reat work." This "immediate action" was too late for the brave men in
the Alamo.

[Illustration]

THE ALHAMBRA

_By_ WASHINGTON IRVING

NOTE.--The Alhambra is now a beautiful ruin, but at one time it was
the great fortified palace of the Moors and the place where they
made their last stand against the Christian Spaniards. From its
beautiful courts the Moorish defenders were at last driven, and
with their departure the Mohammedan faith ceased as a power in
Europe.

The palace occupied but a portion of the space within the walls of
the fortress, which in the time of the Moors was capable of
containing an army of forty thousand men.

After the kingdom had passed into the hands of the Christians, the
castle was occasionally inhabited by the Castilian monarchs. Early
in the eighteenth century, however, it was abandoned as a court
residence, its beautiful walls became desolate, and some of them
fell to ruin, the gardens were destroyed, and the fountains ceased
to play.

In 1829 Washington Irving lived for some time within the walls of
the Alhambra and studied its history and the legends of Spain.
These he has embodied in a charming book, from which we draw a
description of the Alhambra.

We now found ourselves in a deep, narrow ravine, filled with beautiful
groves, with a steep avenue and various footpaths winding through it,
bordered with stone seats and ornamented with fountains. To our left, we
beheld the towers of the Alhambra beetling above us; to our right, on
the opposite side of the ravine, we were equally dominated by rival
towers on a rocky eminence. These, we were told, were the Torres
Vermejos, or Vermilion towers, so called from their ruddy hue. No one
knows their origin. They are of a date much anterior to the Alhambra.
Some suppose them to have been built by the Romans; others, by some
wandering colony of Phoenicians. Ascending the steep and shady avenue,
we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind
of barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the fortress.
This portal is called the Gate of Justice, from the tribunal held within
its porch during the Moslem domination, for the immediate trial of petty
causes; a custom common to the Oriental nations, and occasionally
alluded to in the sacred Scriptures.

[Illustration: THE GATE OF JUSTICE]

The great vestibule,