Another Arab writer says that Cordova "is a fortified town, surrounded by massive and lofty stone walls, and has very fine streets. It was in times of old the residence of many infidel kings, whose palaces are still visible within the precincts of the walls. The inhabitants are famous for their courteous and polished manners, their superior intelligence, their exquisite taste and magnificence in their meals, dress, and horses. There thou wouldst see doctors shining with all sorts of learning, lords distinguished by their virtues and generosity, warriors renowned for their expeditions into the country of the infidels, and officers experienced in all kinds of warfare. To Cordova came from all parts of the world students eager to cultivate poetry, to study the sciences, or to be instructed in divinity or law; so that it became the meeting-place of the eminent in all matters, the abode of the learned, and the place of resort for the studious; its interior was always filled with the eminent and the noble of all countries, its literary men and soldiers were continually vying with each other to gain renown, and its precincts never ceased to be the arena of the distinguished, the racecourse of readers, the halting-place of the noble, and the repository of the true and virtuous. Cordova was to Andalus what the head is to the body, or what the breast is to the lion."[23] Oriental praise is apt to be somewhat high flown; but Cordova really deserved the praise that has been lavished upon it. In its present state it is impossible to form any conception of the extent and beauty of the old Moorish capital in the days of the Great Khalif. Its narrow streets of whitewashed houses convey but a faint impression of its once magnificent extent; the palace, Alcazar, is in decay, and its ruins are used for the vile purpose of a prison; the bridge still spans the Guadalquivir, however, and the noble mosque of the first Omeyyad is still the wonder and delight of travellers. But in the time of Abd-er-Rahmān III., or perhaps a little later, when a great minister added a new faubourg, it was at its best. Historians are divided as to its extent, but a length of at least ten miles seems to be the most probable dimension. The banks of the Guadalquivir were bright with marble houses, mosques, and gardens, in which the rarest flowers and trees of other countries were carefully cultivated, and the Arabs introduced their system of irrigation, which the Spaniards, both before and since, have never equalled. The first Omeyyad Sultan imported a date tree from Syria, to remind him of his old home; and to it he dedicated a sad little poem to bewail his exile. It was planted in the garden which he had laid out in imitation of that of his grandfather Hishām at Damascus, where he had played as a child. He sent agents all over the world to bring him the rarest exotics, trees, plants, and seeds; and so skilful were the Sultan's gardeners that these foreign importations were