By Stanley Lane-Poole

The tale of the Moors in Spain “reads like a dream.” below their rule, thrift and prosperity prevailed through the state. “Palatial towns rose less than their hand. Aqueducts, rivaling these of the Roman Campagna, introduced the streams from the mountains to urban and box. nice districts, certainly sunburnt and barren, have been made via skilful irrigation to blossom into remarkable fertility. below their rule Spain was once a wealthy, a filthy rich, and, to an outstanding measure, a contented land. abundant profit in their monarchs enabled them to adopt and whole works of regal beauty, of which the fashionable Alhambra and the Mosque—now the Cathedral—of Cordova, with its thousand pillars of variegated marble, but closing after the desolations of centuries, are awesome examples. . . . Their universities have been of such famous person that scholars from all Christian lands eagerly repaired to them. . . . In poetry and chic literature, they attained no inconsiderable success.” This e-book is especially skilful and engaging presentation of that amazing and adventurous story. The reader will particularly worth the various first-class illustrations and the abundant quotation of the tale of the Cid. The writer's sympathies are completely, and maybe deservedly, with the Moors opposed to the Christians, very little realize being taken of the vices of slavery and of the harem inseparable from Moslem civilization. "The actual memorial of the Moors is seen," he says, " in desolate tracts of utter barrenness, the place as soon as the Moslem grew luxuriant vines and olives and yellow ears of corn; in a silly, ignorant inhabitants, the place as soon as wit and studying nourished; within the normal stagnation and degradation of a humans which has hopelessly fallen within the scale of countries, and has deserved its humiliation." So, too, the critic may possibly upload, has fallen the as soon as amazing civilization of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. The publication furnishes a very good blend of sturdy wisdom and literary grace. Lane-Poole writes: "THE background of Spain deals us a depression distinction. Twelve hundred years in the past, Tarik the Moor further the land of the Visigoths to the lengthy catalogue of kingdoms subdued by way of the Moslems. for almost 8 centuries, less than her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining instance of a civilized and enlightened kingdom. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by means of the and engineering ability of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. towns innumerable sprang up within the wealthy valleys of the Guadelquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names basically, nonetheless commemorate the vanished glories in their prior. artwork, literature, and technology prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. scholars flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of studying which flowed in basic terms within the towns of the Moors. The surgeons and medical professionals of Andalusia have been within the van of technology: ladies have been inspired to dedicate themselves to severe learn, and the woman medical professional was once now not unknown one of the humans of Cordova. arithmetic, astronomy and botany, background, philosophy and jurisprudence have been to be mastered in Spain, and Spain on my own. the sensible paintings of the sector, the medical tools of irrigation, the humanities of fortification and shipbuilding, the top and so much intricate items of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, have been delivered to perfection via the Spanish Moors." CONTENTS: I. THE final OF THE GOTHS II. THE WAVE OF CONQUEST III. the folks OF ANDALUSIA IV. a tender PRETENDER V. THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS VI. the nice KHALIF VII. THE HOLY warfare VIII. the town OF THE KHALIF IX. THE top MINISTER X. THE BERBERS IN energy XI. MY CID THE CHALLENGER XII. the dominion OF GRANADA XIII. the autumn OF GRANADA XIV. BEARING THE pass