From Toledo I proceeded direct to Córdova, because, in my mind, the two cities were linked together by the broad band of longevity, and I desired to see them both in the same mood cycle. So, while the atmosphere of Toledan greatness was still hot in my veins, I hastened across the broad, bare, sandy plains of the celebrated Mancha—the immortal theatre of the adventures of Don Quixote—past Argasamilla—where Don Quixote was born, and died, and where his great creator, Cervantes, was imprisoned for debt—across the Sierra Morena to the land of the valley of the Guadalquiver—“the garden of Spain, the Eden of the Arabs, the paradise of poets and painters”—to Andalucia. Thenceforward there are no more rocks, but fields now studded, now hidden by flowers—flowers, flowers all the way—carpet after carpet of purple, gold, and snow-white flowers, poppies, daisies, lilies, wild mushrooms, and ranunculuses. Then, as we are carried deeper into the bosom of the south, we are met with grain and orange groves, olive groves, and green hillsides, vineyards, and fruit trees. First a few Moorish towers and many-coloured houses, then on the hills of the Sierra Nevada clusters of villas and gardens, then a perfumed air scented with rose leaves, an enchanted garden, and—Córdova.
BRIDGE AND CATHEDRAL, CÓRDOVA.
Córdova is as different a place from Toledo as Monte Carlo is from Manchester. Toledo, sombre, austere, overpowering in its impressive solemnity; and Córdova, gay, vivacious, flashing its pervading whitewash in the sunshine beneath the clearest sky in Europe. And yet Córdova is one of the most ancient of cities; its record of all the races that have fought for it, made it, died for it during twenty centuries, are visible on every side. A thousand years ago it boasted upwards of a million inhabitants, three hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, and six hundred fondas. Its cathedral was formerly a mosque: before that it had been a basilica: and it had commenced life as a Roman temple dedicated to Janus. The Carthagenians styled the city the “Gem of the South.” Cæsar half destroyed it, and slaughtered 28,000 of its inhabitants, because it had sided with Pompey. Under the Goths its importance diminished; but it became, under the Moors, the Athens of the West, and was the
Toledo.
| RETABLO, SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES CHURCH. | THE LION DOOR, TOLEDO CATHEDRAL. |
| SEPULCHRE OF ALONSO DE CARRILLO, TOLEDO CATHEDRAL. | INTERIOR, SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES CHURCH. |