The innumerable sentences abounding everywhere in the Alhambra are so harmonious and interweaving--producing such cross-lights of poetry and praise, merging naturally and gracefully when the mind is torpid or indifferent to them, into mere surface ornament--that they are never out of place, but present always an unsatiating charm. Once, at least, an inscription in the Palace has settled a dull controversy respecting the use of the many small, highly-decorated recesses which are seen in the apartments. On each side of the ante-room of the Hall of the Ambassadors is one of these recesses resembling the piscinæ of our cathedrals. Blundering wise men insistently averred that these niches were used by suppliants as receptacles for their slippers before entering to an audience, until an Arabic scholar pointed to an inscription round the aperture, which reads: “_If anyone approach me complaining of thirst, he will receive cool and limpid water, sweet and pure._” Any Spaniard ought to have known that here were the places of the _Alcarraza_, or porous earthen bottles common to all comers, even as they may now be found in the halls of some Andalusian gentlemen. Such a niche and water-vase are represented in this volume at page 77. “Is the Alhambra,” asks Ford, “a palace of the _Arabian Nights_, or only a tawdry ruin bedaubed with faded colour? And what of the colour as it exists? Is it emeraldine or plaited flowers? No, in sober truth, the colour is dim and faded; buried in some places under white flaky icicles of whitewash, or blurred and besmirched as a dead butterfly’s wing. Here and [Illustration: VARIOUS MOSAICS FROM THE ALHAMBRA.] there are revived bright scraps of azure, gold, and vermilion; but generally dull of outline, and dim in low, deep, shadow tone.” Where the Moorish work is imitated, greens and purples obtrude, to demonstrate how inferior is modern decorative skill to the genius of the ancient Arabs. The dados, or low wainscotings, are of square, glazed tiles, which form a glittering breast-high coat of mail up to the lower third of the Palace [Illustration: PANEL ORNAMENT IN THE ALHAMBRA.] walls. Here the colours are the same as those of the old Majolica ware. Sometimes these _Azulejo_ tiles, with their low-toned enamel colours, are formed into pillars, or pave the floors in squares of _fleurs-de-lis_, or other heraldic emblems. In these dados, colour is seen in the shade. The Moors wanted shade in a country where the sun is solid fire--the colours deep, soft, and subdued as in an Arabian carpet.