A very cursory view of Tlemçen suggests that those enthusiastic writers who have described it as the equal, or almost the equal, of Granada are somewhat extravagant in their praise. It occupies indeed a fine situation, and it looks down from its height of 2500 feet over a rolling country of hill and vale to the sea thirty miles away. But it has none of Granada’s grandeur and it lacks the noble background of the Sierra Nevada. It has no great building like the Alhambra, although its mosques contain magnificent work, which is unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Excessive praise which raises expectations destined to be disappointed is to be deplored. Tlemçen has enough of beauty and interest to stand on its own merits. In one respect it has an advantage over the Moorish cities of Spain. It is indeed held by an alien race, but its mosques are still for the most part put to the purpose for which they were built, and the worshippers are the present representatives of those who built them. The Great Mosque, the most notable building within the walls, was not built all at one time, but grew, like a Gothic cathedral, under the hands of different monarchs and dynasties. These dynasties of Tlemçen were continually changing; their outlandish names cumber the guide-books, but they have less interest for us than the vicissitudes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The first stone of the mosque was laid in the year 530 (you must add 605 to bring it to the Christian era), as a contemporary inscription obligingly records. The minaret was built by Yar’morasen, the great Berber monarch who raised Tlemçen to its pitch of power in the thirteenth century; and in the fourteenth various auxiliary buildings, including a hospital for the aged and incurable, were added. The interior of the mosque is impressive, with its forest of pillars— there are seventy-two in all—and its dim religious light. The mihrab, the holy of holies, the shrine which looks towards Mecca, is finely decorated with leaves of acanthus and Arabic inscriptions. The large court is charming; it is surrounded by arcades, and two basins of running water provide for the ablutions of the faithful. The material of the whole was originally onyx, and much remains. It is truly a noble building, and it has escaped any serious restoration.