ir master, Constantine son of Leo, Lord of Constantinah the Great,
(Constantinople.) It was written on sky-blue paper, and the characters
were of gold. Within the letter was an enclosure, the ground of which
was also sky-blue like the first, but the characters were of silver:
it was likewise written in Greek, and contained a list of the presents
which the Lord of Constantinah sent to the Khalif. On the letter was a
seal of gold of the weight of four mithkals, on one side of which was
a likeness of the Messiah, and on the other those of the King
Constantine and his son. The letter was enclosed in a bag of silver
cloth, over which was a case of gold, with a portrait of King
Constantine admirably executed on stained glass. All this was enclosed
in a case covered with cloth of silk and gold tissue. On the first
line of the _Inwan_ or introduction was written, 'Constantine and
Romanin, (Romanus,) believers in the Messiah, kings of the Greeks;'
and in the next, 'To the great and exalted in dignity and power, as he
most deserves, the noble in descent, Abdurrahman the khalif, who rules
over the Arabs of Andalus: may God preserve his life!'" The conclusion
of this splendid ceremony was, however, less imposing than the
commencement; for a learned _Faquih_, who had been appointed to
harangue the envoys in a set speech, was so overawed by the grandeur
around him, that "his tongue clove to his mouth, he could not
aticulate a single word, and fell senseless to the ground" Nor did his
successor, "who was reputed to be a prince in rhetoric, and an ocean
of language," fare much better; for though he began fluently, "all of
a sudden he stopped for want of a word which did not occur to him, and
thus put an end to his peroration." In this awkward dilemma, the
reputation of the Andalusian rhetoricians was saved by Mundhir Ibn
Said, who not only poured forth a torrent of impromptu eloquence, but
delivered a long ex-tempore poem, "which to this day stands
unequalled; and Abdurrahman was so pleased, that he appointed him
preacher and Imam to the great mosque; and some time after, the office
of Kadi-'l-jamah, or supreme judge, being vacant, he named him to that
high post, and made him besides reader of the Khoran to the mosque of
Az-zahra."

The palace of Az-zahra, where the eyes of the Greeks were dazzled by
this costly pageant, is one of the familiar names of the romance of
Spanish history:--it is known to all the world how Abdurrahman, to
g