in form, and composed chiefly of loose stones cemented together, and faced with a plaster coat. The area enclosed by this fortress is very extensive. It is like a town in itself, having its streets, its church, its convent; and is said in its palmy days to have afforded accommodation to a garrison of 40,000 men.
Plain and rugged as is this structure in external appearance, it is the casket which holds one of the richest gems of the architecture of any age or time. Within its walls are enclosed the remains of the Moorish palace to which the name of Alhambra is generally applied, although it belongs properly to the fortress itself. This palace was built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and all the beauty and ingenuity of Arabic art were lavished upon its construction. Upon the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, it occasionally became the residence of the Christian sovereign, and Charles V. designed to place by its side another palace, which should eclipse the glories of the art of the infidel Moor. But this building, although it was commenced, and some very fine portions of it are still in existence, was never completed. Its fragments were suffered to decay when Granada grew in disfavor as a residence with the Spanish monarchs, and, when compared with the remains of the Moorish palace, they now show to great disadvantage; the contrast between the two styles of art and the nature of workmanship in each is greatly in favor of the Moors. "The walls of the Christian edifice," says one writer, "are defaced, the paintings faded, the woodwork is decayed, and
