sometimes called by the Moors Sublime Porte, is soon reached. Facing this-which was, and still is the grand entrance to the fortress-palace of the Alhambra— a semi-circular port-holed barbican defence, built by the French General Sebastiani, who had penetrated into the heart of the Granadian Sierra, is found obtruding its repugnant features upon a scene, the chief interest of which comes from structures connected with other times and triumphs. Sweeping round the foundation of this barbican-fort is the road by which the Alhambra was formerly reached from the town of Granada, along which went forth the Moslem to defend, and finally came the Christian to possess, this last Moorish stronghold; after Boabdil its last Monarch had surrendered its keys, with his crown, to Ferdinand and Isabella. By the side of this ancient road, near the foot of Sebastiani's fort, is a heavy Tuscan fountain, built by the Alcaide Mendoza of that day, in honour of the imperial vandal Charles V. Coarse in material, design, and cutting, it fitly commemorates the barbaric taste and tendencies, of his royal master.

The Torre de Justicia, and its Puerta Judiciaria its Gate of Judgment-claim a more willing attention. This portal was so called, because of the Moslem custom-derived from the ancient Jews, and perpetuated for a time-of administering justice within its porch. The Hebrew usage is recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures-thus-"Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates," Deuteronomy chap. xvi, verse 18. "Then he (Solomon when building his house) made a porch for the throne, where he might judge, even the porch of judgment," 1 Kings, chap. vii, verse 7. "When

I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street, I put on righteousness, and it clothed me, my judgment was as a robe and a diadem : I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not, I searched out," Job, chap. 29, verses 7, 14, 16. And so also was the judgment of Boaz affirmed by a jury of ten elders in the gate of the city, Ruth IV. The Torre de Justicia is about fifty feet square, and between sixty and seventy in height; built of stone embedded in concrete, with brick facings. Strength is its befitting feature as a fortress outwork, not decorative beauty; its plain façade being broken alone by two small Byzantine look-outs, above, and a a magnificent Moorish horse-shoe arch, below. Upon the key-stone of the latter is engraved a forearm and hand-vertical; and under it is the entrance to a porch, or vestibule, about twenty feet square, on the sides of which are stone benches for the seating of those-it may be supposed-who came to make known their grievances, and to ask redress of Supreme Authority: while above, the vaulted ceiling of this porch is pierced by a well, through which the defenders could, from the top of the tower, cast projectiles upon such assailants as might force their way into the vestibule. An interior horse-shoe arch, of less span than the outer, supported by Moresco pillars, is closed by a ponderous, iron, double-winged door, similarly barred and bolted. The capital of the right hand pillar bears the inscription in Arabic, "Praise be given to God; there is no power or strength but in God." That, on the left, "There is no Deity but Allah. Mohammed is his messenger." Above the arch is engraved a key-upright; and over that is

inscribed in Arabic characters the time of erection of the gate-A.H. 749 (A.D. 1348)-calling it the "Gate of the Law;" together with an invocation, that the "Almighty may make it a protecting bulwark, and write down its erection among the imperishable actions of the just." Still higher, is seen, an example of Spanish desecration of art, as well as a violation of the decalogue, in the nearly total destruction of an exquisite arabesque diaper-mosaic, to make a niche for an idol Virgin; which really looks as if in great grief for the part it has been made to play in this piece of vandalism.

Various interpretations have been given of the sculptured hand over the outer, and key over the inner arch. Some think the former significant of a Moorish superstition thus to "avert the evil eye." And that the latter symbolizes the gift of the key of heaven to the Prophet by Allah; thus conferring on him the prerogative of celestial door-keeper, claimed for Peter by Christians and by him handed down to his Papal successors. Were it not that the Moslem key is found sculptured elsewhere in the Alhambra, as is the Pontifical in the galleries and gardens, courts and chapels, of the Vatican, we might suppose, that at the great portal of the former palace, the up-raised open hand above the outer arch, implied, that, he who thus came appealing to God for the purity of his purposes, and the righteousness of his cause, would find within, the key, that would open to him the door of just judgment. If neither of the above be an acceptable solution of the question, the traditional explanation of Washington Irving's gossiping guide Mateo Ximenes, may perhaps

prove satisfactory, at least to the lovers of the supernatural-to wit-" that the Moorish builder-himself a great magician-having sold himself to the devil, had placed the fortress under a spell; and that it would last until the hand should reach down and grasp the key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces." Pilgrims to the art shrine of the Alhambra may well pray for the truth of this interpretation; or at all events that the fortress will endure until the coming of that last convulsion, which shall cast down the everlasting looking Torre de Justicia itself, and thus fling these separated types of something, in the mind of the Khalife Yusuf who built it, into contact. This would only be a reversal of Mateo's cause and effect, and-with deference be it spoken-is as likely to prove true as his explanation of the mystery. By the way, the "son of the Alhambra" still lives, but in somewhat better plight-for which he may thank the influence of his former employer's great, name than when he "inhabited an almost dismantled hovel in the hamlet." He has succeeded to his "father's trade of a riband weaver," and few there are who wander over the enchanted hill, where his ancestors dwelt from the time of the conquest, who do not take some silken souvenir of one who gave to Mr. Irving the threads woven by him too, into things of wondrous charm and colouring. It is now forty-three years since, as the "father of a numerous progeny" he spun these fibres of tradition which Mr. Irving wrought into such richness of romance, that one is in danger of seeing, not the Alhambra and its inner life, as they were, and are, but as they have been invested, by an imagination so ardent in its pursuit of the beautiful, as occasionally to

have everstepped the revelations of truth, necessary to a narrative, which at times, claimed fact, and not fiction, for its object. Ximenes, now more than four score years of age, seems as if he were merely awaiting the movement of the hand toward the key on the Gate of the Law, ere going hence; and no longer wields the wand. of the magician over comer and goer. His fancy, waning with physical powers, lights not the footsteps of ramblers. They may stroll hither and thither as best pleases them, with history-sufficiently startling in itself-and its probabilities, to guide them to a knowledge of the Alhambra, and its inmates as they reigned. and revelled in dazzling halls, or sighed and wept in the solitude of twilight alcoves and starlit miradors. One may even sit down to rest on a stone bench in the porch of the Torre de Justicia; and reflecting, that, despite the opening of the earth within the portal at the smiting of the Arabian astrologer of which we are told in the legend-and all the digging and delving of the Moorish King Aben Habuz after the Princess who there sank from his sight, yet still stands the structure as solid as when first it hung out its mystic symbols more than six hundred years ago, he may come to the sage conclusion that, after all, the "Tales of the Alhambra" are not fitted for the work of a simpleminded explorer of realities. And perhaps taking the volume out of his pocket, and opening it at the dedication page, he may be surprised to find, that the author had put fable in the foreground, by proposing "something in the Haroun Alrasched style;" and giving only a few Arabesque sketches from life and tales founded. on popular traditions." Thus, refreshed, and reminded.