The mosques of Cordova are fine, and among them is the greatest Moslem temple in the world, with its beautiful chapels, its Court of Oranges, and its wondrous grove of marbles. This mosque, now used for Christian worship, was erected on the ruins of an old cathedral, which it is said had been built upon the site of a Roman temple. The Moslem structure was erected by the Caliph Abdurrahman, in the seventh century, and was a hundred years in building. The principal entrance is through the Court of Oranges, where beautiful palms also grow, and other tropical trees. Thence one emerges among a very forest of marble pillars, where countless magnificent naves stretch away and intersect, and the shining columns and pilasters spring upward into delicate double horseshoe arches. One marble is shown where a Christian captive, chained at its base, scratched a cross upon the stone with his nails. In some sections the ceiling is dazzling with arabesques and crystals. Within the mosque, in its very centre, rises a fine Catholic church, built in the time of Charles the Fifth. It contains many illuminated missals and rare old choir books.
The Cordovans, like the people of other Spanish cities, are indebted to the Moors for the fine aqueducts which bring the cold mountain water across the valley into the public watering places. These great reservoirs are good points for observing some phases of folk-life.
GRANADA, the beautiful city, with beautiful rivers, is named for a “grenade” or pomegranate. At the time of the Conquest, King Ferdinand on being assured how valiantly the Moors would defend their last stronghold, replied, “I will pick out the seeds of this grenade one by one.”
There is a tradition among the Moors that when the hand carved over the principal entrance of the Alhambra shall reach down and grasp the key, also carved there, they shall regain their city, the ancient home of their caliphs.
The Generalife lies across the valley from the Alhambra. It was the summer palace of the Moorish sovereigns, and is built on a mountain slope by the Darro River, and its white walls gleam out from lovely terraced gardens, and groves of laurel. The grounds abound with fountains and summer houses.
The Alhambra—the great royal castle—a town in itself—is built on a lovely tree-embowered height, its many towers rising high above the mass of foliage. From these towers one looks across the vale of the Vega to the spot where Columbus is said to have turned back, recalled by Isabella, on his way to seek English aid in his discovery of a New World. From these towers, too, can be seen the valley in the distance, where Boabdil, last of the Moorish Kings, looked back on Granada for the last time; and across the river, one gazes upon the sombre region of the gypsy quarter, a swarming town of caves in the hillside.
Two relics of Alhambra housekeeping still remain; a great oven, and a fine well. Both are utilized by the custodian of the palace. The palace itself has many beautiful patios. The finest is known as the Court of Lions, named from the sculptured figures which support the fountain in the centre. Another is known sometimes as the Court of the Lake, and sometimes as the Court of the Myrtles; and still another, entered by subterranean ways, is the Hall of Divans, the special retreat of the Favorites. There are many others, and all these patios and halls are bewilderingly beautiful with arabesques, mosaics, inscriptions and wondrous arches and columns, porticos, vistas, alcoves and temples—and everywhere elegance of effect indescribable.
