Chapter V: The Sultana's Perfumer-In-Chief

Of all the luxurious appointments of the Moorish houses, none were more prominent than the baths. And you must not think that means a bath just big enough to get into, like those in our houses. At Seville and Granada, and wherever the Moors lived and built, you may see remains of the vast constructions which served them for baths, all of white marble, and situated in the midst of scented shrubs and sweet and brilliant flowers.

In their own hotter country, their baths received a still greater development. There was once a sultana, Moorka-Hama, who had a fancy to have her baths always filled with rose-water. One day, when she came to bathe, she found the air perfumed to a most unusual degree; and on her causing an inquiry into it, they found that the heat of the sun had expressed the essential oil, which was floating on the surface. The process thus suggested by accident, was immediately imitated by art; and by it is produced the delicious scent which is now an article of commerce, and which we call attar of roses.

EL MORO SANTON [106].

Just as it was permitted to the heathen soothsayer Balaam to foretell true things to the Lord's people, so it is narrated that, a little before the taking of Granada by the Christians, great consternation was produced among the infidel population by the predictions of a Moorish dervish who was held in great veneration.

He was an ancient man, more than a hundred years old; his long white beard seemed to be falling snow, it was more than a yard long, and he could gird it round his waist. He lived out on the mountains of Granada a life of great austerity; though it was long since he had never a hair left, he wore no covering on his head, and the action of the sun and rain had worn it into the appearance of a skull; his eyebrows grew long and bushy, and served as a protection to his eyes; and no clothing wore he but a tunic of camel's hide; his feet, too, were bare, and his skin was yellow and shrivelled by long exposure. He slept in a cave upon the cold ground, with a stone for his pillow. And for all the hundred years of his life, he had never taken but one meal a day, nor tasted aught but honey and milk, which other Moors brought him by orders of the king.

All looked up to him as to a saint, in all Andalusia; and whatever words he uttered, they respected it as Al Korán, and next to the words of Mahomet himself.

One day, when the king and many people were gathered together to hear him, he spoke to them these words: "When you shall see joined together Aragon and Castille, then know for certain that Granada shall be taken.

"And the king who shall take it, know that his name shall begin with F., for in his time faith [107] shall reign throughout his kingdom.

"And the queen his wife, her name will begin with Y., which may be taken to stand for ygual; for his equal she shall be, in courage and prudence.

"These two shall likewise turn Judaism out of Spain, and set up the Inquisition, by which the wicked shall be sentenced to death.

"They shall acquire three kingdoms, and conquer the Indies.

"And they shall have a grandson, who shall be called Emperor of Germany, also King of Hungary, who shall lay siege to the city of the Pope, and lay low the three lilies of France in the field of Pavia.

"Of the three laws now prevailing in Spain, one only shall remain, and that shall be that one which commences with the font and blessed water, and ends with blessed oils [108].

"And thus they will make an end of the sect of Mahomet; for it had but a thousand years given it, and as more than eight hundred are past, it will soon now come to its end."

This is said to have been pronounced about fifty years before its fulfilment, in the persons of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille.

TRADITIONS DE ULTRAMAR.

HERNAN CORTES IN SANCTUARY.

Hernan Cortes was a Spanish gentleman whose achievements in the new world earned him a fame almost as great and almost as fantastic as that of any of the mediæval heroes. He was first taken out to the West Indies as secretary to Diego Velasquez, Governor of Cuba, whose arbitrary acts excited so much discontent, that a commission of inquiry was sent out from Spain, which established its head-quarters at Hispaniola [109]. It was a perilous enterprise to carry the complaint of Cuba over to the commission; and as no one could be found to undertake the service, Hernan Cortes resolved to go himself, though he had to cross the straits in an open boat. The governor had been on the watch, and one of the swiftest boats under his orders succeeded in overtaking Cortes's boat, and putting him in irons to bring him back to shore.

Hernan Cortes was one of the handsomest of men; and his beauty and misfortunes exciting the sympathy of his keepers, he was not very vigilantly watched. Possessing great natural pluck and dexterity, he managed in the night, as they neared the land, to slip his chains and gain the shore. Here he hid himself in the jungle till daybreak, when he found sanctuary in a little church. For several days he remained here in safety, but among the frequenters of the shrine was Melinda Xuares, whose piety, and modest demeanour in spite of her exceeding beauty, attracted his attention and won his heart. Her brother, Juan Xuares, with whom she lived, for she was an orphan, was delighted to cultivate the acquaintance of a man he admired so much, and therefore received him cordially.

In his remote retreat he thought himself so safe that he ventured daily to spend some hours at Juan Xuares' house; but the governor's spies were down upon him. They caught him one day outside the limits of the sanctuary, and clapped him in prison.

When he had been seized before, it was by an arbitrary stretch of power: now there was a formal charge against him, for having broken prison; and he was liable to be hanged.

Melinda's grief was indescribable: but she was brave as beautiful; she no sooner heard of Hernan's imprisonment than she hastened to the governor, and so successfully pleaded her lover's cause, that he ordered him to be set free and restored to her.

Thus a noble life was spared; and Hernan Cortes afterwards became the conqueror of Mexico.

ARAUCANIA THE INDOMITABLE.