The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-16

!
 same-in the busy streets and the tree- ! bordered Alameda, on the Alhambra | heights and the Generalife terraces-by
 night as by day-always flow, splash, | drip or murmur. The Spaniards, who are nothing if not sentimental call this continuous water-sound "The Last Sigh of the Moor"
 The splendid trees that surround the Alhambra-planted by the Duke of Well | llngton--are the only elms in Spain; in- deed they are almost the only trees of any size, except fruit-bearing varieties, to be found in the Peninsula. They | have never been trimmed, and while none of them can ever attain individu- al perfection in this uncongenial soil, the picturesque effect of hundreds of immensely tall slender trunks, with branches interaced in mid-air over the l roadways, and garlands of ivy swinging in the breeze, leave nothing to be de- sired. And then the violets, and tne in- cessant chorus of singing birds and ess- pecially the nightingales, which seem as much part of the Alhambra as its old red walls! Pensamjentos, ("memo- ries'o, is the Spjanish name for those
 fragrant blue flowers, spread in thick,
 soft-carpet, acres wide, at all seasons
 of the year.
 The name, Grenada, is supposed to
 have come from the Latin, granatum,
 meaning a pomegranate, because the
 hills upon which the city is built are
 shaped and divided exactly like that
 fruit You remember that King Ferdi-
 hand, at the time of the Conquest, de-
 clared ''out of that grenade Spanish
 for pomegranate), will pick the seeds
 one by one" It is not likely, however,
 that the Moors meant pomegranate
 when they named their town Karnat-
 tah, which word has somehow been
 corrupted to that in present use. But
 all the same, the pomegranate stalked
 and proper, has been adopted as the
 "canting' arms of the city The Gre
 nada of to-day has about eighty thou
 sand inhabitants, though many centu-
 ries ago. under it's former masters, the
 population exceeded one hundred thou
 sand.
 If time is not pressing, you are in-
 clined to finger long on the outside of
 the Alharnbra, dallying with the soft
 delights of imagination. It is said that
 Washington Irving spent three weeks wandering about the grounds and get
 ting himself spiritually attuned before
 ever seeing the inside of the Holy of
 Holies. Later and less impressionable travellers have confessed that they paused again and again at the portals, and turned away, to first exhaust the commoner sights before venturing upon this. The most matter-of- fact individ- ual must feel positive shock at the marvellous transition. You pass a swinging door of cold gray stone-and, Presto. you have stepped from poor, shabby old Spain into the -glories of Damascus, of Agra, or Delhi; from the prosaic twentieth century into a roman tic and gorgeous era, long, long gone by. Americans of the brass band type, who whistle in cathedralsl and rush with needless feet where angels fear to tired, are capable of doing the AL hambra between trains. And the quicker they do it and go, the better for those they leave behind.
 It is hardly five minutes walk from the hotel door through the violet-car- peted wood to the Gate of Justice, be- meath which the Moslem kings dis penseds judgment. It is an enormous tour, forming the entrance to the for tress-the only gate at present existing of the four that once led into the AL hanbra enclosure It is wonderfully well preserved, the cement covering the as smooth as when first laid on; and the ponderous bronze doors, which opened to admit the Christian army on that memora ble 2d of January, 1492, are still in their places, beside the racks that sustained the lances of the Moorish guard, Innumerable legends are connected with this spot, where sat the venerated Kahi, or civil magistrate, who settled, off-hand, all disputes not considered of sufficient consequence to ! engage the attention of the sultan. Such was the fashion in So1omon's day, according to Deuteronomy, and other ! portions of the Old Testament The E states that this gate, which the Moors called Baba-sh-shari' as,-or Gate of the Law" was built by Yusuf [ in the year 1348. It is sixty-two feet H nigh by forty-seven feet wide, but is so massive that it has the appearance of being perfectly square. Halfway up the tower rises horse-sho arch, and . above the arch is sculptured an open hand, the fingers pointing upwards. Some authorities assert that this colos- gal hand is symbolic of hospitality and generosity, the redeeming qualities of he Oriental. Others say, with equal certainty, that 1t denotes power and and still others contend hat it stands for the five tenets of the creed. Possibly it was intended merely as talesman against he much dreaded Evil Eye" as all Moorish women wore amulets of gold 1T silver, in the form of small hands, suspended around their necks, toward if the devil until Charles V. Gin 1525), ssued an eGlict forbidding the usage--to he unbounded terror of the women, vho believed themselves thus left de- enceless to the Evil One.
 Over the second arch is carved an normous key; and there is tradition hat when the sculptured hand shall rasp the sculptured key, the Moors will egain the ancient home of their Ca iphs. To this day the degenerate race f Moslems have not given up hope, but, ike the Jews are looking for the Sec- ; nd Coming They cannot believe that , Iii has deserted them forever nor ! bandoned His cause to the unbeliever. !.
 la re