The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-19
MODERN CORDoVA.


Continued from Tenth Page)
ca; hence the foot-worn pavement
which to-day shows deep hollow, cir
| cular in form, surrounding the point Of
| devotion.
| Abdu-r-rahman III. built the beauai-
full minaret, and Al-Mansur added the
eight naves on the eastern side. The
| last named monarch was gathered to
his fathers in the year 1902; and after
his death nothing more was done to the
mosque until the thirteenth century,
when it was seized by barbarian Span
iards, who have ever since been de-
stroying its symmetry and effacing its
original character by repeated mutila-
lions. Roman Catholic choirs and al
tars weree erected in the very middle,
by order of Charles ", and stalls, pull
pits, shrines, confessionals, images and
other church paraphernalia scattered all
over i.
You may travel the wide world over
and find no sanctuary of any faith so
impressive at this temple of Allah,
none which seems so fit a dwelling
place for Him who fills all space, above
the petty creeds and dogmas of men.
Perhaps it is the immense width and
depth of the interior, its infinitude of
columns and mysterious perspectives.
combined with the ancient traditions Of
the place, that transport the visitor at
once to daeys of the Caliphs and render
the commonplace world of the TWEEN
tieteh century ilusory and unreal!
The whole place seems peopled with
shadowy forms, standing with suppl
eating hands and faces turned toward
Mecca, or PROSTATE upon their prayer
rugs; while from the minaret, far over
head, sounds the Muezzins' cry, Come
to Prayer! Prayer is better than
sleep"
The most beautiful feature of the in
terror is it's dense forest of many-col-
ored marble columns, supporting the
Moorish arches of the roof, which broods
over all like the sense of Gods benef-
cence, not afar off but near and tangi-
Bile. Originally their were twelve hum
dred of these shafts, and upwards of a
thousand yet remain. 1t is marble
labyrinth, of endless vistas and mysti-
flying space One is astonished at the
infinite varieties Of stone and the many
tints it can assume-from black to pur-
est white; malachite green as emerald;
crimson blood-stone; black veined and
notified with chrome; ultramarine, pur-
pie, porpheery, jasper, lapis lazali,
white streaked with carnelian, snakely-
mottled serpentine, and innumerable
other combinations Of color,
The principal entrance is through the
beautiful Court of Oranges, with its
stately palms and quaint old Moorish
fountain, it's groups of idlers' and char
acteristic Spanish scenes. 1t was built
by Said Ben Ayub in 937, and its rows of
trees originally correspondent with the
lines of columns in the mosque. Pass
ing under the high peaked doorway.
which is surmounted by softly tinted
azuelos Moorish titles), spelling out
texts from the Koran-you are at once
in the margle forest, where countless
magnificent naves stretch away and in
tersect, and shining pillars, of eevery
tint in the rainbow, spring up to the
delicate horseshoe arches. In some
sections the ceiling is dazzling with ar
abesques and crystals, in others 1t is
richly panelled and gilded; and here
and there vandal Spaniards have paint
ed it red and yellow! AS the external
walls enclose an area of four acres
minute description is impossible in the
limits of newspaper letter. Among
the special sights to which the guide
will lead you is the Puerta del Perdon,
so called because built with money
raised by the sale of Tndulgences It is !.
an arched entrance Of purely Oriental
type, embellished with the arms of Cas-
tile and Leon. It's doors, usually closed,
are covered with bronze plating, with
Gothic and Arabic Inscriptions, and the
words lin Spanish) THE Empire be-
longs to God and all is His
You will be shown a pale-yelow col
umn flushed with pink-a species of
marble of which no quarries now exist
near the base of which a rude crucifx
may be dimly traced The story goes
(but nobody believes IT, that ae Chris
tan captive was chained to his pillar in
the time of Hakem Ill He would have
been released unpublished had he not
desecrated Allah's temple by scratching
with his nails the Christian emblem
upon the pillar. For that crime he was
garroted on the spot.
Some of the doorways are marvellous |
ly rich in Moorish spandrels and latticed
openings, with fine Oriental ornamen- |
tations and Cutie inscriptions. Others |
are deliberately carved in the platter
asque style; and others set round with a |
multitude of statues and images. One |
If the aforementioned, flanked with an
cient Mosaics and surmounted by a
queer azmiel window, is pointed out as
he private door by which the sultan al
ways entered the mosque; and the low
'rypt may be seen, called the Maksurah,
where he prayed on Fridays. Near it
White marble slab and a padlocked urn
mark the resting place of five bishops of
Christian Cordova. Their tomb was re-
tored in 1857 by Bishop Leopold, broth
r of the Emperor of Austria, who him
'elf lies between the High Altar and the
'hoir. FANNIE B. WARD.
Don do much hustlin' around" said