From thence you pass into an exceeding fine square, which is called the Square of Lions, from a noble fountain, which is adorned with twelve lions cut in marble, pouring out a vast torrent of water at its mouth; and when the water is turned off, and ceases to run, if you whisper ever so low at the mouth of any one of them, you may hear what is said by applying your ear to the mouth of any one of the rest. Above the lions, there is another basin, and a grand jet-d'eau. The court is paved with marble, and has a portico quite round it, which is supported by one hundred and seventeen high columns of alabaster. In one of the saloons, if you whisper ever so low, it will be distinctly heard at the further end; and this they call the Chamber of Secrets. This sumptuous palace was built by Mahomed Mir, king of Granada, in 1278. "There is no part of the edifice," says Washington Irving, "that gives us a more complete idea of its original beauty and magnificence, than the Hall of Lions, for none has suffered so little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands the fountain, famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops; and the twelve lions, which support them, cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The court is laid out in flower-beds, surrounded by high Arabian arcades of open filagree work, supported by slender pillars of white marble. The architecture, like that of all the other parts of the palace, is characterised by elegance rather than grandeur; bespeaking a delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one looks upon the fair tracery of the peristyles, and the apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shock of earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet and no less baneful pilfering of the tasteful traveller. There is a Moorish tradition, that a king who built this mighty pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with gold and silver for the purpose by means of alchymy; certainly never was there an edifice accomplished in a superior style of barbaric magnificence; and the stranger who, even at the present day, wanders among its silent and deserted courts and ruined halls, gazes with astonishment at its gilded and fretted domes and luxurious decorations, still retaining their brilliancy and beauty in spite of the ravages of time. The Alhamr[=a], usually, but erroneously, denominated the Alhambra, is a vast pile of building about two thousand three hundred English feet in length; and its breadth, which is the same throughout, is about six hundred feet. It was erected by M[=u]hammed Ab[=u] Abdill[=a]h, surnamed Algh[=a]lib Bill[=a]h, who superintended the edifice himself, and, when it was completed, made it the royal residence.