Andalusia became the paradise of the world. The capital was Cordova, which they greatly embellished as well as the rival cities Toledo, Seville and Granada. A person might walk for miles through their cities after night-fall by the light of their public lamps. Seven hundred years afterwards, not a single public lamp could be found in the city of London. The streets of these cities were solidly paved, through which rolled magnificent carriages, drawn by horses, the fame of which has descended to our times. Five hundred years later the sovereigns of Great Britain and Germany were still traveling in uncouth wagons, drawn by oxen, goaded on by pedestrian drivers. The sidewalks of Cordova, Toledo, Seville and Granada were paved with flagstones; while at a corresponding period the inhabitant of London or Paris who ventured beyond his threshold on a rainy day sank ankle-deep in filth and mud. Their residences were frequently in the midst of orchards or embosomed in shady groves. They had cool and spacious porches for rest in the heat of the day. Often these porches had roofs of stained glass, on which fell in soothing cadences the glittering pearl-drops of water from elevated fountains. Their houses were usually built of brick or stone, and contained many apartments, such as sleeping rooms, baths, libraries, parlors and dining halls. In the best class of dwellings, the ceilings were frescoed and the walls covered with paintings, representing scenes of paradise, groves and fruits, lawns and fountains. Yet, delineations of the human form, either nude or partly so, were religiously forbidden, as it was considered that such representations were promotive of licentiousness. {41} Some of these apartments were furnished with musical instruments, where the young of both sexes were wont to join in mirth and festivity, and dancing to the music of the lute and mandolin. In others, the sedate and reflecting, could engage in scientific research or philosophical discussion. The {42} dwellings of the rich were carpeted, and sometimes warmed by furnaces in winter and cooled in summer with perfumed air, brought by under-ground pipes from distant flower gardens. The use of wine was prohibited. The feasts of the Saracens were marked with sobriety, and furnished a pleasing contrast to the drunken revelries of their northern neighbors. [Image: Interior of a Saracen Palace.] The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were frequently spent by the devout in sequestered gardens, consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life by the hope of immortality, and reconciling themselves to their daily toil by the expectation of the joys of paradise, where flowers never fade nor fruits decay, where sickness, and sorrow, and death are known no more.