Not a breath of air disturbed the
stillness of the hour, and though the faint sound of music and
merriment now and then rose from the gardens of the Darro, it but
rendered more impressive the monumental silence of the pile which
overshadowed me. It was one of those hours and scenes in which
memory asserts an almost magical power; and, like the evening sun
beaming on these mouldering towers, sends back her retrospective
rays to light up the glories of the past.
As I sat watching the effect of the declining daylight upon this
Moorish pile, I was led into a consideration of the light, elegant,
and voluptuous character, prevalent throughout its internal
architecture; and to contrast it with the grand but gloomy solemnity
of the Gothic edifices reared by the Spanish conquerors. The very
architecture thus bespeaks the opposite and irreconcilable natures
of the two warlike people who so long battled here for the mastery
of the peninsula. By degrees, I fell into a course of musing upon
the singular fortunes of the Arabian or Morisco-Spaniards, whose whole
existence is as a tale that is told, and certainly forms one of the
most anomalous yet splendid episodes in history. Potent and durable as
was their dominion, we scarcely know how to call them. They were a
nation without a legitimate country or name. A remote wave of the
great Arabian inundation, cast upon the shores of Europe, they seem to
have all the impetus of the first rush of the torrent.
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