those crests, cupolas, or steeples which disturb the symmetry of the decoration. “Outside this plan, absolutely classical, which we may compare to a cross with the transverse arm prolonged and cut at various distances by perpendicular arms parallel to each other, but of different length, the Spanish Arabs found no other easy method of building, so that, while diminishing or prolonging the arms of the axis as much as the dependencies of the largest palaces might require, they never departed from the system, wherever they might build.... This, then, is the true scheme of the Alhambra, and it is quite other than that conceived by the classicists of the eighteenth century, with its façades, angles, and squares.” It must, however, be admitted that order is much more conspicuous in the decoration than in the ground plan of the palace. All Moorish ornamentation is based on a strictly geometrical scheme, and every design may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem, and no figure or ornament is introduced at random. Moslem ornamentation abhors irregularity and rejects symbolism. The law of Islam which forbade the delineation of living objects was not, however, always observed in this palace of half-Europeanised Arabs. Simplicity and a love of the elementary characterise also the colouring of the decorations. On the stucco work only the primary colours were used: blue, red, and yellow. The secondary colours occur only in the dados of mosaic. The green groundwork of much of the ornamentation as it is to-day was formerly blue, time having changed the tint of the metallic pigment employed. The decoration of the surfaces seems to have been planned with strict regard to the colouring they were to receive. Both as regards decoration and colour, allowance must always be made for innovations since the Alhambra passed into Christian hands. “Let us look for a moment,” writes Mr. John Lomas, “at some points of detail--more especially of the ornamentation. Wherever the eye falls, it may rest upon some fine bit of arcading or peristyle, so delicate in the transparent tracery of its spandrils, in the rich work of its capitals, and its slenderness of pillar, that one marvels at first how such fairy-like construction could stand for even a single generation. ‘Lovers’ tears’ they call this lace-work, and they tell one to stand just within the dim hall or vestibule, and get a vision of the blue sky that appears beyond as a little cloud of sapphires. But it is surely better--an insight into a piece of truer art--to stand outside the eastern kiosk of the Lion’s Court and looking through spandril, vestibule, and sala, catch the light glinting through the distant opposite windows. That is transparency of effect, indeed! One would like to meet with the architect who thought it out.