de usually passed the
evening with the royal Moor, the ceiling was composed of gold and
burnished steel, incrusted with precious stones. And in the resplendent
light reflected from these brilliant ornaments by a hundred crystal
lustres, flashed the waters of a fountain, formed like a sheaf of grain,
from polished silver, whose delicate spray was received again by the
alabaster basin from whose centre it sprung.

The reader might hesitate to believe these recitals; might suppose
himself perusing Oriental tales, or that the author was indebted for his
history to the _Thousand and One Nights_, were {68} not the facts here
detailed attested by the Arabian writers, and corroborated by foreign
authors of unquestionable veracity. It is true that the architectural
magnificence, the splendid pageantry, the pomp of power that
characterized the reign of this illustrious Saracenic king, resembled
nothing with which we are now familiar; but the incredulous questioners
of their former existence might be asked whether, had the pyramids of
Egypt been destroyed by an earthquake, they would now credit historians
who should give us the exact dimensions of those stupendous structures?

The writers from whom are derived the details that have been given
concerning the court of the Spanish Mussulmans, mention also the sums
expended in the erection of the palace and city of Zahra. The cost
amounted annually to three hundred thousand dinars of gold,[13] and
twenty-five years hardly sufficed for the completion of this princely
monument of chivalrous devotion.

{69}

To these enormous expenditures should be added the maintenance of a
seraglio, in which the women, the slaves, and the black and white eunuchs
amounted to the number of six thousand persons. The officers of the
court, and the horses destined for their use, were in equally lavish
proportion. The royal guard alone was composed of twelve thousand
cavaliers.

When it is remembered, that, from being continually at war with the
Spanish princes, Abderamus was obliged to keep numerous armies
incessantly on foot, to support a naval force, frequently to hire
stipendiaries from Africa, and to fortify and preserve in a state of
defence the ever-endangered fortresses on his frontiers, it is hardly
possible to comprehend how his revenues sufficed for the supply of such
immense and varied demands. But his resources were equally immense and
varied; and the sovereign of Cordova was perhaps