Southern Spain Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--IN THE MARKET]

Mohammed IV., who was a.s.sa.s.sinated at Gibraltar by his allies the Moroccans, was succeeded in 1333 by his brother Yusuf I. This king was a hater of warfare; he sought the peaceful reform of the community rather than the expansion of his kingdom. Under his rule Granada prospered and the condition of the people was bettered. Yusuf I. was disturbed in the tranquillity of his n.o.ble palace at Malaga by the appeals of the African potentates for his aid in reconquering Spain.

Compelled to join the invaders, he sustained a severe disaster at the Salado, and was forced to acquire peace at the cost of yielding Algeciras. He was murdered by a madman in 1358.

Mohammed V. was the next sovereign. He was a worthy son of his high-principled father, Yusuf; but fate decreed that his reign should not prove peaceful, for soon after his accession, his younger brother Ismal conspired with certain officers of state and made an attempt to gain the throne. Upon a night in August, 1360, about one hundred conspirators climbed the walls of the Kasba and after killing the wizir, proclaimed Ismal as sultan. Mohammed, who was without the palace at the time, essayed to enter; but he was received with a flight of arrows, and mounting a horse he galloped away to Guadix. Here he was welcomed, and from this town he sped to Marbella, thence to Africa, where he received the aid of Abu-l-Hasan. With troops lent to him he returned to Spain, hoping to crush the usurper. But Abu-l-Hasan capriciously ordered the return of his soldiers, and Mohammed retreated to Ronda with a few adherents.

Dissension had arisen meanwhile between Ismal and Abu Sad, one of the chief conspirators, who was burning to take the reins of government in his own hands. Ismal was besieged by Abu Sad, and upon venturing out of his palace was slain.

Fresh trouble arose in Granada, for Pedro of Castile came to the a.s.sistance of the lawful ruler. But Mohammed, witnessing the ravage of the district by the Christian army, was far from receiving the invader with open arms. "For no empire in the world would I sacrifice my country," cried the sultan. Thereupon the King of Castile retired, and Abu Sad, mistaking the reason of his return to Seville, went thither to beg his alliance. The story of the sultan's murder, at the instigation of Pedro the Cruel, has often been told. Abu Sad was done to death at Seville, and the resplendent ruby which was taken from him was presented to the Black Prince of England, and is still preserved among the regalia of England.

Mohammed then returned to his capital. With the exception of a rebellion under Ali Ben Nasr, he pa.s.sed twenty years of peace. Granada became a more thriving city, and under the sultan's clement administration, it was the resort of traders of all nations and the centre of culture in the south. According to Mendoza, the inhabitants of Granada numbered about 420,000 in the reign of Mohammed V., but it is probable that the number was wildly over-estimated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE ALHAMBRA: THE AQUEDUCT]

Yusuf II. followed Mohammed V. He was suspected of favouring the Christians. He certainly released all the captives of that faith, and restored them to their own country. This act appears to have incited his son Mohammed to rise against the throne. Yusuf was at first disposed to relinquish his sovereignty, for he was a lover of peace; but on the advice of an amba.s.sador from Morocco he raised an army and advanced on Murcia.

At this period the King of Castile was Enrique III., an incapable monarch in defiance of whose orders Don Martin de la Barbuda, the Master of Calatrava, headed an advance into the kingdom of Yusuf. The force was, however, entirely routed by the Moors. Soon after (1395) Yusuf, the pacific sovereign, was dead--the victim, it is said, of a poisoned potion, in the form of a tonic sent him by the Sultan of Fez.

The first exploit of Yusuf's son Mohammed was a visit to Toledo, with twenty-five mounted attendants, where he appeared before Enrique III.

and besought a renewal of the truce. The armistice was disregarded by the governor of Andalusia, who invaded the Moorish dominions, till Mohammed, in reprisal, seized the citadel of Ayamonte. At Jijena he was defeated, and was forced to plead for peace. He was at the point of death, when the idea seized him to secure the government of Granada for his son by the a.s.sa.s.sination of his brother. The governor of Salobrena was commanded to put to death the prince whom he had in his keeping.

The doomed man asked leave to finish the game of chess in which he was engaged, and before either player could cry "Checkmate," the news came that the prince's brother was dead and that he had been declared sultan.

Yusuf III. was faced with difficulties immediately upon his accession.

Antequera fell into the hands of the Castilians, led by the Infante Fernando. The defenders were slain, and only about two thousand of the townsmen outlived the rigours of the siege. The survivors were allowed to settle in Granada, and they gave the name of Antequeruela to the suburb.

When the natives of Gibraltar revolted, and declared allegiance to Fez, the sultan of that State sent his brother Abu Sad to secure the town.

Abu Sad, being left to the mercy of the enemy, was seized and brought to Granada, where he was shown a letter from the ruler of Fez desiring that he might be despatched. With this request the generous Yusuf refused to comply. He released his captive and furnished him with money and troops with which he left for Africa. The brother who had planned his death was hurled from the throne, and till Abu Sad's death Granada did not want an ally.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE COURT OF THE CYPRESSES]

In rapid succession sultans now flit across the lurid page of Granada's history. It is a gloomy tale of incessant civil strife and of unsuccessful warfare with the Christians. Rulers are expelled from their thrones by pretenders who themselves fall victims to the poignards of their partisans. Sovereigns purchase their disputed crowns by selling the honour and independence of their country to the foreigner. To trace the miserable vicissitudes of the careers--we cannot call them reigns--of Mohammed VII., Mohammed VIII., Yusuf IV., and Sad Ben Ismal, would be to weary and disgust you with a nation whose stubborn fight against overwhelming odds should command our respect.

The last act in the protracted drama began with the accession of Mulai Hasan in the year 1465. With his famous reply to the Castilian amba.s.sadors who demanded tribute, "Here we manufacture only iron spear-heads for our enemies," the final campaign began. Every incident of that war has been made familiar to us Anglo-Saxons by the pen of Prescott. In his pages long ago most of us read of the taking of Zahara by the Moors and of the brilliant surprise of the fortress of Alhama by the gallant Marquis of Cadiz. We have not forgotten the wailing of the Moors, "Ay de mi, Alhama!" nor the domestic revolution that followed when the old sultan was hurled from his throne by his son Boabdil. Poor Boabdil, on whom the blame of all his country's disasters has been laid by historians, Christian and Arab! Weak or foolhardy, the "Little King"

fought like a Trojan against Ferdinand and Isabella for his country, and against his father and his uncle for his crown, at one and the same time. He was taken prisoner by Ferdinand and is said to have signed a treaty surrendering his dominions to the Catholic Sovereigns. This is rendered improbable by his comparatively generous treatment at the end of the war, when he had resisted the Spaniards to the uttermost, and fought them many times after his release from captivity. Desperate deeds of valour were done on both sides, though the strategy of the Spanish commanders does not appear to have been of a very high order, since, with the whole of Spain at their back, it took them eleven years to conquer a small kingdom distracted by three rival rulers. The old sultan retired from the contest, as finally did his brother, the brave Zaghal.

When the Christians were preparing a final a.s.sault on the doomed city, Boabdil rode out from the Alhambra, for the last time, on the morning of the memorable 2nd of January, 1492. Ferdinand with a brilliant cavalcade awaited him on the banks of the Genil. The keys were handed over, a hurried exchange of formal courtesies, and the last ruler of the Spanish Moors pa.s.sed away into exile and obscurity. The rays of the wintry sun glinted on the great silver cross which was hoisted on the Torre de la Vela in token that the reign of Mohammed was for ever at an end in Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--VILLA ON THE DARRO]

Yes, at an end. On that morning, Ferdinand and Isabella accomplished the task begun by Pelayo at Covadonga, seven hundred and seventy-four years before. The Moorish dominion in Spain had endured little short of eight centuries. It was as if the descendants of Harold G.o.dwin were to arise and overthrow the existing English monarchy. But what is most remarkable is that the petty State of Granada had survived the break-up of the great Moorish empire in the west by two hundred and fifty years.

Such a race deserved a manlier if not a more beautiful monument than the Alhambra.

What followed the extinction of the Nasrid monarchy is not pleasant reading. The rights and privileges guaranteed the conquered were soon swept aside. The mild Archbishop de Talavera, the humane Tendilla, were superseded in the government of the city by fanatics more after Isabella's heart. Systematic persecution of the luckless Moslems ensued.

They revolted, and their revolt was quenched with their own blood. They were intimidated, browbeaten, imprisoned, condemned, and burned. Their language, costume, and creed were banned. They were ordered to embrace Christianity under pain of death, and forbidden to quit the country.

They appealed to Egypt, but it is a long way from the banks of the Genil to those of the Nile. Finally (and one hears of it with relief) they were all expelled from the country. As a race they perished utterly. The art, the civilization, which they had learnt on Spanish soil, they left buried in Spanish ground, and it was a long time before it was disinterred.

The price Spain paid for national unity was a heavy one, but it was worth it. When we turn to Turkey, can anyone say that a united Spain would have been possible, with the fairest of her provinces and cities and the whole of her southern seaboard in possession of a people alien in race, tongue and creed?

With Oriental people, the history of the palace is the history of the State. At Granada every traveller turns instinctively towards the Alhambra as the point of supreme interest. The famous pile is to the city what the Mezquita is to Cordova--not quite, perhaps, since Granada contains more than one building of intrinsic interest.

The Alhambra has been so often described (by the present writer among others) that it is not easy to say anything new in regard to it, or even to avoid ident.i.ty of language with other writers in the description of certain of its parts. Yet it would be impossible to give any account of Granada without some notice of this famous building. To begin with, I must impress on those about to visit it for the first time that the Alhambra is not a single palace, but properly speaking is the name given to a fortified eminence lying to the south-east of the city, and including two palaces, a citadel, and a mult.i.tude of private residences.

In its nature it may be compared with the Acropolis of Athens and the far-distant Castle of Bamborough. The name, as most people are aware, is derived from _Kalat al hamra_--"the Red Castle," to adopt a translation which I have never seen disputed. (While not pretending to rank as an Arabist, I have not failed to notice that an infinite number of words put forward as Arabic by writers on the Spanish Moors are unintelligible to Syrian and Egyptian Arabs, and, which is more to the point, to many Hindu students of Arabic.) In shape the hill has been cleverly compared by Ford to a grand piano. Rearward it abuts on the Cerro del Sol ("the Mountain of the Sun"), to which Was.h.i.+ngton Irving alludes so often.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE ALHAMBRA FROM SAN MIGUEL]

To the south of the Alhambra hill lies another and a narrower spur, which is crowned near the town end by the Vermilion Towers, or Torres Bermejas; on the north-east rises the hill of the Generalife, laid out in gardens. The townward extremity of the Alhambra is washed at the foot by the river Darro, and is crowned by the Torre de la Vela, of which more anon.

To reach the Alhambra you ascend from the Plaza Nueva in the heart of the town by the steep and narrow Calle Gomeres. This street is laid out to attract and cater for tourists, who are greeted here with a civility and cordiality not always conspicuous in the rest of the town. Half-way up the toilsome ascent you will probably be waylaid by a theatrically-attired personage who will accost you in bad French with the information that he is the chief of the gipsies. The costume he wears was given to his father or grandfather by Fortuny--one of the rare examples of artists condescending to manufacture the picturesque. The chief will endeavour to engage you in conversation, and will offer you his photograph at fifty centimes a copy. If you have a camera he will allow you to take his portrait for a consideration. It seems incredible that a human being could be so much of a nuisance and yet remain in good health and spirits.

The dragon having been successfully circ.u.mvented, you enter the Hesperides, or in other words, the charming Alamedas of the Alhambra.

These groves occupy the deep depression between the famous hill and the Vermilion Towers. They are planted with magnificent elms, sent hither, I believe, from England by the Duke of Wellington. They have thriven well in Spanish soil, and harbour a colony of nightingales and other singing-birds, unusually numerous for this land of pa.s.sion, where wines are rich and birds are rare. The "bulbul," as certain writers love to call it, sings very sweetly in these leafy retreats, a statement some travellers who persist in coming at the wrong season will not hesitate to contradict. I must admit that the bird is as elusive as the "alpengluh," or as the hunter's moon at Tintern. It is always cool here on the slope of the Alhambra. Even the fierce rays of the Andalusian sun cannot penetrate the thick leaf.a.ge. Rills bubbling forth from the red sides of the hill, or tumbling over its edge, keep the roots of the trees perennially moist and feed a dense under-growth. On summer afternoons this is the only spot in Granada where you may sit in comfort. Meanwhile, up and down in quick succession pa.s.s the sandalled water-carriers hurrying to fill their skins with the precious fluid and to dispense it in the scorched, thirsty town below. "Agua-a-ah!"

Their prolonged nasal drawling cry comes back to me as I write, and I seem to hear the rapid patter of their feet and to see the light cutting chequers on the shadow of the trees. A great man is the water-carrier, loved and respected by all the people of southern Spain. We who live in the humid sea-girt North can little understand the longing for clear, cool water, the reverence for its dispensers, that must ever be felt in the South. How constantly wells are referred to in the Bible: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks," "With joy shall ye draw waters from the wells of salvation." How significant are these beautiful pa.s.sages for those that have journeyed to the South!

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--TOWERS OF THE INFANTAS, ALHAMBRA]

Reluctantly withdrawing from this delightful spot, you must climb the hill to the right of the entrance--there is a winding path to the summit. Here you find the Torres Bermejas--a group of exceedingly ancient and not very dilapidated towers, used as a military prison. They date, it is believed, from the days before the Zirite dynasty, but you will not be tempted to examine them attentively, for the purlieus are of the most uninviting description. The adjoining cottages are peopled by rascally-looking men and slatternly women, who would be better, one would think, inside than just outside a gaol.

In ancient days an embattled wall connected these towers with the opposite point of the Alhambra, closing the mouth of the valley, which was not then the pleasaunce it is now, but an arid ravine used as the burial ground of the fortress. The entrance to the valley is now through the Puerta de las Granadas, built by order of Charles V. Taking the path to the left, we soon reach the fountain in the Renaissance style, erected in 1545 by Pedro Machuca, by order of the Conde de Tendilla. It is ornamented with the imperial s.h.i.+eld and the heads of the three river-G.o.ds, Genil, Darro, and Beiro. The medallions represent Alexander the Great, Hercules slaying the hydra, Phryxus and h.e.l.le, and Daphne pursued by Apollo. The laurels growing out of the distressed damsel's head give her the appearance of a Sioux brave. A few steps beyond we reach the famous Puerta de la Justicia, so called because within it the Moorish sultans or their kadis administered justice--or it may have been merely law. This entrance is formed by two towers of reddish brick, placed back to back, and united by an upper storey. We look at once for the hand and key so often referred to by Irving, and distinguish them with difficulty--the first over the outermost horseshoe arch, the latter over the middle arch. Opinion is divided as to the meaning of these symbols. The key is supposed by some to signify the power of G.o.d to unlock the gate of Heaven to the true believer, while the hand appears to have been regarded as a talisman against the evil eye. A winding corridor leads through the gate into the citadel, past an inscription celebrating the Conquest in 1492, and an altar now enclosed within a sort of cupboard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--NEAR THE ALHAMBRA]

This gate is placed at right angles to the wall which girdles the hill and runs along its edge, following all its inequalities of level. It is in fairly good preservation, but the rampart walk has disappeared here and there. Of the square mural towers a great many remain--some hopelessly ruinous, others inhabited by the guardians of the domain or their widows and relations. The towers on the south-west side, as far as I could judge, were better adapted for defence than those on the north-east, where the width of the windows would have greatly embarra.s.sed the defence. The area enclosed by the outer wall was divided, it seems, by two cross walls into what, in the medieval parlance, we would call the outer, middle and inner wards. To the last corresponded the citadel proper or Kasba (Alcazaba, the Spaniards call it), whose ma.s.sive walls rise to your left on emerging from the Puerta de la Justicia. This is the oldest part of the fortress. It occupies the extremity of the plateau, which is marked by the tall, square Torre de la Vela, or watch tower, whereon a silver cross was planted by the "Tercer Rey," Cardinal Mendoza, to announce the occupation of the Alhambra by the Spaniards. Here also is a bell which can be heard as far off as Loja, and which, if struck with sufficient force by a maiden, is said to have the faculty of procuring her a husband. The view from the platform is n.o.ble. The dazzling white city is spread out beneath, in front stretches the Vega, to the south the eyes rest lovingly on the white streaks of the Sierra Nevada.

Upon this tower I met a French entomologist, who announced that he should not trouble to visit any other part of the Alhambra, and was, in fact, surprised to learn that there was anything more to see. His horizon was bounded by the Lepidoptera, on one side, and the Coleoptera (I think that is the word) on the other. After all, archaeologists take no more interest in black beetles than entomologists do in buildings.

Incidentally, I should think Granada an admirable place for the intimate study of insects.

From the Torre de las Armas, a road led from the citadel down the declivity to the town, crossing the Darro by the ruined Puente del Cadi.

On the inner side the citadel is strengthened by the picturesque Torre del Homenage--a name often given to towers in Spain. The open s.p.a.ce before it, where the water-carriers gather round the well, was a comparatively deep ravine in Moorish times, and was not levelled up till after the fall of Boabdil. On the opposite side--facing the Torre del Homenage--it was bounded by what I will call the wall of the middle ward, which ran across from the Torre de las Gallinas to near the Puerta de la Justicia, and of which only the gatehouse, the beautiful Puerta del Vino, remains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--PUERTA DEL VINO, ALHAMBRA]

This admitted to the area which contained the palaces and also the little town of the Alhambra--inhabited by persons attached to the court, the ulema, chiefs of such powerful tribes as the Beni Serraj and the Beni Theghri, discarded sultanas, ex-favourites, soldiers of fortune, plenipotentiaries and envoys, and a crowd of parasites and hangers-on. To-day the population is limited chiefly to one little street, composed of pensions, photographers' shops and estancos. The plan of the whole fortress no doubt varied from age to age, but in the main agreed with that according to which most European strongholds were constructed. There was the outer wall with its mural towers and gatehouses; a strong inner ward, in place of a keep shut off by a ditch or ravine; and two or more other enclosures, each defended by a wall with a fortified entrance. It does not seem that the portcullis and drawbridge were used by the Moorish engineers.

While the Kasba is generally attributed to an earlier dynasty, the outer wall and the other Moorish buildings are almost unanimously ascribed to Al Ahmar and his successors of the Nasrid dynasty. To reach the Alhambra Palace, called pre-eminently by foreigners the Alhambra and by the Spaniards the Alcazar, or Palacio Arabe, you pa.s.s across the plaza, leaving the unfinished Palace of Charles V. to your right. Behind it you find not an imposing and gorgeous structure, but what appears to be a collection of tile-roofed sheds. A mean, characterless entrance admits you to the far-famed palace.

The building belongs to the last stage of Spanish-Arabic art, when the seed of Mohammedan ideas and culture had long since taken root in the soil and produced a style purely local in many of its features. Some authorities trace the first principles of Arabic architecture back to the Copts; the Spaniards argue that their style is derived from Byzantine works they found before them in Andalusia. The germs of Arabic art are certainly not, if travellers' tales be true, to be found in Arabia. The Saracen conquerors were warriors, not artists, and their ideas of form and ornament were undoubtedly borrowed--like their vaunted culture--from the more civilized nations with which they came in contact. With Morocco just across the strait, it is not safe to claim too much of native genius and refinement for the Moor. Whatever may have been the primitive models of Andalusian architecture, as time went by it lost much of the dignity and simplicity of its earliest examples--such as the Giralda and the Mezquita. The Moors of Granada had wearied of the fanaticism and austerity of Islam. If not precisely decadent, they had lost the fire and enthusiasm of youth, and wanted to enjoy a comfortable old age. If the palace we are about to enter seems in parts more like the bower of an odalisque than the seat of royalty, we must remember that the sultans wanted to enjoy life here, and had no fancy for the stern, military-looking palaces of their Christian rivals. Your Oriental, like the cat, values luxury very highly, and yet, from our point of view, does not seem to secure it. A European would have found himself hopelessly uncomfortable at the court of Al Ahmar and Mohammed V.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE ALHAMBRA: TOWER OF COMARES]

Architecturally the Alhambra Palace has little merit. It is impossible to trace any order in the distribution of its parts, which ought not of course to be expected in a building repeatedly added to in the course of two and a half centuries. Moreover, a portion was demolished to make room for the Palace of Charles V. The Moorish builders were fond of conceits which our taste condemns. They liked to conceal the supports of a heavy tower, and to leave it seemingly suspended in the air. There is nothing imposing about the edifice, nothing stately. Its great charm consists in its decoration, which is wonderful and, in its own line, beyond all praise. It is based on the strictest geometrical plan, and every design and pattern may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem, and nothing accidental or extraneous is permitted. The same adhesion to sharply-defined principles is conspicuous in the colour-scheme. On the stucco only the primary colours are used; the secondary tints being reserved for the dados of mosaic or tile work. The green seen on the groundwork was originally blue. To-day, when the white parts have a.s.sumed the tint of old ivory and time has subdued the vivid colouring, the effect is more harmonious than it could have been originally.

Epigraphy, or long flowing inscriptions, proclaiming the merits of the sultans or of the chambers themselves, enters largely into the decoration. Those who can read these at a glance must find the halls less monotonous than most people are likely to do. The beauty of the ornamentation consists in its exquisite symmetry, and this is not apparent to every comer, who may fail to realize with Mr. Lomas "that the exact relation between the irregular widths of cloistering on the long and short sides of the court [of the Lions] is that of the squares upon the sides of a right-angled triangle"!

The inscription that most frequently recurs in the decoration is the famous "There is no conqueror but G.o.d"--the words used by Al Ahmar on his return from the siege of Seville, in deprecation of the acclamations of his subjects. The newer parts are readily recognizable by the yoke and sheaf of arrows, the favourite devices of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose initials, F and Y, are also seen; and by the Pillars of Hercules and the motto "Plus Oultre," denoting work executed by order of Charles V.

The oldest part of the building--by which I mean that which appears to have been the least altered--is round about the Patio de la Mezquita, more properly named "del Mexuar," after the divan or "meshwar" that held its sittings here. The southern facade of this small court reminds one very much of the front of the Alcazar at Seville. From this you enter the disused chapel, an uninteresting apartment consecrated in 1629. The Moorish decoration has almost completely disappeared, but much of the work in the little apartment adjacent, called the Sultan's Oratory, seems to be original. There never was a mosque here, but there may have been a private praying-place. Yusuf I. is supposed to have been stabbed here. The tragic deed was more probably done at the great mosque outside the palace where the Alhambra parish church now stands. From the Patio del Mexuar a tunnel called the Viaducto leads to the Patio de la Reja, the Baths, and the Garden of Daraxa.

The Court of the Myrtles (Patio de las Arrayanes, or de la Alberca) is the first entered by the visitor. It is an oblong s.p.a.ce, the middle of which is occupied by a tank of bright green water. This is bordered by trimly kept hedges of myrtle. The side walls are modern, and do not deserve attention. The front to the right on entering is very beautiful.

It is composed of two arcaded galleries, one above the other, with a smaller closed gallery--a sort of triforium--interposed. The arches spring from marble columns, with variously decorated capitals. The central arch of the lowest gallery rises nearly to the cornice, and is decorated in a style which Contreras thought suggestive of Indian architecture. Fine lattice work closes the seven windows of the triforium. The upper gallery is equally graceful, but looks in imminent danger of collapse. Above a similar but single arcade at the opposite end of the court rises the square ma.s.sive upper storey of the Tower of Comares, with its crenellated summit. To reach its interior we cross the gallery beneath a little dome painted with stars on a blue ground, and a long parallel apartment (Sala de la Barca) gutted by fire in 1890, and enter the s.p.a.cious Hall of the Amba.s.sadors (Sala de los Embajadores), the largest hall in the Alhambra. Here was held the final council which decided the fate of Islam in Spain. Looking upwards we behold the glorious airy dome of larch-wood with painted stars. The decoration is magnificent--mostly in red and black--and may be divided into four zones: (1) a dado of mosaic tiles or azulejos; (2) stucco work in eight horizontal bands, each of a different design; (3) a row of five windows once filled with stained gla.s.s on each side; (4) a carved wooden cornice, supporting the roof. On three sides of the hall are alcoves, each with a window, the one opposite the entrance having been near the Sultan's throne.