[2] It may be as well to note here, that the alforjas are square pockets at each end of a long cloth about a foot and a half wide, formed by turning up its extremities. The cloth is then thrown over the saddle, and the pockets hang on each side like saddle-bags. It is an Arab invention. The bota is a leathern bag or bottle, of portly dimensions, with a narrow neck. It is also Oriental. Hence the scriptural caution, which perplexed me in my boyhood, not to put new wine into old bottles.
[3] See Urquhart’s Pillars of Hercules, B. III. C. 8.
[4] Urquhart’s Pillars of Hercules.
[5] Et porque era muy rubio llamaban lo los Moros Abenalhamar, que quiere decir bermejo ... et porque los Moros le llamaban Benalhamar que quiere decir bermejo tomo los señales bermejos, segun que los ovieron despues los Reyes de Granada.—Bleda, Cronica de Alfonso XI., P. I. C. 44.
[6] “Y los moros que estaban en la villa y Castillo de Gibraltar despues que sopieron que el Rey Don Alonzo era muerto, ordenaron entresi que ninguno non fuesse osado de fazer ningun movimiento contra los Christianos, ni mover pelear contra ellos, estovieron todos quedos y dezian entre ellos qui aquel diamuriera un noble rey y Gran principe del mundo.”
[7] Una de las cosas en que tienen precisa intervencion los Reyes Moros as en el matrimonio de sus grandes: de aqui nace que todos los señores llegadas à la persona real si casan en palacio, y siempre huvo su quarto destinado para esta ceremonia.
One of the things in which the Moorish kings interfered was in the marriage of their nobles: hence it came that all the señors attached to the royal person were married in the palace; and there was always a chamber destined for the ceremony.—Paseos por Granada, Paseo XXI.
[8] Alcántara, Hist. Granad., O. 3, p. 226, note.
[9] Salazar y Castro, Hist. Genealog. de la Casa de Lara, lib. v. c. 12, cited by Alcántara in his Hist. Granad.
[10] Al Makkari, B. VIII. c. 7.