  On arriving at Castillejo I was obliged to wait until midnight for the Andalusia train. I dined on hard-boiled eggs and oranges, with a little sprinkling of Val de PeÑas, murmured a poem of Espronceda, chatted a little with a custom-house officer who between parentheses made me a confession of his political faith—Amadeus, liberty, an increase of wages to the custom-house officers, etc; finally I heard the long-desired whistle, entered a railway-carriage crowded full of women, children, civil guards, boxes, cushions, and wraps, and away with a speed unusual for the Spanish railways. It was a beautiful night; my travelling-companions talked of bulls and Carlists; a beautiful girl, whom more than one devoured with his eyes, pretended to sleep that she might still further heighten their curiosity; some were rolling cigarettes, some peeling oranges, others humming songs from the Zarzuela. Nevertheless, I fell asleep in a few minutes. I believe I had already dreamed of the mosque of Cordova and the Alcazar of Seville, when I was aroused by a hoarse cry, "Daggers!" "Daggers? Heavens! for whom?" Before I dis "Do you like it?" One must admit that there are pleasanter ways to be awakened. I looked in the faces of my travelling-companions with an expression of consternation, which made them all burst into a shout of laughter. Then they explained that at every railway-station there are vendors of knives and daggers who offer tourists their wares, just as the boys offer newspapers and refreshments in our country. Assured that my life was safe, I bought my scarecrow—five francs; a splendid dagger for a villain in a tragedy, with an ornamented handle, inscriptions on the blade, and a sheath of embroidered velvet; and I put it in my pocket, thinking that I might find it useful in Italy to settle difficulties with my publishers. The vendor must have had fifty of those knives in a great red sash tied around his waist. Other travellers bought them, the civil guards complimented one of my neighbors on the good selection he had made; the boys cried, "Buy me one too!" The mammas answered, "We will buy you a bigger one some other time." "O happy Spain!" I exclaimed, and thought with horror of our barbarous laws, which forbid the innocent amusement of a little cold steel. We crossed La Mancha, the celebrated La Mancha, Don Quixote is a sad and sombre figure: his madness is a lament; his life is the history of the dreams, illusions, awakenings, and aberrations of each of us; the struggle of reason with imagination, of truth with falsehood, of the ideal with the real. We all have something of Don Quixote in our nature; we all mistake windmills for giants; we are all now and then spurred on by the impulse of enthusiasm, only to be driven back by the laugh of scorn; we are each a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous; we all feel bitterly and profoundly the eternal conflict between the grandeur of our aspirations and the impotence of our powers. O beautiful dreams of childhood and youth! Generous impulses to consecrate our life to the defence of virtue and justice, fond imaginations of dangers faced, of adventurous struggles, of magnanimous deeds, and sublime loves, fallen one by one, like the petals of a flower, in the narrow and uneventful paths of life! To what new We arrived at Argamasilla de Alba, where Don Quixote was born and died, and where poor Cervantes, the tax-gatherer of the great priory of San Juan, was arrested by angry debtors and imprisoned in a house which is said to be still in existence, and where he probably conceived the plan of his romance. We passed near the village of Val de PeÑas, which gives its name to one of the most exquisite wines of Spain—dark, tingling, exhilarating, the only one, forsooth, which permits the foreigner from the North to indulge in copious libations at his meals; and finally we arrived at Santa Cruz de Mudela, a village famous for its manufactories of navajas (knives and razors), near which the way begins to slope gently upward toward the mountain. The sun had risen, the women and children had left the carriage, and a number of peasants, officers, and toreros had entered on their way to Seville. One saw in that small space a variety of costume which would not be seen even in an Italian market-place—the pointed caps of the peasants of the Sierra Morena, the red trousers of the soldiers, the great sombreros of the picadores, the shawls of the gypsies, the mantles of the Catalans, Toledo blades The train entered the rocks of the Sierra Morena, which separate the valley of the Guadiana from that of the Guadalquivir, famous for the songs of poets and the deeds of brigands. The railway runs at times between two walls of rock sheer from the very peaks, so high that to see the top one must put one's head all the way out of the window and turn one's face up, as if to look at the roof of the carriage. Sometimes the rocks are farther away and rise one above the other, the first like enormous broken stones, the last straight and sharp like bold towers rising upon measureless bastions; between them a mass of boulders cut into teeth, steps, crests, and humps, some almost hanging in the air, others separated by deep caverns and frightful precipices, presenting a confusion of curious forms, of fantastic suggestions of houses, gigantic figures and ruins, and offering at every step a thousand outlines and surprising appearances; and, together with this infinite variety of form, an infinite variety of color, shadow, dancing and changing light. For long distances, to the right, to the left, and overhead, one sees nothing but stone, without a house, a path, or a patch of ground where a man could set his foot, and, as one advances, rocks, ravines, and precipices: everything grows larger, deeper, and higher until one reaches the summit of the Sierra, where the solemn The train stopped a few minutes, and all the travellers put their heads out of the window. "Here," said one in a loud voice,—"here Cardenio jumped from rock to rock to do penance for his sins" (Cardenio, one of the most remarkable characters in Don Quixote, who jumped about among the rocks of the Sierra in his shirt to do penance for his sins). "I wish," continued the traveller, "that Sagasta might have to do the same." They all laughed, and began to find, each one on his own account, some political enemy upon whom in imagination he might inflict this punishment: one proposed Serrano, another Topete, and a third another, and so on, until in a few minutes, if their desires had been realized, one might have seen the entire Sierra filled with ministers, generals, and deputies in their shirts skipping from crag to crag like the famous rock of Alessandro Manzoni. The train started, the rocks disappeared, and the delightful valley of the Guadalquivir, the garden of Spain, the Eden of the Arabs, the paradise of painters and of poets, blessed Andalusia, revealed herself to my eyes. I can still feel the thrill of childish joy with which I hurried to the window, saying to myself, "Let me enjoy it." For a long distance the country does not offer any new appearance to the ardent curiosity of the travel How many beautiful images and how many memories are recalled by that name! Cordova, the ancient pearl of the Occident, as the Moorish poets called her, the city of cities, Cordova of the thirty burgs and the three thousand mosques, which contained within her walls the greatest temple of Islam! Her fame spread through the Orient and obscured the glory of ancient Damascus,—from the remotest regions of Asia the faithful journeyed toward the banks of the Guadalquivir to prostrate themselves in the marvellous mihrab of her mosque, And from here they separated, eager for knowledge, along the coasts of Africa, among the schools of Tunis, Cairo, Bagdad, and Cufa, as far as India and China, in search of books, inspiration, and memories; and the poems sung on the slopes of the Sierra Morena flew from harp to harp even to the valleys of the Caucasus, to make the hearts of pilgrims burn within them. The beautiful, the mighty, the wise Cordova, crowned with three thousand villages, proudly reared her white minarets among her orange-groves and spread through the divine valley a voluptuous air of gladness and glory. I descend from the train, cross a garden, and look around: I am alone; the travellers who came with me have disappeared in different directions; I still hear the rumble of the receding carriages; then all is silent. It is mid-day: the sky is very clear, the air burning. I see two white cottages; it is the opening of a street; I enter and go forward. The street is narrow, the houses small as the little villas built on the hillocks of artificial gardens; nearly all of them are I walk on: the street is so narrow and crooked that a carriage could not pass through it; to the right and left one sees other deserted streets, other white houses, and other closed windows; my step echoes as in a corridor; the white of the walls is so bright that the reflection almost blinds me, and I am obliged to walk with my eyes closed; I seem to be passing through snow. I reach a little square: everything is closed, there is no one about. Then a feeling of vague melancholy begins to steal into my heart, such as I have never felt before, a mingling of enjoyment and sorrow like that which children experience when after a long run they find themselves in a beautiful country-place and enjoy it, but with a tremor of fear at being so far away from home. Above the many roofs rise the palms of the inner gardens. O fantastic legends of odalisques and caliphs! On from street to street and square to square; I meet a few persons, but they all pass and disappear like phantoms. The streets are all alike, the houses A patio! How shall I describe a patio? It is not a courtyard, it is not a garden, it is not a room; it is the three in one. Between the patio and the street there is a vestibule. On the four sides of the patio rise graceful columns which support a sort of balcony enclosed in glass at the height of the second story; over the balcony extends a canvas which shades the court. The vestibule is flagged with marble, the doorway supported by columns surmounted by bas-reliefs and closed by a delicate iron lattice of very beautiful design. At the back of the patio, opposite the doorway, stands a statue, in the centre a fountain, and all around chairs, work-tables, paintings, and vases of flowers. I run to another door. Another patio, its walls covered with ivy, and a line of niches containing statuettes and urns. I hurry to a third door. A patio with its walls adorned with mosaic, a palm in the centre, and all around a mass of flowers. A fourth door. Behind the patio another vestibule, and then a second patio, in which one sees other statues, columns, and fountains. And all these rooms and gardens are clean Still forward, from street to street, at random. Gradually, as I walk on, my curiosity increases and I hasten my steps. It seems impossible that the whole city can be like this: I am afraid of coming upon a house or finding a street which will remind me of other cities and rouse me from my pleasant dream. But, no: the dream is unbroken. Everything is small, graceful, mysterious. Every hundred paces a deserted little square, in which I stop breathless; now and then a crossway, and not a living soul; and everything always white—closed windows and silence. At every door there is a new spectacle: arches, columns, flowers, fountains, palms; a marvellous variety of design, color, light, perfume, here of roses, there of oranges, yonder of violets; and with the perfume a breath of fresh air, and borne on the air the subdued sound of women's voices, the rustling of leaves, and the singing of birds—a sweet and various harmony, which, without disturbing the silence of the street, soothes the ear like the echo of distant music. Ah! it is not a dream! Madrid, Italy, Europe, surely they are far, far away. Here one lives another life, here one breathes the air of another world; I am in the Orient. I remember that at a certain point I stopped in the middle of the street and suddenly discovered, I know not how, that I was sad and restless, and that in my heart there was a void which neither admiration nor enjoyment could fill. I felt an irrepressible necessity of entering those houses and those gardens, of tearing asunder, so to speak, the mysterious veil which concealed the life of the unknown people within; of sharing in that life; of grasping some hand and gazing into two pitying eyes, and saying, "I am a stranger, I am alone; I too want to be happy; let me linger among your flowers, let me enjoy all the secrets of your paradise, teach me who you are and how you live; smile on me and calm me, for my head is burning!" And this sadness grew upon me until I said to myself, "I cannot stay in this city; I am suffering here; I will leave it!" And I believe I should have left if at a happy moment I had not remembered that I carried in my pocket a letter of introduction to two young men of Cordova, brothers of a friend of mine in Florence. I dismissed the idea of leaving, and started at once to find them. How they laughed when I told them of the impression Cordova had made upon me! They proposed that we go at once to see the cathedral; so we turned down a narrow white street and were off. The mosque of Cordova, which was converted into a cathedral after the overthrow of the Moors, but which must always remain a mosque, was built on the ruins of the original cathedral, a little way back from the bank of the Guadalquivir. Abdurrahman commenced its construction in the year 785 or 786 A. D. "Let us rear a mosque," said he, "which shall surpass that of Bagdad, of Damascus, and of Jerusalem—a mosque which shall be the greatest temple of Islam, one which shall become the Mecca of the West." They undertook the work with great ardor. Christian slaves carried the stone for its foundations from their ruined churches; Abdurrahman himself worked an hour every day; in a few years the mosque was built, the caliphs who succeeded Abdurrahman embellished it, and after a century of almost continuous labor it was finished. "Here we are!" said one of my friends, stopping suddenly in front of a vast edifice. I thought it was a fortress, but it was the wall which surrounds the mosque—an old embattled wall in which there were at one time twenty great bronze doors ornamented with the most beautiful arabesques, and arched windows supported by graceful columns, now covered by a triple coat of plaster. A turn around this wall is a nice little walk to take after dinner: one may judge, therefore, of the vast size of the building. The principal door of the enclosure is north of the point where rises the minaret of Abdurrahman, from whose summit floated the Mohammedan standard. We entered: I expected to see at once the interior of the mosque, but found myself in a garden full of orange trees, cypresses, and palms, surrounded on three sides by a very beautiful portico and closed on the fourth side by the faÇade of the mosque. In the midst of this garden there was, in the time of the Moors, the fountain for their ablutions, and in the shade of these trees the faithful refreshed themselves before entering the sanctuary. I stood for some moments looking around and breathing in the fresh odorous air with the liveliest sense of pleasure, and my heart leaped at the thought of the famous mosque standing there before me, and I felt myself impelled toward the door by a boundless curiosity, and at the same time restrained by I know not what feeling of childish hesitation. "Let us enter," said my companions. "One moment more," I replied: "let me thoroughly enjoy the delight of anticipation." Finally I moved forward and entered, without so much as looking at the marvellous doorway which my companions pointed out. What I did or said on entering I do not know, but some strange exclamation must surely have escaped me or I must have made an odd gesture, for some persons who were just then coming toward me began to laugh and turned again to look around, as if to Imagine a forest and suppose yourself in the thickest part, where you see only the trunks of trees. So in the mosque wherever you turn your gaze is lost among the columns. It is a forest of marble whose boundaries one cannot discover. One follows with the eye, one by one, those lengthening rows of columns crossed at every step by innumerable other rows, and perceives a dimly-lighted background in which one seems to see the gleaming of still other columns. There are nineteen naves which extend in the direction in which you enter, crossed by thirty-three other naves, and supported, in all, by more than nine hundred columns of porphyry, jasper, onyx, and marble of every color. Each column is surmounted by a pilaster, and between one column and the next bends an arch, and a second arch above the first extends from pilaster to pilaster, both of them in the form of a horseshoe; and so, imagining the columns to be the trunks of so many trees and the arches to represent the branches, the resemblance of the mosque to a forest is complete. The central nave, much larger than the others, leads to the Maksura, the most sacred part of the temple, where they worshipped the Koran. Here from the vaulted windows steals a faint ray of light which glides along a row of columns; there a dark place, and yonder another ray pierces the gloom of We began to wander from passage to passage, examining everything minutely. What a variety in that edifice which at first sight appears so uniform! The proportions of the columns, the design of the capitals, the form of the arches change, one may say, at every step. The greater part of the columns are old and were taken by the Moors from Northern Spain, Gaul, and Roman Africa, and one is said to have belonged to a temple of Janus, upon whose ruins stood the church which the Arabians destroyed We entered the Maksura, which is the most perfect and marvellous work of Moorish art of the twelfth century. At the entrance there are three continuous chapels, with vaulted roofs formed by indented arches, and walls covered with magnificent mosaics which represent wreaths and flowers and passages from the Koran. At the back of the middle chapel is the principal mihrab, the holy place, where dwelt the Spirit of God. It is a niche with an octagonal base enclosed above by a colossal marble shell. In the mihrab was kept the Koran written by the hands of the caliph Othman, covered with gold, adorned with pearls, suspended above a seat of aloe-wood; and here came thousands of the faithful to make the circuit of it seven times on their knees. On approaching the wall I felt the pavement slipping from under me: the marble had been worn hollow! On leaving the niche I stood a long time contemplating the vault and the walls of the principal chapel, the only part of the mosque which has been preserved almost intact. It is a dazzling flash of crystals of a thousand colors, an interweaving of arabesques which confuse the mind, a mingling of bas-reliefs, gilding, ornaments, and minute details of design and coloring of a delicacy, grace, and perfection which would prove the despair of the most patient artist. It is impossible to retain in one's mind any part of that prodigious work: you might return a hundred times to look at it, but in reality it would only remain before your eyes as a tantalizing blur of blue, red, green, golden, and luminous shades of colors, or a very intricate piece of embroidery continually and rapidly changing in color and design. Only from the ardent and tireless imagination of the Moors could such a miracle of art have issued. We began to wander through the mosque again, observing here and there on the walls the arabesques of the ancient doorways which are now and then discovered under the detestable plaster of the Christians. My companions looked at me, laughed, and whispered something to each other. "Have you not seen it yet?" one of them asked me. "What do you mean?" They looked at me again and smiled. "You think you have seen all the mosque, do you?" continued my companion. "Yes, indeed," I replied, looking around. "Well," said the first, "you have not seen it all, and what remains to be seen is nothing less than a church." "A church?" I exclaimed stupefied, "but where is it?" "Look!" answered my other companion, pointing; "it is in the very centre of the mosque." "By the powers!" And I had not seen it! From this one may judge of the vastness of the mosque. We went to see the church. It is beautiful and very rich, with a magnificent high altar and a choir worthy to stand beside those in the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, but, like everything out of place, it moves one to anger rather than admiration. Without this church the appearance of the mosque would be much improved. Charles V., who himself gave the chapter permission to build it, repented when he saw the Mohammedan temple for the first time. Besides the church there is a sort of Moorish chapel in a good state of preservation, rich in mosaics not less varied and splendid than those of the Maksura, and where it is said the ministers of the faith used to assemble to discuss the book of the Prophet. Such is the mosque to-day. But what must it have been in the time of the Arabs! It was not entirely enclosed by a wall, but open, so that one could Frederick Schrack, the author of a good work on the Poetry and Art of the Moors in Spain and Sicily, gives a description of the mosque on a day of solemn festival, which forms a very lively image of the Mohammedan religion and completes the picture of the monument. On both sides of the almimbar, or pulpit, wave two banners, to signify that Islam has triumphed over Judaism and Christianity and that the Koran has conquered both the Old and the New Testament. The almnedani ascend to the gallery of the high The voice of the muezzin sounds again, calling men to mid-day prayer. All the faithful rise and murmur their prayers, bowing as they do so. An attendant of the mosque opens the doors of the pulpit and seizes a sword, and, holding it, he turns toward Mecca, admonishing the people to worship Mohammed, while the mubaliges are chanting his praises from the gallery. Then the preacher mounts the pulpit, taking from the hand of the servant the sword, which calls to mind and symbolizes the subjection of Spain to the power of Islam. It is the day when the Djihad, or the holy war, must be proclaimed, the call for all able-bodied men to go to war and descend into the battlefield against the Christians. The multitude listens with silent devotion to the sermon, woven from texts of the Koran, which begins in this wise: "Praise be to Allah, who has increased the glory of Islam, thanks to the sword of the champion of the "Allah scatters his benefits over the world. "If he did not put it in the hearts of men to take up arms against their fellows, the world would be lost. "Allah has ordained to fight against the people until they know that there is but one God. "The torch of war will not be extinguished until the end of the world. "The blessing of God will fall upon the mane of the war-horse to the day of judgment. "Armed from head to foot or but lightly clad, it matters not—up and away! "O believers! what shall be done to you if, when called to the battle, you remain with face turned to the earth? "Do you prefer the life of this world to the life to come? "Believe me, the gates of paradise stand in the shadow of the sword. "He who dies in battle for the cause of God shall wash away with his blood all the defilement of his sins. "His body shall not be wasted like the other bodies of the dead, for on the day of judgment his wounds shall yield a fragrance like musk. "When the warriors present themselves at the gates of paradise, a voice within shall ask, 'What have you done in your life?' "And they shall answer, 'We have brandished the sword in the struggle for the cause of God.' "Then the eternal doors will swing open, and the warriors will enter forty years before the rest. "Up, then, ye faithful; leave your women, your children, your kindred, and your goods, and go out to the holy war! "And thou, God, Lord of this present world and of that which is to come, fight for the armies of those who recognize thy unity! Cast down the unbelievers, the idolaters, and the enemies of thy holy faith! Overwhelm their standards, and give them, with whatever they possess, as a prey to the Mussulman!" The preacher as he ends his discourse turns toward the congregation and exclaims, "Ask of God!" and begins to pray in silence. All the faithful, with heads bowed to the ground, follow his example. The mubaliges chant, "Amen! Amen, O Lord of all being!" Burning like the heat which precedes the oncoming tempest, the enthusiasm of the multitude, restrained at first in awful silence, now breaks out into deep murmurs, which rise like the waves and swell through all parts of the temple, until finally the naves, the chapels, and the vaulted roofs resound to the echo of a thousand voices united in a single cry: "There is no God but Allah!" The mosque of Cordova is even to-day, by uni When we left the mosque it was already long past the hour of the siesta, which everybody takes in the cities of Southern Spain, and which is a necessity by reason of the insupportable heat of the noon hours. The streets began to fill with people. "Alas!" said I to my companions, "how badly the silk hat looks in the streets of Cordova! How have you the heart to introduce the fashion-plates in this beautiful Oriental picture? Why do you not adopt the dress of the Moors?" Coxcombs pass, workmen, and girls: I looked at them all with great curiosity, hoping to find one of those fantastic figures which DorÉ has represented as examples of the Andalusian type, with that dark-brown complexion, those thick lips, and large eyes, but I saw none. Walking toward the centre of the city, I saw the first Andalusian women—ladies, girls and women of the middle classes—almost all small, graceful, and well-formed, some of them beautiful, many attractive in appearance, but the greater part neither one thing nor the other, as is the case in all countries. In their dress, with the exception of the so-called mantilla, they do not differ at all from the French women nor from those of our country—great masses of false hair in plaits, knots, and long curls, short petticoats, long plaited over-skirts, and I thought that in the evening the streets would be crowded, but I saw only a few people, and only in the streets of the principal quarters; the others remain as empty as at the hour of the siesta. And one must pass through those deserted streets at night to enjoy Cordova. One sees the light streaming from the patios; one sees in the dark corners fond lovers in close colloquy, the girls usually at the windows, with a hand resting lightly on the iron grating, and the young men close to the wall in poetic attitudes, with watchful eyes, but not so watchful, however, as to make them take their lips from those hands before they discover that some one is passing; and one hears the sound of guitars, the murmur of fountains, sighs, the laughter of children, and mysterious rustlings. The following morning, still stirred by the Oriental dreams of the night, I again began my wandering through the city. To describe all that is remarkable there one would require a volume: it is a very museum of Roman and Arabian antiquities, and one finds a profusion of martial columns and inscriptions in honor of the emperors; the remains of statues and bas-reliefs; six ancient gates; a great bridge over the Guadalquivir dating from the time of Octavius Augustus and restored by the Arabians; ruins of towers and walls; houses which belonged Toward noon, as I was passing through a lonely little street, I saw a sign on the wall of a house beside a Roman inscription, Casa de huespedes. Almuerzos y comidas, and as I read I felt the gnawing, as Giusti says, of such a desperate hunger that I determined to give it a quietus in this little shop upon which I had stumbled. I passed through a little vestibule, and found myself in a patio. It was a poor little patio, without marble floor and without fountains, but white as snow and fresh as a garden. As I saw neither tables nor chairs, I feared I had mistaken the door and started to go out. A little old woman bustled out from I know not where and stopped me. "Have you anything to eat?" I demanded. "Yes, sir," she answered. "What have you?" "Eggs, sausages, chops, peaches, oranges, and wine of Malaga." "Very good: you may bring everything you have." She commenced by bringing me a table and a chair, and I sat down and waited. Suddenly I heard a door open behind me and turned.... Angels of She herself opened the conversation: "You are a foreigner, I should think, sir?" "Yes." "French?" "Italian." "Italian? A fellow-countryman of the king?" "Yes." "Do you know him, sir?" "By sight!" "They say he is a handsome young fellow." I did not answer, and she began to laugh, and asked me, "What are you looking at, sir?" and, still laughing, she hid her foot, which on taking her seat she thrust well forward that I might see it. Ah! there is not a woman in that country who does not know that the feet of the Andalusians are famous throughout the world. I seized the opportunity of turning the conversation upon the fame of the Andalusian women, and expressed my admiration in the most fervent words of my vocabulary. She allowed me to talk on, looking with great attention at the crack in the table, then raising her face, she asked me, "And in Italy, how are the women there?" "Oh, there are beautiful women in Italy too." "But ... they are cold?" "Oh no, not at all," I hastened to respond; "but, you know, ... in every country the women have an I-know-not-what which distinguishes them from the women of all other countries; and among them all the I-know-not-what of the Andalusians is probably the most dangerous for a poor traveller whose hairs have not turned gray. There is a word to express what I mean: if I could remember it, I would say "Salada," exclaimed the girl, covering her face with her hands. "Salada! ... the most salada Andalusian in Cordova." Salada is the word commonly used in Andalusia to describe a woman beautiful, charming, affectionate, languid, ardent, what you will—a woman with two lips which say, "Drink me," and two eyes which make one close one's teeth. The aunt brought me the eggs, chops, sausage, and oranges, and the girl continued the conversation: "Sir, you are an Italian: have you seen the Pope?" "No, I am sorry to say." "Is it possible? An Italian who has not seen the Pope! And tell me, sir: why do the Italians make him suffer so much?" "Suffer in what way?" "Yes. They say that they have shut him up in his house and thrown stones at the windows." "Oh no! Don't believe it! There is not a particle of truth in it," etc., etc. "Have you seen Venice, sir?" "Venice? oh yes." "Is it true that it is a city which floats on the sea?" And here she made a thousand requests that I "Ah, seÑorita!" I said at last, beginning to lose patience, "what matters it, after all, whether cities are beautiful or not? Those who are born in them think nothing of it, and the traveller still less. I arrived at Cordova yesterday: it is a beautiful city, without doubt. Well—will you believe it?—I have already forgotten all that I have seen; I no longer wish to see anything; I do not even know what city I am in. Palaces, mosques, they make me laugh. When you have a consuming fire in your heart, do you go to the mosque to quench it?—Excuse me, "Poor fellow!" murmured the Andalusian with a laugh after she had given a glance around. "Are all the Italians as ardent as you?" "How should I know? Are all the Andalusians as beautiful as you?" The girl laid her hand on the table. "Take that hand away," I said. "Why?" she asked. "Because I want to eat in peace." "Eat with one hand." "Ah!" I seemed to be pressing the little hand of a girl of six; my knife fell to the ground; a dark veil settled upon the chop. Suddenly my hand was empty: I opened my eyes, saw the girl all disturbed, and looked behind me. Gracious Heavens! There was a handsome young fellow, with a stylish little jacket, tight breeches, and a velvet cap. Oh terrors! a torero! I gave a start as if I had felt two banderillas de fuego planted in my neck. "I see it at a glance," said I to myself, like the man at the comedy; and one could not fail to understand. The girl, slightly embarrassed, made the introduction: "An Italian passing through Cordova," and she hastened to add, "who wants to know when the train leaves for Seville." The torero, who had frowned at first sight of me, was reassured, told me the hour of departure, sat down, and entered into a friendly conversation. I asked for the news of the last bull-fight at Cordova: he was a banderillero, and he gave me a minute description of the day's sport. The girl in the mean time was gathering flowers from the vases in the patio. I finished my meal, offered a glass of Malaga to the torero, drank to the fortunate planting of all his banderillas, paid my bill (three pesetas, which included the beautiful eyes, you understand), and then, putting on a bold front, so as to dispel the least shadow of suspicion from the mind of my formidable rival, I said to the girl, "SeÑorita! one can refuse nothing to those who are taking leave. To you I am like a dying man; you will never see me again; you will never hear my name spoken: then let me take some memento; give me that bunch of flowers." "Take it," said the girl; "I picked it for you." She glanced at the torero, who gave a nod of approval. "I thank you with all my heart," I replied as I "Have you bull-fights in Italy?" asked the young man. "Oh heavens! no, not yet!" "Too bad! Try to make them popular in Italy also, and I will come to banderillar at Rome." "I will do all in my power.—SeÑorita, have the goodness to tell me your name, so that I may bid you good-bye." "Consuelo." "God be with you, Consuelo!" "God be with you, SeÑor Italiano!" And I went out into the lonely little street. There are no remarkable Arabian monuments to be seen in the neighborhood of Cordova, although at one time the whole valley was covered with magnificent buildings. Three miles to the south of the city, on the side of the mountain, rose the Medina Az-Zahra, the city of flowers, one of the most marvellous architectural works of the caliph Abdurrahman, begun by the caliph himself in honor of his favorite Az-Zahra. The foundations were laid in the year 936, and ten thousand workmen labored on the edifice for twenty-five years. The Arabian poets celebrated Medina Az-Zahra as the most splendid of royal palaces and the most delightfullyl garden in the world. It was not an edifice, but a vast chain of palaces, gardens, courts, colonnades, Of another splendid city, called Zahira, which rose to the east of Cordova, built by the powerful Almansur, governor of the kingdom, not even the ruins remain: a handful of rebels laid it in ashes a little while after the death of its founder. "All returns to the great ancient mother." Instead of taking a drive around Cordova, I simply wandered here and there, weaving fancies from the names of the streets, which to me is one of the greatest pleasures in which a traveller may indulge in a foreign city. Cordova, alma ingeniorum parens, could write at every street-corner the name of an artist or an illustrious author born within her walls; to give her due honor, she has remembered them all with maternal gratitude. You find the little square of Seneca and the house where he may have been born; the street of Ambrosio Morales, the historian of Charles V., who continued the Chronicle General of Spain commenced by Florian d'Ocampo; the street of Pablo de Cespedes, painter, architect, sculptor, antiquary, and the author of a didactic poem, "The Art of Painting," unfortunately not finished, though adorned with splendid passages. He was an ardent enthusiast of Michelangelo, whose works he had admired in Italy, and in his poem he addressed a hymn of praise to him which is one of the most beautiful passages in Spanish poetry, and, in spite of myself, the last verses have slipped from my pen, which every Italian, even if he does not know the sister language, can appreciate and understand. He believes, he tells the reader, that one cannot find the perfection of painting anywhere except "Que en aquela escelente obra espantosa Mayor de cuantas se han jamas pintado, Que hizo el Buonarrota de su mano Divina, en el etrusco Vaticano! "Cual nuevo Prometeo en alto vuelo AlzÁndose, estendiÒ los alas tanto, Que puesto encima el estrellado cielo Una parte alcanzÒ del fuego santo; Con que tornando enriquecido al suelo Con nueva maravilla y nuevo espanto, DiÒ vida con eternos resplandores À marmoles, À bronces, À colores. O mas que mortal hombre! ¿Angel divino O cual te nomarÉ? No humano cierto Es tu ser, que del cerco empireo vino Al estilo y pincel vida y concierto: Tu monstraste À los hombres el camino Por mil edades escondido, incierto De la reina virtud; a ti se debe Honra que en cierto dia el sol renueve." "In that excellent marvellous work, greater than all that has ever been painted, which Buonarroti made with his divine hand in the Etruscan Vatican! "Look how the new Prometheus, rising in lofty flight, extends his wings so wide that above the starry sky he has obtained a part of the celestial fire; with it, returning, he enriched the earth with new marvels and new surprises, giving life, with eternal splendors, to marble, bronze, and colors. More than mortal man! angel divine! or what shall I call thee? Surely thou art not human, who from the empyrean circle came, bringing life and harmony to chisel and brush! Thou hast shown men the road Murmuring these lines, I came out into the street of Juan de Mena, the Ennius of Spain, as his compatriots call him, the author of a phantasmagorial poem called "The Labyrinth," an imitation of The Divina Commedia very famous in its day, and in truth not without some pages of inspired and noble poetry, but, on the whole, cold and overloaded with pedantic mysticism. John II., king of Castile, went mad over this "Labyrinth," kept it beside the missal in his cabinet, and carried it with him to the hunt; but witness the caprice of a king! The poem had only three hundred stanzas, and to John II. this number seemed too small, and do you know the reason? It was this: the year contains three hundred and sixty-five days, and it seemed to him that there ought to be as many stanzas in the poem as there are days in the year, and so he besought the poet to compose sixty-five other stanzas, and the poet complied with his request—most cheerfully, the flatterer!—to gain an occasion for flattering still more, although he had already flattered his sovereign to the extent of asking him to correct the poem. From the street of Juan de Mena I passed into the street of Gongora, the Marini of Spain, and no less a genius than he, but perhaps one who corrupted the literature of his country even more than Marini After the siesta I hunted up my two companions, who took me through the suburbs of the city, and here, for the first time, I saw men and women of the true Andalusian type as I had imagined them, with eyes, coloring, and attitudes like the Arabians, and here too, for the first time, I heard the real speech of the Andalusian people, softer and more musical than in the Castiles, and also gayer and more imaginative, and accompanied by livelier gestures. I asked my companions whether that report about Andalusia is true, affirming that with their early physical development vice is more common, manners more voluptuous, and passion less restrained. "Too true," they replied, giving explanations, descriptions, and citing cases which I forbear to repeat. On returning to the city they took me to a splendid casino, with gardens and magnificent rooms, in one of which, the largest and richest, adorned with paintings of In the morning I left for Seville. At the station I saw Frascuelo, Lagartijo, Cuco, and the whole band of toreros from Madrid, who saluted me with a benevolent look of protection. I hurried into a dusty carriage, and as the train moved off and my eyes rested on Cordova for the last time, I bade the city adieu in the lines of the Arabian poet—a little "Adieu, Cordova! Would that my life were as long as Noah's, that I might live for ever within thy walls! Would that I had the treasures of Pharaoh, to spend them upon wine and the beautiful women of Cordova with the gentle eyes which invite kisses!"
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