disclosed the correctness of taste and inexhaustible fertility of fancy characteristic of the labors of the Arab artist and gilder. Its mosaic pavements, its alabaster lattices, its curious arabesques presented finished types of Moorish decorative splendor nowhere more conspicuous than in his places of religious worship. At one corner of the building rose a minaret of moderate height but elaborate ornamentation, and diagonally opposite were laid the foundations of that famous tower now known as the Giralda, which, completed during the reign of the successor of Yusuf, still remains the finest specimen of Moslem architecture of its class in the world. It was not alone in the improvement of his Spanish capital that the time and energy of the Almohade Sultan were expended. The military and naval advantages of Gibraltar had been early appreciated by the sovereigns of Africa. Its fortifications were now greatly extended and strengthened by the provident foresight of Yusuf, who recognized in its peculiar and impregnable situation the security of the Strait and the key of the Peninsula. Summoned to Africa by the ravages of a pestilence which decimated the population of his kingdom, ignorant of medical knowledge, and abandoned to fatalism and the ministrations of charlatans, Yusuf was compelled to suspend the public works which had already produced such beneficial results amidst the decaying commerce and diminishing resources of Andalusia. The absence of the monarch became, as usual, the pretext for anarchy. With his departure the quarrels of ambitious governors of provinces and the harassing forays of the Christians were renewed. For the long period of eight years this condition of incessant and ruinous hostility continued. Then Yusuf resolved to accomplish the design matured by his father, but whose execution had been prevented by death. The Holy War was proclaimed. The forces of Africa were assembled at Ceuta, and Spain was invaded by one of the largest armies that had ever been marshalled on her soil. It is with interest that we read of the orderly but undisciplined progress of this great array. The tribes marched separately under their several sheiks. Each tribe carried its distinctive standard--the ensign of that which constituted the vanguard, the post of honor, was of blue and white silk spangled with golden crescents. In the centre of the host rode the monarch, surrounded by his negro guard, in whose equipment had been lavished all the wealth of barbaric magnificence. Before him was carried, as a talisman to insure success, the great Koran of Othman, which, having escaped the perils of many revolutions, had been sent to Morocco by the Almohades after their capture of Cordova. It was escorted by a company of a hundred Berber nobles, mounted upon superb Arabian horses whose velvet housings were embroidered with gold. This guard of honor carried lances inlaid with ivory and silver, from which fluttered pennons of many-colored silk.