nt here by their
parents to beg, but had forgotten their vocation. Sitting on the stone
bench, which surrounds the outside walls of the mosque, were little
groups of hale and hearty men, playing cards and smoking; while others,
stretched at full length upon the ground, slept just where the dancing
sunlight pierced the leaves and branches of the trees and mottled their
faces with its shimmering rays. Idleness is the general business of
Cordova. What a strange, weird aspect the deep shades assumed beneath
the graceful palms and slender cypresses. The Babel of pleading tongues
from the beggars, the merry voices of the laughing children, the angry
dispute of some card players, and the cool business-like aspect of the
priests shuffling about the corridors, while a little confusing was
still impressive.

The best dwelling-houses in Cordova are built upon the Moorish model;
that is, they have a central court or garden, visible from the street
entrance, which is adorned with trees, flowers, and fountains, usually
guarded by an iron gate and an inner glass door. The domestic life of
the family centres here, where in summer a broad canvas is drawn over
the top, and the meals are taken underneath in the open air. We saw,
late in March, orange and lemon-trees blooming in these areas, as well
as Bengal monthly and common white roses, tea-roses, verbenas,
tiger-lilies, carnations, and scarlet geraniums. Neither the palm nor
the orange will grow without shelter in this part of Spain,--the north
winds being too cold and piercing,--except by artificial culture. Spain
is almost a treeless country, her immense olive orchards serving but
partially to redeem the barren aspect of the southern and middle
districts. In the orange court of the Grand Mosque, the lofty old
Moorish wall forms a protecting screen. The Alameda of Cordova must be
quite denuded of foliage in winter, exposed as it is to the north winds
and frosty nights. It is a short but very broad thoroughfare, with a
tree-lined promenade through its centre, like that at Malaga, but it
seemed singularly out of place in a city so utterly void of life and
animation.

Spain is a country of beggars, but in this ancient town one is actually
beset by them. Travelers, stopping at the same hotel with us,
abbreviated their stay in the city on account of this great annoyance.
As far as one can judge, these people have no pressing reason for
begging. It has become a habit, and strangers are i