These unhappy persons had among them a good deal of Castilian culture, whose traces still remain in manuscripts, which, like that of the old poem of Joseph, already described, (Period I. chap. 5,) are composed in Spanish, but are written throughout in the Arabic character. Of parts of two such manuscripts I possess copies, through the kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos. The first is a poem written in 1603, and entitled, “Discourse on the Light, and Descent, and Lineage of our Chief and Blessed Prophet, Mohammed Çalam, composed and compiled by his Servant, who most needs his Pardon, Mohammed Rabadan, a Native of Rueda, on the River Xalon.” It is divided into eight Histories, of which I possess the fourth, entitled, “History of Hexim,” who was one of the ancestors of the Prophet. It contains above two thousand lines in the short, Castilian ballad measure, and is remarkably Arabic and Mohammedan in its general tone, though with occasional allusions to the Greek mythology. It is, too, not without poetical merit, as in the following lines, which open the second canto, and describe the auspicious morning of Hexim’s marriage. Al tiempo que el alba bella Enseña su rostro alegre, Y, rompiendo las tinieblas, Su clara luz resplandece, Dando las nuevas que el dia En su seguimiento viene, Y el roxo Apolo tras ella, Dexando los campos verdes; Quando las aves nocturnas Se recogen en su albergue, Y las que la luz gobiernan El delgado viento hienden; Quando los hombres despiertan Y el pesado sueño vencen, Para dar á su Hacedor El debito que le deben;-- En este tiempo la compañia Del hijo de Abdulmunef Se levantan y aperciben Al casamiento solemne. In the preface to the whole poem, the author says Allah alone knows how much labor it has cost him to collect the manuscripts necessary for his task, “scattered,” he adds, “as they were, all over Spain, and lost and hidden through fear of the Inquisition.”