[92] These spheres recall the four great gilded globes of bronze, tapering from the bottom to the top, that crowned in olden days the Giralda tower of Seville. According to the _Crónica General_ the glitter of these globes "de tan grande obra, é tan grandes, que no se podríen hacer otras tales," could be distinguished at a distance of eight leagues. On August 24th, 1395, when Seville was assailed by a frightful tempest accompanied by an earthquake, the metal rod which pierced and held the globes was snapped, and the globes themselves were dashed into a myriad pieces on the _azotea_, scores of yards below. It is probable, therefore, that the lamp of the third Mohammed of Granada is now composed of two lamps, and that the primitive arrangement of its parts was altered by the ignorant. Eight chains would formerly suspend it, in the following order of its tiers or stages, from the dome of the _mezquita_. First and uppermost would come the shade; then, next to this, the set of tapering spheres; and, last and lowest, the saucer or _platillo_, which has disappeared. Further, and as Koranic law prescribed, the lamp would hold two lights--one to be kindled on the saucer, and the other underneath the shade. [Illustration] Other articles of Spanish-Moorish ornamented bronze are thimbles, buckets, and the spherical perfume-burners which were used to roll upon the stone or marble pavement of a dwelling. Moorish thimbles, conical and uncouthly large, are not uncommonly met with at Granada. I have one, of which the above is an outline sketched to size. [Illustration: XXXIV LAMP OF MOHAMMED THE THIRD (_Madrid Museum_)] Sometimes these Moorish thimbles are inscribed in Cufic lettering with phrases such as--"(May) the blessing of God and every kind of happiness (be destined for the owner of this thimble)"; or else the maker's name--"The work of Saif"; or a single word--"Blessing." The thimbles from which I quote these legends are in the National Museum. The same collection includes a very finely wrought bronze bucket or _acetre_ (Latin _situlus_; Arabic _as-setl_, the utensil for drawing water for a bath). The outside is covered with delicate ornamentation, varied with inscriptions of no great interest, invoking Allah's blessing on the owner or employer of the bucket, which is thought by Amador to be of Granadino workmanship, and to date from about the middle of the fourteenth century.