The oldest part of the building--by which I mean that which appears to have been the least altered--is round about the Patio de la Mezquita, more properly named "del Mexuar," after the divan or "meshwâr" that held its sittings here. The southern façade of this small court reminds one very much of the front of the Alcazar at Seville. From this you enter the disused chapel, an uninteresting apartment consecrated in 1629. The Moorish decoration has almost completely disappeared, but much of the work in the little apartment adjacent, called the Sultan's Oratory, seems to be original. There never was a mosque here, but there may have been a private praying-place. Yusuf I. is supposed to have been stabbed here. The tragic deed was more probably done at the great mosque outside the palace where the Alhambra parish church now stands. From the Patio del Mexuar a tunnel called the Viaducto leads to the Patio de la Reja, the Baths, and the Garden of Daraxa. The Court of the Myrtles (Patio de las Arrayanes, or de la Alberca) is the first entered by the visitor. It is an oblong space, the middle of which is occupied by a tank of bright green water. This is bordered by trimly kept hedges of myrtle. The side walls are modern, and do not deserve attention. The front to the right on entering is very beautiful. It is composed of two arcaded galleries, one above the other, with a smaller closed gallery--a sort of triforium--interposed. The arches spring from marble columns, with variously decorated capitals. The central arch of the lowest gallery rises nearly to the cornice, and is decorated in a style which Contreras thought suggestive of Indian architecture. Fine lattice work closes the seven windows of the triforium. The upper gallery is equally graceful, but looks in imminent danger of collapse. Above a similar but single arcade at the opposite end of the court rises the square massive upper storey of the Tower of Comares, with its crenellated summit. To reach its interior we cross the gallery beneath a little dome painted with stars on a blue ground, and a long parallel apartment (Sala de la Barca) gutted by fire in 1890, and enter the spacious Hall of the Ambassadors (Sala de los Embajadores), the largest hall in the Alhambra. Here was held the final council which decided the fate of Islam in Spain. Looking upwards we behold the glorious airy dome of larch-wood with painted stars. The decoration is magnificent--mostly in red and black--and may be divided into four zones: (1) a dado of mosaic tiles or azulejos; (2) stucco work in eight horizontal bands, each of a different design; (3) a row of five windows once filled with stained glass on each side; (4) a carved wooden cornice, supporting the roof. On three sides of the hall are alcoves, each with a window, the one opposite the entrance having been near the Sultan's throne.