Throughout Europe the mention of Cordova brought yearning to the hearts of the cultured and studious, and men suffered hardship and stress to pay pilgrimages to this source of learning. Many who journeyed hither echoed the words of Ibn Sareh, the poet, which he uttered upon entering the seat of wisdom: ‘God be praised; I am in Cordova, the abode of science, the throne of the Sultans!’ Seville was ‘the gem,’ ‘the pearl’ of Andalusia; Cordova was called ‘the Bride.’ El-Makkari, the Moorish chronicler, rehearses many of the poetical tributes paid by Moslem writers to the splendid city. Setting forth the culture of the city, he adds, in one place: ‘The Cordovans were further celebrated for the elegance and richness of their dress, their attention to religious duties, their strict observance of the hours of prayer, the high respect and veneration in which they held their mosque, their aversion to wine and their destruction of wine-vases wherever they found any, their abhorrence of every illicit practice, their glory in nobility of descent and military enterprise, and their success in every department of the sciences.’ Such were the inhabitants of Cordova at the time when the city was the great capital of the Mohammedan empire. Seville and Toledo yielded pre-eminence to Cordova, and men spoke in veneration of its four great wonders: the immense and gorgeous mosque, the bridge over the Guadalquivir, the city of Ez-Zahra, situated in the suburbs, and the sciences which were studied in the colleges. When we read the ancient annals and grow absorbed by the story of Cordova’s past, we can scarcely realise that the town and its inmates were real things. The place and the people seem to belong to the realm of fairy romance; the city seems one of dreams, and the natives pass as in a pageant of the imagination. And yet we may enter the sacred mih-rab, commune with the ghosts of warrior and philosopher, and stand where Tarik stood when he wrested the prized capital from the Goths. Tangible evidence of a superb civilisation surrounds us in Cordova. We see examples of early Moorish architecture brought to its highest artistic manifestation in the mosque. We listen in vain for the voices of teachers, the song of the singers and poets, and the call of the muezzin to devotion; but we tread in the footsteps of the long-vanished Moor, and read his story in the noble lines, chaste embellishments, and gorgeous details which his skilful hands produced. II THE MOORISH CAPTURE