Part 19 (1/2)
The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and rainy that I saw nothing, not even the cla.s.sic Xenil, the river of Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The night wore slowly away, and while the _mozo_ drowsed on his post, I caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and the only interest it now possesses is from these a.s.sociations, and the despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.
We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations, and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence stops for an hour, to allow pa.s.sengers to breakfast, but my first thought was for the Cathedral-mosque, _la Mezquita_, as it is still called. ”It is closed,” said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; ”you cannot get in until eight o'clock.” But I remembered that a silver key will open anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted me into the original court-yard, or _haram_, of the mosque, which is planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of Moslem wors.h.i.+ppers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper, exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Ja.n.u.s; so that the three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpa.s.ses any Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is a Christian edifice.
All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few wors.h.i.+ppers were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous and unnecessary disfigurement.
The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition, which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions, and the domes of pendent stalact.i.tes which enchant you in the Alcazar of Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the entrance to the ”holy of holies” is probably the most glorious piece of mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compa.s.sed it seven times, kneeling, as they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the form of a fluted sh.e.l.l, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of workmans.h.i.+p, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their kingdom ever pa.s.sed into other hands.
Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a n.o.ble bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we pa.s.sed had a wild and gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I antic.i.p.ated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they proved to be members of the _guardia civil_, and therefore our protectors.
The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, r.e.t.a.r.ded our progress, and it was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of mud. We stood, meanwhile, s.h.i.+vering in the cold and wet, and the fair Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand, and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the _posada_, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid, which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we pa.s.sed the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be served when the other pa.s.sengers came. At day-break, finally, a single dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that some accident had happened, the pa.s.sengers to Madrid requested the _Administrador_ to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused, and they began to talk about getting up a p.r.o.nunciamento, when a messenger arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight, about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our imprisonment in four or five more.
Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by Castanos over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain from the French yoke. Castanos, who received the t.i.tle of Duke de Baylen, and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months ago. The battle-field I pa.s.sed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of Baylen. My fellow-pa.s.sengers were a young sprig of the Spanish n.o.bility and three chubby-faced nuns.
The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region, entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible through the storm.
All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splas.h.i.+ng through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a large _venta_, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock, as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.
Chapter x.x.xV.
Granada And The Alhambra.
Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty in Spain.
”Who has not in Granada been, Verily, he has nothing seen.”
_Andalusian Proverb_.
Granada, _Wednesday, Nov._ 17, 1852.
Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card inscribed ”Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Was.h.i.+ngton Irving,”
and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought me my chocolate, he said; ”Senor, _el chico_ is waiting for you.” The ”little one” turned out to be the son of old Mateo, ”honest Mateo,” who still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously, and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the Xenil.
Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Pa.s.sing through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from the Arabic _bob er-raml,_ the ”gate of the sand?”), we soon reached the Cathedral. This ma.s.sive structure, which makes a good feature in the distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs, blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid ma.s.ses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all its former treasures were carried off by the French.
We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man recovered. The picture at least ill.u.s.trates the absence of ”prejudice of color” among the Saints.
We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold, and looking-gla.s.ses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.