Chapter XXX (2)

The manufacture of silk at Seville gave employment to a hundred and sixty thousand weavers, a number of whom were employed in the fabrication of the stuff called tiraz, whose use was a royal prerogative. Xativa was long the seat of the first paper factory in Europe,--that substance whose invention has contributed so greatly to the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of civilization. For ages known to the Chinese, the Arabs substituted linen, and finally cotton, for the silk which had been employed in the Celestial empire. Its introduction by the Spanish Moors into Europe is indisputable, a manuscript of cotton paper dating from the eleventh century having been discovered in the library of the Escorial. Although used at Mecca in 710, it was practically unknown in Europe until the fifteenth century, and was not manufactured in London before 1690. The extraordinary impulse imparted to letters by the khalifs, the countless volumes contained in the imperial libraries, the transcriptions of rare manuscripts, and the constant publication of new works for whose composition, if possessed of merit, incredible premiums were paid, must have caused an immense consumption of paper. A profession held in such honor, and whose productions were rewarded with such munificence, naturally attracted to its ranks the noble and the learned of every Moslem nation; and especially was this the case in the Peninsula, where the highest literary advantages were enjoyed even by families of humble rank; and where education among all classes was not only a religious duty, but a stigma attached to its neglect. In consequence of this, literary pursuits became not only a fashion but a pleasure; a correct taste was formed; popular emulation was aroused; the manufacture of books was multiplied; and the palaces of the rich, irrespective of their nationality, were filled with collections which would have provoked the astonishment of a learned “clerk” of France or Britain, whose superiority over his parishioners consisted in his ability to write an illegible scrawl and to intone the service--whose meaning he often did not comprehend, and the application of whose teachings was a matter of conjecture--in a barbarous jargon of monkish Latin. Care for the preservation, and facilities for the purchase, of these literary treasures kept pace with their original production. Binding in leather was perfectly understood, and the elaborately decorated cases in which the volumes were often enclosed were deposited upon shelves of aromatic and precious woods, such as cedar, aloe, ebony, and sandal.

The change from the roll of the ancients to the square form of books now used dates from the middle of the fifth century. The art had already reached a high degree of perfection before the establishment of Islamism. Its best efforts were originally, as might be conjectured, confined to works on sacred subjects. Bindings enriched with ivory, gems, cameos, medallions, and clasps of the precious metals were adorned with the utmost skill of the goldsmith and the lapidary. The Arabs, and especially those of Spain,--the seat of the greatest culture of the race,--excelled in this art, as in all others to which they diligently applied their talents and their industry. The superiority of their materials, the beauty of their designs, the brilliancy of their colors, and the profusion of their ornamentation were proverbial. The value of their covers caused the disappearance and mutilation of great numbers of works, now either entirely lost or existing only in a fragmentary condition. At the sack of Cordova, the Berbers used the leather of priceless volumes for sandals. The Castilian invader stripped others of their gold and jewels and contemptuously cast the manuscripts away. The magnificence of those sacrificed to the malignant energy of Ximenes in the destruction of Moslem learning at Granada only intensified the prejudice existing against Arabic literature in the mind of every ignorant and infuriated bigot of the time.

The trade in books held a high rank in the commercial world; its profits corresponded with its mercantile importance; and in the time of Al-Hakem II. the booksellers in Cordova alone numbered more than twenty thousand.

The various kinds of textile fabrics manufactured by the Spanish Arabs embraced every species of stuffs and every style of pattern. In addition to silk, the fine merino wools of Lusitania and the cotton and flax for which Andalusia was long famous furnished to the weaver supplies of raw material unsurpassed in strength and delicacy of fibre. Silk introduced into Spain by the Moors had for centuries been known to the inhabitants of Yemen, who had become familiar with it through their trade with China. Its use was forbidden to men by Mohammed, in whose time it was a mark of effeminacy; but this prohibition was constantly and systematically evaded by the artifice of mingling a few threads of wool or cotton in the web of the fabric. Essentially an article of luxury, the amount consumed in the Peninsula indicated the prosperous condition of a society which could afford to purchase in such quantities a material that in many countries commanded extravagant prices. As an article of export none was more in demand or more profitable. The broad and discerning government of the khalifs, which, in accordance with the true principles of political economy, promoted every important branch of commerce, regarded its culture and manufacture with peculiar favor. It was by an especial provision of the law exempted from taxation. They encouraged by bounties the planting of mulberry-trees. In addition to the incredible numbers of these to be encountered in the valleys of Granada, Valencia, and Almeria, the city of Jaen, whose climate and situation were remarkably propitious to the rearing of silk-worms, was the centre of three thousand hamlets devoted to this lucrative industry. While in Spain silk was a common material for the apparel of the rich, elsewhere in Europe it was one of the rarest of commodities and a commercial curiosity. It formed part of the most precious booty of the Crusaders. Relics were enclosed in its folds as the most costly of fabrics. It was spread upon the altars of noble cathedrals. Monarchs were delighted with the possession of a small piece of a stuff which for generations had filled the shops and furnished the wardrobes of wealthy citizens of Granada, Cordova, and Seville.

By the cultivation of a single branch of manufactures in a particular locality, the subjects of the khalif, profiting by experience, by the transmission of hereditary talent to successive generations, by the improvement in mechanical processes which from time to time spontaneously suggested themselves, attained in many departments of industry to an almost unprecedented degree of dexterity. Water-power was used to drive machinery in all the Andalusian manufacturing centres; in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella looms were still operated by means of it at Cordova. Nearly every city was noted for a specialty in whose fabrication it excelled. The armorers of Seville were famous for their coats of mail and armor inlaid and embossed with gold. The swords of Toledo were considered unapproachable for the elegance of their chasing, the keenness of their edge, and the fineness of their temper. At Almeria were made articles of gilded and decorated glass, the method of whose manufacture, carried by the Moors to Italy, is now possessed in its perfection by the Venetians alone. The superiority of the woollens of Cuenca and the cottons of Beja was undisputed. Bocayrente produced a linen fabric of gossamer lightness, which resembled the meshes of a spider’s web in strength and in delicacy. The carpets of Murcia had no equals except in Persia. The silken gauzes and sumptuous caparisons of Granada were sent as presents to kings. In its Alcaiceria, or Silk Market, were two hundred shops for the exclusive sale of that staple. It is said that in this beautiful city edifices built for the transaction of business resembled palaces in their splendor. Its tapestries and brocades were wonderful specimens of the weaver’s skill, and their designs were subsequently used as models by the artisans of Italy and France. There also were made exquisite enamels and vases of rock-crystal. The Moorish jewellers of Granada were the most celebrated in Europe. Among the specimens of their handiwork is mentioned a necklace containing four hundred pearls, each worth a hundred and fifty dinars. Alicante enjoyed a monopoly in its mats and baskets of esparto, that tough African grass, whose employment dates from the occupation of Iberia by the Carthaginians, and whose manifold uses are so admirably adapted to the requirements of a tropical climate. The mills of Saragossa and Murcia, built upon boats moored over the rapid currents of the Ebro and the Guadalaviar, were renowned for the excellent character of their flour. The drug-market of Lorca was universally resorted to by physicians, aware that their reputation depended on the purity of the medicines they administered and relying upon the official supervision of the government as a sufficient guaranty of their excellence. No such organized and co-operative system for the production of commodities and fabrics had at that time been adopted by any other nation in the world. The founder’s art, particularly exemplified in the casting of ponderous pieces of metal, was practised with a surprising degree of skill. Cordova contained at least one establishment of this description, where were made the figures for the decoration of the fountains at Medina-al-Zahrâ. The usual difficulties attending the even distribution of the molten metal during the operation of casting seem to have been entirely overcome in the examples to be met with in the museums of Europe, and the results appear to have been as complete and satisfactory as in the perfected processes of the present day.

In every department of scientific labor, in every practical operation of life demanding a high degree of mechanical skill, the Spanish Moor exhibited on all occasions a precocious and remarkable ingenuity. There was no field too extensive, no detail too insignificant, to be investigated by his enterprising genius. The marvellous scope of his powers was the greatest factor of his success. Like the famous English philosopher, he seemed to have “taken all knowledge to be his province.” His intellectual faculties grasped and utilized in an instant conceptions that individuals of other nations would have, and, in fact, often did, cast aside with contempt. The pioneer of modern progress, the permanent traces he has left upon civilization, and his salutary customs, adopted by posterity in defiance of popular odium and traditional prejudice, are unwilling tributes of national and ecclesiastical hostility to the talents and greatness of an accomplished people to whom history is indebted for the sole bright spot on the dark map of mediæval Europe.

For the commodities of European convenience and Oriental luxury were bartered innumerable products of Moorish agriculture, mining enterprise, and manufacturing skill,--the oils, the fruits, the sugar, the rice, the cotton, of Andalusia and Valencia; cochineal, which abounded in many parts of the Peninsula; the antimony and quicksilver of Estremadura; the rubies, amethysts, and pearls of Alicante and Carthagena; the linens of Salamanca; the woollens of Segovia; the silks of Granada; the damasks of Almeria; the blades and armor of Seville and Toledo. The product of the paper-mills of Xativa, famous throughout the East, was annually exported in large quantities. Malaga disposed of the most of its exquisite ceramic manufactures in Syria and Constantinople. From Cordova came the enamelled leather, long famous from the name of the Ommeyade capital. The horses of the Hispano-Arab breed were transported in great numbers even as far as Persia. In the kingdom of Granada a hundred thousand were regularly maintained for the use of the crown. Andalusia enjoyed an infamous celebrity as the principal market for eunuchs in the world. The supply came from France, Galicia, and Barbary, through the medium of Christian and Hebrew dealers, by whose instrumentality, also, these unfortunates were prepared for the humiliating service of the seraglio. Vast multitudes of other slaves, the produce of foray and conquest, were also disposed of from time to time; a single expedition of Al-Mansur conveyed to Cordova nine thousand Christian captives. Thus, exclusive of other booty, prisoners of war were a source of constant and enormous revenue to the state.

The natural resources of Sicily and its fortunate position, as the entrepôt of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, were the means of enriching its people beyond that of any territory of equal area known in any age. The harbors of Palermo and Syracuse were constantly crowded with shipping. Sicilian merchantmen were to be encountered in every European port; they brought cargoes of slaves, ivory, and gold-dust from the coast of Guinea; they traversed the canal of Suez,--reopened by the Egyptian khalifs,--and, braving the tempests of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, penetrated to the Spice Islands of the far distant East. The intimate relations of the Moorish princes of Sicily with the khalifs of Cordova and the Byzantine emperors placed within reach of their merchants every article of popular research and commercial value. In exchange for these, they exported the vegetable and mineral productions of the island,--cotton, hemp, grapes, oranges, sugar, wine, and oil; copper, lead, iron, and mercury; rock-salt, sal-ammoniac, and vitriol; cattle and horses; and the shell-fish from which was extracted the Tyrian purple. The profits of this extensive commerce were naturally productive of enormous wealth; the warehouses of the Sicilian cities were crowded with valuable merchandise of every conceivable description; the houses of the Palermitan merchants rivalled the palaces of sovereigns; and the people in effeminacy and voluptuousness, in no respect surpassed by the inhabitants of ancient Sybaris, were proverbial for their opulence, their refinement, their extravagance, and their luxury.

It will appear from the foregoing observations that the energy manifested by the European Moslems in mercantile pursuits was fully equal to their industrial and literary activity. In neither the ancient nor the mediæval world did any nation--excepting the Phœnicians--approach the Spanish and the Sicilian Arabs in craft, in foresight, in enterprise, in accuracy of judgment, in that singleness of purpose which is indispensable to success. Their Midas touch turned everything to gold. They were familiar with Oriental countries at a period when the very existence of the latter was unknown to Europe or was considered fabulous. The number of shops for the sale of merchandise which existed in the great cities indicated the immensity of the traffic of which they were the centres; of these Cordova contained more than eighty thousand. The rules which governed the transactions of commercial intercourse in the markets of the Peninsula were so simple, convenient, and equitable that they were subsequently adopted by many other nations. The learned French writer, Sédillot, is authority for the statement that Europe has borrowed from the Arabs some of its most important principles of finance as well as its present code of maritime law.

To the Moslems we owe the adaptation of the magnetic needle to the purposes of navigation, an invention long erroneously attributed to the sailors of Amalfi. Its peculiar properties, familiar for ages to the Chinese, were probably communicated by them to the Arabs. Originally inserted in a cork and permitted to float on the surface of water, the Moors were the first to mount it on a pivot, thereby vastly increasing its utility and accuracy. They were evidently acquainted with it before the twelfth century, as Arab writers of that epoch allude without comment to the compass as an instrument perfectly familiar to the seamen of the Mediterranean. To the Mussulman the magnet possessed a threefold significance and value. It guided his vessel across the trackless waters independently of the appearance of the stars. It indicated unerringly the course of the caravan in the Desert, constantly menaced by the perils of thirst and of the simoom. And it enabled the pious worshipper, however distant from the Mosque of Mecca, to ascertain in an instant the point to which he should direct his face during the hours of prayer.

The laborious and exhaustive investigations of Reinand, Favé, Le Bon, and Viardot have demonstrated beyond dispute that the Arabs were the inventors of gunpowder and artillery. While it was admitted that these destructive agents were introduced into Europe by the Moors of Spain, their discovery was long universally ascribed to the Chinese. As a matter of fact, they were first made use of in Syria and Egypt, probably as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century. The primitive lombards of the Sultan of Egypt, which cast great balls of stone, terrified the army of St. Louis in 1249. Artillery was employed by the Moors, besieged in Niebla by Alfonso X., in 1257. According to Ibn-Khaldun, it was used by Abu-Yusuf, Emir of Morocco, at the siege of Sidjilmesa, in 1273. Ibn-al-Khatib says that cannon were made in Granada before 1300, and mentions Ibn-al-Hadj as famous for his skill in their manufacture. After that time they are frequently mentioned by the Spanish historians of the Reconquest. Their first appearance in the wars of France was in 1338. The Earls of Salisbury and Derby, who served in the army of Alfonso XI., before Algeziras, in 1342, carried the knowledge of the invention to England four years before the battle of Crecy, an epoch which marks its general adoption in Europe. Considering the immense military superiority which we should naturally attribute to a people exclusively acquainted with the formula for the manufacture of gunpowder and experienced in its application to fire-arms, it is remarkable that this enormous power was not more profitably utilized by the Spanish Arabs, who possessed it a century before the portentous secret became known to the nations of Christendom.

Among the Moslems, the operations of war were rarely carried on according to a definite plan. Military service was not merely a matter of patriotism or loyalty, it was a religious duty imposed by his faith upon every Mussulman, and from which only the infirm and the aged were exempt. As of old in the Desert, each clan marched under its hereditary commander. In important campaigns the army was marshalled in five grand divisions, symbolical of the five cardinal precepts of Islam, an arrangement by which the valor of the warrior was strengthened by the stimulus of fanatical zeal. The Koran was always in sight, either borne like a standard on the point of a lance or held in the hand of the general, as he directed the manœuvres of the field. There was no regular attempt at organization. The troops depended largely on the enemy for subsistence. The cavalry were generally clad in mail; the infantry were, as a rule, little better than a half-armed rabble. If repulsed at the first onset, it was almost impossible to rally a Moslem army.

Among the most remarkable institutions of the Arabs of Spain was the Ribat, or station on the frontier of the enemy, which formed the model of the orders of military monks of the Middle Ages. These establishments were strongly fortified castles, garrisoned by devout soldiers, who expected the recompense promised by the Koran for constant service against the infidel. The leisure time of their occupants was spent in religious exercises. Many pious volunteers sought glory and holiness in the dangerous life which the exposed position of these outposts afforded. The latter guarded the passes of every hostile country; they were found on the borders of Italy, Languedoc, Castile, Aragon, Portugal. Their rules of discipline, their vows, and their penances presented a striking analogy to those of the orders of Santiago, Alcantara, and Calatrava, whose organization they evidently suggested. Their foundation preceded those of the Hospital and the Temple by more than two hundred and fifty years.

The coinage of the Ommeyades of Spain was the purest, the most artistic in design, the most elegant in execution, which had to that time been known in Europe. It was composed of the dinar, of gold, equal to two dollars; the dirhem, of silver, equal to twelve cents; and various small pieces of copper of fluctuating value.

The balance, whose value to the merchant would not be fully apparent unless he were deprived of it, is also an invention of the Arabs. The Moorish unit of linear measure was represented by a horsehair. Six of these placed together were equal to a grain of barley; six grains of barley made a finger-breadth; four fingers a palm; six palms a cubit. Of modern weights in ordinary use, the grain, represented by a barley-corn, and the carat, adapted from the seed of the pea, have descended without alteration from the Arabs to our goldsmiths and jewellers.

The political, religious, and domestic institutions of the Arabs, which account in a measure for the amazing rapidity of their progress in Europe as elsewhere, were also largely responsible for the downfall of their power. Their government, derived from the patriarchal organization of the Desert and confirmed by the revered precepts of Islam, placed absolutely unlimited authority in the hands of the sovereign. The khalif, as the word implies, was the Successor of the Prophet. Fortune was long eminently propitious to the Ommeyade dynasty in providing it with a line of kings even more distinguished in the arts of peace than in the arduous and uncertain achievements of conquest. But these talents for administration and war, it is obvious, could not be indefinitely transmitted. With the first appearance of royal incapacity, the sceptre passed into the hands of ambitious statesmen, ready to sacrifice the claims of religion and hereditary descent to considerations of private emolument and distinction. The epoch included in the reign of Hischem II. is the most glorious in Moslem annals. But that renown was achieved not by the Khalif in person, nor even under his direction, but by Al-Mansur, his Prime Minister, who, although of obscure birth, guided, as did the Frankish Mayors of the Palace, by his transcendent and unaided genius the destinies of the empire. The example of his success and the attempt to bequeath to his son the power which he alone was able to wield were fatal to the Moslem domination, and contributed with other causes of equal gravity to its ultimate overthrow.

In the civil and military organization of the government the patriarchal traditions of the Bedouin were preserved, under circumstances little suggestive of his origin and highly incongruous and inexpedient, amidst the results of an advanced civilization. The authority and office of the sheik were reproduced under other names, which, even to the ignorant foreigner, did not serve to disguise their identity. Founded equally upon the legislation of the Koran, the administrations of the Sultans of Bagdad and the Khalifs of Cordova differed only in the most trifling details. Under both, the prince was daily accessible to the complaints, and redressed in person the grievances of his subjects. Under both, the kadi, whose office was invested with a certain degree of sanctity as well as of secular power, dispensed justice at the portals of the mosque. His position was rather sacerdotal than judicial. He was one of the interpreters of the Koran, the original source of all Moslem jurisprudence. In his appointment the greatest care was exercised. Only individuals conspicuous for learning, experience, and integrity were considered eligible to such a responsible employment. Even the Khalif obeyed his summons. The Chief Kadi, who had supervision over all the others, was the most powerful dignitary of the empire.

The Arabs left no extensive code of laws like that of the Visigoths, wherein the rights of persons and the penalties of crimes are systematically enumerated and defined. As their government was presumed to be theocratic, its principles were necessarily unalterable. Of legislation, in the modern understanding of the term, they knew nothing. The decrees of the khalifs, based upon the construction of the Koran and the traditionary opinions of the Prophet embodied in the Sunnah, formed the entire body of legal principles and precedents available for the instruction and guidance of magistrates.

Among the other officials of the administration were the Hajib, or Prime Minister; the Viziers, who composed the Divan or Council; and the Katibs, or Secretaries. All of them were mere advisers of the sovereign, and their authority was, except under extraordinary circumstances, only nominal.

The most important subordinate office was that of the Mohtesib, or Supervisor of Markets, who held court at the gate of the mosque. His emissaries paid frequent visits to all provision merchants and druggists, prevented the use of false weights and measures, the sale of damaged food and adulterated medicines, the overcharging and cheating of purchasers. Their duties also extended to the protection of beasts of burden from the inhumanity of their drivers, and of children from cruel punishment by parents and school-masters. They dispersed street crowds. They prescribed sanitary regulations. The authority of the Mohtesib was enforced by fines and scourging, and, like most Arab judicial functionaries, from his decision there was no appeal.

In the demeanor of the Spanish khalifs there was little of that haughty reserve which we are accustomed to associate with the exercise of the imperial dignity. For generations no atmosphere of exclusion surrounded the monarch. As a rule, he was easy of access to the meanest of his subjects. With the patriarchal condescension of his forefathers, he frequently sat in judgment at the gate of his palace. He delighted in assuming disguises and in visiting by night the most humble precincts of his capital. He superintended in person the construction of great public works; in the erection of religious edifices, it was not unusual for him to labor, for a certain time each day, with his own hands. His charity, a duty enjoined by the faith of which he was the national representative, was boundless, and was greatly abused. In the execution of the laws, his sentence was often cruel even to ferocity; but an apt quotation or a well-turned couplet often turned aside the axe of the executioner. A fortunate event--the birth of an heir, a recovery from illness, the tidings of an important victory--afforded an occasion for a noble exhibition of gratitude and mercy, the pardon of criminals, the liberation of Christian captives, the lavish distribution of alms. The high and generous qualities which distinguished the princes of the Ommeyade line--qualities confirmed and developed by a learned education---prevented the exercise of those acts of tyranny which often spring from the possession of unlimited and irresponsible power. But with all their greatness, their clemency, their generosity, the khalifs were universally hated. The obsequious submission exacted by their office was highly repugnant to the native independence of the Arab, whose cherished traditions required obedience only to the chieftain of his tribe. The doctors of the law, who regarded all learning inconsistent with the Koran as heretical or suspicious, had no admiration for a sovereign who collected great libraries, translated the infidel works of antiquity, and patronized studies whose results savored of magic and sorcery. Among the aristocracy the spirit of insubordination, always strong, was intensified by the vigilance and severity with which it was suppressed, by the memory of past renown, and by the hope of future revolution that might open an avenue to the throne. The incongruous elements composing the masses, held together solely by fear, incapable of fusion, detesting each other with unquenchable hatred, yet joining in the universal execration of their rulers, were ready for any emergency which might afford an opportunity for bloodshed and rapine. It was the intolerant faquis who were responsible for the deluge of African barbarians that overwhelmed the empire. It was the populace which renounced its allegiance to the government in the hour of national peril. The ambition of rival nobles established the score of petty kingdoms whose dissensions and weakness made possible the success of the common enemy.

Nor were the characters of the khalifs always such as inspire respect. Considerations of political expediency, if not of unquestioning religious belief, enforced their strict observance of the ceremonies of public worship. But with this concession to popular prejudice, the apparent devotional obligations of the Successors of the Prophet not infrequently terminated. Some, indeed, were men of eminent piety and zeal. Others, however, were considered of suspicious orthodoxy. The preferment of Jews and infidels to posts of high responsibility was looked upon as inconsistent with the professions of a devout Mussulman. The pursuit of philosophy, the mysterious studies of the laboratory, the toleration of pantheistic doctrines, were regarded with equal distrust and disfavor. It was known that thousands of works in the libraries of the empire treated of prohibited subjects. It was more than suspected that certain Commanders of the Faithful were addicted to the habitual use of wine, and sometimes surpassed the limits of moderation in its indulgence. There were other Koranic admonitions of even graver importance flagrantly defied. It is evident, from the unmistakable allusions of Arab historians, that many of the wisest and most distinguished princes of Mohammedan Spain were given to the practice of unspeakable vices of Oriental origin, and that these crimes against decency were of such frequent occurrence as scarcely to elicit a passing notice. The greatest tyrants among them were slaves to the foolish vagaries of women. A single instance will suffice to show this fond subserviency to feminine caprice. Romequia, wife of Motamid, Prince of Seville, who was famed for his learning and wisdom, having one day from her windows seen some children wading in the mud, expressed a desire to divert herself in the same manner. Thereupon Motamid caused the floor of the principal court of the palace to be thickly covered with a paste of musk, camphor, ambergris, and spices, mixed with rose-water; and the favorite with her attendants disported themselves for a few hours in this precious mud, at an expense of tens of thousands of pieces of gold.

Guarded in his public utterances, sentiments expressed by the khalif in the privacy of the palace, and which conveyed no exalted idea of his sincerity as the venerated head of a great religious system, often reached the outside world. Music, reprobated by the Koran as an incentive to idleness and vice, was one of the most popular amusements of the imperial court. The licentious dances of the East, which had rendered Spain infamous from the days of the Phœnicians, were daily performed in the presence of aristocratic assemblies. The palace swarmed with catamites and buffoons. Astrology and divination, especially condemned by Mohammed as reminiscences of Paganism and offensive to God, were practised everywhere, almost without concealment. While these violations of Moslem law by its representative horrified the devout, it afforded a pernicious example to the people, ever ready to profit by the foibles of their superiors. Under the later khalifs, Moorish society in the Peninsula became frightfully corrupt. The secret contempt for religion was only accentuated by the apparent regard manifested for its outward observances. Infidelity was rife among all classes. The people, from the noble to the beggar, indulged in brutalizing sensuality. In their excesses they once more demonstrated the truth of the principle that the highest civilization as well as the most degraded ignorance are equally unfavorable to the development of principles of morality; that the hardships endured by races the least removed from the brute creation and the profligacy engendered by the splendors of the most polished societies are alike destructive of the noblest instincts of mankind; or, in the language of the great Dutch historian, “that a singular analogy exists between the vices of decadence and the vices of barbarism.” The heartless, cynical, and debauched atmosphere which enveloped the court of Hischem II., and whose evil effects upon the nation the great abilities of Al-Mansur were not sufficient to redeem, offered no suggestion of the pious spirit under whose influence the khalifate was founded. The enormous wealth of the country permitted a display of license and luxury of which the annals of degenerate Rome alone can furnish a parallel. The markets were crowded with female slaves collected from such distant regions as Finland, Ethiopia, Hindustan, and the Caucasus. Of these the harem of the Khalif absorbed a large proportion; that of Al-Nassir contained nearly seven thousand. In an age when intellectual accomplishments were valued almost as highly as the charms of person and manner, it was no unusual circumstance for an educated slave to bring four thousand pieces of gold. The dress of even the ordinary female servitors of the harem exceeded in richness the attire of wealthy ladies of to-day; that of the favorites of the prince displayed the prodigal magnificence of the most opulent and powerful of empires.

In the celebration of public festivals the pomp of the nobles and merchants--the gorgeous appointments of their households, their imposing array of slaves and eunuchs, the beauties of their seraglio, the glittering damascened armor, the silks embroidered with gold, the sheen of priceless gems--awakened the astonishment of the stranger and provoked the sullen and impotent anger of the populace. In the homes of the wealthy, the rarest perfumes--essences of rose, jasmine, and orange, the incense of musk and ambergris--diffused through the palatial apartments the odors so grateful to the senses of the voluptuous Arab. The bath, at once a religious necessity, a hygienic institution, and an instrument of luxurious pleasure, vied in the splendor of its equipment and furniture with the most sumptuous establishments of imperial Rome. The public baths were used--as they still are in all Moslem countries--not alone for the purposes of rest and ablution, but for gossip, entertainment, and intrigue. It was usual for women to pass many hours within their precincts attended by their slaves, to be regaled with delicate confections, and to be soothed by the music of itinerant musicians. The pernicious effects of the presence of evil genii, who, according to an ancient superstition, were believed to haunt these localities, were averted by the repetition of pious texts and by the wearing of amulets. Mohammedan prejudice, not without cause, regarded the public bath with suspicion as a convenient means of moral corruption; and those whose circumstances permitted it, surrounded this institution of personal enjoyment and religious necessity with the privacy of domestic life. In the abodes of the rich it was invested with all the splendor which the command of unlimited means could provide. The tessellated floor was composed of the rarest marbles. The walls were encrusted with mosaic. Through curiously wrought windows of colored glass the tempered light broke into a thousand variegated hues. The pipes were of massy silver, the vessels not infrequently of gold. In the outer apartments the floors were covered with silken carpets, and tapers, from which emanated the most exquisite and costly perfumes, burned slowly in glittering lustres of rock-crystal and alabaster. The luxury of the Moslem culminated in the bath. The latter, borrowed from the Romans, was invested with a magnificence unknown even to the sumptuous thermæ of the Cæsars. The ancients, with all their civilization, were unacquainted with soap, which is an invention of the Arabs. An indispensable appendage to the worship of Islam, the first building erected in a city occupied by the Mussulman arms, was one designed for purposes of public ablution. In some respects it even took precedence of the mosque, for a Christian church could be purified and consecrated to religious service, but no corresponding substitution of the bath was possible among infidels, who regarded evidences of filthy habits as an infallible criterion of orthodoxy; and without complete lustration on Fridays no Mohammedan was fit to enter the temple of God. So important was this duty considered, that it was not unusual for persons in the humblest walks of life to sacrifice even their physical wants for the sake of cleanliness and to spend their last dirhem for soap, preferring rather to endure the pangs of hunger than to incur the reproach incident to personal neglect.

With the frequent use of the bath was also introduced the practice of wearing underclothing, which, often changed, is so conducive to physical purity. The domestication of the cotton plant in the Peninsula, which cheapened the soft and delicate fabrics woven from its fibre, promoted the adoption of this custom even among Christians; and the name of the now indispensable undergarment worn next the skin by both sexes in every civilized country has passed almost unaltered into the principal languages of Europe. In most of its details the dress of the Spanish Arabs was borrowed from the Orient. Their flowing robes were generally white, the peculiar color of the reigning family, as well as that best adapted to the temperature of a southern climate. The turban was considered the appropriate badge of the learned professions, whose members would have regarded its assumption by persons of another calling as an unpardonable breach of privilege. Individuals of the middle class wore caps of green or red; in later times the Jews, as a distinguishing mark of their race, were restricted to yellow. The common people went bareheaded or bound a silken scarf about their temples, as is still to be seen in many parts of Andalusia. All who could afford it displayed a profusion of rings, many of them talismans; there were few, however poor, without a signet of some description.

The maxims of philosophy, the enjoyment of unequalled educational privileges, the enlargement of the mental faculties obtained by travel, were alike unable to divest the Spanish Arabs of puerile superstitions. The tenacity with which human nature clings to these legacies of ignorance was well understood by Mohammed, who incorporated many of them into his religion. The ordinary Moor of the epoch of Al-Hakem II. was as sincere a believer in the importance of dreams, in the significance of omens, in the occult virtues of amulets, as the Bedouin who roamed over the Desert five hundred years before the Hegira. Even the most wise and philosophical of the khalifs entertained diviners and astrologers. It will require but an instant’s reflection to recall to the mind of the reader events in his own experience which demonstrate the ineradicable character of similar superstitions, a weakness incident to humanity from which no race, age, or civilization seems to be entirely free. There were many kinds of magic and enchantment for the counteraction of whose effects various ceremonies were prescribed. The most dreaded of these was the evil-eye, a belief in whose influence, for centuries prevalent among Orientals, was recognized by Mohammed himself. Of sovereign efficacy in averting its consequences were the ejaculation of well-known texts and the possession of certain talismans. The hand, which represented symbolically the five cardinal principles of Islam, was one of the most popular forms of the latter. Long before the invasion of Tarik, it had been the most generally adopted emblem for protection against malign influence used in the Moslem world. It was probably of Pagan origin, like many of the ancient symbols of Islam. The Romans may have received it from the Arabs, for it appears in the centre of a laurel wreath on an imperial standard upon the column of Trajan. Kings sculptured it on the keystones of their palaces. Peasants painted it over the doorways of their hovels. It was one of the devices of the khalifs. Carved in jet, carnelian, or agate, it was prized by women more highly than the costliest gem. At the time of the Conquest of Granada it was so frequently worn that the suppression of its use claimed the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities, and severe penalties were denounced against all in whose possession it was found. In defiance of these obstacles, however, the custom survived, and the talismanic hand--along with the crucifix, the Agnus Dei, the rosary, and other accessories of Christian superstition--is still to be met with among the mountain peasantry of Spain.

The fertile mind of the Arab, whose early existence had been passed amidst the impressive solitude of the Desert, delighted to people with imaginary beings the limitless domain of the invisible world. The learned society of Cordova was far from renouncing a belief sanctioned by the religion of the state and entertained for centuries by the aristocracy of Arabia. The mysteries of demonology exerted an uncontrollable fascination over the multitude. An infinite gradation of power and malignity characterized the vast array of spirits, from the hideous ghoul that haunted the charnel-house and the cemetery to the majestic genii that stood in the presence of the celestial throne, whose armor blazing with light and jewels recalls the panoply of Milton’s angels; whose gigantic forms assumed at will the shapes of seraphs or pillars of vapor; and whose martial hosts, invested with a strange reality, appeared to the excitable Arab an army of sentient beings rather than the gorgeous phantoms of an enchanted vision.

The civil organization of the Spanish Khalifate was one of the prodigies of the age. Order was enforced by regulations whose effects were experienced equally in the capital and in the extreme frontier outpost of the empire. Justice was administered quickly, wisely, impartially. Taxes were regularly apportioned, and the laborer was always sure of the enjoyment of the product of his toil. By means of watch-towers and beacons, information could be transmitted over great distances in a short time. In a few hours the approach of an enemy was known throughout all Andalusia. As early as the reign of Abd-al-Rahman II. an extensive system of posts was established. The stations, where relays of swift horses were kept for the service of the government, were each under charge of an officer whose duty it was to correspond directly with the khalif, and to inform him of all that transpired in the vicinity which might come to his knowledge. Where more rapid communication was necessary, carrier-pigeons were employed for the transmission of important despatches, a custom introduced from Sicily. Six hundred years after this there was no postal system in any country of Europe. The highways were protected by barracks, from which patrols were regularly detailed to watch over the safety of travellers and to keep order in the surrounding country. All officials, without exception, were directly responsible to the sovereign, and held their places during his pleasure. An army of spies in every foreign court and in the council and household of every provincial governor kept the court informed not only of matters which affected the policy of great kingdoms, but of the most trivial circumstances growing out of the intercourse of daily life. When a new province was conquered, it was the first duty of the imperial secretaries to prepare schedules of its agricultural and mineral resources, its commerce, its wealth, and its population.

The character of the Mussulmans of Spain was defiled by all the vices which follow in the train of prodigal luxury and boundless wealth. Among these drunkenness was one of the most common. Personages of the highest rank were not ashamed to appear in public while intoxicated. Wine was often served at the royal table. Al-Mansur indulged in its use habitually. His son, Abd-al-Rahman, was a confirmed drunkard. Once when the muezzin announced the hour of prayer, this young reprobate exclaimed, “Were he to say ‘Come to drink!’ it would sound much better.” Many of the rulers of the Moorish principalities were notorious for their excesses. Some Moslems drank white wine, as they declared that the prohibition of the Prophet only applied to red. Hypocrites used vessels of metal for their libations, so that their shortcomings might not be detected by their neighbors.

In Arabian Spain, which inherited many of the diabolical arts of Asia, poisoning was a most popular mode of revenge. Deadly substances were conveyed or administered to the victim by methods against which no precautions could avail,--in robes of honor, in golden caskets, in suits of armor, in perfumed gloves, in flowers, in delicious sweetmeats. They were often enclosed under the jewels of rings for use in sudden emergency. The barbarous practice of using poisoned weapons long prevailed. The mountaineers of Granada during the Conquest dipped their arrow-heads in aconite and hellebore, and the wounds which they inflicted generally ended in torture the life of the stricken enemy.

The people of the different cities of Andalusia had each their peculiarities, few of which elicited complimentary notices from strangers. The inhabitants of Cordova were famous for their lawlessness and their hypocrisy, their pomp and their epicureanism; in those of Seville voluptuousness, indolence, and frivolity were predominant traits; those of Granada were proverbial for vindictiveness and turbulence; those of Xeres for politeness and elegance of manners. National degeneracy early indicated the approaching and inevitable dissolution of the empire. The posterity of the conquerors, who in three years had marched from Gibraltar to the centre of France, became in the course of a few generations cowardly, effeminate, corrupt. The geographer Ibn-Haukal, who visited Spain in the tenth century, described the people of the Peninsula as feeble in body and light and vacillating in character. Ibn-Said, who wrote in the eleventh, expresses surprise that the Castilians had not long before expelled them from the land. Even in an age of decadence, however, the influence of former traditions was not easily obliterated. Despite revolution, conflagration, and African barbarity, Cordova in the twelfth century was still the intellectual centre of Spain. The difference between the two great cities of Andalusia was from the beginning indicated by the fact that when a scholar died his books were sent to Cordova to be sold; but the instruments of a musician were always disposed of to the best advantage at Seville.

With the Spanish Moors a plurality of names was considered an indication of social importance, an opinion which has been transmitted to the Spaniards. The beard, also, from remote antiquity regarded as a sign of dignity and wisdom among Orientals and often reaching to the girdle, was, according to universal custom among learned Moslems of the Peninsula, restricted in length to a palm. Only the faquis and the doctors of the law wore long hair. No one except slaves was shaven. To seize a person by the beard was an unpardonable outrage, and even to touch a woman’s hair was an insult which might have cost the offender his life at the hands of the mob. The khalifs and all personages of rank dyed their beards red with henna to distinguish themselves from the Christians and the Jews, who were never permitted to use it.

No characteristic of the Arabs of Spain was more marked than their passionate love of jewels and perfumes. According to their belief and traditions every precious stone had its peculiar virtue. The emerald banished evil spirits; the ruby possessed the property of magnifying objects; the turquoise afforded immunity from misfortune. The cat’s-eye was supposed to render the wearer invisible. Mohammed had declared that the carnelian conferred happiness upon its possessor. The sapphire banished melancholy. The diamond was beneficial in insanity; the opal cured sore eyes; the red-bezoar was a safeguard against poison. The talismanic qualities presumed to be inherent in many gems were partly attributed to the astral influence supposed to affect inanimate objects as well as living organisms, and partly ascribed to the Divine Essence believed to pervade all matter. To be efficacious, it was indispensable that the cutting or engraving of a stone should be done while certain constellations were in the ascendant. The Moorish lapidaries were experts in their art. With the aid of the bow, copper wheels, and emery, they produced work little inferior to that of the most skilful diamond-cutter of to-day. Even in the seal, an indispensable mark of consequence with the Moslem, the shape had ordinarily an important significance. Those of the khalifs were usually round or polygonal; those of diplomatists square; those of financiers oval.

Love of flowers was a veritable passion among the Spanish Moslems. As they were the greatest botanists in the world, so no other nation approached them in the perfection of their floriculture and the ardor with which they pursued it. The profusion and variety of blossoms of every description were marvellous and enchanting; each had a meaning, by whose aid tender sentiments could be conveyed without the instrumentality of speech; they were associated with every public ceremony and with the most prosaic occurrences of domestic life; they dispensed their fragrance from the priceless vase of the palace; they covered the cottage of the laborer; they formed the daily decoration of the luxuriant tresses of the princess and the peasant; their garlands were the common playthings of the infant; on the marble column which marked the sepulchre of a virgin was sculptured a single rose.

The social life of the Moors of Spain and Sicily presents us with a picture at once lively, sensual, intellectual,--where the highest physical enjoyment, divested of every feature of coarseness, was varied by the constant exhibition of wit and learning. To a considerable extent,--yet far less than at the present day in Mohammedan lands,--it was, as a necessary result of their domestic regulations, bounded by the walls of the harem. A feverish activity, such as pervades the atmosphere of our modern cities and which shows no abatement after sunset, was unknown to the Moslem residents of Cordova and Palermo. The streets of those great capitals, almost impassable by day, were at night deserted save by the guardians of the peace. In the court-yards of private mansions, on the other hand, all was mirth and gayety. Lamps of colored glass were suspended from the balconies. The air was laden with the grateful odors of countless blossoms. From the terrace which crowned every Moorish dwelling could be traced the silvery Guadalquivir, as it wound its tortuous way through endless olive and pomegranate plantations, and the glimmering rows of lights belonging to the suburban villas which extended to the distant slopes of the Sierra Morena. From the deep shadows of the palm- and orange-trees came the harmonious strains of lute and mandolin mingled with the gentle murmur of the fountains. In one gallery of the arcade women of exquisite grace and beauty executed the voluptuous dances which had charmed the people of Tyre and Carthage fifteen centuries before; in another, the professional story-teller recounted tales of wonder with their fascinating accessories of astrologers, genii, magicians, fairies, and enchanters. During the holy festival of Ramadhan, when the Moslem indemnified himself at night for the abstinence and privations of the day, Andalusian life in the gay capital of the khalifate was seen to its highest advantage. The city was illuminated. The mosques were never closed. The baths were crowded. In the seclusion of domestic privacy there were feasting, dissipation, often unseemly orgies, until dawn. Buffoons and jugglers entertained with indelicate jests and antics the groups of hilarious loungers in the parks and on the corners. Itinerant minstrels, progenitors of the troubadour, chanted in monotonous accents romantic ballads of love and chivalry. Gilded litters, guarded by eunuchs with drawn scimetars, traversed the streets. On the Guadalquivir, lighted by the brilliant radiance of the moon and perfumed with the odors of a thousand gardens, floated innumerable boats hung with many-colored lanterns and garlanded with flowers. Among the graver part of the population, the gratification of the senses was discarded for the more profitable diversions of the intellect,--for philosophical experiments, learned discussions, literary contests. In the library, the scholar collated the historians of Greece and Egypt. In the caravansary, the man of leisure played chess and backgammon or watched the swaying movements of the half-nude dancing-girls. On all sides resounded the clapping of hands,--the Oriental call for servants,--still heard to-day in every public place in Southern Spain. The women donned their richest apparel. Their forms were enveloped in chemises of the finest linen; their trousers, which reached to the knee, were blue, green, yellow, or scarlet; their tunic, of two colors, was richly embroidered with gold. Leggings in many folds imparted to their lower limbs a singularly clumsy and awkward appearance. Their feet were enclosed in slippers. An ample garment which could be used for both a cloak and a veil effectually concealed the identity of the owner in the moving crowds. To a comb placed at the back of the head was attached a scarf of elegant material and gauzy texture, the prototype of the Spanish mantilla. The material of the costume common to every class was ordinarily of silk. For ornaments, the rich displayed a profusion of dazzling gems; the poor were forced to be content with jingling coins and amulets. All, without exception, like the Moslem females of to-day, heightened the lustre of their eyes with antimony and stained their finger-tips with henna. Their nomenclature was suggestive of the romantic character which invested their beautiful country. Such names as Saida, “Happy;” Sobeiha, “Aurora;” Safia, “Pure;” Romman, “Pomegranate;” Lonilion, “Pearl;” Zahrâ, “Flower,” were common among the Saracens of Spain.