The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1901-02-28


to-day, think as ever was"
DR.. Pierces Pleasant Pellets cure
constipation.
king who built the Alhambra was a
great magician, who had sold himself
to the devil, and through some hocus-
pocus, laid the whole mighty fortress
under spell, through the magical de-
vice of the hand and key. By virtue of
this spell, the Alhambra has withstood
the wars and storms and earthquakes of
centuries, almost unframed, while al
most all the other buildings of the
Moors have fallen to ruin and decay.
But some day the spell will be broken;
the great stone hand will reach down
and grasp the key-and then the whole
pile will tumble to pieces, and all the
Moslem treasures buried beneath it will
be revealed.
Passing beneath the double arches of
the portal, through the tri-leaved doors
of bronze-which still swing on their
pivot set into the ground, exactly as
when Ferdinands' conquering army
went through-we step at once into
another age and the scenes of Arabian
story. This great space-paved with
white marble and surrounded by long
lines of elegant colonnades of richly
emblazoned horseshoe arches resting
| dp1ipatplv clpn1o1 1,i1larc
recognize at once as the oft-described
Plaza de los Algibes, or Court of Myr-
ties. In its centre is an immense basin,
$50 feet long by 30 broad in which in
Vulnerable goldfish are darling about.
Y es, there must be magic in the place,
for the instant our shadows fall upon
the water-Presto the goldfish have
all disappeared and the basin appears
empty of every living thing. Retreat
a few steps and back they come, sport
ing gaily as before in the sunshine: but
they are merely every day time goldfish.
frightened at human approach. The
sides of the tank are lined With roses,
and beyond are hedges of orange-trees
and myrtle and japanese medlars. Ara
/ bic inscriptions covers the walls and
! galleries; and in the latter may yet be
seen the Identical jalouseS that once
screened from vulgar gaze the charms
of the Sultan's harem. This Court of
Myrtles was the only part of the palace
to which the public was ever admitted;
and we read that even while the COM
mon enemy, the Christian, was thunder
ing at the gates, it became the theatre
OF frequent intrigueS between hostile
Moslem factions, to whose bitter feuds
may be ascribed the downfall of the
kingdom. Here were received the pic
turesque ENJOYS of the distant East,
who brought gifts and greetings from
the lords of Ispahan and Cairo Here,
also, upon grand occasions were enter
tanned the flower of Castilian chivalry,
who came to compete for the prize of
knightly skill; and here the fiery old
Abul Hacen, surrounded by his several
hundred wives, listened with gloomy
forebodings to the predictions CT the
astrologer who announced the loss of
his empire and the extinction of his
race. He ordered the seer to be bow
strung at once and endeavored to forget
his fears in the caresses of his beautiful
! Zorayda, ''Star of the morning." but all
| tho tho font Of ha
took him
Everywhere in the Alhambra we are
struck with evidences that the architec-
ture of the Arabs was essentially re-
ligious and the offspring of the Koran,
as Gothic architecture is of the Bible.
The Koran's prohibition to represent
any animal life must have sadly ham
pered those Moslem sculptors Prob
ably that is the reason why the twelve
lions, so-called, which have given name
to the gem of the palace, the Court of
Lions, look less like the king of beasts
than like dragons intended to scare
away the evil one. They have quad
rangular legs, heads,without names, the
front of the face as thick as the back,
the nose hardly distinguishable from
the cheeks, and water pipes that look
like cigarette holders in the mouths
No wonder all the lions have left the
neighborhood of Morocco and have re-
tired in disgust to the interior of Afri-
ca! Yet those Moors were wonderful
sculptors, as testified by the miles of
mural arabeseques that somehow re-
mind one of the polophonic intricacies
of modern music, and the floral orna-
mentations which Gautier says are ga
kind of marble tapestry worked into
the wall ITSELF" The geometrical adorn-
ments were undoubtedly taken from the
loom. 1t would seem that the Arabs,