Charlotte M. Yonge.
XXXV.—THE MOORS IN SPAIN.
1. Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain before they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what had now become the established policy of the commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the caliphs of Cordova distinguished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly contrasting with the condition of the native European princes. Cordova, under their administration, at its highest point of prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses, and more than a million inhabitants. After sunset a man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently, who ever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud.
2. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the caliphs were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns might well look down with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were scarcely better than stables—chimneyless, windowless, and with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the wigwams of certain Indians.
3. The Spanish Mohammedans had brought with them all the luxuries and prodigalities of Asia. Their residences stood forth against the clear blue sky, or were embosomed in woods. They had polished marble balconies, overhanging orange-gardens, courts with cascades of water, shady retreats provocative of slumber in the heat of the day, retiring-rooms, vaulted with stained glass, speckled with gold, over which streams of water were made to gush; the floors and walls were of exquisite mosaic. Here a fountain of quicksilver shot up in a glistening spray, the glittering particles falling with a tranquil sound like fairy bells; there, apartments into which cool air was drawn from flower-gardens, in summer, by means of ventilating towers, and in the winter through earthen pipes, or caleducts, imbedded in the walls—the hypocaust, in the vaults below, breathing forth volumes of warm and perfumed air through these hidden passages.
4. The walls were not covered with wainscot, but adorned with arabesques and paintings of agricultural scenes and views of paradise. From the ceilings, corniced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung, one of which, it is said, was so large that it contained one thousand and eighty-four lamps. Clusters of frail marble columns surprised the beholder with the vast weights they bore. In the boudoirs of the sultanas they were sometimes of verd-antique, and incrusted with lapis-lazuli. The furniture was of sandal and citron wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, silver, or relieved with gold and precious malachite. In orderly confusion were arranged vases of rock-crystal, Chinese porcelain, and tables of exquisite mosaic. The winter apartments were hung with rich tapestry; the floors were covered with embroidered Persian carpets. Pillows and couches of elegant forms were scattered about the rooms, which were perfumed with frankincense.
5. It was the intention of the Saracen architect, by excluding the view of the external landscape, to concentrate attention on his work, and since the representation of the human form was religiously forbidden, and that source of decoration denied, his imagination ran riot with the complicated arabesques he introduced, and sought every opportunity of replacing the prohibited work of art by the trophies and rarities of the garden. For this reason the Arabs never produced artists; religion turned them from the beautiful, and made them soldiers, philosophers, and men of affairs. Splendid flowers and rare exotics ornamented the court-yards and even the inner chambers.
6. Great care was taken to make due provision for the cleanliness, occupation, and amusement of the inmates. Through pipes of metal, water, both warm and cold, to suit the season of the year, ran into baths of marble; in niches, where the current of air could be artificially directed, hung dripping alcarazzas. There were whispering-galleries for the amusement of the women; labyrinths and marble play-courts for the children; for the master himself, grand libraries. The Caliph Alhakem's was so large that the catalogue alone filled forty volumes. He had also apartments for the transcribing, binding, and ornamenting of books. A taste for caligraphy and the possession of splendidly illuminated manuscripts seems to have anticipated in the caliphs, both of Asia and Spain, the taste for statuary and painting among the later popes of Rome.