But the Mosque remains still, though how defiled and degraded! Many of the portals have been walled up; the beautiful seat of the Caliph is filled with all kinds of church finery; the walls, once so delicately and richly carved, are hidden by tawdry decorations. You feel inclined to cry out vengeance against the despoilers of a temple which Solomon’s could not have surpassed.
It is the most wonderful place, and one can understand what a grand religious conception the Moors must have had when inside this, their temple of temples. After all, the Mahomedans were much more tolerant and enlightened than the people they alternately ruled and served, and were Unitarians, pur et simple, praying to the universal God, in whose name never was raised a more fitting house of prayer.
To have seen the Mosque of Cordova forms an era in one’s life. It is so vast, so solemn, so beautiful. You seem to be wandering at sunset time in a large and dusky forest, intersected by regular alleys of tall, stately palms. No matter in what direction you turn your face, northward, southward, eastward, westward, the same beautiful perspective meets your eye, file after file of marble and jasper columns supporting the double horse-shoe arch. Nothing can be more imposing, and at the same time graceful, than this arrangement of transverse aisles; and the interlaced arches, being delicately coloured in red and white, may not inaptly be compared to foliage of a palm-forest, flushed with the rays of the setting sun. If so impressive now, what must this place have been in the glorious days of Abderrahman, the Al-Raschid of Cordova, when the roofs blazed with arabesques of red and blue and “patines of bright gold;” the floors were covered with gorgeous carpets, and the aisles swarmed with thousands of worshippers in their bright Eastern dresses? The richest imagination cannot ever paint the scene, the readiest fancy cannot embellish it, and only those who have imbibed the rich colours of the East can close their eyes and dream of it. When the dream is over, cast your eyes along the long lines of columns, and you will see where the shoulders of spectators and worshippers of ages have left an enduring mark—a touching sight!—and then go into the once exquisite Maksura or Caliph’s seat, and weep to see what becomes of beautiful things in Spain!
Words are not strong enough to condemn the desecration of such a temple,—a temple worthy of the purest religion the world will ever know. Let the Catholic services be celebrated within its walls, let the priests preach from its altars, let the people kneel on its floors—but why, in heaven’s name, should every exquisite relic of Moorish art, and every vestige of Moorish devotion, be ruthlessly destroyed? One marvels to see even the pillars and horse-shoe arches left intact—who knows for how long? And there are still some inlaid ceilings of thuya wood, and some fragments of arabesque stucco, as remarkable for richness of design and delicacy of work as any of the Alhambra. But to those who are curious in such things, I say—See them soon, or you will be too late. It is always a question of Now or Never in Spain.
It is curious that Cespedes, the Spanish Crichton, or, as some call him, the Spanish Michel-Angelo, wrote a learned dissertation, trying to prove that, where this glorious Mosque now stands, a temple once stood dedicated to Janus, erected by the Romans after the conquest of Spain. Cespedes was a native of Cordova (hijo de Corduba), and a man of whom she has every reason to be proud. He was a scholar, an antiquary, a poet, a painter, a critic. Look at his pictures “if ever you should go to Cordova.”
When you have seen the Mosque you will have seen all that the Spaniards have left there. There were formerly Roman antiquities of no ordinary interest, aqueducts, an amphitheatre, and monuments, of which not a trace remains. Will it be believed that, in making the prisons of the Inquisition, some statues, mosaics, and inscriptions were found, all of which were covered again by the holy tribunal as being Pagan.[7] Of the Aladdin-like palaces of Abderrahman, there is not a vestige; mediæval Cordova, with its architecture, its arts, and its prosperity, is disappearing, bit by bit, whilst, like some physical manifestation of energetic disease, a large and splendid Plaza for bull-fights has sprung up!
A melancholy Italian acted as cicerone, and carried us to a lovely Eastern garden, just outside the town. Here were orange-trees bearing blossom and fruit, and the paler lemon, bosquets of myrtle and cistus making the air heavy with sweetness; clusters of gorgeous tropical flowers, crimson and yellow and purple; palm-trees glowing against the deep blue sky; ponds full of gold and silver fish, and everything lovely and gracious to both eye and senses.
Then we went to the market-place—a picturesque sight, for it was covered from end to end with heaps of the pretty hand-painted pottery of Andujar and Talavera. My friend was so enchanted with the taste displayed in this ware, both as to form and colour, that she bought a great quantity of it,—jugs, plates, cups, and basins, all shaped and coloured differently, and each piece costing no more than a few rials. This and lace from La Mancha—Don Quixote’s country—was all we found worth buying at Cordova; for the leather-work was not nearly so elaborate, and much costlier, than that so plentiful in Algiers. The lace is made of coarse thread, but is very pretty, and is used plentifully in Andalusia for decorating sheets and pillow-cases. We could but notice the extreme civility of the humble sellers of pottery in the market-place, and the impertinent nonchalance of the smart shopman who sold us the lace. The former, a well-to-do Andalusian peasant-woman, could not take too much pains about pleasing us, carried us home to her little house, in order to show us her stock-in-trade, introduced us to her daughter, and smiled alike whether we approved or no. The shopmen puffed away at their cigars, laughed and talked among themselves whilst attending to their customers, cared little whether we bought or no, and greeted us in quite a familiar fashion when we came away. Certainly the Spaniards play at business in a most amateur style, and can never be accused, as we are, of being a nation of shopkeepers. The ladies laugh and talk with the shopmen over their purchases; and if we may believe Mesonero and other satirists of the day, many a rendezvous is made under the pretext of “shopping.” You cannot take up a fashionable Spanish novel or play in which the ladies don’t talk of assignations and shops as if the one belonged to the other; and whilst the scrupulous way in which young girls are chaperoned wherever they go, would seem to hint at some danger lurking in their favourite occupation.
Young Spanish ladies never walk out unattended, and whenever Englishwomen chose to do so, their deviation from social orthodoxy is severely commented upon. Spanish ladies too, I have read somewhere, when promenading the streets en grande tenue, are flattered by the admiration, expressed or implied, of passers-by!—a notion so opposed to our English sense of delicacy that it is entertained with difficulty. Yet the bearing of the pretty, dark-eyed ladies we saw about us, coquetting with the fan, sweeping the ground with long trains only suitable for a ball or presentation, raising their skirts with ungloved jewelled hands, so as to show their pretty feet, go far to support the notion. A well-dressed English lady does not think of her dress; one cannot help seeing that a well-dressed Madrilenian does. She is very attractive, notwithstanding.
I would not advise any one to hurry away from Cordova, especially if he is an artist. The place is so picturesque in itself, and so full of poetic association, that a few days may well be devoted to it, especially in the beautiful autumn, when all kinds of glories are cast about hill, and tower, and river.