On leaving the Hall of Ambassadors, you follow a passage of modern structure, comparatively speaking, and you arrive at the _tocador_, or dressing-room of the queen. This is a small pavilion situated on the top of a tower, which formerly served the sultanas for an oratory, whence you enjoy the sight of an admirable panorama. At the entrance you perceive a slab of white marble, perforated with small holes to allow the smoke of the perfumes that were burnt beneath the floor to pass through. On the walls are still seen some fantastic frescoes, executed by Bartholomew de Ragis, Alonzo Perez, and Juan de la Fuente. On the frieze the ciphers of Isabella and Philip V. are intertwined, one with another, together with groups of Cupids. It is impossible to conceive anything more coquettish or charming than this closet, suspended as it is, with its little Moorish pillars, and its surbased arches, over an abyss of azure, the bottom of which is studded with the house-tops of Granada, and whither the breeze wafts the perfumes of the Generalife, that enormous tuft of rose-bays blooming on the brow of the neighbouring hills, and the plaintive cry of the peacocks walking on the dismantled walls. How many hours have I not spent there, wrapped in that serene melancholy so different from the melancholy of the north, with one leg dangling over the precipice, and straining my eyes in order to leave unexamined no form or contour of the picture that lay before them, and which they will, doubtless, never see again. No pen or pencil will ever be able to give a true idea of that brilliancy, of that light, of that vividness of hues. The most commonplace tones assume the appearance of jewels, and everything is on the same scale. Towards the end of the day, when the sun is oblique, the most inconceivable effects are produced: the mountains sparkle like heaps of rubies, topazes and carbuncles; dust, which looks like dust of gold, fills the intervals, and if, as is often the case in summer, the labourers are burning stubble in the plain, the smoke, while rising slowly towards the sky, borrows the most magical reflections from the rays of the setting sun. I am surprised that Spanish painters, have, in general, made their pictures so dark, and have almost exclusively employed themselves in imitating Caravaggio and the masters of the sombre school. The pictures of Decamps and Marilhat, who only painted views of Asia or Africa, give a truer idea of Spain than all the pictures fetched, at a great expense, from the Peninsula.