whence to sally
forth and lay the neighboring plains under contribution. Then came the
French as conquerors, who expelled the lawless intruders, themselves,
perhaps, quite as deserving of the title; but they did good work in
clearing what had become an Augean stable of its worst filth and
partially restoring the choicest work of the Moorish builders. To-day
the Spanish government guards with jealous care a monumental treasure
which cannot be equalled in the kingdom.

A day's journey northward brings us to Cordova, which was the capital of
Moorish Spain ten centuries ago, when the city could boast a million
inhabitants. Now it has thirty thousand. One of the most prominent
objects is the ancient stone bridge, supported by broad, irregular
arches. For two thousand years that old bridge has battled with the
elements; Romans, Moors, and Spaniards have fiercely contended at its
entrances; the tides of victory and of defeat have swept again and again
across its roadway. Leaning over its stone barriers we watch the river
pursue its rapid course just as it has done for twenty centuries.
Palaces, temples, shrines, may crumble, nations rise and fall, but the
Guadalquiver still flows on.

The one great interest of Cordova is its cathedral, erected sixteen
centuries ago. Beautiful are its still remaining hundreds of interior
columns, composed of porphyry, jasper, granite, alabaster, verd-antique,
and marble of various colors. Each of the columns upholds a small
pilaster, and between them is a horseshoe arch, no two of the columns
being alike. They came from Greece, Rome, Constantinople, Damascus, and
the Temple of Jerusalem. All the then known world was put under
contribution to furnish the twelve hundred columns of this wonderful
temple. The great mosque was changed into a cathedral after the
expulsion of the Arabs, but a large portion of the interior is untouched
and remains as it was when the caliphs worshipped here. Inside and out
it is gloomy, massive, and frowning, forming one of the most remarkable
links still existing in Spain between the remote past and the present.
It appears to be nearly as large upon the ground as St. Peter's at Rome,
and contains fifty separate chapels within its capacious walls. It has,
in its passage through the several dynasties of Roman, Moorish, and
Spanish rule, received distinctive architectural marks from each. Its
large, cool court of orange-trees, centuries old, its battlemented walls
and