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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the; forest of pillars in rut moorish mosquk at 



CORDOVA 



great needs is capital and enterprise to 

 elaborate these products at home. She 

 has cheap and willing labor, as our Ver- 

 mont quarries can testify; Barre and 

 Montpelier are full of Spanish work- 

 men. 



Cordova lies on the Guadalquivir, here 

 crossed by a Moorish bridge on Roman 

 piers ; the Moorish keep is still preserved. 

 A thousand years ago Cordova was the 

 intellectual and artistic center of western 

 Europe; its university drew students 

 from everywhere, and its products, espe- 

 cially leather (cordwain. i. e., Cordo- 

 van), were famous. Today its narrow 

 and sunny streets, with their pictur- 

 esque churches, seem deserted ; but the 

 cathedral chapter has preserved one 



memorial of past mag- 

 nificence in the Moorish 

 mosque, the greatest 

 Mohammedan building 

 west of Alecca. Enter- 

 ing its precincts by the 

 Orange Court, one finds 

 the portal flanked by two 

 Roman milestones. With 

 exquisite taste the can- 

 ons have set to the left 

 one dating from the year 

 of Christ's birth ; to the 

 right, from that of the 

 crucifixion. Thus they 

 typify Christianity's con- 

 quest of both the Roman 

 empire and Moham- 

 medan Moor. 



The mosque itself is a 

 forest of pillars, which 

 divide the huge, low 

 building into a score of 

 naves. There are over 

 goo of these columns ; 

 some were sent here 

 even from Constantino- 

 ple, mates, perhaps, of 

 those sent at the same 

 time to Charlemagne for 

 his palace at Aix-la- 

 Chapelle. Those were 

 the days of Haroun-al- 

 Rashid and the xA-rabian 

 Nights ; but the splendor 

 of Cordova rivaled that 

 Abderrahman's wonderful 

 palace — far more sumptuous than the 

 Alhambra, to judge from the descriptions 

 of the Arabic historians — has perished 

 utterly ; but the mihrabs, or prayer niches, 

 in the mosque give some idea of the 

 beauty of Cordova at the height of her 

 glory. 



Descending the Guadalquivir, one feels 

 the Moorish presence on all sides. The 

 men who sit idle in the market-place, 

 the women who bring their graceful jars 

 to draw water, often have strongly 

 Moorish features, and with good reason, 

 for the Moors held the kingdom of Se- 

 ville for over 500 years. 



The proudest memorial in Seville 

 is the lofty Giralda, once the muezzin- 



of Basrdad. 



