But the attractions of the city were totally eclipsed by those of the fairy-like palace of the favourite. Abderamus, as the ally of their Imperial master, demanded the assistance of the most accomplished of the Greek architects; and the sovereign of Constantinople, which was at that time the chosen home of the fine arts, eagerly complied with his desires, and sent the caliph, in addition, forty columns of granite of the rarest and most beautiful workmanship. Independent {67} of these magnificent columns, there were employed in the construction of this palace more than twelve hundred others, formed of Spanish and Italian marble. The walls of the apartment named the _Saloon of the Caliphate_, were covered with ornaments of gold; and from the mouths of several animals, composed of the same metal, gushed jets of water that fell into an alabaster fountain, above which was suspended the famous pearl that the Emperor Leo had presented to the caliph as a treasure of inestimable value. In the pavilion where the mistress of this enchanting abode usually passed the evening with the royal Moor, the ceiling was composed of gold and burnished steel, incrusted with precious stones. And in the resplendent light reflected from these brilliant ornaments by a hundred crystal lustres, flashed the waters of a fountain, formed like a sheaf of grain, from polished silver, whose delicate spray was received again by the alabaster basin from whose centre it sprung. The reader might hesitate to believe these recitals; might suppose himself perusing Oriental tales, or that the author was indebted for his history to the _Thousand and One Nights_, were {68} not the facts here detailed attested by the Arabian writers, and corroborated by foreign authors of unquestionable veracity. It is true that the architectural magnificence, the splendid pageantry, the pomp of power that characterized the reign of this illustrious Saracenic king, resembled nothing with which we are now familiar; but the incredulous questioners of their former existence might be asked whether, had the pyramids of Egypt been destroyed by an earthquake, they would now credit historians who should give us the exact dimensions of those stupendous structures? The writers from whom are derived the details that have been given concerning the court of the Spanish Mussulmans, mention also the sums expended in the erection of the palace and city of Zahra. The cost amounted annually to three hundred thousand dinars of gold,[13] and twenty-five years hardly sufficed for the completion of this princely monument of chivalrous devotion. {69} To these enormous expenditures should be added the maintenance of a seraglio, in which the women, the slaves, and the black and white eunuchs amounted to the number of six thousand persons. The officers of the court, and the horses destined for their use, were in equally lavish proportion. The royal guard alone was composed of twelve thousand cavaliers.