Little Can Be Said With Respect To The Town Of Cordova, Which Is A
Mean Dark Gloomy Place, Full Of Narrow Streets And Alleys, Without
Squares Or Public Buildings Worthy Of Attention, Save And Except
Its Far-Famed Cathedral; Its Situation, However, Is Beautiful And
Picturesque.
Before it runs the Guadalquivir, which, though in
this part shallow and full of sandbanks, is still a delightful
stream; whilst behind it rise the steep sides of the Sierra Morena,
planted up to the top with olive groves.
The town or city is
surrounded on all sides by lofty Moorish walls, which may measure
about three quarters of a league in circumference; unlike Seville,
and most other towns in Spain, it has no suburbs.
I have said that Cordova has no remarkable edifices, save its
cathedral; yet this is perhaps the most extraordinary place of
worship in the world. It was originally, as is well known, a
mosque, built in the brightest days of Arabian dominion in Spain;
in shape it was quadrangular, with a low roof, supported by an
infinity of small and delicately rounded marble pillars, many of
which still remain, and present at first sight the appearance of a
marble grove; the greater part, however, were removed when the
Christians, after the expulsion of the Moslems, essayed to convert
the mosque into a cathedral, which they effected in part by the
erection of a dome, and by clearing an open space for a choir. As
it at present exists, the temple appears to belong partly to
Mahomet, and partly to the Nazarene; and though this jumbling
together of massive Gothic architecture with the light and delicate
style of the Arabians produces an effect somewhat bizarre, it still
remains a magnificent and glorious edifice, and well calculated to
excite feelings of awe and veneration within the bosoms of those
who enter it.
The Moors of Barbary seem to care but little for the exploits of
their ancestors: their minds are centred in the things of the
present day, and only so far as those things regard themselves
individually. Disinterested enthusiasm, that truly distinguishing
mark of a noble mind, and admiration for what is great, good, and
grand, they appear to be totally incapable of feeling. It is
astonishing with what indifference they stray amongst the relics of
ancient Moorish grandeur in Spain. No feelings of exultation seem
to be excited by the proof of what the Moor once was, nor of regret
at the consciousness of what he now is. More interesting to them
are their perfumes, their papouches, their dates, and their silks
of Fez and Maraks, to dispose of which they visit Andalusia; and
yet the generality of these men are far from being ignorant, and
have both heard and read of what was passing in Spain in the old
time. I was once conversing with a Moor at Madrid, with whom I was
very intimate, about the Alhambra of Granada, which he had visited.
"Did you not weep," said I, "when you passed through the courts,
and thought of the, Abencerrages?" "No," said he, "I did not weep;
wherefore should I weep?" "And why did you visit the Alhambra?" I
demanded.
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