Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the original ceiling, built by Abderama, of cedar and larch, was preserved with all its compartments, soffits, lozenges, and oriental magnificence; it has now been replaced by arches and half-cupolas, of a very mediocre effect. The old slabs have disappeared under a brick pavement, which has raised the ground, partly concealed the shafts of the pillars, and rendered still more evident the building, which is too low for its size. All these acts of profanation, however, do not prevent the mosque of Cordova from still being one of the most marvellous buildings in the world. To make us feel, as it were, still more bitterly the mutilations of the rest, one portion, called the _Mirah_, has been preserved as if by a miracle, in a state of the most scrupulous integrity. [Illustration: CHAPEL IN MOSQUE, CORDOVA.] The wooden roof, carved and gilt, with its _median aranja_, spangled with stars, the open windowshafts, garnished with railings which render the light so soft and mellow, the gallery of small trefoiled columns, the mosaic tablets of coloured glass, and the verses from the Koran, formed of gilt crystal letters, and wreathed about with the most gracefully complicated ornaments and arabesques, compose a picture which, for richness, beauty, and fairy elegance, is to be equalled nowhere save in the "Thousand-and-One Nights," and could not be improved by any effort of art. Never were lines better chosen or colours better combined; even those found in the most capricious and delicate specimens of Gothic architecture have something poor, weakly and emaciated about them which betrays the infancy of the art. The architecture of the _Mirah_, on the contrary, is an instance of a state of civilization which has reached its greatest development, of art arrived at its culminating point; all beyond it is nothing but a retrogression. Nothing is wanting, neither proportion, harmony, richness, nor gracefulness. On leaving this chapel, you enter a little sanctuary profusely ornamented, the ceiling of which is formed of a single block of marble, scooped out in the form of a shell, and carved with infinite delicacy. This was probably the _sanctum sanctorum_, the dread and sacred place where the presence of the Deity was supposed to be more palpable than anywhere else. Another chapel called _Capilla de los Reyes Moros_, where the caliphs used to pray apart from the common herd of the Faithful, also offers some curious and charming details; but it has not been so fortunate as the _Mirah_, its colours having disappeared under an ignoble coating of whitewash.