[Illustration: EL JARRO. ARAB VASE OF METALLIC LUSTRE, PROBABLY FROM THE BALEARIC ISLES (MAJORCA). THIS VASE NOW STANDS IN THE MUSEUM OF THE PALACE.] [Illustration: PLATE I. No. 1. Ornament in panels on the Walls, Hall of the Ambassadors.] [Illustration: PLATE II. No. 2. Soffit of an arch, Court of the Fishpond.] [Illustration: PLATE III. No. 3. Ornament over doorway at the entrance, Court of the Lions.] [Illustration: PLATE IV. No. 4. Ornament in doorway at the entrance to the Ventana, Hall of the Two Sisters.] [Illustration: PLATE V. No. 5. Ornament on the side of windows, upper story, Hall of the Two Sisters.] [Illustration: PLATE VI. No. 6. Ornament in spandrils of arches, Hall of the Two Sisters. No. 7. Ornaments in spandrils of arches, Hall of the Abencerrages] [Illustration: PLATE VII. No. 8. Ornaments in panels, Hall of the Ambassadors.] [Illustration: PLATE VIII. No. 9. Ornaments in panels, Court of the Mosque.] [Illustration: DETAILS AT THE EXIT OF THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.] to _el jarro_, formerly existed in the Palace, but it was unfortunately broken about the year 1837, and the pieces sold to a passing traveller. It is here figured from Murphy’s _Arabian Antiquities_, 1815. [Illustration: AN ARAB VASE OF THE XIVTH CENTURY IN THE NICHE WHEREIN IT STOOD UNTIL THE YEAR 1837.] The Hall of The Two Sisters fairly intoxicates one with the fragile yet imperishable beauty of the place. The eye soars upward, and flutters in and out of those flower-cup cells which seem the first creative types of some fresh world. Architects--Owen Jones amongst the number--inform us that the thing is very simple: it is a beauty put together by mere receipt proceeding from three primary figures--the right-angled triangle, the rectangle, and the isosceles triangle: capable of millions of combinations, just like the three primary colours, or the seven notes of the musical scale. “A simple receipt,” says an anonymous writer on the glories of the Alhambra; “but who, nowadays, [Illustration: MOSAIC IN DADO OF THE ENTRANCE TO THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.] can cook anything like it?” The same writer goes on to say that in devising the Alhambra, the Moors were always thinking of the Arab tent. They wanted air and lightness. The marble pillars are the tent spears, but of stone. The net-work lace veil that filigrees every wall with cobwebs of harmonious colour, is the old tent tapestry, the Córdovan-stamped leather hangings are the Indian shawls that canopied the wandering and victorious horseman’s tent. They wanted mere pendant flowers woven together into roof and gossamer-pierced panels that hardly [Illustration: MOSAIC IN DADO OF RECESS, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.] [Illustration: MOSAIC IN DADO, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.]