groves and gardens and winding streams, and guarded by the famous
Mountains of the Sun and Air, forms the foreground to the picture,
while in the distance we see the gloomy mountain passes, the fortified
rocks and castles, and the great walled cities, through which the
Moors passed, always victorious and never pausing until their banners
floated from every cliff and tower.

Scattered through the narrative of battles and sieges we find also
many legends that abounded at that time both in the Moslem and
Christian faiths, translated with such fidelity from the old
chroniclers that they retain all the supernatural flavor of the
original. Here we learn how Arab and Christian alike beheld portents,
saw visions, received messages from the spirits, and were advised,
encouraged, and comforted by signs and warnings from heaven, the whole
narrative being most valuable as presenting in fine literary form
the every-day life and intense religious fervor of the soldier of the
middle ages.

For eight hundred years the Moors held Spain. They built beautiful
cities and palaces, the remains of which are marvels to this day;
they made the plain of Granada a garden of flowers; they preserved
classical literature when the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance;
they studied the sciences, and had great and famous schools, which
were attended by the youth of all nations; they rescued the Jewish
people from the oppression of the Spaniards, and made them honorable
citizens; and they impressed upon their surroundings an art so
beautiful that its influence has extended throughout Christendom.
Their occupation of Spain at that time probably did more for the
preservation of literature, science, and art than any other event in
history.

In his chapters on the Alhambra, the beauties of that celebrated
palace, the favorite abode of the Moorish kings, is described by
Irving as seen by him during a visit in 1829. Even at that date,
nearly four hundred years after its seizure by the Spaniards, the
Alhambra retained much of its original magnificence. The great courts,
with their pavements of white marble, and fountains bordered with
roses, the archways, balconies, and halls decorated with fretwork and
filigree and incrusted with tiles of the most exquisite design;
the gilded cupolas and panels of lapis lazuli, and the carved lions
supporting the alabaster basins of the fountains, all appealed to
Irving so strongly that when he first entered the palace i