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Blue, red, and yellow, in their most brilliant purity, were laid on in a variety of original devices, and with a boldness of contrast that threw Moorish effort in that line quite into the shade. The Alhambra was nothing to it!
The most celebrated Spanish example is the fortress and palace of the Alhambra, begun in 1248, and finished in 1314. Two other well-known examples are, the Giralda at Seville, and the Mosque at Cordova.
It was Aladdin's Palace, the Tuilleries, Versailles, and the Alhambra, all in one. The only fault to be found with it was that it was not marble. It was a species of weather-proof composition, but very finely carved, and much valued by Mr. Breynton.
It had been a last request of the unfortunate Boabdil, and one which showed how deeply he felt the transition of his fate, that no person might be permitted to enter or depart by the gate of the Alhambra, through which he had sallied forth to surrender his capital. His request was granted; the portal was closed up, and remains so to the present day a mute memorial of that event.
We had a good lunch at Shepherd's Inn, and then ran home in time for dinner. We came by Calabasas, and just before we reached the Cahuenga Pass we turned off and went through Lankershim on our way to Alhambra. We all remarked that in no section of the state we had visited did the trees look as healthy, the alfalfa as luxuriant, the garden truck as vigorous, as they did at Lankershim.
Barely forty years earlier the Mohammedans had taken Constantinople. Now other Mohammedans were to be turned out of western Europe. New Year's Day 1492 came and Granada fell. The Moorish king had to bend humbly on his knees before the victor ere he went on his way, and the Castilian flag waved from the towers and pinnacles of the Alhambra.
His first sight of the Alhambra is given in a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller: "Our journey through La Mancha was cold and uninteresting, excepting when we passed through the scenes of some of the exploits of Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a night amidst the scenery of the Sierra Morena, seen by the light of the full moon.
Poetry mingles with architecture in the Alhambra. It breathes along the very walls. Wherever Antonio turned his eye, he beheld inscriptions in Arabic, wherein the perpetuity of Moorish power and splendour within these walls was confidently predicted. Alas! how has the prophecy been falsified! Many of the basins, where the fountains had once thrown up their sparkling showers, were dry and dusty.
Boabdil had by this time become so accustomed to be crowned and uncrowned by the multitude that he put no great faith in the duration of their loyalty. He knew that he was surrounded by hollow hearts, and that most of the courtiers of the Alhambra were secretly devoted to his uncle.
The Spaniard, inglorious and decayed, is now but the showman to this magnificence; time has seen his greatness come and go, as came and went the greatness of the Moor, but still, for all its fragility, the Alhambra stands hardly less beautiful.
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