The lions, however, are unworthy of their fame, being of
miserable sculpture, the work probably of some Christian captive.
The court is laid out in flower-beds, instead of its ancient and
appropriate pavement of tiles or marble; the alteration, an instance
of bad taste, was made by the French when in possession of Granada.
Round the four sides of the court are light Arabian arcades of open
filigree work supported by slender pillars of white marble, which it
is supposed were originally gilded. The architecture, like that in
most parts of the interior of the palace, is characterized by
elegance, rather than grandeur, bespeaking a delicate and graceful
taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one looks upon
the fairy traces of the peristyles, and the apparently fragile
fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has
survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes,
the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings
of the tasteful traveller; it is almost sufficient to excuse the
popular tradition that the whole is protected by a magic charm.
On one side of the court a rich portal opens into the Hall of the
Abencerrages; so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illustrious
line who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some who doubt
the whole story, but our humble cicerone Mateo pointed out the very
wicket of the portal through which they were introduced one by one
into the Court of Lions, and the white marble fountain in the centre
of the hall beside which they were beheaded.
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