in the perpetual independence of the wee republic of Andorra, whose
inhabitants so successfully stemmed the tide of invasion. The story of
Charles Martel, too, the "Hammer" who broke the Muslim power in that
direction, is one of the most important in the history of Europe.
What if the people who were already levying taxes in the districts of
Narbonne and Nimes had found as easy a victory over the vineyards of
southern France, as they had over those of Spain? Where would they
have stopped? Would they ever have been driven out, or would St.
Paul's have been a second Kutubiya, and Westminster a Karueein? God
knows!

II. CORDOVA

The earliest notable monument of Moorish dominion in Andalucia
still existing is the famous mosque of Cordova, now deformed into a
cathedral. Its erection occupied the period from 786 to 796 of the
Christian era, and it is said that it stands on the site of a Gothic
church erected on the ruins of a still earlier temple dedicated
to Janus. Portions, however, have been added since that date, as
inscriptions on the walls record, and the European additions date from
1521, when, notwithstanding the protests of the people of Cordova,
the bishops obtained permission from Charles V. to rear the present
quasi-Gothic structure in its central court. The disgust and anger
which the lover of Moorish architecture--or art of any sort--feels
for the name of "_Carlos quinto_," as at point after point hideous
additions to the Moorish remains are ascribed to that conceited
monarch, are somewhat tempered for once by the record that even he
repented when he saw the result of his permission in this instance.
"You have built here," he said, "what you might have built anywhere,
and in doing so you have spoiled what was unique in the world!" In
each of the three great centres of Moorish rule, Seville, Granada and
Cordova, the same hand is responsible for outrageous modern erections
in the midst of hoary monuments of eastern art, carefully inscribed
with their author's name, as "Caesar the Emperor, Charles the Fifth."

The Cordova Mosque, antedated only by those of Old Cairo and Kairwan,
is a forest of marble pillars, with a fine court to the west,
surrounded by an arcade, and planted with orange trees and palms,
interspersed with fountains. Nothing in Morocco can compare with it
save the Karueein mosque at Fez, built a century later, but that
building is too low, and the pillars are for the most part mere brick
er