University of Virginia Library

GOVERNMENT OF THE
ALHAMBRA.

The Alhambra is an ancient fortress or castellated
palace of the Moorish kings of Granada,
where they held dominion over this their boasted terrestrial
paradise, and made their last stand for empire
in Spain. The palace occupies but a portion
of the fortress, the walls of which, studded with
towers, stretch irregularly round the whole crest of
a lofty hill that overlooks the city, and forms a
spire of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountain.

In the time of the Moors, the fortress was capable
of containing an army of forty thousand men
within its precincts, and served occasionally as a
strong-hold of the sovereigns against their rebellious
subjects. After the kingdom had passed into
the hands of the Christians, the Alhambra continued
a royal demesne, and was occasionally inhabited

by the Castilian monarchs. The Emperor
Charles V., began a sumptuous palace within its
walls, but was deterred from completing it by repeated
shocks of earthquakes. The last royal residents
were Philip V. and his beautiful Queen
Elizabetta, of Parma, early in the eighteenth century.

Great preparations were made for their reception.
The palace and gardens were placed in a
state of repair; and a new suite of apartments
erected, and decorated by artists brought from Italy.
The sojourn of the sovereigns was transient;
and, after their departure, the palace once more
became desolate. Still the place was maintained
with some military state. The governor held it
immediately from the crown: its jurisdiction extended
down into the suburbs of the city, and was
independent of the captain general of Granada.
A considerable garrison was kept up; the governor
had his apartments in the old Moorish palace, and
never descended into Granada without some military
parade. The fortress, in fact, was a little town
of itself, having several streets of houses within its
walls, together with a Franciscan convent and a
parochial church.

The desertion of the court, however, was a fatal

blow to the Alhambra. Its beautiful walls became
desolate, and some of them fell to ruin: the gardens
were destroyed, and the fountains ceased to
play. By degrees the dwellings became filled up
with a loose and lawless population; contrabandistas,
who availed themselves of its independent jurisdiction,
to carry on a wide and daring course of
smuggling, and thieves and rogues of all sorts, who
made this their place of refuge, from whence they
might depredate upon Granada and its vicinity.
The strong arm of government at length interposed.
The whole community was thoroughly sifted; none
were suffered to remain but such as were of honest
character and had legitimate right to a residence;
the greater part of the houses were demolished,
and a mere hamlet left, with the parochial
church and the Franciscan convent.

During the recent troubles in Spain, when Granada
was in the hands of the French, the Alhambra
was garrisoned by their troops, and the palace
was occasionally inhabited by the French commander.
With that enlightened taste which has ever
distinguished the French nation in their conquests,
this monument of Moorish elegance and grandeur
was rescued from the absolute ruin and desolation
that were overwhelming it. The roofs were repaired,

the saloons and galleries protected from
the weather, the gardens cultivated, the water-courses
restored, the fountains once more made to
throw up their sparkling showers: and Spain may
thank her invaders for having preserved to her the
most beautiful and interesting of her historical monuments.

On the departure of the French, they blew up
several towers of the outer wall, and left the fortifications
scarcely tenable. Since that time, the military
importance of the post is at an end. The
garrison is a handful of invalid soldiers, whose principal
duty is to guard some of the outer towers,
which serve, occasionally, as a prison of state; and
the governor, abandoning the lofty hill of the Alhambra,
resides in the centre of Granada, for the more
convenient despatch of his official duties. I cannot
conclude this brief notice of the state of the
fortress, without bearing testimony to the honourable
exertions of its present commander Don Francisco
de Salis Serna, who is tasking all the limited
resources at his command, to put the palace in a
state of repair; and by his judicious precautions,
has for some time arrested its too certain decay.
Had his predecessors discharged the duties of their
station with equal fidelity, the Alhambra might

yet have remained in almost its pristine beauty;
were government to second him with means equal
to his zeal, this edifice might still be preserved to
adorn the land, and to attract the curious and enlightened
of every clime, for many generations.