The interior of the famous minaret presents some extraordinary, not to say unique, architectural features. Its walls are nine feet in thickness at the base, and, instead of decreasing in dimensions, become still more solid as they rise, until the capacity of the structure near the summit is but little more than half what it is at the bottom. The ascent is made by thirty-five ramps, or inclined planes, resting upon vaults and arches, and supported by a shaft of masonry built in the centre of the tower. It was to the architects of Constantinople that the Moors were indebted for this excellent substitute for the stairway, by which the loftiest buildings could be ascended with comparatively slight fatigue. Byzantine influence, which has left such an impress upon the architecture of Venice, has provided its towers with this ingenious device, of which the Campanile offers a familiar example. Instances of its employment also exist in many cities of Africa, some of whose mosques, constructed by the Almohades, present, upon a greatly reduced scale, minarets in form and decoration almost counterparts of the Giralda as it was in the day of its original splendor. It is not uninteresting to note that the architect who superintended the completion of the Giralda was Abu-Layth, a Sicilian, whose country, long a province of Constantinople, had never, even under Moslem domination, completely abandoned the traditions or renounced the influence of the Christian capital of the East. Mohammed-Ibn-Yakub, whose hereditary title had been confirmed by the exercise of regal authority during the lifetime of his father, succeeded to the perilous honors of the Almohade throne. A prince of amiable character but mediocre talents, without ambition and destitute of self-reliance, his accession augured ill for the maintenance of order among a score of jealous nations, which all the genius of great statesmen and warriors had hardly sufficed to restrain within the bounds of loyalty and discipline. The death of Yakub was the signal for revolt to the turbulent spirits who inhabited the mountains of Fez, and their defection was immediately followed by a formidable insurrection in the Balearic Isles. There, where Almoravide influence was nourished by descendants of that family,--who, expelled from the main-land, had for a time enjoyed in that sequestered region a nominal independence,--the standard of rebellion was raised by Yahya, an active partisan, who traced his descent from the last Almoravide emperor, Yusuf-Ibn-Tashfin. The sedition of the mountain tribes was easily suppressed, but that of the Balearic Isles was far more serious, and demanded the adoption of the most stringent measures. The name of the Almoravides had by no means lost its potency in Africa. Among the inhabitants of the coast and the denizens of the Sahara, the exploits of the dynasty that had first consolidated the vagrant tribes of that continent into the semblance of a nation, had brought