How strange to think of Cordoba before the Moors, who so imbued it with the spirit of Moslem life! Those famous Caliphs of the rival houses of Mirvan and Ummaija, and the great Abdurraman, whose wealth and luxury read like a dream; Eastern luxury in banquets under painted domes; odalisques and white-robed eunuchs gliding beneath fretted arches, vaults of alabaster and porphyry; harems with walls shedding showers of jasmine and rose-leaves, the soft breathings of _guzla_ and cither, dark heads crowned with orient pearls, and tissue-robed Sultanas reclining on golden thrones. “Kartuba the important,” the gem of the Carthaginians,--ancient when the Gentiles reigned in the time of Moses; possessed in turn by Greeks and Romans, the birthplace of Seneca, Lucan, Averroës, and El Gran Capitan Gonsalvo Aguilar de Cordoba; for ages the capital of Southern Spain,--is to be considered exclusively, before the advent of the Moors, as a Roman settlement, the grandly regular aspect of these masters of the world impressed upon its buildings. Siding with Pompey in the time of the Republic, it was destroyed by the vengeance of Cæsar. Rebuilt by Marcellus and repeopled by penniless patricians from Rome, it was for a time called “Patricia”; under all names a sober and dignified capital gathered round its ancient castle on the banks of the Guadalquivir. At all times Cordoba is beautiful; the verdant slopes of the Sierra Morena, rising precipitously from the very gates, look down serenely on the strife of rival peoples; lovely retreats, dotted with white _quintas_, farms, mills, vineyards, and olive-grounds; the rugged summits rising westwards to the limits of Lusitania; the lazy Guadalquivir flowing at their base, through grassy plains dark with orange and myrtle. Now what a desolation! A solitary shepherd pipes to his flock, as he passes at the _Ave Maria_, on the lonely road; a file of mules carrying bricks or corn succeed him; a ragged goatherd watches his kids grazing beside the river, and droves of swine burrow in the mould once trodden by the steps of heroes! Two boldly crenelated towers and a portion of the outer walls, rising from an ancient garden of exceeding sweetness, are all that remains of the palace and fortress of the Gothic kings. Thickets of roses and lilacs engulf you as you enter, broad palm leaves shroud decay, and quivering cane-brakes whisper softly of the past. A little to the left rises a lower tower, grey against the sky, another and another, the stones scarcely held together by entwining ropes of ivy--all that remains of the royal castle.