INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS OF MOORS AND JEWS INDUCED BY THEIR MATERIAL PROSPERITY—REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE—NEW DISCOVERIES IN EVERY INDUSTRY—MINING A SPECIALTY—THE MAGNET. MARINER'S COMPASS MECHANICAL APPARATUS. SPREAD OF COMMERCE LEADS TO GENERAL AWAKENING OF EUROPE THAT ENDS MIDDLE AGES.

Hark! Again the doleful knell is tolling. With greater speed and in larger numbers the people are hurrying to the public square. The procession of priests, chanting hymns of victory and imprecatory prayers, is starting towards the auto-da-fe. The victims supplicate for death more piteously than before. Hark! Again, and with greater alarm, the agonized voice of civilization calls unto us: Haste ye, the furnaces are heated! The pyres are prepared! The massive gates of the gloomy inquisition dungeons are open. The instruments of torture are ready for the cruel work of death. Haste ye, the moments are few, gather whatever knowledge there still remains to be collected concerning the wondrous achievements of the Jew and Moor, as speedily as you can; tarry, and flame and sword and rack and expulsion will hurl all knowledge of it into oblivion forever! Let us heed the warning and briefly state what yet remains to be told. You have 'ere this surmised what we are about to prove, the imperishable monuments which the Moors and Jews have erected to their name and fame in the arts and sciences, in literature and philosophy bear witness, not only to their great intellectual wealth, but also to vast material possessions. Wherever learning is zealously fostered there wealth exists, and where wealth abounds, there agriculture and commerce and industry must have had prior existence.

Thus it was in Moorish Spain. Never before, nor ever since, did Spain enjoy a prosperity equal to that which blessed her lands, when Moorish and Jewish skill and diligence and enterprise made her, in glaring contrast with the rest of Europe, the granary and the industrial and the commercial center of the world. We have not yet forgotten how, when in the introductory chapters of this volume, we thought ourselves back some eight or ten centuries in the world's history, and hastened across the wild Atlantic to learn of the condition of Europe and her people, how spell-bound we stood, as we suddenly beheld wonders and beauties in Spain, scarcely equalled to-day in all Europe. And when we reflected upon the present condition of Spain, among the poorest of all European countries, its people proverbially indolent and ignorant, we had to assure ourselves, again and again, that it was Spain, indeed, which suddenly disclosed to us these unexpected, and still unequalled, proofs of industry and learning and cultured taste. Nor have we yet forgotten, when gliding upon the majestic Guadalquivir along fertile valleys, and luxuriant fields and graceful groves, and fragrant parks, and glittering palaces, and busy factories, and restless mines, we passed out of Spain, and visited the other countries of Europe how dreary and wretched and appalling the scenes were which met our gaze everywhere. Scarcely a city anywhere. Nothing that could, even with the broadest stretch of leniency, be designated as agriculture. Everywhere pathless deserts and howling wastes, and death-exhaling swamps. Wretched, windowless and chimneyless and floorless hovels sheltered man and beast under the same roof. Everywhere men with squalid beards, and women with hair unkempt and matted with filth, and both clothed in garments of untanned skin, that were kept on the body till they dropped in pieces of themselves, a loathsome mass of vermin, stench and rags. Everywhere beans and vetches and roots and bark of trees and horseflesh furnished largely the means of supporting life. Nowhere even a trace or semblance of industry. Everywhere the word commerce an unintelligible term. Such was the condition of the rest of Europe when Spain was basking in the sunshine of a most wonderful state of prosperity under the skill and enterprise of the Jew and the Moor.

From the very first both directed their attention to agriculture. The fertile valleys and the luxuriant fields, and the vine-clad hills, and the fruitful orchards, and the flowry meads and the sweet-scented pasture lands of Palestine bear eloquent testimony to Jewish skill in agriculture. The advice which the prophet Jeremiah had sent to the Jewish captives of Babylon: "Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat the fruits of them, ... and increase in your captivity and not diminish. Seek the welfare of the city whither you are carried as captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the welfare thereof shall ye prosper and have peace."[34] This excellent advice the Jews applied to themselves, and faithfully followed, wherever they lived in exile, and wherever they were suffered to dwell in peace and promote the country's welfare. The Arab-Moors were no less devoted to this noble pursuit. When their warfare was over they beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Their motto was: "He who planteth and soweth, and maketh the earth bring forth fruit for man and beast, hath done alms that shall be reckoned to him in heaven." These two races devoted themselves to the cultivation of Spain with their hereditary love for the occupation, and with the skillful application of the experience, which they had gathered in other lands where they had dwelled or where they had established their power. By them agriculture in Spain was carried to a height, which until the invention of machinery was not surpassed in Europe. As early as the tenth century the revenue of agriculture of Moorish Spain alone amounted to nearly $6,000,000, more than the entire revenue of all the rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irrigation of the soil, their great treaties on irrigation and crops, and improved breeds of cattle, on grafting and gardening, and their code of laws regulating agriculture, which still exist, still attest their skill and industry and put to shame the ignorance and indolence of their Spanish successors. Many plants were introduced in Europe, and successfully cultivated by them, which, after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, and the discovery of America, Spain lost and neglected, such as rice and sugar cane (soukhar), as they called it, saffron and mulberry trees, ginger, myrrh, bananas and dates. The Spanish names of many plants show their origin, and some have traveled even to us, such as the apricot, from "albaric aque," the artichoke from "alca chofa" cotton from "al godon."[35] They gave Xeres and Malaga their celebrated wine, which has maintained its reputation to this day.

The mining industries, too, were zealously fostered by them. Spain was and is a widely metalliferous country. Her hidden treasures were known already to the Phoenicians, Carthagenians and Romans, and were mined by them with great profit. The gold and silver of Solomon's temple come through Hiram of Tyre from Tarshish, which was Southern Spain. But the dark ages had set in and with them Europe's universal sloth. When the Moors entered Spain the ancient mines had been, for the most part, abandoned. They revived this industry, and with a zeal which may best be told by the existence to-day of 5,000 Moorish shafts—distinguished from the former by being square instead of round—in one district (Jaen) alone gold was found in large quantities, and it was one of their leading articles for manufacture and export. They gave us the Arabic word "carat" which we still use in speaking of the quality of gold. They opened the inexhaustible vein of mercury which they worked with great profit and with such skill, that it still forms the largest deposit in the world, yielding still one-half of the quicksilver now in use, and being a government monopoly, this one remnant of Moorish and Jewish skill and industry, alone, still produces an annual revenue of $1,250,000. In addition to these, lead, copper, iron, alum, red and yellow ochre were mined in great quantity. Precious stones also were in great abundance—the beryl, ruby, golden marcasite, agates, garnets. Pearls were found on the coast near Barcelona. Building stones, marbles, and jaspers of all colors, were uninterruptedly quarried in the mountains.

The manufacturing industries kept pace in their success with that of mining and agriculture. With the Jews a knowledge of silk culture came into Europe, and with the assistance of Moorish skill it became one of the leading industries and one of the most profitable exports. All Europe, and the greater portions of Asia and Africa, looked to the Jews and Moors of Spain for their fine fabrics of silk and cotton and woolen, for all the wonders of the loom and the skilful and delicate patterns of filigree work in gold and silver. The carpet manufacture of the Moslems reached the excellence which it has maintained to our own day.

They made glass out of a silicious clay and used it for fashioning vessels, and also in glazing those beautiful tiles—for which Valencia is still famous—called azulejos, which they employed in embelishing floors and wainscoting. The best leather was made by the Jews and Arab-Moors in Cordova, and hence Spanish leather is still called Cordovan, which has given to English shoemakers their name of "Cordwainers." The still celebrated "Morocco" leather—the secret of its manufacture having been carried to Morocco, after their expulsion from Spain,—speaks to this day of Moorish and Jewish skill in this branch of industry. The "Toledo Blade," famous in the past and famous still, the invention of, and the plentiful and lucrative manufacture of cotton and linen paper, that blessed boon to civilization, which alone made the printing press possible and beneficial, the introduction of gunpowder and artillery, of the magnet and the mariner's compass, of mechanical and scientific apparatus and instruments, these and many more still speak in eloquent terms of Moorish and Jewish industry in Spain, and, more eloquently still, they tell the tale of Spanish ingratitude.[36] This diligence and success in agriculture and in the industries made commerce necessarily very active and lucrative. The ports swarmed with vessels of traffic. The Jews and Moors of Spain maintained a merchant marine of thousands of ships. They had their factories and warehouses and consuls in all centers of industry. Their exports were very large.

The Jews, who had been compelled to wander the wide world over had acquired a most perfect geographical knowledge, which was serviceable to them now. It was through them that the existence of the Cape of Good Hope was made known in Europe. It was through Averroes that the attention of Columbus was drawn to his subject of finding a short route to the Indies. Their commerce opened the tide of discovery by navigation. Moorish and Jewish industry sought foreign markets and found them, too, from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast of Mozambique, and eventually from the kingdom of Granada to the new world. Granada, especially in the words of the historian, became the common city of all nations. The reputation of its citizens for trustworthiness was such that their bare word was more relied on than a written contract is now among us, to which a Catholic bishop adds: "Moorish integrity is all that is necessary to make a good Christian."[37] The position of the Moors and Jews of Spain in the industries may, therefore, be briefly summarized thus, a prosperous state of commerce arose never known before, and in the southern part of Europe never equalled since. Farther and farther this commerce pushed its interests, and more and more busy became the industries at home, and greater and greater grew their opulence. Gradually the rest of Europe awakened from its lethargy. Moorish and Jewish toil infused life and ambition into its people. Italy, Portugal, France and England began to compete. New markets became necessary. New discoveries followed, and with the general activity and prosperity which ensued, and the learning which it fostered, it dispelled the mists of ignorance, the middle ages disappeared and modern history made its appearance upon the world's stage. So glorious was the result of Moorish and Jewish industry. How Europe rewarded them in return for all their labors, let the following chapters speak.