Horticultural Gardens, 152 The Bank of the Guadalquivir from the Bridge, 153 General View of Cordova, 154 Courtyard of an Inn, 155 A Street and Country Types, 156 A Street and Country Types, 157 Ancient Receptacle for Water of Medina Az-Zahira, Tenth Century, 158 Plan of Cordova, 159 Many of the photographs included in this volume, other than those taken by myself, were supplied by Messrs. Rafael Garzon of Granada, Senan and Gonzalez of Granada, Hauser and Menet of Madrid, Ernst Wasmuth of Berlin, publisher of Uhde’s _Baudenkmaeler in Spanien und Portugal_, and Eugen Twietmeyer of Leipzig, publisher of Junghändel’s _Die Baukunst Spaniens_, and I take this opportunity of acknowledging their kind permission to reproduce them in this volume. A. F. C. CORDOVA I THE BRIDE OF ANDALUS An impression of colour, heat, and somnolence grows upon the stranger as he rambles through the bright alleys and sunlit plazas of Cordova. He may be neither painter, poet, nor antiquary; yet the opulence of vivid, almost garish tones, the romance that lingers about the Moorish courtyards and the perfumed gardens, and the surviving, pervasive suggestion of age, will stimulate his senses and imagination. For one who is capable of deeper and more subtle impressions, the old city will seem as a consummation of desire and a realisation of fanciful dreams. The spell of Orientalism will hold him; the splendours of _The Arabian Nights_ will be brought before his vision; and he will conjure shapes of sultan, wizard, genii, and sage, and see the lovely retinue of fair women within the palaces of the swarthy potentates. Music of reed and string will delight his ears; and loitering by the walls, on the banks of the swirling Guadalquivir, he will hear the selfsame song of the bulbul which brought joy and sadness to dark, inscrutable eyes in olden days. He will watch the blue shadows of mosque and tower, and see the sun lavish gold on roof and turret, while his eye will be dazzled by the hues of balconies, by the hot geranium, the gay dabs of drying garments, hanging like flags against the ardent sapphire of the Andalusian sky. Framed in the arch of a city gateway, he will see a lovely vista of vineyard, olive-crowned hillock, and meditative, grey sierra, rising to the blue.