followed by thousands of his fellow-townsmen, while others accepted Al Ahmar's invitation to settle at Granada. Ferdinand took possession of the city on December 22, 1248. He took up his residence at the Alcazar, and allotted houses and lands to his officers, not forgetting even his Moorish auxiliaries. Among his first cares was the purification of the mosque and its conversion into a Christian church. It is interesting to note that the first of his knights to mount the Giralda Tower was a Scotsman named Lawrence Poore. [Illustration: SEVILLE--THE TORRE DEL ORO AND THE CATHEDRAL] Seville had remained in the power of the Mussulmans five hundred and thirty-six years. We, who see all Spain Spanish and remember it was so at the beginning, are apt to look on the Moorish occupation as a mere episode or interlude in the history of the country. It is difficult to realize that the sway of the Crescent lasted in Seville for as long a period as has passed with us since the death of King Edward III. Yet there are few monuments remaining to-day to commemorate a civilization which endured five centuries. The Moors have left their impress, it is true, in a scarcely definable way on the city, the physiognomy of which is more Oriental than that of Granada, a later seat of Mohammedan empire. But this is in great part due to the men who lived under the Christian kings, who had caught the spirit of the Moors and perpetuated their traditions of art and culture. Here we have no such mighty memorials of the vanished race as the Mezquita or the Alhambra. Still, a few memorials of that far-off age there are; and we will go in search of them. Here on the quays of the Guadalquivir rises a polygonal tower of three storeys, poetically termed the "Torre del Oro." But here we find no Danaë awaiting a rescuer, but only the harbour master and his assistants. When the Almohades ruled in Seville a great iron chain was drawn across the river, and a tower built on either side to support it. The tower on the Triana side has long since disappeared, but the "Torre del Oro" remains as it was built in 1220--except, indeed, for the small turret or superstructure added in the eighteenth century. It is said, too, that it was once adorned with beautiful glazed tiles, from which (though this seems unlikely) it derived its name. In the days when it stood the brunt of the attack from the squadron of Ramon Bonifaz, it was connected with the Alcazar by a wall, called, in military language, a curtain. This was not demolished until the year 1821. At the same time disappeared the main entrance to the Alcazar.