for beauty, which
was the reason, no doubt, of her delighting to regard
her own image in a mirror or a fountain, and of
her fondness for flowers and jewels, and other
tasteful ornaments.
As to Zorahayda, the youngest, she was soft and
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timid, and extremely sensitive, with a vast deal of
disposable tenderness, as was evident from her
number of pet flowers, and pet birds, and pet animals,
all of which she cherished with the fondest
care. Her amusements, too, were of a gentle nature,
and mixed up with musing and reverie. She
would sit for hours in a balcony gazing on the
sparkling stars of a summer night; or on the sea when
lit up by the moon, and at such times the song of a
fisherman faintly heard from the beach, or the notes
of an arrafia or Moorish flute from some gliding bark,
sufficed to elevate her feelings into ecstasy. The
least uproar of the elements, however, filled her
with dismay, and a clap of thunder was enough
to throw her into a swoon.
Years moved on serenely, and Cadiga, to whom
the princesses were confided, was faithful to her
trust and attended them with unremitting care.
The castle of Salobreña, as has been said, was
built upon a hill on the sea coast. One of the exterior
walls straggled down the profile of the hill,
until it reached a jutting rock over-hanging the
sea, with a narrow sandy beach at its foot, laved
by the rippling billows. A small watch tower on
this rock had been fitted up as a pavilion, with
latticed windows to admit the sea breeze. Here
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the princesses used to pass the sultry hours of
mid-day.
The curious Zayda, was one day seated at one
of the windows of the pavilion, as her sisters, reclined
on ottomans, were taking the siesta, or noon-tide
slumber. Her attention had been attracted
to a galley, which came coasting along, with measured
strokes of the oar. As it drew near, she observed
that it was filled with armed men. The
galley anchored at the foot of the tower; a number
of Moorish soldiers landed on the narrow
beach, conducting several Christian prisoners. The
curious Zayda awakened her sisters, and all three
peeped cautiously through the close jealousies of
the lattice, which screened them from sight.
Among the prisoners were three Spanish cavaliers,
richly dressed. They were in the flower of youth,
and of noble presence, and the lofty manner in
which they carried themselves, though loaded
with chains and surrounded with enemies, bespoke
the grandeur of their souls. The princesses gazed
with intense and breathless interest. Cooped up
as they had been in this castle among female attendants,
seeing nothing of the male sex but black
slaves, or the rude fishermen of the sea coast, it is
not to be wondered at, that the appearance of
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three gallant cavaliers in the pride of youth and
manly beauty should produce some commotion in
their bosoms.
“Did ever nobler being tread the earth, than
that cavalier in crimson?” cried Zayda, the eldest
of the sisters. “See how proudly he bears himself,
as though all around him were his slaves!”
“But notice that one in green;” exclaimed Zorayda;
“what grace! what elegance!” what spirit!”
The gentle Zorahayda said nothing, but she secretly
gave preference to the cavalier in green.
The princesses remained gazing until the prisoners
were out of sight; then heaving long-drawn
sighs, they turned round, looked at each other for
a moment, and sat down musing and pensive on
their ottomans.
The discreet Cadiga found them in this situation;
they related to her what they had seen, and
even the withered heart of the duenna was
warmed. “Poor youths!” exclaimed she, “I'll
warrant their captivity makes many a fair and
high born lady's heart ache in their native land!
Ah, my children, you have little idea of the life
these cavaliers lead in their own country. Such
prankling at tournaments! such devotion to the ladies!
such courting and serenading!”
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The curiosity of Zayda was fully aroused.
She was insatiable in her inquiries, and drew from
the duenna the most animated pictures of the
scenes of her youthful days and native land. The
beautiful Zorayda bridled up, and slyly regarded
herself in a mirror, when the theme turned upon
the charms of the Spanish ladies; while Zorahayda
suppressed a struggling sigh at the mention of
moon-light serenades.
Every day the curious Zayda renewed her inquiries;
and every day the sage duenna repeated
her stories, which were listened to with unmoved
interest, though frequent sighs, by her gentle auditors.
The discreet old woman at length awakened
to the mischief she might be doing. She
had been accustomed to think of the princesses
only as children, but they had imperceptibly
ripened beneath her eye, and now bloomed before
her three lovely damsels of the marriageable age.—
It is time, thought the duenna, to give notice to
the king.
Mohamed the left-handed was seated one morning
on a divan in one of the court halls of the Alhambra,
when a noble arrived from the fortress of
Salobreña, with a message from the sage Cadiga,
congratulating him on the anniversary of his
daughters' birth day. The slave at the same
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time presented a delicate little basket decorated
with flowers, within which, on a couch of vine and fig
leaves lay a peach, an apricot, and a nectarine, with
their bloom and down, and dewy sweetness upon
them, and all in the early stage of tempting ripeness.
The monarch was versed in the oriental language
of fruits and flowers, and readily divined the meaning
of this emblematical offering.
“So!” said he, “the critical period pointed out
by the astrologers is arrived,—my daughters are at
a marriageable age. What is to be done? They are
shut up from the eyes of men,—they are under
the eye of the discreet Cadiga—all very good—but
still they are not under my own eye, as was prescribed
by the astrologers.—`I must gather them
under my wing, and trust to no other guardianship.”
'
So saying, he ordered that a tower of the Alhambra
should be prepared for their reception,
and departed at the head of his guards for the
fortress of Salobreña, to conduct them home in
person.
About three years had elapsed since Mohamed
had beheld his daughters, and he could scarcely
credit his eyes at the wonderful change which that
small space of time had made in their appearance.
During the interval they had passed that
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wondrous boundary line in female life, which separates
the crude, unformed and thoughtless girl
from the blooming, blushing, meditative woman.
It is like passing from the flat, bleak, uninteresting
plains of La Mancha to the voluptuous valleys and
swelling hills of Andalusia.
Zayda was tall and finely formed, with a lofty
demeanour and a penetrating eye. She entered
with a stately and decided step, and made a profound
reverence to Mohamed, treating him more
as her sovereign than her father. Zorayda was of
the middle height, with an alluring look and swimming
gait, and a sparkling beauty heightened by
the assistance of the toilette. She approached
her father with a smile, kissed his hand and saluted
him with several stanzas from a popular
Arabian poet, with which the monarch was delighted.
Zorahayda was shy and timid; smaller
than her sisters, and with a beauty of that tender,
beseeching kind which looks for fondness and protection.
She was little fitted to command like her
elder sister, or to dazzle like the second; but was
rather formed to creep to the bosom of manly affection,
to nestle within it, and be content. She
drew near her father with a timid and almost
faltering step, and would have taken his hand to
kiss, but on looking up into his face, and seeing it
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beaming with a paternal smile, the tenderness of
her nature broke forth, and she threw herself upon
his neck.
Mohamed, the left-handed, surveyed his blooming
daughters with mingled pride and perplexity;
for while he exulted in their charms, he bethought
himself of the prediction of the astrologers. “Three
daughters!—three daughters!” muttered he, repeatedly
to himself, “and all of a marriageable
age! Here's tempting hesperian fruit, that requires
a dragon watch!”
He prepared for his return to Granada, by sending
heralds before him, commanding every one to
keep out of the road by which he was to pass, and
that all doors and windows should be closed at the
approach of the princesses. This done, he set forth
escorted by a troop of black horsemen of hideous
aspect, and clad in shining armour.
The princesses rode beside the king, closely
veiled, on beautiful white palfreys, with velvet caparisons
embroidered with gold, and sweeping the
ground; the bits and stirrups were of gold, and the
silken bridles adorned with pearls and precious
stones. The palfreys were covered with little silver
bells that made the most musical tinkling as
they ambled gently along. Wo to the unlucky
wight, however, who lingered in the way when
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he heard the tinkling of these bells—the guards
were ordered to cut him down without mercy.
The cavalcade was drawing near to Granada,
when it overtook, on the banks of the river Xenil,
a small body of Moorish soldiers, with a convoy of
prisoners. It was too late for the soldiers to get
out of the way, so they threw themselves on their
faces on the earth, ordering their captives to do the
like. Among the prisoners, were the three identical
cavaliers whom the princesses had seen from
the pavilion. They either did not understand, or
were too haughty to obey the order, and remained
standing and gazing upon the cavalcade as it approached.
The ire of the monarch was kindled at this flagrant
defiance of his orders, and he determined to
punish it with his own hand. Drawing his scimitar
and pressing forward, he was about to deal a
left-handed blow, that would have been fatal to
at least one of the gazers, when the princesses
crowded round him, and implored mercy for the
prisoners; even the timid Zorahayda forgot her
shyness and became eloquent in their behalf. Mohamed
paused, with uplifted scimitar, when the
captain of the guard threw himself at his feet.
“Let not your majesty,” said he, “do a deed that
may cause great scandal throughout the kingdom.
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These are three brave and noble Spanish knights,
who have been taken in battle, fighting like lions;
they are of high birth, and may bring great ransoms.”
“Enough,” said the king; “I will spare their
lives but punish their audacity—let them be
taken to the Vermilion towers and put to hard
labour.”
Mohamed was making one of his usual left-handed
blunders. In the tumult and agitation of
this blustering scene, the veils of the three princesses
had been thrown back, and the radiance of
their beauty revealed; and in prolonging the parley,
the king had given that beauty time to have
its full effect. In those days, people fell in love
much more suddenly than at present, as all ancient
stories make manifest; it is not a matter of
wonder, therefore, that the hearts of the three
cavaliers were completely captivated; especially
as gratitude was added to their admiration: it is
a little singular, however, though no less certain,
that each of them was enraptured with a several
beauty. As to the princesses, they were more
than ever struck with the noble demeanour of
the captives, and cherished in their hearts all
that they had heard of their valour and noble
lineage.
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The cavalcade resumed its march; the three
princesses rode pensively along on their tinkling
palfreys, now and then stealing a glance behind
in search of the Christian captives, and the latter
were conducted to their allotted prison in the Vermilion
towers.
The residence provided for the princesses, was
one of the most dainty that fancy could devise.
It was in a tower somewhat apart from the main
palace of the Alhambra, though connected with
it by the main wall that encircled the whole summit
of the hill. On one side, it looked into the
interior of the fortress, and had at its foot a small
garden filled with the rarest flowers. On the other
side it overlooked a deep embowered ravine, that
separated the grounds of the Alhambra from those
of the Generalife. The interior of the tower was
divided into small fairy apartments, beautifully ornamented
in the light Arabian style, surrounding
a lofty hall, the vaulted roof of which rose almost
to the summit of the tower. The walls and ceiling
of the hall were adorned with arabesques and
fret-work sparkling with gold, and with brilliant
pencilling. In the centre of the marble pavement,
was an alabaster fountain, set round with aromatic
shrubs and flowers, and throwing up a jet of water,
that cooled the whole edifice and had a lulling
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sound. Round the hall were suspended cages of
gold and silver wire, containing singing birds of
the finest plumage or sweetest note.
The princesses having been represented as always
cheerful when in the castle of Salobreña, the
king had expected to see them enraptured with the
Alhambra. To his surprise, however, they began
to pine, and grew green and melancholy, and dissatisfied
with every thing around them. The
flowers yielded them no fragrance; the song of the
nightingale disturbed their night's rest, and they
were out of all patience with the alabaster fountain,
with its eternal drop, drop, and splash,
splash, from morning till night, and from night till
morning.
The king, who was somewhat of a testy, tyrannical
old man, took this at first in high dudgeon;
but he reflected that his daughters had arrived at
an age when the female mind expands and its
desires augment. “They are no longer children,”
said he to himself; “they are women grown, and
require suitable objects to interest them. He
put in requisition, therefore, all the dress makers,
and the jewellers, and the artificers in gold and
silver throughout the Zacatin of Granada, and the
princesses were overwhelmed with robes of silk,
and of tissue and of brocade, and cachemire shawls,
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and necklaces of pearls, and diamonds, and rings,
and bracelets, and anklets, and all manner of precious
things.
All, however, was of no avail. The princesses
continued pale and languid in the midst of their
finery, and looked like three blighted rose buds,
drooping from one stalk. The king was at his wit's
end. He had in general a laudable confidence
in his own judgment, and never took advice. “The
whims and caprices of three marriageable damsels,
however, are sufficient,” said he, “to puzzle
the shrewdest head.”—So, for once in his life, he
called in the aid of counsel.
The person to whom he applied was the experienced
duenna.
“Cadiga,” said the king, “I know you to be one
of the most discreet women in the whole world,
as well as one of the most trustworthy; for these
reasons, I have always continued you about the
persons of my daughters. Fathers cannot be too
wary in whom they repose such confidence. I
now wish you to find out the secret malady that is
preying upon the princesses, and to devise some
means of restoring them to health and cheerfulness.
Cadiga promised implicit obdience. In fact, she
knew more of the malady of the princesses than
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they did themselves. Shutting herself up with
them, however, she endeavoured to insinuate herself
into their confidence.
“My dear children, what is the reason you are so
dismal and downcast, in so beautiful a place, where
you have every thing that heart can wish?”
The princesses looked vacantly round the apartment,
and sighed.
“What more, then, would you have? Shall I get
you the wonderful parrot that talks all languages,
and is the delight of Granada?”
“Odious!” exclaimed the princess Zayda. “A
horrid screaming bird, that chatters words without
ideas! One must be without brains to tolerate such
a pest.”
“Shall I send for a monkey from the rock of
Gibraltar, to divert you with his antics?”
“A monkey! faugh!” cried Zorayda, “the detestable
mimic of man. I hate the nauseous animal.”
“What say you to the famous black singer, Casem,
from the royal harem in Morocco. They say
he has a voice as fine as a woman's.”
“I am terrified at the sight of these black
slaves,” said the delicate Zorahayda; “beside, I
have lost all relish for music.”
“Ah, my child, you would not say so,” replied
the old woman, slyly, “had you heard the music
I heard last evening, from the three Spanish
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cavaliers whom we met on our journey.—But bless
me, children! what is the matter that you blush
so, and are in such a flutter?”
“Nothing, nothing, good mother, pray proceed.”
“Well—as I was passing by the Vermilion towers,
last evening, I saw the three cavaliers resting
after their day's labour. One was playing on the
guitar so gracefully, and the others sang by turns—
and they did it in such style, that the very
guards seemed like statues or men enchanted. Allah
forgive me, I could not help being moved at
hearing the songs of my native country—And then
to see three such noble and handsome youths in
chains and slavery!”
Here, the kind-hearted old woman could not restrain
her tears.
“Perhaps, mother, you could manage to procure
us a sight of these cavaliers,” said Zayda.
“I think,” said Zorayda, “a little music would
be quite reviving.”
The timid Zorahayda said nothing, but threw
her arms round the neck of Cadiga.
“Mercy on me!” exclaimed the discreet old woman;
“what are you talking of, my children?
Your father would be the death of us all, if he
heard of such a thing. To be sure, these cavaliers
are evidently well-bred and high-minded
youths—but what of that! they are the enemies of
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our faith, and you must not even think of them,
but with abhorrence.”
There is an admirable intrepidity in the female
will, particularly about the marriageable age,
which is not to be deterred by dangers and prohibitions.
The princesses hung round their old duenna,
and coaxed and entreated, and declared that
a refusal would break their hearts. What could
she do? She was certainly the most discreet old
woman in the whole world, and one of the most
faithful servants to the king—but was she to see
three beautiful princesses break their hearts for
the mere tinkling of a guitar? Beside, though she
had been so long among the Moors, and changed
her faith, in imitation of her mistress, like a trusty
follower, yet she was a Spaniard born, and had the
lingerings of Christianity in her heart. So she set
about to contrive how the wishes of the princesses
might be gratified.
The Christian captives confined in the Vermilion
towers, were under the charge of a big-whiskered-broad-shouldered
renegado, called Hussein
Baba, who was reported to have a most itching
palm. She went to him, privately, and slipping a
broad piece of gold into his hand, “Hussein Baba,”
said she, “my mistresses, the three princesses, who
are shut up in the tower, and in sad want of amusement,
have heard of the musical talents of the three
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Spanish cavaliers, and are desirous of hearing a specimen
of their skill. I am sure you are too kind-hearted
to refuse them so innocent a gratification.”
“What, and to have my head set grinning
over the gate of my own tower—for that would
be the reward, if the king should discover it.”
“No danger of any thing of the kind; the affair
may be managed so that the whim of the princesses
may be gratified, and their father be never
the wiser. You know the deep ravine outside of
the walls, that passes immediately below the tower.
Put the three Christians to work there, and at the
intervals of their labour let them play and sing,
as if for their own recreation. In this way, the
princesses will be able to hear them from the windows
of the tower, and you may be sure of their
paying well for your compliance.”
As the good old woman concluded her harangue,
she kindly pressed the rough hand of the renegado,
and left within it another piece of gold.
Her eloquence was irresistible. The very next
day the three cavaliers were put to work in the
ravine. During the noon-tide heat when their
fellow labourers were sleeping in the shade, and
the guard nodded drowsily at his post, they seated
themselves among the herbage at the foot of the
tower, and sang a Spanish roundelay to the accompaniment
of the guitar.
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The glen was deep, the tower was high, but
their voices rose distinctly in the stillness of the
summer noon. The princesses listened from their
balcony; they had been taught the Spanish language
by their duenna, and were moved by the tenderness
of the song.
The discreet Cadiga, on the contrary, was terribly
shocked. “Allah preserve us,” cried she,
“they are singing a love ditty addressed to yourselves,—
did ever mortal hear of such audacity? I
will run to the slave master and have them sound-ly
bastinadoed.”
“What, bastinado such gallant cavaliers, and
for singing so charmingly!” The three beautiful
princesses were filled with horror at the idea.
With all her virtuous indignation, the good old
woman was of a placable nature and easily appeased.
Beside, the music seemed to have a beneficial
effect upon her young mistresses. A rosy
bloom had already come to their cheeks, and
their eyes began to sparkle. She made no farther
objection, therefore, to the amorous ditty of
the cavaliers.
When it was finished, the princesses remained
silent for a time; at length Zorayda took up a lute,
and with a sweet though faint and trembling
voice, warbled a little Arabian air, the burden of
which was, “The rose is concealed among her
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leaves, but she listens with delight to the song of
the nightingale.”
From this time forward the cavaliers worked
almost daily in the ravine. The considerate
Hussein Baba became more and more indulgent,
and daily more prone to sleep at his post. For
some time a vague intercourse was kept up by
popular songs and romances; which in some measure
responded to each other, and breathed the
feelings of the parties. By degrees the princesses
showed themselves at the balcony, when
they could do so without being perceived by the
guards. They conversed with the cavaliers also
by means of flowers, with the symbolical language
of which they were mutually acquainted:
the difficulties of their intercourse added to its
charms, and strengthened the passion they had so
singularly conceived; for love delights to struggle
with difficulties, and thrives the most hardily on
the scantiest soil.
The change effected in the looks and spirits of
the princesses by this secret intercourse, surprised
and gratified the left-handed king; but no one was
more elated than the discreet Cadiga, who considered
it all owing to her able management.
At length there was an interruption in this telegraphic
correspondence, for several days the cavaliers
ceased to make their appearance in the glen.
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The three beautiful princesses looked out from the
tower in vain.—In vain they stretched their swanlike
necks from the balcony; in vain they sang
like captive nightingales in their cage; nothing
was to be seen of their Christian lovers, not a note
responded from the groves. The discreet Cadiga
sallied forth in quest of intelligence, and soon returned
with a face full of trouble. “Ah, my children!”
cried she, “I saw what all this would come
to, but you would have your way; you may now
hang up your lutes on the willows. The Spanish
cavaliers are ransomed by their families; they are
down in Granada, and preparing to return to
their native country.
The three beautiful princesses were in despair
at the tidings. The fair Zayda was indignant at
the slight put upon them, in being thus deserted
without a parting word. Zorayda wrung her
hands and cried, and looked in the glass, and
wiped away her tears, and cried afresh. The gentle
Zorahayda leaned over the balcony, and wept
in silence, and her tears fell drop by drop, among
the flowers of the bank where the faithless cavaliers
had so often been seated.
The discreet Cadiga did all in her power to
sooth their sorrow. “Take comfort, my children,”
said she; “this is nothing, when you are
used to it. This is the way of the world. Ah,
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when you are as old as I am, you will know how
to value these men. I'll warrant these cavaliers
have their loves among the Spanish beauties of
Cordova and Seville, and will soon be serenading
under their balconies, and thinking no more of the
Moorish beauties in the Alhambra.—Take comfort,
therefore, my children, and drive them from
your hearts.”
The comforting words of the discreet Cadiga,
only redoubled the distress of the princesses, and
for two days they continued inconsolable. On the
morning of the third, the good old woman entered
their apartment all ruffling with indignation.
“Who would have believed such insolence in
mortal man?” exclaimed she, as soon as she could
find words to express herself; “but I am rightly
served for having connived at this deception of
your worthy father—never talk more to me of
your Spanish cavaliers.”
“Why, what has happened, good Cadiga?” exclaimed
the princesses, in breathless anxiety.
“What has happened? treason has happened!—
or what is almost as bad, treason has been proposed—
and to me—the faithfulest of subjects—
the trustiest of duennas—yes, my children—the
Spanish cavaliers have dared to tamper with me;
that I should persuade you to fly with them to Cordova,
and become their wives.”
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Here the excellent old woman covered her face
with her hands, and gave way to a violent burst
of grief and indignation.
The three beautiful princesses turned pale and
red, and trembled, and looked down; and cast shy
looks at each other, but said nothing: meantime,
the old woman sat rocking backward and forward
in violent agitation, and now and then breaking
out into exclamations—“That ever I should live
to be so insulted—I, the faithfulest of servants!”
At length the eldest princess, who had most spirit,
and always took the lead, approached her, and laying
her hand upon her shoulder—“Well, mother,”
said she, “supposing we were willing to fly with
these Christian cavaliers—Is such a thing possible?”
The good old woman paused suddenly in her
grief, and looking up—“Possible!” echoed she, “to
be sure it is possible. Have not the cavaliers already
bribed Hussein Baba, the renegado captain
of the guard, and arranged the whole plan?—But
then to think of deceiving your father—your father,
who has placed such confidence in me?”
Here the worthy old woman gave way to a
fresh burst of grief, and began again to rock backwards
and forwards, and to wring her hands.
“But our father has never placed any confidence
in us,” said the eldest princess; “but has trusted to
bolts and bars, and treated us as captives.”
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“Why, that is true enough,” replied the old woman,
again pausing in her grief—“He has indeed
treated you most unreasonably. Keeping you shut
up here to waste your bloom in a moping old tower,
like roses left to wither in a flower jar. But
then to fly from your native land.”
“And is not the land we fly to the native land
of our mother; where we shall live in freedom?—
and shall we not each have a youthful husband in
exchange for a severe old father?”
“Why, that again is all very true—and your father,
I must confess, is rather tyrannical—But what
then”—relapsing into her grief—“would you leave
me behind to bear the brunt of his vengeance?”
“By no means, my good Cadiga. Cannot you fly
with us!”
“Very true, my child, and to tell the truth,
when I talked the matter over with Hussein Baba,
he promised to take care of me if I would accompany
you in your flight: but then, bethink you, my
children; are you willing to renounce the faith of
your father?”
“The Christian faith was the original faith of
our mother,” said the eldest princess; “I am ready
to embrace it; and so I am sure are my sisters.
“Right again!” exclaimed the old woman, brightening
up—It was the original faith of your mother;
and bitterly did she lament, on her
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death-bed, that she had renounced it. I promised her
then to take care of your souls, and I am rejoiced
to see that they are now in a fair way to be saved.
Yes, my children; I too was born a Christian—and
have always been a Christian in my heart; and
am resolved to return to the faith. I have talked
on the subject with Hussein Baba, who is a Spaniard
by birth, and comes from a place not far
from my native town. He is equally anxious to
see his own country and to be reconciled to the
church, and the cavaliers have promised that if
we are disposed to become man and wife on returning
to our native land, they will provide for us
handsomely.”
In a word, it appeared that this extremely discreet
and provident old woman had consulted with
the cavaliers and the renegado, and had concerted
the whole plan of escape. The eldest princess immediately
assented to it, and her example as usual
determined the conduct of her sisters. It is true,
the youngest hesitated, for she was gentle and timid
of soul, and there was a struggle in her bosom
between filial feeling and youthful passion. The
latter, however, as usual, gained the victory, and
with silent tears and stifled sighs she prepared herself
for flight.
The rugged hill on which the Alhambra is
built, was in old times perforated with
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subterranean passages, cut through the rock, and leading
from the fortress to various parts of the city, and
to distant sally-ports on the banks of the Darro and
the Xenil. They had been constructed at different
times, by the Moorish kings, as means of escape
from sudden insurrection, or of secretly issuing
forth on private enterprises. Many of them are
now entirely lost, while others remain, partly
choked up with rubbish, and partly walled up—
monuments of the jealous precautions and warlike
stratagems of the Moorish government. By one
of these passages, Hussein Baba had undertaken
to conduct the princesses to a sally-port beyond
the walls of the city, where the cavaliers were to
be ready with fleet steeds to bear them all over
the borders.
The appointed night arrived. The tower of the
princesses had been locked up as usual, and the
Alhambra was buried in deep sleep. Towards
midnight the discreet Cadiga listened from a balcony
of a window that looked into the garden.
Hussein Baba, the renegado, was already below,
and gave the appointed signal. The duenna fastened
the end of a ladder of ropes to the balcony,
lowered it into the garden, and descended. The
two eldest princesses followed her with beating
hearts; but when it came to the turn of the youngest
princess, Zorahayda, she hesitated and trembled.
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Several times she ventured a delicate little foot
upon the ladder, and as often drew it back; while
her poor little heart fluttered more and more the
longer she delayed. She cast a wistful look back
into the silken chamber, she had lived in it, to be
sure, like a bird in a cage, but within it she was secure—
who could not tell what dangers might beset
her should she flutter forth into the wide world?
Now she bethought her of her gallant Christian lover,
and her little foot was instantly upon the ladder,
and anon she thought of her father, and shrunk
back. But fruitless is the attempt to describe the
conflict in the bosom of one so young, and tender,
and loving, but so timid and so ignorant of the
world. In vain her sisters implored, the duenna
scolded, and the renegado blasphemed beneath the
balcony. The gentle little Moorish maid stood
doubting and wavering on the verge of elopement;
tempted by the sweetness of the sin, but terrified
at its perils.
Every moment increased the danger of discovery.
A distant tramp was heard.—“The patrols
are walking the rounds,” cried the renegado,
“if we linger longer we perish—princess, descend
instantly, or we leave you.”
Zorahayda was for a moment in fearful agitation,
then loosening the ladder of ropes, with desperate
resolution she flung it from the balcony.
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“It is decided!” cried she, “flight is now out of my
power!—Allah guide and bless ye, my dear sisters!”
The two eldest princesses were shocked at the
thoughts of leaving her behind, and would fain
have lingered, but the patrol was advancing; the
renegado was furious, and they were hurried
away to the subterraneous passage. They groped
their way through a fearful labyrinth cut through
the heart of the mountain, and succeeded in
reaching, undiscovered, an iron gate that opened
outside of the walls. The Spanish cavaliers were
waiting to receive them, disguised as Moorish
soldiers of the guard commanded by the renegado.
The lover of Zorahayda was frantic when he
learned that she had refused to leave the tower; but
there was no time to waste in lamentations. The
two princesses were placed behind their lovers; the
discreet Cadiga mounted behind the renegado, and
all set off at a round pace in the direction of the
pass of Lope, which leads through the mountains
towards Cordova.
They had not proceeded far when they heard
the noise of drums and trumpets from the battlements
of the Alhambra. “Our flight is discovered,”
said the renegado. “We have fleet steeds, the
night is dark, and we may distance all pursuit,”
replied the cavaliers.
They put spurs to their horses and scoured
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across the Vega. They attained to the foot of
the mountain of Elvira, which stretches like a
promontory into the plain. The renegado paused
and listened. “As yet,” said he, “there is no one
on our traces, we shall make good our escape to
the mountains.” While he spoke a ball of fire
sprang up in a light blaze on the top of the watch
tower of the Alhambra.
“Confusion!” cried the renegado, “that fire will
will put all the guards of the passes on the alert.
Away, away, spur like mad; there is no time to be
lost.”
Away they dashed—the clattering of their
horses' hoofs echoed from rock to rock as they
swept along the road that skirts the rocky mountain
of Elvira. As they galloped on, they beheld
that the ball of fire of the Alhambra was answered
in every direction; lightafter light blazed on
the atalayas or watch towers of the mountains.
“Forward! forward!” cried the renegado, with
many an oath—“to the bridge!—to the bridge!
before the alarm has reached there.”
They doubled the promontory of the mountain,
and arrived in sight of the famous Puente del Pinos,
that crosses a rushing stream often dyed with
Christian and moslem blood. To their confusion
the tower on the bridge blazed with lights and
glittered with armed men. The renegado pulled
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up his steed, rose in his stirrups and looked about
him for a moment, then beckoning to the cavaliers
he struck off from the road, skirted the river
for some distance, and dashed into its waters.
The cavaliers called upon the princesses to cling
to them, and did the same. They were borne for
some distance down the rapid current, the surges
roared round them, but the beautiful princesses
clung to their Christian knights and never uttered
a complaint. The cavaliers attained the opposite
bank in safety, and were conducted, by the renegado,
by rude and unfrequented paths, and wild
barrancos through the heart of the mountains, so
as to avoid all the regular passes. In a word,
they succeeded in reaching the ancient city of
Cordova; when their restoration to their country
and friends was celebrated with great rejoicings,
for they were of the noblest families. The beautiful
princesses were forthwith received into the
bosom of the church, and after being in all due
form made regular Christians, were rendered happy
lovers.
In our hurry to make good the escape of the
princesses across the river and up the mountains,
we forgot to mention the fate of the discreet Cadiga.
She had clung like a cat to Hussein Baba,
in the scamper across the Vega, screaming at
every bound and drawing many an oath from the
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whiskered renegado; but when he prepared to
plunge his steed into the river her terror knew no
bounds.
“Grasp me not so tightly,” cried Hussein Baba;
“hold on by my belt, and fear nothing.”
She held firmly with both hands by the leathern
belt that girded the broad-backed renegado; but
when he halted with the cavaliers to take breath
on the mountain summit, the duenna was no longer
to be seen.
“What has become of Cadiga?” cried the princesses
in alarm.
“I know not,” replied the renegado. “My belt
came loose in the midst of the river, and Cadiga
was swept with it down the stream. The will of
Allah be done!—but it was an embroidered belt
and of great price!”
There was no time to waste in idle reports, yet
bitterly did the princesses bewail the loss of their
faithful and discreet counsellor. That excellent
old woman, however, did not lose more than half
of her nine lives in the stream—A fisherman who
was drawing his nets some distance down the
stream, brought her to land and was not a little
astonished at his miraculous draught. What farther
became of the discreet Cadiga, the legend
does not mention—Certain it is, that she evinced
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her discretion in never venturing within the reach
of Mohamed the left-handed.
Almost as little is known of the conduct of that
sagacious monarch, when he discovered the escape
of his daughters and the deceit practised upon him
by the most faithful of servants. It was the only instance
in which he had called in the aid of counsel,
and he was never afterwards known to be guilty
of a similar weakness. He took good care, however,
to guard his remaining daughter; who had no
disposition to elope. It is thought, indeed, that
she secretly repented having remained behind.
Now and then she was seen leaning on the battlements
of the tower and looking mournfully towards
the mountains, in the direction of Cordova; and
sometimes the notes of her lute were heard accompanying
plaintive ditties, in which she was
said to lament the loss of her sisters and her lover,
and to bewail her solitary life. She died young,
and, according to popular rumour, was buried in a
vault beneath the tower, and her untimely fate
has given rise to more than one traditionary fable.
END OF VOLUME I.
Back matter
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CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
[figure description] Contents page.[end figure description]
The Journey 13
Government of the Alhambra 40
Interior 45
The Tower of Comares 61
Reflections on the Moslem Domination in Spain 69
The Household 75
The Truant 83
The Author's Chamber 89
The Alhambra by Moonlight 99
Inhabitants of the Alhambra 103
The Balcony 111
The Adventure of the Mason 120
A Ramble among the Hills 127
The Court of Lions 141
Boabdil el Chico 151
Mementos of Boabdil 157
The Tower of las Infantas 163
The House of the Weathercock 167
The Legend of the Arabian Astrologer 169
Legend of the three Beautiful Princesses 199
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Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 [1832], The Alhambra: a series of tales and sketches of the Moors and Spaniards, volume 1 (Carey & Lea, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf220v1].
