Part 14

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 entire, 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 subterranean 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 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 neighboring trees; so that in fact it is 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.

NOTE TO THE ARABIAN ASTROLOGER

Al Makkari, in his history of the Mahommedan Dynasties in Spain, cites from another Arabian writer an account of a talismanic effigy somewhat similar to the one in the foregoing legend.

In Cadiz, says he, there formerly stood a square tower upwards of one hundred cubits high, built of huge blocks of stone, fastened together with clamps of brass. On the top was the figure of a man, holding a staff in his right hand, his face turned to the Atlantic, and pointing with the forefinger of his left hand to the Straits of Gibraltar. It was said to have been set up in ancient times by the Gothic kings of Andalus, as a beacon or guide to navigators. The Moslems of Barbary and Andalus considered it a talisman which exercised a spell over the seas. Under its guidance, swarms of piratical people of a nation called Majus, appeared on the coast in large vessels with a square sail in the bow, and another in the stern. They came every six or seven years; captured everything they met with on the sea;--guided by the statue, they passed through the Straits into the Mediterranean, landed on the coasts of Andalus, laid everything waste with fire and sword; and sometimes carried their depredations on the opposite coasts even as far as Syria.

At length it came to pass in the time of the civil wars, a Moslem Admiral who had taken possession of Cadiz, hearing that the statue on top of the tower was of pure gold, had it lowered to the ground and broken to pieces: when it proved to be of gilded brass. With the destruction of the idol, the spell over the sea was at an end. From that time forward nothing more was seen of the piratical people of the ocean excepting that two of their barks were wrecked on the coast, one at Marsu-l-Majus (the port of the Majus), the other close to the promontory of Al Aghan.

The maritime invaders above mentioned by Al Makkari must have been the Northmen.

VISITORS TO THE ALHAMBRA

For nearly three months had I enjoyed undisturbed my dream of sovereignty in the Alhambra,--a longer term of quiet than had been the lot of many of my predecessors. During this lapse of time the progress of the season had wrought the usual change. On my arrival I had found everything in the freshness of May; the foliage of the trees was still tender and transparent; the pomegranate had not yet shed its brilliant crimson blossoms; the orchards of the Xenil and the Darro were in full bloom; the rocks were hung with wild flowers, and Granada seemed completely surrounded by a wilderness of roses; among which innumerable nightingales sang, not merely in the night, but all day long.

Now the advance of summer had withered the rose and silenced the nightingale, and the distant country began to look parched and sunburnt; though a perennial verdure reigned immediately round the city and in the deep narrow valleys at the foot of the snow-capped mountains.

The Alhambra possesses retreats graduated to the heat of the weather, among which the most peculiar is the almost subterranean apartment of the baths. This still retains its ancient Oriental character, though stamped with the touching traces of decline. At the entrance, opening into a small court formerly adorned with flowers, is a hall, moderate in size, but light and graceful in architecture. It is overlooked by a small gallery supported by marble pillars and Moresco arches. An alabaster fountain in the centre of the pavement still throws up a jet of water to cool the place. On each side are deep alcoves with raised platforms, where the bathers, after their ablutions, reclined on cushions, soothed to voluptuous repose by the fragrance of the perfumed air and the notes of soft music from the gallery. Beyond this hall are the interior chambers, still more retired; the _sanctum sanctorum_ of female privacy; for here the beauties of the Harem indulged in the luxury of the baths. A soft mysterious light reigns through the place, admitted through small apertures (lumbreras) in the vaulted ceiling. The traces of ancient elegance are still to be seen; and the alabaster baths in which the sultanas once reclined. The prevailing obscurity and silence have made these vaults a favorite resort of bats, who nestle during the day in the dark nooks and corners, and on being disturbed, flit mysteriously about the twilight chambers, heightening, in an indescribable degree, their air of desertion and decay.

In this cool and elegant, though dilapidated retreat, which had the freshness and seclusion of a grotto, I passed the sultry hours of the day as summer advanced, emerging towards sunset; and bathing, or rather swimming, at night in the great reservoir of the main court. In this way I was enabled in a measure to counteract the relaxing and enervating influence of the climate.

My dream of absolute sovereignty, however, came at length to an end. I was roused one morning by the report of fire-arms, which reverberated among the towers as if the castle had been taken by surprise. On sallying forth, I found an old cavalier with a number of domestics in possession of the Hall of Ambassadors. He was an ancient count who had come up from his palace in Granada to pass a short time in the Alhambra for the benefit of purer air; and who, being a veteran and inveterate sportsman, was endeavoring to get an appetite for his breakfast by shooting at swallows from the balconies. It was a harmless amusement; for though, by the alertness of his attendants in loading his pieces, he was enabled to keep up a brisk fire, I could not accuse him of the death of a single swallow. Nay, the birds themselves seemed to enjoy the sport, and to deride his want of skill, skimming in circles close to the balconies, and twittering as they darted by.

The arrival of this old gentleman changed essentially the aspect of affairs, but caused no jealousy nor collision. We tacitly shared the empire between us, like the last kings of Granada, excepting that we maintained a most amicable alliance. He reigned absolute over the Court of the Lions and its adjacent halls, while I maintained peaceful possession of the regions of the baths and the little garden of Lindaraxa. We took our meals together under the arcades of the court, where the fountains cooled the air, and bubbling rills ran along the channels of the marble pavement.

In the evenings a domestic circle would gather about the worthy old cavalier. The countess, his wife by a second marriage, would come up from the city accompanied by her step-daughter Carmen, an only child, a charming little being, still in her girlish years. Then there were always some of his official dependants, his chaplain, his lawyer, his secretary, his steward, and other officers and agents of his extensive possessions, who brought him up the news or gossip of the city, and formed his evening party of tresillo or ombre. Thus he held a kind of domestic court, where each one paid him deference, and sought to contribute to his amusement, without, however, any appearance of servility, or any sacrifice of self-respect. In fact, nothing of the kind was exacted by the demeanor of the count; for whatever may be said of Spanish pride, it rarely chills or constrains the intercourse of social or domestic life. Among no people are the relations between kindred more unreserved and cordial, or between superior and dependant more free from haughtiness on the one side, and obsequiousness on the other. In these respects there still remains in Spanish life, especially in the provinces, much of the vaunted simplicity of the olden time.

The most interesting member of this family group, in my eyes, was the daughter of the count, the lovely little Carmen. She was but about sixteen years of age, and appeared to be considered a mere child, though the idol of the family, going generally by the childlike but endearing appellation of la Niña. Her form had not yet attained full maturity and development, but possessed already the exquisite symmetry and pliant grace so prevalent in this country. Her blue eyes, fair complexion, and light hair were unusual in Andalusia, and gave a mildness and gentleness to her demeanor in contrast to the usual fire of Spanish beauty, but in unison with the guileless and confiding innocence of her manners. She had at the same time the innate aptness and versatility of her fascinating country-women. Whatever she undertook to do she did well and apparently without effort. She sang, played the guitar and other instruments, and danced the picturesque dances of her country to admiration, but never seemed to seek admiration. Everything was spontaneous, prompted by her own gay spirits and happy temper.

The presence of this fascinating little being spread a new charm about the Alhambra, and seemed to be in unison with the place. While the count and countess, with the chaplain or secretary, were playing their game of tresillo under the vestibule of the Court of Lions, she, attended by Dolores, who acted as her maid of honor, would sit by one of the fountains, and accompanying herself on the guitar, would sing some of those popular romances which abound in Spain, or, what was still more to my taste, some traditional ballad about the Moors.

Never shall I think of the Alhambra without remembering this lovely little being, sporting in happy and innocent girlhood in its marble halls, dancing to the sound of the Moorish castanets, or mingling the silver warbling of her voice with the music of its fountains.

RELICS AND GENEALOGIES

If I had been pleased and interested by the count and his family, as furnishing a picture of a Spanish domestic life, I was still more so when apprised of historical circumstances which linked them with the heroic times of Granada. In fact, in this worthy old cavalier, so totally unwarlike, or whose deeds in arms extended, at most, to a war on swallows and martlets, I discovered a lineal descendant and actual representative of Gonsalvo of Cordova, “The Grand Captain,” who won some of his brightest laurels before the walls of Granada, and was one of the cavaliers commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella to negotiate the terms of surrender; nay, more, the count was entitled, did he choose it, to claim remote affinity with some of the ancient Moorish princes, through a scion of his house, Don Pedro Venegas, surnamed the Tornadizo; and by the same token his daughter, the fascinating little Carmen, might claim to be rightful representative of the princess Cetimerien or the beautiful Lindaraxa.[17]

Understanding from the count that he had some curious relics of the Conquest, preserved in his family archives, I accompanied him early one morning down to his palace in Granada to examine them. The most important of these relics was the sword of the Grand Captain; a weapon destitute of all ostentatious ornament, as the weapons of great generals are apt to be, with a plain hilt of ivory and a broad thin blade. It might furnish a comment on hereditary honors, to see the sword of the Grand Captain legitimately declined into such feeble hands.

The other relics of the Conquest were a number of espingardas or muskets of unwieldy size and ponderous weight, worthy to rank with those enormous two-edged swords preserved in old armories, which look like relics from the days of the giants.

Beside other hereditary honors, I found the old count was Alferez mayor, or grand standard-bearer, in which capacity he was entitled to bear the ancient standard of Ferdinand and Isabella, on certain high and solemn occasions, and to wave it over their tombs. I was shown also the caparisons of velvet, sumptuously embroidered with gold and silver, for six horses, with which he appeared in state when a new sovereign was to be proclaimed in Granada and Seville; the count mounting one of the horses, and the other five being led by lackeys in rich liveries.

I had hoped to find among the relics and antiquities of the count’s palace some specimens of the armor and weapons of the Moors of Granada, such as I had heard were preserved as trophies by the descendants of the Conquerors; but in this I was disappointed. I was the more curious in this particular, because an erroneous idea has been entertained by many, as to the costumes of the Moors of Spain; supposing them to be of the usual Oriental type. On the contrary, we have it on the authority of their own writers, that they adopted in many respects the fashions of the Christians. The turban, especially, so identified in idea with the Moslem, was generally abandoned, except in the western provinces, where it continued in use among people of rank and wealth, and those holding places under government. A woollen cap, red or green, was commonly worn as a substitute; probably the same kind originating in Barbary, and known by the name of Tunis or Fez, which at the present day is worn throughout the East, though generally under the turban. The Jews were obliged to wear them of a yellow color.

In Murcia, Valencia, and other eastern provinces, men of the highest rank might be seen in public bare-headed. The warrior king, Aben Hud, never wore a turban, neither did his rival and competitor Al Hamar, the founder of the Alhambra. A short cloak called Taylasan, similar to that seen in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was worn by all ranks. It had a hood or cape which people of condition sometimes drew over the head; but the lower class never.

A Moslem cavalier in the thirteenth century, as described by Ibnu Said, was equipped for war very much in the Christian style. Over a complete suit of mail he wore a short scarlet tunic. His helmet was of polished steel; a shield was slung at his back; he wielded a huge spear with a broad point, sometimes a double point. His saddle was cumbrous, projecting very much in front and in rear, and he rode with a banner fluttering behind him.

In the time of Al Khattib of Granada, who wrote in the fourteenth century, the Moslems of Andalus had resumed the Oriental costumes, and were again clad and armed in Arabic fashion: with light helmet, thin but well-tempered cuirass, long slender lance, commonly of reed, Arabian saddle and leathern buckler, made of double folds of the skin of the antelope. A wonderful luxury prevailed at that time in the arms and equipments of the Granadian cavaliers. Their armor was inlaid with gold and silver. Their cimeters were of the keenest Damascus blades, with sheaths richly wrought and enamelled, and belts of golden filigree studded with gems. Their daggers of Fez had jewelled hilts, and their lances were set off with gay banderoles. Their horses were caparisoned in correspondent style, with velvet and embroidery.

All this minute description, given by a contemporary, and an author of distinction, verifies those gallant pictures in the old Morisco Spanish ballads which have sometimes been deemed apocryphal, and give a vivid idea of the brilliant appearance of the chivalry of Granada, when marshalled forth in warlike array, or when celebrating the chivalrous fêtes of the Vivarrambla.

THE GENERALIFE

High above the Alhambra, on the breast of the mountain, amidst embowered gardens and stately terraces, rise the lofty towers and white walls of the Generalife; a fairy palace, full of storied recollections. Here are still to be seen the famous cypresses of enormous size which flourished in the time of the Moors, and which tradition has connected with the fabulous story of Boabdil and his sultana.

Here are preserved the portraits of many who figured in the romantic drama of the Conquest. Ferdinand and Isabella, Ponce de Leon, the gallant Marquis of Cadiz, and Garcilaso de la Vega, who slew in desperate fight Tarfe the Moor, a champion of Herculean strength. Here too hangs a portrait which has long passed for that of the unfortunate Boabdil, but

[Illustration: THE GENERALIFE FROM THE ALHAMBRA.]

which is said to be that of Aben Hud, the Moorish king from whom descended the princes of Almeria. From one of these princes, who joined the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella towards the close of the Conquest, and was christianized by the name of Don Pedro de Granada Venegas, was descended the present proprietor of the palace, the Marquis of Campotejar. The proprietor, however, dwells in a foreign land, and the palace has no longer a princely inhabitant.

Yet here is everything to delight a southern voluptuary: fruits, flowers, fragrance, green arbors and myrtle hedges, delicate air and gushing waters. Here I had an opportunity of witnessing those scenes which painters are fond of depicting about southern palaces and gardens. It was the saint’s day of the count’s daughter, and she had brought up several of her youthful companions from Granada, to sport away a long summer’s day among the breezy halls and bowers of the Moorish palaces. A visit to the Generalife was the morning’s entertainment. Here some of the gay company dispersed itself in groups about the green walks, the bright fountains, the flights of Italian steps, the noble terraces and marble balustrades. Others, among whom I was one, took their seats in an open gallery or colonnade commanding a vast prospect; with the Alhambra, the city, and the Vega, far below, and the distant horizon of mountains--a dreamy world, all glimmering to the eye in summer sunshine. While thus seated, the all-pervading tinkling of the guitar and click of the castanets came stealing up from the valley of the Darro, and half-way down the mountain we descried a festive party under the trees, enjoying themselves in true Andalusian style; some lying on the grass, others dancing to the music.

All these sights and sounds, together with the princely seclusion of the place, the sweet quiet which prevailed around, and the delicious serenity of the weather, had a witching effect upon the mind, and drew from some of the company, versed in local story, several of the popular fancies and traditions connected with this old Moorish palace; they were “such stuff as dreams are made of,” but out of them I have shaped the following legend, which I hope may have the good fortune to prove acceptable to the reader.

LEGEND OF PRINCE AHMED AL KAMEL

OR, THE PILGRIM OF LOVE

There was once a Moorish king of Granada, who had but one son, whom he named Ahmed, to which his courtiers added the surname of al Kamel, or the Perfect, from the indubitable signs of superexcellence which they perceived in him in his very infancy. The astrologers countenanced them in their foresight, predicting everything in his favor that could make a perfect prince and a prosperous sovereign. One cloud only rested upon his destiny, and even that was of a roseate hue: he would be of an amorous temperament, and run great perils from the tender passion. If, however, he could be kept from the allurements of love until of mature age, these dangers would be averted, and his life thereafter be one uninterrupted course of felicity.

To prevent all danger of the kind, the king wisely determined to rear the prince in a seclusion where he should never see a female face, nor hear even the name of love. For this purpose he built a beautiful palace on the brow of the hill above the Alhambra, in the midst of delightful gardens, but surrounded by lofty walls, being, in fact, the same palace known at the present day by the name of the Generalife. In this palace the youthful prince was shut up, and intrusted to the guardianship and instruction of Eben Bonabben, one of the wisest and dryest of Arabian sages, who had passed the greatest part of his life in Egypt, studying hieroglyphics, and making researches among the tombs and pyramids, and who saw more charms in an Egyptian mummy than in the most tempting of living beauties. The sage was ordered to instruct the prince in all kinds of knowledge but one,--he was to be kept utterly ignorant of love. “Use every precaution for the purpose you may think proper,” said the king, “but remember, O Eben Bonabben, if my son learns aught of that forbidden knowledge while under your care, your head shall answer for it.” A withered smile came over the dry visage of the wise Bonabben at the menace. “Let your majesty’s heart be as easy about your son, as mine is about my head: am I a man likely to give lessons in the idle passion?”

Under the vigilant care of the philosopher, the prince grew up in the seclusion of the palace and its gardens. He had black slaves to attend upon him--hideous mutes who knew nothing of love, or if they did, had not words to communicate it. His mental endowments were the peculiar care of Eben Bonabben, who sought to initiate him into the abstruse lore of Egypt; but in this the prince made little progress, and it was soon evident that he had no turn for philosophy.

He was, however, amazingly ductile for a youthful prince, ready to follow any advice, and always guided by the last counsellor. He suppressed his yawns, and listened patiently to the long and learned discourses of Eben Bonabben, from which he imbibed a smattering of various kinds of knowledge, and thus happily attained his twentieth year, a miracle of princely wisdom--but totally ignorant of love.

About this time, however, a change came over the conduct of the prince. He completely abandoned his studies, and took to strolling about the gardens, and musing by the side of the fountains. He had been taught a little music among his various accomplishments; it now engrossed a great part of his time, and a turn for poetry became apparent. The sage Eben Bonabben took the alarm, and endeavored to work these idle humors out of him by a severe course of algebra; but the prince turned from it with distaste. “I cannot endure algebra,” said he; “it is an abomination to me. I want something that speaks more to the heart.”