Descriptions of the Spanish-Moorish swords inserted in the chronicles and poems of the Middle Ages, together with the few examples that have been preserved until our time, enable us to form an accurate idea of the shape and decoration of these weapons generally. Those of the sultans and the Muslim aristocracy were, as a rule, profusely ornamented, either with precious stones or with enamels, or else with delicate and lavish damascening, or with the characteristic Oriental _ataujía_-work of gold and silver inlay. Inscriptions, too, were freely used upon the hilt or scabbard. Thus we are told that the great Almanzor kept for daily use a sword which bore the legend; "_Strive in warfare till ye win great victories. Battle with the infidels till ye win them over to Islam_"; and similar inscriptions may be quoted in great number. But four or five of these magnificent arms have proved superior to the ravages of time, and naturally tell us more than any weapons whose renown survives in written records merely. Among such extant Spanish-Moorish swords are two attributed respectively to Aliatar and Abindarraez; two others which are known to have belonged to the last ill-fated monarch of the Moors of Spain, Boabdil el Chico; and another, considered to have also been Boabdil's property, now in possession of the Marquises of Campotejar, owners of the Generalife and of the Casa de los Tiros at Granada. The "sword of Aliatar," preserved in the Museum of Artillery at Madrid, is said to have been wrested from the clenched hand of that warrior, father-in-law of Boabdil and governor of Loja, as his corpse was swept away down stream after the rout of the Moorish expedition at Lucena. This arm is richly damascened as well as decorated with the characteristic _ataujía_. The centre of the hilt is made of ivory, and the pommel and crossbars--which latter terminate in elephants' heads with slightly upturned trunks--of damascened and inlaid iron, ornamented here and there with _ataujía_. Part of the blade--probably about an eighth--is broken off. The sheath has disappeared. An idle superstition has attributed the so-called "sword of Abindarraez" to the hero of the well-known sixteenth-century romance entitled _The Abencerraje and the Beautiful Jarifa._ This weapon, which for many years was in possession of the Narvaez family, belongs at present to the Marquis of La Vega de Armijo. The decoration is not particularly rich, and part of it is worn away; but the narrow blade is still engraved with figures or portraits from the story which has given the sword its name.