The most beautiful room on the ground floor is that of the ambassadors, formed by four great arches supporting a gallery of forty-four smaller arches, and above, a lovely cupola which is sculptured, painted and ornamented with an inimitable grace and a fabulous magnificence. On the next floor which contained the winter apartments, nothing remains but an oratory of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, and a small room which is said to be the one where the King Don Pedro slept. You descend from here, by a narrow, mysterious staircase, into the rooms inhabited by the famous Maria di Padilla, a favourite of Don Pedro, whom popular tradition accuses of having instigated Don Pedro to the murder of his brother. The gardens of the Alcazar are not large, nor extraordinarily beautiful; but the fancies that they engender are more precious than size or beauty. Beneath the shade of those oranges and cypresses, near the soft sound of those fountains when a great brilliant moon shone in the clear Andalusian sky and the host of courtiers and slaves lay down to rest, how many sighs of lovelorn sultanas were heard! how many humble words of proud kings! what mighty loves and embraces! “Itimad! my love!” I murmured, thinking of the famous favourite of King Al-Motamid, as I roamed from path to path as if following her spirit: “Itimad! Do not leave me alone in this quiet paradise! Stop! Give me one hour of delight to-night. Don’t you remember? You came to me and your lovely locks fell over my shoulders like a mantle; and as the warrior seizes his sword, I seized your neck, softer and whiter than a swan’s! How beautiful you were! How my parched heart satisfied its thirst on thy blood-coloured lips. Your beautiful body issued from your splendidly embroidered robe like a gleaming blade from its scabbard; and then I pressed with both hands your large hips and slender waist in all the perfection of their beauty. How dear you are, Itimad! Your kiss is as sweet as wine, and your glance, like wine, makes me lose my reason!” While I was uttering this declaration of love in the phrases and imagery of the Arabian poets, I entered a pathway bordered with flowers and suddenly felt a jet of water on my legs; I jumped back and had a dash of it in my face; I turned to the right, and felt a spray on my neck; turning to the left, I got another on the nape of my neck; then I began to run and there was water under me, over me, and all around me, in jets, sprays, and showers, so that in a moment I was as wet as if I had been plunged in a tub. Just at the moment I was about to shout I heard a loud laugh at the end of the garden, and, turning, I saw a young man leaning against the wall and looking at me, as if to say: “Did you enjoy it?” Then he showed me the spring he had touched in order to play the trick and comforted me by saying that the Seville sun would not leave me long in that wet condition, into which I had passed so brusquely, ah me! from the amorous arms of my sultana.