festoons of cobwebs are seen hanging from the ceiling. In the work of the Arabs, on the contrary, the walls remain unaltered, except by the injuries inflicted by the hands of men. The color of the paintings, in which there is no mixture of oil, on removing the particles of dust, appear to have preserved their brightness. The beams and wood-work of the ceilings present no signs of decay; no spiders, flies, or other insects are to be seen there. The art of rendering timber and paint durable, and of making porcelain mosaics, arabesques, and other ornaments, began and ended in Western Europe with the Moorish conquerors of Spain."
The remains of the palace of Alhambra consist of entrance arches, corridors, and courts constructed chiefly of marble, richly adorned with arabesques. The Arabs were forbidden by their religion to use the representation of living figures or animals in their ornamental devices, which therefore took the shape of flowers and geometrical forms, sometimes very fanciful in their nature. The term arabesque was applied to this class of ornament, after the race by which it was chiefly used. These arabesque ornaments were cast in moulds, and joined in such extreme nicety that frequently no trace of the point of junction can be detected. They were colored in blue, red, and gold, and the general effect in such edifices as the Alhambra is so gorgeous that it cannot be realized by description.
The salon known as the Hall of the Abencerrages must be noted, with its beautiful stalac-
