, and worthy of the Mohamedan creed.
Tradition hints at a miller having laid claim to him; but as he could
offer no proofs why the ass should not have been in Paradise, and seeing
that the ass was as white as the prophet's, the miller was ordered to
look for his donkey elsewhere, as this was the ass of the prophet.

How long this favoured quadruped lived is not recorded, but no doubts
have been raised as to his eventual demise; and he, too, was heard
braying furiously from his resting-place when the winds blew high.

But few vestiges are now left of this once splendid alcazar. Time defied
its ornamental turrets and richly chased walls, and levelled them with
the ground. Only the surrounding rocks have remained, and with them many
traditions. These the inhabitants of the district have preserved intact,
or maybe added to their interest by investing them with a semblance to
truth which renders them all the more worthy of preservation, as being
stepping-stones carrying us back to a long past.

But even where such doubtful lore holds the people in awe, a few may be
found who, although rejecting that part of the tradition which is
evidently but the fruit of a fertile imagination, or of religious
fanaticism, recognize in these legends the preservation of a still
unwritten history, to whose identification with facts the ruins of many
a Moslem building of rare architectural beauty attest.

And if, after many a sanguinary fight, the Cross was victorious over the
Crescent, the Christian population of the Iberic Peninsula must admit
that the faint vestiges of beauty in their architecture of to-day have
an Arabic origin; that to their Moorish conquerors they owe much of the
daring and endurance which characterized the generation of great
navigators, as also to them was due the introduction of many of the
useful arts and sciences.

The traveller will now look in vain for the alcazar of El Rachid at
Freixo. The mighty rocks alone mark the spot, and naught remains of art
to please the eye. Traditionary lore may interest him, but he must be
ready to listen to it with all the additions which a gross superstition
can alone invent or believe.

Here, then, is it recorded that Al Rachid held a Christian maiden
captive for many years. That she was as good as she was beautiful goes
without further remark. Maria das Dores, for so she is named by her
chroniclers, was one of those splendid women worthy to be the mothers of
that succeeding g