The Hall of Ambassadors, one of the largest of the Alhambra, occupies all the interior of the tower of Comares. The roof, which is cedar, is full of those mathematical combinations so familiar to Arabian architects: all the pieces are placed so that their salient or re-entering angles form a great variety of designs; the walls disappear beneath a network of ornaments so close together, and so inextricably interwoven, that they can be compared to nothing more fitly than to several pieces of guipure placed one over another. Gothic architecture, with its stone lacework, and its open-worked roses, is nothing to this. Fish-knives, and paper embroidery executed with a fly-press, like that which confectioners use to cover their bonbons with, can alone give you an idea of it. One of the characteristics of the Moorish style is that it offers very few projections or profiles. All this ornamental work is executed on smooth surfaces, and scarcely ever projects more than four or five inches; it resembles a kind of tapestry worked on the wall itself. It has, too, one very distinguishing feature, and this is, the employment of writing as a means of decoration. It is true that Arabian writing, with its mysterious forms and distortions, is admirably fitted for this use. The inscriptions, which are nearly always _suras_ of the Koran, or eulogiums on the different princes who have built and decorated the halls, are placed along the friezes, on the jambs of the doors, and round the arches of the windows, and are interspersed with flowers, foliage, net-work, and all the riches of Arabian calligraphy. Those in the Hall of Ambassadors signify "Glory to God, power and riches to believers;" or they sing the praises of Abu Nazar, who, "if he had been taken alive into heaven, would have made the brightness of the stars and planets pale"--a hyperbolical assertion, which seems to us rather too oriental. Other rows of inscriptions are filled with eulogiums of Abi Abd Allah, another sultan, who helped to build this part of the palace. The windows are loaded with pieces of poetry in honour of the limpidness of the waters of the reservoir, of the blooming condition of the shrubs, and of the perfume of the flowers that ornament the yard of the Mezouar, which is seen from the Hall of Ambassadors through the door and columns of the gallery. The loopholes, with their interior balconies at a great height from the ground, and the roof of wood-work without any other ornaments but the zigzags and the cross-work formed by the placing of the timber, give the Hall of Ambassadors a severer aspect than the other halls of the palace have, but which is more in harmony with the purpose it was intended for. From the window at the back there is a beautiful view over the ravine of the Darro. [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE ALHAMBRA.]