THE ALHAMBRA. (From Slidell's Year in Spain.) still, twice in the week, the whole colony came to- | a country that will, in time, be yellow with wheatgether, and to the sound of the violin danced off hun- fields; and which, for milling purposes, there is ger and care. The savage scout that had been reason to think will afford stone nearly or quite lurking all day in the thicket, listened to the strange equal to the French, when the same skill is used in musick, and, hastening to his fellows, told them that selecting the blocks. the whites would be upon them, for he had seen [To be continued.] them at their war-dance; and the careful Connecticut man, as he guided his broad-horn in the shadow of the Virginia shore, wondered what mischief" the red-varmint" were at next; or, if he knew the sound of the fiddle, shook his head, as he thought of the whiskey that must have been used to produce all that THE tower of the Tribunal, under which is merriment. the principal entrance to the Alhambra, has an But French vivacity, though it could work won-arched gateway, making right angles to mask the ders, could not pay for land. Some of the Gallipolis settlers went to Detroit, others to Kaskaskia; a few bought their lands of the Ohio Company, who treated them with great liberality; and, in 1795, Congress, being informed of the circumstances, granted to the sufferers twenty-four thousand acres of land opposite Little Sandy river, to which, in 1798, twelve hundred acres more were added; which tract has since been known as French Grant. The influence of this settlement upon the state was important; but it forms a curious little episode in the Ohio history, and affords a strange example of national character. Marietta and Cincinnati with their outposts, and Gallipolis, were the only settlements made in Ohio before Wayne's treaty. After that event the Scioto valley and the Western Reserve were rapidly peopled; but we are unable to give any facts of value relating to their settlement. The tract between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers had been originally reserved by Virginia for her soldiers; but, as she allowed locations to be made without having the ground previously surveyed into regular portions, a great deal of overlapping or shingling of titles (as it is called in the West) has taken place; and the uncertainty and litigation, therefrom resulting, have diminished the value of a very excellent body of land; the higher portions being among the best wheat-lands in the West. opening on the interiour. The gate is placed at the second angle, so that it cannot be assailed by missiles or battering-rams from without, and could only be attacked from the middle of the tower, where the assailant would be exposed to the spears and missiles of the garrison, wielded in perfect security through the perpendicular opening overhead. 'The arches that surmount the entrance, and the angles of the passages, are of horseshoe form, a distinctive character of Sarancenick architecture, being so constructed that the parts of the arch corresponding to the ends of the horseshoe project a little beyond the wall which sustains them, which, while it gives them an air of lightness, conveys also the idea of insecurity. Nor is this insecurity only apparent; for I frequently saw brick arches of this form in Andalusia, which had lost the end bricks, forming the projections of the horseshoe, by which those that were above should have been sustained; though stone arches of this form are less liable to destruction, from the greater size of the component parts. There are several Arabick inscriptions which surmount theso different arches and follow their curves, and which, like those within the palace, are mostly in praise of the Deity, of the Prophet, or of the king who erected the tower. One of them is thus translated: "The praise of God. There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet. There is no strength but in God." There are two objects, howThe fertility of the Scioto valley is proverbial.-ever, which antiquaries have been more puzzled to For the cultivation of maize it is unsurpassed, and explain; these are representations of the arm and the stock-farms which border upon it are among the closed hand of a man, and of a key, sculptured largest and best in the state. The Valley itself is above the arches. It is said that the Arabs borrowsubject to that miasma which produces intermittent ed the emblem of the human arm from the ancient fevers; but this is yearly diminishing. East of the Egyptians, among whom it was the symbol of Scioto lies a broken country, through which, from strength, and therefore an appropriate ornament for the southwest to the northeast, passes the great iron so formidable a tower. It had, moreover, a religious deposite. There are several beds, and different signification among the followers of Mahomet; it kinds of ore, all of which dip toward the east. With represented the hand of God displayed in his suthe iron is associated bituminous coal: which, perintending providence, and was besides emblematthough of an ordinary quality in general, and in thin ick of the principal dogmas of their creed; for, as layers, answers for the steam-engines which are the hand has five fingers, in like manner the Mahomused at the furnaces. The amount of available ore etan religion establishes five fundamental precepts: in the counties of Jackson, Lawrence and Scioto, it to believe in God and in his prophet; to call upon is estimated by the state geologist, will supply four God in prayer; to succour the poor; to fast during hundred thousand tuns a year, for two thousand the month of Ramadan; and to visit the temples of seven hundred years; and these contain but a third Mecca and Medina. In consequence of their faith or fourth of the whole deposite, though, from their being represented by the hand, the Saracens bcproximity to the Ohio river, it has been little wrought lieved that it formed a powerful defence against the but in them; there being in the two last-named arms and wiles of infidels, and therefore used it as a counties fourteen or fifteen furnaces, producing an charm, though it would have been idolatry thus to average of one thousand tuns of pig metal a year.—copy the whole body; in the form of a clenched fist Nor can we omit the Buhrstone deposite, which, it was believed to weaken the power of an enemy; adjoining the iron, passes through the very midst of and with the thumb passed between the fingers, it arranged merely as a station whence archers might defend the entrance without the risk of annoyance; but we were now told that it was also connected with an oriental custom, and that in this secure situation, like the Turkish sultans in their Sublime complaints of their subjects, and to administer summary justice in person and upon the spot. Hence the name of the Tower of Tribunal. After a short repose we went to see the remains of the Moorish palace, passing on the way through the open place of arms, called now Plaza de los Algibes, from the immense reservoir for water which lies below. On the east stands the magnificent palace of Charles V., and the other sides are flanked by towers and apartments of the old palace, or by the modern buildings which have sprung up within the walls; for the Alhambra, besides its garrison of invalids, has a population of a thousand souls or more, attracted to the spot for the enjoyment of immunities which are not common to Granada, and which frequently render it a temporary refuge to criminals had the virtue of breaking a charm, and averting the blighting effects of the evil eye, or of being looked on with desire by the possessor of the fatal, though involuntary power of fascination. Ivory represent ations of the hand in this last form were hung round the neck of an infant, and the throat-latch of a fa-Porte, the kings of Granada were wont to hear the vourite horse, or on the cage of a nightingale. It was this charm, as we have already seen, that the Moriscos were accused of making under their cloaks, when compelled to attend mass by the priests who counselled their expulsion, and it is still used among the lower classes in Spain to convey insults. The key sculptured over the inner arch of the portal was likewise a mysterious symbol among the Saracens; for it indicated the power claimed by the prophet, and which is also successfully used by the preachers of other faiths, of opening and shutting the gates of heaven. The key is, however, said to have been especially a favourite emblem with the Andalusians who first invaded Spain, and opened the door of conquest to their young countrymen. These and their descendants wore it vauntingly in their standards.The entrance to the Tower of Tribunal remains un-fleeing from the city. The reservoir in question occhanged since the days of Boabdil, with the single cupies subterraneously an extent nearly equal to the exception that we found a small chapel, under the whole Plaza, to which it gives its name, and is invocation of the Virgin, constructed against the kept constantly filled by an aqueduct connected wall of the passage, and fronting the interiour of the with the Daro; thus supplying water not only to Alhambra. The principal ornament over the rude the Alhambra, but also to many inhabitants of the altar of this little oratory, where the devout may city, among whom it is in great repute. In the make a flying invocation as they pass, is a small oil spring it is emptied and carefully cleansed, then repainting of the Virgin, with the infant Jesus in her filled and allowed to settle, and afterward refilled It appears from the adjoining table of indul- from time to time. The great depth of the resergencies granted to those who worship at this shrine, voir maintains the water in a clear state, and of an that this is the second portrait which St. Luke took equal temperature, warmer than the air in winter, in person of our blessed Lady. Time, which and in summer as cool as one could desire. It is would have left no traces of a heathen production, said to have contained sufficient water to supply the though Apelles had been the painter, has breathed Granadian court, with a garrison of several thoukindly upon this precious relick. It is a singular sands, for years, in the event of a siege and the exreligious coincidence thus to find a chapel, where teriour communication being interrupted by the demore than divine adoration is offered to the Virgin, struction of the pipes. As we passed the kerb of existing in the presence of such contradictory in this mammoth cistern we found a number of waterscriptions, and, in fact, surmounted by the motto-men, who had come with asses from the city, to fill "There is no God but God!" arms. the jars hung on each side of their animals, and Having reached the interiour of the citadel, our covered with leaves freshly culled from the grove first care was to seek out the commander of the in- of the Alhambra, and which, being wet, cool the valids who had so kindly offered to be my guide to water by constant evaporation. These people the antiquities of the Alhambra. We readily found live by retailing the water in the streets and places him, snugly domesticated in the superiour story of of Granada, where they receive an ochavo for each that Tower of Tribunal through which we had en- glass, furnishing, as a bonus, two sugarplums of tered, and though the place looked forbidding and anise, which are eaten before swallowing the water. cheerless without, there was no want of comforts A young waterman, whose good taste had intersperswithin; and when the old soldier, in showing used a few rich flowers with the leaves that surroundthrough his antique and characteristick habitation, ed his kegs, hastened to offer us a huge tumbler of had led us to the flat terrace that surmounts it, once the noisy arena of the lombard and the arquebuse, now the most peaceful as well as most beautiful of belvideres, we were again delighted with the display of the surrounding scenery; the mountain of Alhambra, the ravine of the Daro, and the snowclad Sierra, are rich enough in mere picturesque attractions; but the Vega is, after all, the object of which the eye never tires. The little sitting-room of the invalid had one window toward the south, and a second, which, instead of looking to the open air, is so covered by the front of the tower, that it only commands the portion of the gateway lying immediately below. We had noticed this in entering, and thought it so VOL. IV.-4 pure and sparkling water, while with the other hand he opened the tin-box at his girdle, that we might supply ourselves with sugarplums. The temptation was not to be resisted; and we drank long and freely of the best, and, to the unperverted taste of those who drink to supply a want of nature, most luxurious of beverages. The Moorish palace extends along the north side of the Alhambra, overlooking the ravine of the Daro. It is not easy, amid the existing ruins of the famous pile, to determine what was its extent and form, when the abode of the powerful kings of Granada. Part of the ancient constructions have yielded to their own frailty, part have been overrun by the patched rookeries of the present inhabitants, and part removed to make room for the proud palace of the Daro and Albaycin to the north, while the westthe Cesar. It is believed, however, that when per-ern windows command a view of Granada and the fect it formed an extensive quadrangle, about four Vega. This Saloon of Comares, also called of the hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide, con- Ambassadors, is the largest and most magnificent of taining five enclosed courts, the largest of which the royal apartments, being about forty feet square, stood in the centre, and was one hundred and fifty with a lofty dome-like ceiling, the apex rising to the feet in length, by eighty in breadth; the other four height of sixty feet. The pavement is of earthen were placed at the four angles, and were of some- tiles, alternated with others of blue and white porwhat smaller size. The first exists at present, un-celain, symmetrically disposed. The wainscot is der the name of the court of the Myrtles, but of the lined with the same species of mosaick; and above smaller ones, the thrice-famed Court of Lions alone it the walls are covered with stucco, impressed by remains. Although this may have been the general means of models, with a variety of regular figures, form of the edifice, it is not likely that its plan was very exactly executed, and enclosing small medallrigorously uniform; for in what remains it is diffi- ions for inscriptions, which are entwined with garcult to trace anything like unity of design. The lands of leaves, fruits, and flowers. At the junction period of construction is evidently various, and there of the walls and ceiling is a narrow riband running is a bewildering connexion of apartments, courts, round the whole apartment, and closely written with galleries, and towers, that not only baffles descrip- Arabick characters. Each side of the room has five tion, but renders it difficult even for the person who window-places, three of which are open and two sees it to form a clear idea of its figure. The royal false, except on the side of the entrance, where all apartments being in the towers that overlook the are closed. These windows are ornamented with Daro, are of solid hewn stone; the rest is frailly small columns sustaining arches, which are stuccoed built of tapias, coated externally with a rough plas- to represent leaves and flowers; the false ones have ter, and within with a surface of stucco, impressed long inscriptions on the interiour of the arches. The by means of wooden moulds, with a profusion of cornice projects far from the walls, and is most elaborate figures, interwoven with inscriptions. elaborately decorated with a variety of minute orThe quadrangle through which we first passed nament, fretted into the stucco. The ceiling leaves was enclosed by a gallery, formed by the walls and the cornice at half a right angle, making upward in by a range of light marble columns connected by four sides, corresponding to the walls of the room arches. In the centre was a large sheet of water, until they terminate in a cupola. The whole of constantly renewed by two crystal jets at the ex- this lofty dome is lined with wood in small pieces" tremities of the court, and which, running in canals of various colours placed in regular figures, and alfrom their overflowing basins, at length emptied ternated with gilt and silver; the whole forming a themselves into the central reservoir, which was fill-checkered mosaick, rudely representing crowns, ed with gold and silver fishes, while the surround- stars, and crescents. The roof is meant to imitate ing banks were formed into parterres. In the days the splendours of the firmament; and however of the Saracens it was dedicated to a different use; abortive the imitation, it does not want a certain it served for the legal purifications prescribed by the grace. The inscriptions are said to be chiefly ejacKoran to the faithful who were about to assist in ulatory expressions in praise of the Deity, much in the devotions at the royal mosque, which stood -ad-use among the followers of Mahomet, as, "O God! joining. to thee let perpetual praise be given! to thee thanksgiving for evermore! For God is our aid in every affliction; no creature has for excellence the attribute of mercy; this is the prerogative of God alone. Glory to God!" Again, "There is no God other than God, the only, the absolute, the potent over the powerful!" There are others in praise of the building, and of the king who ordered its erection, "Oh thou, who art the son of a king, and the descendant of many kings! it was thou who didst build and decorate this marvellous palace, which is of such singular beauty, and in which the wondrous excellences of thy reign are demonstrated. Yes! the king Nasere is the powerful and the valiant, causing dread to all nations! If he should place himself in the heavens, the stars would lose their glory!" There is no inscription, however, which occurs so frequently in the Alhambra as that of "God alone is the conqueror!" This was the watchword of the Granadians, and was even stamped upon their coin. It originated with Muhamad Alhamar, the founder of the kingdom and builder of the Alhambra, who, being praised as the most valiant and successful of warriours, with the pious modesty of a brave man, disclaimed the honour, and, like the Templars in the better days of their order, placed upon his shield the humble motto, "Conqueror through God!" This Saloon of Comares formerly displayed in its walls a brilliant variety of colours, among which and sustained toward the court by high Arabick Returning from the Saloon of Comares to the principal quadrangle, we passed thence into the famous Court of Lions, which is enclosed by a gallery connected with the wall and the adjacent apartments, Between these two pavilions stands the Fourtain of Lions, consisting of a large marble basin, ten feet in diameter, yet of a single piece, supported on the haunches of twelve lions, drawn up in a circle, with their heads outward. This basin is surmounted by a smaller one, into which the water, burating from a jet at its centre, falls back, thence runing arches, the countless columns, the foliage, and the water; and we could not but admit, that, though shorn of its gay colouring, its enameled silver, and gilded illuminations, the Court of the Lions was still a place of no ordinary attraction. over on every side in a continuous sheet, resembling and well-made mountaineers, all decked in pictua glass cylinder as it descends to the lower basin, resque costume, who had come to assist in the feswhere it is augmented by twelve streams spouted tivities of Granada, and chiefly to gain indulgences backward from the mouths of the lions. It is said by hearing the grand mass to be that day celebrated that this fountain was consecrated in imitation of in the Metropolitan, with archiepiscopal pomp, and the brazen sea of Solomon, described in the book of the exposition of the most precious relicks, and to Chronicles, where we read that there were twelve receive pleasure from seeing the concluding bullmoulten oxen, "and the sea was set above upon fight in the amphitheatre. The moment of our visit them, and all their hinder parts were inward."- was therefore most auspicious. The finest speciEven the garlands sculptured round the brim are re-mens of the human form mingled amid the low peated in the Fountain of Lions. An identity of design will appear nowise incredible, when we consider the number of Jews living in Granada from the earliest times, and the great favour which they enjoyed among the Saracens, from their common oriental origin, from the assistance they had lent at Adjoining the Court of Lions, and standing open the time of the conquest, and from their wealth, towards it, are three rooms, among the most richly learning, and refinement, so superiour to the age of decorated of the Alhambra. One of them is now warfare in which they lived. The lions are rudely called the Chamber of Justice, because romantick formed, as might be expected among a people to tradition points to it as the scene of the trial of Boabwhom the imitation of animate forms was interdict-dil's sultana, under a false charge of infidelity with ed, and who in this case acted by exception. We Abenhamet Abencerrage. Among its ornaments are may see, however, in these figures, round the Fount- some human figures in Eastern costume, rudely ain of Lions, an effort on the part of the Granadi-painted on the wall. They are too badly done to beans to release themselves from an ordinance of their long to the period of the conquest, which was also religion, which effectually checked their progress the age of Raphael; and therefore must rather be in the arts. The walls that encircle the court, the referred to an earlier period, having probably been arches, and the fountains, are profusely covered executed by some Christian captive, for their faith with inscriptions, telling the beholder, in the lan- forbade the Saracens most strictly from all imitaguage of song, the admiration this place excited tions of the human form, as idolatrous. Indeed, among the poets of Granada. Some of them are when they entered Spain as conquerors, they everytranslated as follows: "Blessed is he who gave where destroyed the objects of art that came in their unto the Prince Muhamad a habitation, which for way, grinding into powder every statue, however beauty excels all others. Oh! heir of the Naseri- beautiful and beyond all price, and converting it into tan blood! there is no glory equal to that of inherit-cement and stucco for the building of their cities.ing such power and greatness. The peace of God And thus it may well be, that many of the proudest be with thee for ever! causing thee to keep thy sub-productions of the Roman or Grecian chisel, after jects in obedience, and to subdue thine enemies.- having delighted the eyes of many succeeding genDost thou not see in what confusion the waters run; erations, may now crumble undistinguished amid and yet, other currents are constantly falling? It is the ruins of the Alhambra. like unto a lover bathed in tears, and who carefully Another of the rooms which open upon the Court conceals them from the object of her passion. And, of Lions is called the Hall of Abencerrages, and has perhaps, it is in reality but a crystal cloud spreading in its centre a marble fountain, which tradition has itself over the lions." There is another which fur-connected with a melancholy tale. It is here, wo nishes the beholder with a very gratuitous piece of are told in the romances, that Boabdil, instigated by encouragement: "O thou who lookest upon these the treacherous Zegris, who had invented the tale of lions, fear not! they have not life to harm thee." the sultana's guilt, enticed the Abencerrages one by In addition to the three principal fountains of the one, and, as they reached the Court of Lions, caused interiour, there are twelve smaller jets in the surround-them to be decapitated, after allowing each to coning gallery, the waters of which, after falling back template a while the bloody tragedy which had been into their respective basins, run in marble canals un-wrought upon his companions. The hall itself and til they meet at the central reservoir under the Fount- the neighbouring court were strewed with headless ain of the Lions. The number of currents con- trunks, while the marble basin was piled high with stantly running within this small area is still farther the ghastly visages of those once light-hearted cavaincreased by the jets from the neighbouring apart- liers, and the best blood of Granada filled the narments, which empty at the common centre, impart-row canal, and sought an outlet at the feet of the ing to the whole scene a magical animation, while, lions. The red veins that still streak the marble to complete the attractions of the place, the whole were shown us as the traces of that ensanguined vacant portion of the quadrangle is laid out as a current, and the tender-hearted damsels from the flower-garden, and planted with cypresses. The Court of the Lions is the most pleasing monument left by the Saracens in Spain, to testify that the story of their brilliant and meteor-like domination is indeed no dream of the fancy. It was on the feast of Corpus Christi that we visited it; the waters were all playing in honour of the day, and the whole quadrangle, with its adjoining apartments, was thronged with blue-eyed or dark peasant-girls,! mountains, who had oft wept over the plaintive romance in which the treachery is alone recorded, sighed and grew tearful as they remembered how "En las Torres de Alhambra |