But it is not its size that makes this room imposing. Here, as elsewhere in the palace, it is the decoration. Rising for three or four feet from the floor is a band of colored Moorish tiles. All the wall above is of stucco, molded in lacelike patterns and painted in blues and reds and brilliant golden yellows. The designs are largely geometrical or floral, frequently interspersed with Arabic inscriptions. Some of these when translated read, "God is our refuge," "Praise be to God," familiar phrases in Mohammedan faith, or "There is no conqueror but God." Add to this decoration of the walls imposing stalactite domes, and ceilings often of cedarwood inlaid with mother of pearl, and imagine the floors and windows again adorned with oriental rugs and hangings, and the beauty of the Alhambra will be easily understood. [Illustration: HALL OF REPOSE OF THE BATHS, ALHAMBRA] [Illustration: THE GATE OF JUSTICE _A part of the Alhambra palace not well preserved._] But neither the Court of the Myrtles nor the Hall of the Ambassadors is the crowning glory of the palace. This honor belongs to the Court of the Lions. One hundred and sixteen by sixty-six feet in size, this court compares with any apartment in the world for pure, exquisite beauty of design. An open portico, its ceiling borne on a hundred and twenty-four slender and beautiful marble columns and delicately ornamented arches, incloses the central space, in the middle of which rises a magnificent fountain, its basin cut from a single giant block of alabaster, and supported on the backs of twelve lions of white marble, emblems of courage and strength. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ALHAMBRA _Arched window in the "Tower of the Captivity of Isabel."_] It is small wonder that the last of the Moorish kings, Boabdil (bo-ahb-deel´), looked back with many tears at this glorious palace as he surrendered it in 1492 to his Christian conqueror Ferdinand. Sadly indeed he and his followers must have crossed again to the dreary deserts of Africa, since they left behind them the whole fair land of Spain, which they had adorned not merely with the Alhambra, but with the Alcázar at Seville, the mosque at Cordova, and other monuments of their civil and religious greatness. THE GREAT CATHEDRALS