The Argosy — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 The Cruise of the Reserve Squadron. possessing its distinctive feature. Arches and cloisters, distant courts and corridors, galleries and peristyles, domes and glazed roofs;. walls of chaste filigree work, upper galleries lighted and lightened by arched windows ; and through all, and above all, the wonderful blue southern sky and radiant southern atmosphere. The Court of Lions was far larger and still more remarkable than the Court of the Myrtles. Here more than anywhere you may realise and contemplate the bygone majesty of the Alhambra—though it was ever distinguished for its beauty and delicate refinement rather than for the majestic. To-night, flooded by the pale moonlight, it looked of unearthly loveliness. On all sides ran a low gallery, sup- ported by exquisite arches of open fretwork, and what, in the semi- obscurity, seemed a countless number of thin, white marble pillars. Deep shadows, thrown by these pillars and arches, chequered the pure white marble pavement, and the grim lions and alabaster foun- tain cast their shadows also. ‘The small domes and roofs above the galleries, covered with highly-glazed tiles, caught the moonbeams, and gleamed as if studded with jewels. Halls and corridors beyond. the court were steeped in mysterious darkness. Approaching, one could, after a time, dimly discern mysterious outlines, and cloister- like, far stretching vistas; but as Diogenes with his lantern frequently wandered one way and we another, a stumble over a marble step sometimes threatened to bring one’s dream to an end, and dispel all this vivid illusion. We were not in the ordinary world, but in a spot owned and inhabited by magicians, the best and wisest people one had met in the Arabian Nights. These lights and shadows, the obscurity of the interior, seemed to: invest the Alhambra with immense proportions and unlimited space. It might have been a kingdom instead of a palace, its area reckoned by miles rather than feet; a structure wherein one might roam day after day, still exploring, still discovering. More solemn and mysterious, more beautiful and unearthly seemed to grow the place, as we walked, now pausing in the exquisite Hall of the Abencerrages,. of which to-night we could not see the exquisite delicacy, though we knew its sad legend by heart, and might lean over the sunken fountain in the centre, and try to discern the red stains that. the guide said had existed since the cavaliers and chiefs of that name had there been betrayed and murdered. Now and then Diogenes waved around his lantern; as when, passing into the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the Tower of Comares, he flashed a feeble. glimmer, faintly revealing its fine proportions, its deep casements, the splendid decorations of the walls, the rich gilding and exquisite painting of its inlaid, cedar-wood roof. Imagination peopled it with the pomp and ceremony of old; the picturesque groups and figures of the Moors; the grave dignity of the kings as they gave audience to foreign powers and dictated terms or yielded to demands. We passed into the little garden of Lindaraja, with its centre EORNICLOOKS