As the Giralda attests the size and beauty of the great mosque, so several smaller towers exist in Seville to mark the sites of the lesser Mohammedan temples. The most important of these is the tower or minaret of San Marcos. It is seventy-five feet high and ten feet broad--the highest edifice in the city except the Giralda. It is built according to the pure Almohade style, “without any admixture,” points out Señor de Madrazo, “of the features taken from the Christian architecture of the West.” According to Mr Walter M. Gallichan there is a tradition that Cervantes used to ascend this tower to scan the vicinity in search of a Sevillian beauty of whom he was enamoured. The church is Gothic, and dates from 1478, but the beautiful portal exhibits Mudejar workmanship, and may be ascribed to the days of St Ferdinand or of his immediate successors. The parish churches of San Juan Bautista, Santa Marina, San Esteban, Santiago, Santa Catalina, San Julián, San Ildefonso, San Andrés, San Vicente, San Lorenzo, San Bartolomé, Santa Cruz, and Santa Maria de las Nieves (some of which no longer exist), were all mosques during the Almohade era. A few continue to preserve their minarets and _mihrabs_, generally restored and modified almost beyond recognition. While attending by the construction of these numerous places of worship to the spiritual needs of their subjects, the Almohade rulers neglected no means of strengthening Ishbiliyah and of promoting its general prosperity. The city became the most important seat of Mohammedan power in the West. Trade rapidly increased, and the town became the principal resort of the weavers, metal-workers, and other prominent Moorish craftsmen. Abu Yakub Yusuf was the first to throw a bridge of boats across the Guadalquivir, over which troops first passed on October 11th, 1171. This bridge immensely added to the strength of the city as a fortified place, as it established permanent communication between it and its principal source of supplies, the fertile district called the Ajarafa on the right bank of the river. The charms of this expanse, otherwise known as the Orchard of Hercules, are rapturously described by Arab historians. These are the words of the poet Ibn Saffar: “The Ajarafa surpasseth in beauty and fertility all the lands of the world. The oil of its olives goeth even to far Alexandria; its farms and orchards exceed those of other countries in size and convenience; so white and clean are they, that they appear like so many stars in a sky of olive gardens.” The Ajarafa is an Arabia Felix without wild beasts, the Guadalquivir a Nile without crocodiles. El Makkari says it measured about forty miles in each direction and contained a numerous population. Those who know the rather dreary country extending westward of the modern city will realise the melancholy change brought about by time.