It is not, however, by his conquests, the extent of his dominions, or the splendor of his court that Yakub-al-Mansur is best known to us. The Giralda, or minaret, which towered over the mosque of Seville, and now, for the most part intact, is the principal ornament of its cathedral, is the greatest monument to his fame. The stately temple to which it was attached, founded by Yusuf, and almost a quarter of a century in building, was at last finished by his son. The spoils of many a foray, the wealth of many a conquered city, the plunder of many a Christian sanctuary, were devoted to its construction. Gold and silver obtained from the sacramental vessels of violated altars glittered upon its walls. Its masonry had been laid by the painful labor of hundreds of captives. Its foundations stand upon a base composed of busts, statues, bas-reliefs, and carvings taken from the Roman structures abounding in the vicinity, and many of which represented the finest efforts of classic taste and imperial magnificence. To strict observers of Moslem law,--and none adhered more closely to the letter of its provisions than the Almohades,--every representation of the human form was classed as idolatrous, and the effigies of the emperors, statesmen, and orators of antiquity were buried far beneath the walls of the Giralda, that the eyes of the Faithful might no longer be offended by what were ignorantly presumed to be objects of Pagan adoration; and that the spiritual as well as the material supremacy of Islam might be symbolized by the erection over these infidel memorials of the most imposing and beautiful edifice of its kind that has ever been devised by the genius of man.