Its base is a square of fifty feet; its original height was three hundred. For eighty-seven feet from the foundation the walls are of stone blocks fitted with the greatest nicety, and once polished to the smoothness of glass. The superstructure is of brick, and almost covered with graceful arabesque patterns in terra-cotta. Each side is divided into six panels with the designs in bas-relief, the panels resting upon ogival arches sustained by marble columns sunk into the masonry. In the central panels are a series of ajimezes, or Moorish windows, whose compartments are separated by miniature columns of alabaster. A charming variety and elegance exist in their arrangement and decoration; the openings are symmetrical but unequally disposed, and the terra-cotta patterns, while they exhibit a general similarity, are unlike in detail, no two faces of the tower exactly resembling each other. The minaret as originally designed was crowned with battlements, and was surmounted by another tower eight cubits in height, of similar plan but of much more elaborate ornamentation. Above the latter structure rose a bar sustaining four bronze balls of different sizes, placed one above the other. The general color of the building was a brilliant red, due to the bricks of which it was principally composed. Within this bright setting the sunken arabesques glowed with all the splendor of the richest damask. The interstitial portions of the designs were painted with scarlet, azure, green, and purple, the parts in relief were gilded. The maze of gold and color was at once tempered and defined by the duller framing and by the white, translucent, alabaster columns of the central panels. Around the summit of the principal tower was a mosaic of intricate pattern and many colors. The beauty of the gorgeous tints that under the sunlight of Southern Spain exhibited the refulgence of the rainbow was heightened by the use of tiles covered with gold leaf, whose enamelled covering imparted a brilliancy not even exceeded by the burnished metal itself. Upon the superstructure had been lavished all the exquisite taste and skill of the Moorish and the Byzantine artisan. Its sides presented a complicated and elegant mosaic of white, blue, and gold. Its parapet blazed with that precious metal, and above ascended, in regular gradation, the row of immense gilded globes, visible to the approaching or to the departing caravan for the space of more than a day’s journey. The largest of these was nearly twenty feet in diameter; the surfaces of all were deeply grooved, the better to reflect the light; and the iron bar which sustained them, and which was also plated with gold, weighed nearly a thousand pounds.