“By those who are permitted to behold me I am regarded as the Queen of Beauty who bestoweth the prize upon her well-beloved;
“Indeed, when the enraptured observer has feasted his eyes upon me, he will find reality surpassing the most extravagant flights of fancy;
“He will see the moon-beam start from my orbs, and its scintillation leave me only to enter the mansions of the blest.
“The palace is a palace of transparent crystal; it appears to be illimitable as the boundless ocean;
“And yet I am not the sole marvel of this heaven upon earth; for I overlook with ecstacy a garden, the like of which no human eye has contemplated.
“I was built by the Imam Ibn Nasr. May Allah uphold his majesty as a pattern to other kings!”
The last half-dozen verses, printed _supra_, are inscribed on the jambs of the doorway which gives entrance to the exquisite little chamber already described. The windows of the _Mirador_ still overlook the garden eulogised in the penultimate verse. The dado of the Hall of The Two Sisters is a most beautiful Mosaic, presenting the same general form on all four sides of the Hall, but differing considerably in the filling up of the patterns.
In the Hall of The Two Sisters formerly stood the famous Arab vase (_el jarro_) [see pp. 77 and 95] which tradition says was discovered in one of the subterranean chambers of the palace, “full of gold.” It is now placed in the Museum. The vase is of the fourteenth century, and is exquisitely enamelled in white, blue and gold. The decorations are Hispano-Moresque, and are fully described in the work on pottery by Peter Davillier. Another lovely amphora, is engraved in the Spanish work _Antigüedades Arabes de España_,[10] the equal, indeed, the companion
[Illustration: EL JARRO. THE ARABIAN VASE AND NICHE IN WHICH IT FORMERLY STOOD, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS. THE VASE, CONSIDERABLY MUTILATED, IS NOW IN THE MUSEUM OF THE PALACE. (_See p. 95._)]
[Illustration: VIEW IN THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.]
[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE UPPER STORY, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.]
[Illustration: SECTION OF THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS, AND]
[Illustration: SECTION OF PART OF THE COURT OF THE LIONS.]
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION IN THE HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS.]
