At first it is proper to give him some idea of my domestic
arrangements; they are rather of a simple kind for the occupant of a
regal palace; but I trust they will be less liable to disastrous
reverses than those of my royal predecessors.
My quarters are at one end of the Governor's apartment, a suite of
empty chambers, in front of the palace, looking out upon the great
esplanade called la plaza de los algibes (the place of the
cisterns); the apartment is modern, but the end opposite to my
sleeping-room communicates with a cluster of little chambers, partly
Moorish, partly Spanish, allotted to the chatelaine Dona Antonia and
her family. In consideration of keeping the palace in order, the
good dame is allowed all the perquisites received from visitors, and
all the produce of the gardens; excepting that she is expected to
pay an occasional tribute of fruits and flowers to the Governor. Her
family consists of a nephew and niece, the children of two different
brothers. The nephew, Manuel Molina, is a young man of sterling
worth and Spanish gravity. He had served in the army, both in Spain
and the West Indies, but is now studying medicine in the hope of one
day or other becoming physician to the fortress, a post worth at least
one hundred and forty dollars a year. The niece is the plump little
black-eyed Dolores already mentioned; and who, it is said, will one
day inherit all her aunt's possessions, consisting of certain petty
tenements in the fortress, in a somewhat ruinous condition it is true,
but which, I am privately assured by Mateo Ximenes, yield a revenue of
nearly one hundred and fifty dollars; so that she is quite an
heiress in the eyes of the ragged son of the Alhambra.
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