32 GRANADA 



hangers-on at the Court, ex-favourites and 

 discarded sultanas, ulemas and doctors of the 

 law, soldiers of fortune, and ambassadors, per- 

 manent and extraordinary. Such powerful tribes 

 as the Beni Serraj, which exercised so much 

 influence in the last stages of Nasrite rule, 

 would also have had quarters for their leaders 

 here. The little town which seems to have 

 had no parallel before or since extended from 

 the eastern extremity of the hill to within as near 

 the doors of the palace as the temper of the 

 monarch for the time being may have permitted. 



The precise limits of the palace, even at the 

 time of the Conquest of the Catholic sovereigns, 

 have never been ascertained. Portions of it were 

 undoubtedly demolished to make room for the 

 palace of Charles V. On the other hand, it is 

 recorded in the archives of the Alhambra that 

 various private houses were acquired for the pur- 

 pose of enlarging the older building. But making 

 due allowance for demolitions, extensions, and 

 restorations since the fifteenth century, we have 

 before us in the Palace of the Alhambra a magni- 

 ficent example of the last or third period of 

 Hispano- Arabic architecture. 



On the general plan of the edifice, the remarks 

 of Contreras are worth quoting in extenso : We 

 penetrate into every Arabic monument through 

 an outlying tower, or between two towers, except 



