The archway-entrance to the _Casa del Carbon_ is very richly decorated, as may be seen by the illustration at p. 443, but the interior has been greatly interfered with and disfigured. Below, is a subterranean passage, said to communicate with the Alhambra; but the Duke d’Abrantes, who owned the _Casa_, regarded such means of communication as “uncanny,” and blocked up the passage. An inspection of the Arabic title-deeds to this interesting property, which are still extant, would amply repay the pains of conveyancing amateurs. LA CASA SANCHEZ--THE HOUSE OF SANCHEZ. La Casa Sanchez, so-called from having been the dwelling of an honest muleteer of that name, was once one of the most picturesque and most Moorish of dwellings. But, alas! in the year 1837, the whole front was “restored” and “beautified,” and an ancient fish-pond, similar to that of the Court of Myrtles, was filled up and converted into a garden by one of the resident officers of the Palace. The ruthless _empleado_, who caused the Moorish doors of the Hall of the Abencerrages to be sawn asunder, permitted also this outrage by a man of equal [Illustration: MOSAIC PAVEMENT IN THE DRESSING-ROOM OF THE SULTÁNA.] taste with himself, who ruined the little architectural gem. The ruin yet offers a specimen of minute and beautiful _tarkish_--stucco-work--that even the lovely examples of the Alhambra itself cannot surpass. An illustration at p. 445, from a drawing of about the year 1830, ’ere the spoiler came, will give an idea of the departed beauty of the jewelled building. [Illustration: SABRE OF THE LAST MOORISH KING OF GRANADA, COMMONLY CALLED “THE SWORD OF BOABDIL.”] [BLANKPAGE] [Illustration: ELEVATION OF THE CASA DEL CARBON, OR “HOUSE OF CARBON,” ONCE KNOWN AS THE HOUSE OF THE WEATHER-COCK.] [Illustration: HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.] [Illustration: PLAN AND SECTION OF THE GREAT CISTERN IN THE ALHAMBRA.] [BLANKPAGE] APPENDIX. Moresco-Spanish Ballads. Selected from the Translations of John Gibson Lockhart. Lockhart’s intention was to furnish the English reader with some notion of that old Spanish minstrelsy preserved in the different _Cancioneros_ and _Romanceros_ of the Sixteenth Century; he owns, however, than only a Spaniard can achieve for his native _chansons_ what Percy, Ellis, or Ritson has done for English ballads. Until such a Spanish editor arises, it seems impossible to determine to what period the composition of the oldest Spanish ballads now extant ought to be referred.