laid the building in ruins.' Probably not more than twenty lives were lost through the bursting of the shells. Most of the men of the city were defending the walls, and the women took refuge in the churches. The Cathedral sheltered a large number of women and children, who slept and cooked there. The Junta of Seville occupied the Convent of San Paolo during the siege. Edward VII. of England, when Prince of Wales, paid a visit to Seville, and spent several days in the city, in 1876. We have now briefly surveyed the more interesting events in the history of the city and noted incidents in the lives of eminent Sevillians from the time of the Goths until the present century. CHAPTER IV _The Remains of the Mosque_ 'I have never entered a mosque without a vivid emotion--shall I even say without a certain regret in not being a Mussulman?'--ERNEST RENAN, _Islamism and Science_. In the year 1171, Abu Yakub Yûsuf, the conquering Moor, began the building of a mighty _mezquita_, or mosque, in the captured city of Seville. The important work was given into the hands of a famed architect, one Gever, Hever, or Djâbir, the correct spelling of whose name has puzzled the historians. Gever is said to have been 'the inventor of Algebra.' Whether he really designed the Mosque is difficult to determine. Some Spanish writers have asserted that the first stage of the Giralda Tower was commenced in the year 1000 of the Christian era 'by the famous Moor, Herver.' From the discovery, at a great depth, of certain pieces of Roman masonry, it is supposed that an amphitheatre once occupied the ground now covered by the Cathedral, the Giralda, and the Court of the Oranges. There is no doubt that the Mosque of the Almohade ruler was a vast and noble building, resembling in most of its characters that of Córdova. The minaret, now called the Giralda, is certainly one of the most ancient buildings in the city. It is recorded that the Moorish astronomers used the tower as an observatory. Probably the minaret served the double purpose of praying-tower and astronomical outlook. In building the tower the remains of ruined Roman and Gothic structures were used by the Moors, just as the Christians afterwards employed portions of the mosques and palaces for building their temples. The original minaret was about two hundred and thirty feet in height. At each corner of the minaret stood four huge brass balls, which were thrown down in the earthquake of 1395.