Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1882 — The Moorish Role in Spain. [ARTICLE]

The Moorish Role in Spain.

On the north of Africa settled the lurid farm of the Arabian orescent, one horn reaching to the Bosphorus and one pointing to the Pyrenees. Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain before they commenced a brilliant career. Cordova, under their administration, at its highest point of prosperity, boasted of more than 200,000 houses, and more than 1,000,000 of 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 alter this time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centimes subsequently, whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud. The Spanish Mohammedans had brought with them all, the luxuriee and prodigalities of Asia. Their residences stood forth against the dear 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 Tnodft to gush. The floors and walls were of exquisite mosaic. Here, a fountain of quioksilver shot up in a glistening spray, the glittering particles falling with a tranquil sound like fairy bells; there, apartments into which 000 l air was drawn from flower gardens, in summer by means of ventilating towers, and in the winter through earthen pipes, or caleducts, imbedded iu tue waifs—the hypocanst, in the vaults below, breathing forth volumes of warm and perfumed air through these hidden passages. The walls were not covered with wainsoot, but adorned with arabesques, and paintings of agricultural scenes and views of paradise. From the oeiliugs, corniced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung, one of whioh, it is said, contained I,oß# lamps. Clusters of frail marble columns surprised the beholder with the vast weights they bore. In the boudoirs of the sulianas they were sometimes of verd antique, and incrusted with ladis 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 porcelains, and tallies of exquisite mosaic. The winter apartments were hung with rich tapestry; the floors were covered with embroidered Persian carpets. Pillows aud couohes, of elegant forms, were scattered about the rooms, which were perfumed with frankincense. There were whispering galleries for the amusement < f the women; labvrinths and marble play courts for the children ; for the master himself, grand libraries. The Khalif Alhakem’s was so large that the catalogue alone filled forty volumes. He had also aoartments for the transcribing!, binding, and ornamenting of books. Across the Pyrenees, literary, pliilosophical, and adventurers were perpetually passing, and thus the luxury, the taste, and above all, the chivalrous gallantry and elegant courtesies of Moorish society found their way from Granada and Cordova to Provence and Languedoc. The refined society of Cordova prided itself on its politeness. A gay contagion also spread from the beautiful Moorish miscreants to their sisters beyond the mountains. The South of France was full of the witoheries of female fascinations, and of dancing to the flute and mandolin. Even in Italy and Sicily the love-song became the.favorite composition; aud out of these genial but not orthodox beginnings the polite literature of modem Europe arose.— Draper's “Intellectual Development .”