ALCAZAR—HALL IN WHICH KING SAN FERNANDO DIED.
PLATE XXXVII.
Bands. Side of Arches.
that of Bib-Ragel, which occupied the north angle of the city; and, in addition to these, it is believed there was a small postern, afterwards called the “atarazanas,” through which it is supposed that Axataf, or “Sakkáf” his Moorish name, went out to receive King Ferdinand, and to deliver up the keys of Seville. The old wharf of Saracen Seville came as far as this; and in all the space, which to-day is called El Barrio de los Humeros, or the Chimney Quarter, the Mohammedans had their arsenal and shipbuilding yard, while the sailors and fishermen of the Guadalquivir were also housed in this district. The Gate of the Triana must have been in the vicinity; and the Gate of Hercules was directly opposite the Ajarafe, which was also called the Garden of Hercules. With the gardens and orchards of the Macarena, which adorned it to the north, the plains and woods of Tablada, which supplied it with corn and wood to the east and south, with an abundant supply of fresh water brought from Carmona by the aqueduct, with the river which was its principal commercial artery to the west, with the castles on the opposite side of the Guadalquivir, protecting the river and its bridge, and occupying all the heights from Azalfarache nearly as far as Italica, Seville was one of the best situated, best supplied, best defended, and most prosperous cities of the Mussulman empire in Andalusia. To attack her she must be cut off from the Ajarafe, and her bridge of boats must be taken. It would have been useless to descend to Italica and be exposed to the assaults of the city and of Triana, as long as the bridge existed, and this task was thought to be beyond the power and ingenuity of any enemy.
The bridge of boats, protected by a great wooden chain, linked by iron rings, kept the communication open between the city and the Ajarafe, that vast and fertile district from which the Sevillians received all sorts of supplies, and where the Saracen magnates had their country villas. This delightful Garden of Hercules, in whose praise many Arab writers have exhausted the treasure of their rich and exalted imagination, has been described in the following manner by an anonymous poet, in some verses dedicated to the Abbadite Sultan Almutamed: “Seville is a young widow, her husband is Abbad, her diadem the Aljarafe, her collar the winding river.” Indeed, says the poet Ibn Saffar, “the Aljarafe surpasses in beauty and fertility all the lands of the world, the oil of its olives goes even to far Alexandria, its farms and orchards are superior to those of other countries on account of their extension and convenience; and, always white and pure, they seem to be so many stars in a sky of olive gardens.” Travelled Arab historians recall with pleasure the delights of Andalus; preferring Seville to either Baghdad or Cairo, saying: “The Aljarafe is a luxuriant wilderness without wild beasts, and its Guadalquivir is a Nile without crocodiles.” One of the authors, quoted by El-Makkari, gives the following exact description of the Aljarafe: “It is an immense district, measuring forty miles long, and almost as many broad, formed of pleasing hills of reddish earth, on which there are woods of olive and fig-trees, which offer a delicious shade to the traveller in the hours of the mid-day heat. This district contains a numerous population, scattered in beautiful farms or collected in villages, none of which are wanting for markets, clean baths, fine buildings, and other conveniences, such as are usually only to be found in cities of the first order.”
This fertile territory, which the Saracens called the “Orchard of Hercules,” rose gradually to the west of Seville, after stretching along the right bank of the river.