This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an
open gallery with balustrades, running at right angles along another
side of the garden. The whole apartment, so delicate and elegant in
its decorations, so choice and sequestered in its situation along this
retired little garden, and so different in architecture from the
neighboring halls, awakened an interest in its history. I found on
inquiry that it was an apartment fitted up by Italian artists in the
early part of the last century, at the time when Philip V and his
second wife, the beautiful Elizabetta of Farnese, daughter of the Duke
of Parma, were expected at the Alhambra. It was destined for the queen
and the ladies of her train. One of the loftiest chambers had been her
sleeping room. A narrow staircase, now walled up, led up to a
delightful belvidere, originally a mirador of the Moorish sultanas,
communicating with the harem; but which was fitted up as a boudoir for
the fair Elizabetta, and still retains the name of el tocador de la
Reyna, or the queen's toilette.
One window of the royal sleeping-room commanded a prospect of the
Generalife and its embowered terraces, another looked out into the
little secluded garden I have mentioned, which was decidedly Moorish
in its character, and also had its history. It was in fact the
garden of Lindaraxa, so often mentioned in descriptions of the
Alhambra; but who this Lindaraxa was I have never heard explained.
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