But the pendulum swung again; the dominion of Islam was threatened by enemies within and without. History repeated itself; Time worked its inevitable revenge, and a lustier race made profit from the decadence of the Morisco civilisation. Spain arose and turned upon her oppressor, and the streets of Cordova were once more drenched with the blood of Moor and Christian. This proud Bell Tower stands as a symbol of the reconquest, and of the decline of Cordova. Christian Spain rejoiced in her change of fortune. The crusaders set themselves to demolish and to upheave. They abandoned the wholesome habits of the Moors; the baths were destroyed by the hundred as useless relics of the detested Mohammedan. Temples, colleges, and palaces were thrown down. Science, the arts, and letters were neglected. We have read how trade forsook Cordova, and how the light of learning was almost extinguished. Gone were the cultured days of Abd-er-Rahman III., and the resplendent pomp of Almanzor. The Mecca of the West had fallen; the fate of Roman Corduba had come upon it. There was no revival, no uprising of the ruins from the ashes that could remake Cordova in the semblance of its old self. Vestiges alone remained to remind the beholder of the grandeur and the glory of the Mohammedan domination. A misdirected imperialism, an irrational conception of greatness, wrought the wreckage of the ‘Bride of Andalus’ after her recapture by the Christian Spaniards. VI THE SPLENDOURS OF THE MOSQUE Before the rise of Mahomet, the architecture of the Arabs was almost devoid of those specific characters that we find in the later work of Omeyyad designers and artists. The pristine Arabian edifices were built as though the tent served as the model for the architects of this nomadic race. But in the great Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem we have the first example of a new and vigorous development of the art of architecture. The minaret, or praying-tower, was invented by Alwalid, and other distinctive features of the Moorish or Saracenic style were introduced in religious buildings.