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The Hall Of AmbassadorsThe Hall Of Ambassadors
The Hall Of Ambassadors
[See Hall Of Ambassadors]
In one of my visits to the old Moorish chamber, where the good Tia
Antonia cooks her dinner and receives her company, I observed a mysterious
door in one corner, leading apparently into the ancient part of the edifice.
My curiosity being aroused, I opened it, and found myself in a narrow, blind
corridor, groping along which I came to the head of a dark winding staircase,
leading down an angle of the Tower of Comares. Down this staircase I descended
darkling, guiding myself by the wall until I came to a small door at the
bottom, throwing which open, I was suddenly dazzled by emerging into the
brilliant antechamber of the Hall of Ambassadors; with the fountain of the
Court of the Alberca sparkling before me. The antechamber is separated from
the court by an elegant gallery, supported by slender columns with spandrels
of open work in the Morisco style. At each end of the antechamber are
alcoves, and its ceiling is richly stuccoed and painted. Passing through a
magnificent portal I found myself in the far-famed Hall of Ambassadors, the
audience chamber of the Moslem monarchs. It is said to be thirty-seven feet
square, and sixty feet high; occupies the whole interior of the Tower of
Comares; and still bears the traces of past magnificence. The walls are
beautifully stuccoed and decorated with Morisco fancifulness; the lofty
ceiling was originally of the same favorite material, with the usual frostwork
and pensile ornaments or stalactites; which, with the embellishments of vivid
coloring and gilding, must have been gorgeous in the extreme. Unfortunately
it gave way during an earthquake, and brought down with it an immense arch
which traversed the hall. It was replaced by the present vault or dome of
larch or cedar, with intersecting ribs, the whole curiously wrought and richly
colored; still Oriental in its character, reminding one of "those ceilings of
cedar and vermilion that we read of in the prophets and the Arabian Nights."
From the great height of the vault above the windows the upper part of
the hall is almost lost in obscurity; yet there is a magnificence as well as
solemnity in the gloom, as through it we have gleams of rich gilding and the
brilliant tints of the Moorish pencil.
The royal throne was placed opposite the entrance in a recess, which
still bears an inscription intimating that Yusef I (the monarch who completed
the Alhambra) made this the throne of his empire. Every thing in this noble
hall seems to have been calculated to surround the throne with impressive
dignity and splendor; there was none of the elegant voluptuousness which
reigns in other parts of the palace. The tower is of massive strength,
domineering over the whole edifice and overhanging the steep hillside. On
three sides of the Hall of Ambassadors are windows cut through the immense
thickness of the walls, and commanding extensive prospects. The balcony of
the central window especially looks down upon the verdant valley of the Darro,
with its walks, its groves, and gardens. To the left it enjoys a distant
prospect of the Vega, while directly in front rises the rival height of the
Albaycin, with its medley of streets, and terraces, and gardens, and once
crowned by a fortress that vied in power with the Alhambra. "Ill fated the man
who lost all this!" exclaimed Charles V, as he looked forth from this window
upon the enchanting scenery it commands.
The balcony of the window where this royal exclamation was made, has of
late become one of my favorite resorts. I have just been seated there,
enjoying the close of a long brilliant day. The sun, as he sank behind the
purple mountains of Alhama, sent a stream of effulgence up the valley of the
Darro, that spread a melancholy pomp over the ruddy towers of the Alhambra;
while the Vega, covered with a slight sultry vapor that caught the setting
ray, seemed spread out in the distance like a golden sea. Not a breath of air
disturbed the stillness of the hour, and though the faint sound of music and
merriment now and then rose from the gardens of the Darro, it but rendered
more impressive the monumental silence of the pile which overshadowed me. It
was one of those hours and scenes in which memory asserts an almost magical
power; and, like the evening sun beaming on these mouldering towers, sends
back her retrospective rays to light up the glories of the past.
As I sat watching the effect of the declining daylight upon this Moorish
pile, I was led into a consideration of the light, elegant, and voluptuous
character, prevalent throughout its internal architecture; and to contrast it
with the grand but gloomy solemnity of the Gothic edifices reared by the
Spanish conquerors. The very architecture thus bespeaks the opposite and
irreconcilable natures of the two warlike people who so long battled here for
the mastery of the peninsula. By degrees, I fell into a course of musing upon
the singular fortunes of the Arabian or Morisco-Spaniards, whose whole
existence is as a tale that is told, and certainly forms one of the most
anomalous yet splendid episodes in history. Potent and durable as was their
dominion, we scarcely know how to call them. They were a nation without a
legitimate country or name. A remote wave of the great Arabian inundation,
cast upon the shores of Europe, they seem to have all the impetus of the first
rush of the torrent. Their career of conquest, from the rock of Gibraltar to
the cliffs of the Pyrenees, was as rapid and brilliant as the Moslem victories
of Syria and Egypt. Nay, had they not been checked on the plains of Tours, all
France, all Europe, might have been overrun with the same facility as the
empires of the East, and the crescent at this day have glittered on the fanes
of Paris and London.
Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees, the mixed hordes of Asia and
Africa, that formed this great irruption, gave up the Moslem principle of
conquest, and sought to establish in Spain a peaceful and permanent dominion.
As conquerors, their heroism was only equalled by their moderation; and in
both, for a time, they excelled the nations with whom they contended. Severed
from their native homes, they loved the land given them as they supposed by
Allah, and strove to embellish it with every thing that could administer to
the happiness of man. Laying the foundations of their power in a system of
wise and equitable laws, diligently cultivating the arts and sciences, and
promoting agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; they gradually formed an
empire unrivalled for its prosperity by any of the empires of Christendom;
and diligently drawing round them the graces and refinements which marked the
Arabian empire in the East, at the time of its greatest civilization, they
diffused the light of Oriental knowledge, through the Western regions of
benighted Europe.
The cities of Arabian Spain became the resort of Christian artisans, to
instruct themselves in the useful arts. The universities of Toledo, Cordova,
Seville, and Granada, were sought by the pale student from other lands to
acquaint himself with the sciences of the Arabs, and the treasured lore of
antiquity; the lovers of the gay science, resorted to Cordova and Granada, to
imbibe the poetry and music of the East; and the steel-clad warriors of the
North hastened thither to accomplish themselves in the graceful exercises and
courteous usages of chivalry.
[See Interior Of Mosque]
If the Moslem monuments in Spain, if the Mosque of Cordova, the Alcazar
of Seville, and the Alhambra of Granada, still bear inscriptions fondly
boasting of the power and permanency of their dominion; can the boast be
derided as arrogant and vain? Generation after generation, century after
century, passed away, and still they maintained possession of the land. A
period elapsed longer than that which has passed since England was subjugated
by the Norman Conqueror, and the descendants of Musa and Taric might as little
anticipate being driven into exile across the same straits, traversed by their
triumphant ancestors, as the descendants of Rollo and William, and their
veteran peers, may dream of being driven back to the shores of Normandy.
With all this, however, the Moslem empire in Spain was but a brilliant
exotic, that took no permanent root in the soil it embellished. Severed from
all their neighbors in the West, by impassable barriers of faith and manners,
and separated by seas and deserts from their kindred of the East, the
Morisco-Spaniards were an isolated people. Their whole existence was a
prolonged, though gallant and chivalric struggle, for a foothold in a
usurped land.
They were the outposts and frontiers of Islamism. The peninsula was the
great battle-ground where the Gothic conquerors of the North and the Moslem
conquerors of the East, met and strove for mastery; and the fiery courage of
the Arab was at length subdued by the obstinate and persevering valor of the
Goth.
Never was the annihilation of a people more complete than that of the
Morisco-Spaniards. Where are they? Ask the shores of Barbary and its desert
places. The exiled remnant of their once powerful empire disappeared among
the barbarians of Africa, and ceased to be a nation. They have not even left
a distinct name behind them, though for nearly eight centuries they were a
distinct people. The home of their adoption, and of their occupation for ages,
refuses to acknowledge them, except as invaders and usurpers. A few broken
monuments are all that remain to bear witness to their power and dominion, as
solitary rocks, left far in the interior, bear testimony to the extent of
some vast inundation. Such is the Alhambra. A Moslem pile in the midst of a
Christian land; an Oriental palace amidst the Gothic edifices of the West; an
elegant memento of a brave, intelligent, and graceful aeople, who conquered,
ruled, flourished, and passed away.
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