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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 paridise,
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 spur 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 inhabited
by the Castilian monarchs. The Emperor
Charles V. began a sumptuous palace within its

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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 palace 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 front of 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
blow to the Alhambra. Its beautiful halls 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

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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
interfered: 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 occasionly
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 repaired,
the saloons and galleries protected from the weather,
the gardens cultivated, the watercourses
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

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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 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 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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