"If these precepts ye obey," he concludes, "the pleasures of Paradise will be your reward. There you will be clothed in raiments sparkling with jewels. You will wear crowns of gold enriched with pearls and diamonds, and dwell in sumptuous palaces or silken pavilions, reclining in voluptuous couches. Hundreds of attendants, bearing dishes and goblets of gold, will serve you with every variety of exquisite viands and beverage, whenever and in whatever quantity you shall want them. There the air, fragrant with the sweetest perfume, resounds with the melodious voices of the Daughters of Paradise. There, besides your wives you had on earth, who will rejoin you in all their pristine charms, black-eyed _Hooreeyahs_ (Houris) having complexions like rubies and pearls, resplendent beings, free from every human defect or frailty, perpetually retaining their youth and beauty, will constantly attend you, and cheerfully obey your wishes." "But woe unto you if ye harken not to the words of _Allah_ and Mohammed his prophet! When ye shall pass the bridge, _Al Sirat_, which is finer than a hair and sharper than a sword, it will break beneath the burden of your sins, and precipitate you into the shadow and smoke and fire of hell." With a prayer for the welfare of the Caliph and the entire government, the "khotbeh" is ended and the congregation dismissed. We know that the Moors and Jews are Oriental people, and, therefore, not indigenous to the Occidental soil they now inhabit. Whence came they? Why came they? We are eager for a correct answer to these questions, and knowing none of Cordova's learned men, we think of our distinguished co-religionist. _Abu Jussuf Chasdai ben Isaac Ibn Shaprut_, the Jewish Physician, Philologist, Minister of Foreign Affairs, of Commerce and Finance to the learned _Abder Rahman_, and _Nasi_, or secular chief, of all European Jews. We take the heart to visit him, and with the aid of our guide, we soon are admitted into the house. There we learn that _Chasdai Ibn Shaprut_ had just been summoned to a secret consultation with the Caliph concerning an important embassy that had come from _Otto I_, Emperor of Germany. We are asked to await his return in his library. There, we are introduced to _Moses ben Chanoch_, the distinguished Talmudist, to his pupil, _Joseph ben Abitur_, the translator of the _Mishnah_ into Arabic for the Caliph's library, to _Menachem ben Saruk_, the grammarian and compiler of the first Hebrew lexicon, and to _Dunash ben Labrat_, the distinguished poet, who were pursuing their respective studies in the magnificent library of Chasdai, the Jewish favorite Minister to the Caliph. * * * * * We state our wish, and Dunash ben Labrat thus replies: