Bourgoing, author of the _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_, described, in 1789, the same product in the following terms: "L'industrie des Valenciens tire d'ailleurs parti de toutes les productions de leur sol. Il contient une espèce de terre dont ils font ces carreaux de faïence colorée, connus sous le nom d'_Azulejos_, et qu'on ne fabrique qu'à Valence. On en pave les appartements, et on en revêt leurs lambris; on y peint les sujets les plus compliqués, tels par exemple qu'un bal masqué, une fête de taureaux. La couleur rouge est la seule qui ne puisse être fixée sur cette espèce de faïence; elle s'altere entièrement par la cuisson."[78] [78] Vol. iii., p. 56. For the amusement of my readers, I insert an illustration of common Spanish tiles of the decadent period (Plate lvii.), displaying considerable liveliness combined with reckless ignorance of draughtsmanship. A class of these degenerate tiles, made in large quantities at Seville in the eighteenth century, is known as _azulejos de montería_ or "hunting-tiles," since episodes of the chase form one of the favourite themes of their design. Although it passed through a long period of prostration, embracing the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at no time has the manufacture of decorative Spanish tiles succumbed completely. Of recent years it has revived surprisingly at Seville, Barcelona, and Segovia; and at the first of these cities the older _azulejos_, and particularly those in the _cuenca_ style, are imitated to perfection. In the cheapest kinds of modern tiling, such as is used for corridors and kitchens, a common device is a series of repeated curves and dots which evidently has its source in Arabic lettering. Indeed, the ornamental and attractive written characters of the Spanish Moors, rendered familiar to their rivals through long centuries of intercourse, seem to have constantly found favour with the Christian Spaniards. The _fuero_ of Jaca, dated A.D. 1064, tells us that a Christian prince of Spain, Don Sancho Ramirez, was accustomed to write his signature in Arabic lettering. Meaningless inscriptions in the same language, and evidently executed by a Christian hand, are engraved on objects in the Royal Armoury; and Señor Osma describes in an interesting pamphlet (_Los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del Siglo XV._) how, in the pottery of older Spain, a word in Arabic such as _alafia_ ("prosperity" or "blessing") would often be corrupted by Morisco craftsmen into a motive of a purely ornamental character, and which would only in this sense be comprehended and appreciated by the Christian.[79] [79] _Alafia_ is written in Neshki, [Illustration], which word, says Señor Osma, by suppressing the diacritical points and prolonging some of the lines, was converted by the potter into the conventional and exclusively decorative device:-- [Illustration]