The summit of the Alhambra hill was probably peopled in Al Ahmar’s time, and it continued to be so during the reigns of his successors. The population thus dwelling at the foot of the throne was mainly composed, in later times at least, of hangers-on at the Court, ex-favourites and discarded sultanas, ulemas and doctors of the law, soldiers of fortune, and ambassadors, permanent and extraordinary. Such powerful tribes as the Beni Serraj, which exercised so much influence in the last stages of Nasrite rule, would also have had quarters for their leaders here. The little town--which seems to have had no parallel before or since--extended from the eastern extremity of the hill to within as near the doors of the palace as the temper of the monarch for the time being may have permitted. The precise limits of the palace, even at the time of the Conquest of the Catholic sovereigns, have never been ascertained. Portions of it were undoubtedly demolished to make room for the palace of Charles V. On the other hand, it is recorded in the archives of the Alhambra that various private houses were acquired for the purpose of enlarging the older building. But making due allowance for demolitions, extensions, and restorations since the fifteenth century, we have before us in the Palace of the Alhambra a magnificent example of the last or third period of Hispano-Arabic architecture. On the general plan of the edifice, the remarks of Contreras are worth quoting _in extenso_: “We penetrate into every Arabic monument through an outlying tower, or between two towers, except in the dwelling-houses of the people, in which case the entrance is by a small, square opening, a portal useless among us, though seen with frequency in the ancient houses of Andalusia. A long, narrow hall cuts the axis perpendicularly, thus determining the distribution into two wings of the edifice. By the meeting of the two axes is found the entrance, before which we find those effects of perspective which are so fantastic in these buildings. Following the ingress we find a court with tanks and fountains, with light and graceful arcades. Behind the second gallery, following the same central axis, are oblong naves which cross each other at right angles to the extreme end of the building, where the cupolas or turrets of the innermost dwelling apartments rise majestically above the level of the edifice and are reflected in the waters of the basins. The halls of a house of this kind, according to its rank or grandeur, were arranged in little pavilions on the long sides of the courts, as various in their style of decoration as the tents of a Turkish camp, where the quarters of an Amir may be found beside those of the common soldiers. And if these rows of chambers are now found disposed according to the strict alignment of Mudejar eaves, it is an indication that the severe genius of the Christian conquerors has transformed them, not permitting