Identifier: yalhambra00irviuoft (find matches)
Title: The Alhambra
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 Hitchcock, Alfred M. (Alfred Marshall), 1868-1941
Subjects: Alhambra (Granada, Spain)
Publisher: London New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Scott - York University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Ontario Council of University Libraries and Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
Granada, and which rises from the narrow valley of the Darro, directly opposite to the Alhambra, stands all that is left of what was once a royal palace of the Moors. It has, in fact, fallen into such obscurity, that it cost me much trouble to find it, though aided in my researches by the sagacious and all-knowing Mateo Ximenes. This edifice has borne for centuries the name of The House of the Weathercock (La casa del Gallo de Viento), from a bronze figure on one of its turrets, in ancient times, of a warrior on horseback, and turning with every breeze. This weathercock was considered by the Moslems of Granada a portentous talisman. According to some traditions, it bore the following Arabic inscription : Calet el Bedici Aben Habuz, Quidat ehahet Lindabuz. Which has been rendered into Spanish : Dice el sabio Aben Habuz, Que asi se defiende el Anduluz. And into English : In this way, says Aben Habuz the Wise, Andaluz guards against surprise. This Aben Habuz, according to some of the old Moorish
Text Appearing After Image:
chronicles, was a captain in the invading army of Taric, one of the conquerors of Spain, who left him as Alcayde of Granada. He is supposed to have intended this effigy as a perpetual warning to the Moslems of Andaluz, that, surrounded by foes, their safety depended upon their being always on their guard and ready for the field. Others, among whom is the Christian historian Marmol, affirms "Badis Aben Habus" to have been a Moorish sultan of Granada, and that the weather-cock was intended as a perpetual admonition of the instability of Moslem power, bearing the following words in Arabic : "Thus Ibn Habus al badise predicts Andaluz shall one day vanish and pass away" Another version of this portentous inscription is given by a Moslem historian, on the authority,

Note About Images