It must, I think, be admitted that the Mezquita, to European eyes, is fantastic and interesting rather than beautiful. It may be compared to a forest of columns or to a seemingly endless series of parallel aisles spanned by low horseshoe arches. It does in truth remind one, as one writer observes, of a gigantic crypt. The additions of Al Mansûr, may be distinguished by the pointed arches. Otherwise there is little of the variety insured in Christian churches by the distribution of the parts. It is only in the columns themselves that we find any relief from the prevailing uniformity. There are interesting differences in their capitals, and in their bases also, which are, however, buried underground. In the ruder carving is seen an attempt on the part of the Moorish masons to copy the work of the more skilled craftsmen of Rome and Byzantium. The mean vaulting overhead is modern. It is gradually being taken down and replaced by the beautiful carved ceiling of white larchwood which Murphy described a hundred years ago. He says: "Above the first arch is placed a second, considerably narrower and connecting it with the square pillars that support the timber work of the roof, which is not less curious in its execution than are the other parts of the building. It was put together in the time of Abd-ur-Rahman I., and subsists to this day unimpaired, though partially concealed by the plaster-work of the modern arches. The beams contain many thousands of cubic feet; the bottoms and side of the cross beams have been carved and painted with different figures; the rafters also are painted red. Such parts as retain the paint are untouched by worms: the other parts, where the paint no longer remains, are so little affected that the decay of a thousand years is scarcely perceptible; and, what is rarely to be seen in an edifice of such antiquity, no cobwebs whatever are to be traced here. The timber work of the roof is further covered with lead; and the whole has been executed with such precision and taste, that it may justly be pronounced a _chef-d'œuvre_ of art, both with respect to the arrangement of the different parts, as well as to the extent and solidity of the whole." [Illustration: CORDOVA--MEZQUITA] But what must have lent so much of beauty to the building originally was that, instead of being enclosed with walls as it is at present, its long arcades opened into the groves of orange trees without, which were simply their natural continuation--a graceful and symmetrical plan which one would like to see attempted in modern times. Though, too, every Mohammedan temple is necessarily simple in plan and can never approach the Christian churches in elaboration and gorgeousness, here Moslem art exhausted its ingenuity on the embellishment of those more sacred parts of the building such as the Sanctuary and the Maksurrah.