Jews and Moors in Spain. Joseph Krauskopf
warrior who can read or write. To suppose that he can write is to insult him by mistaking him for an ecclesiastic. No less a personage than Philippe le Bel, the powerful monarch of United France who conducts foreign wars and exterminates the Templars, signs his name with the sign of the cross or a rude arrow head, as late as the thirteenth century. Let us not forget, that nearly three hundred years earlier in the world's history, we had found public schools, academies, universities, libraries, poets, artists, scientists and philosophers flourishing among the Moors and Jews of Cordova—had seen Al Hakem the Caliph, writing a digest on the fly-leaves of the contents of each of his books in his great library.
We next look for the Industries, and there is little to be found that can be honored with that name. A belief prevails among the people that the millenium, the end of the world, will set in, amidst terrible sufferings at the year 1000. This belief stifles industry, and property and wealth are turned over to the Church for the sake of the soul's release. Next come the Crusades and these sap Europe of the flower of its people, who leave by the thousands and hundreds of thousands (and of which numbers but few return), to keep the Moslems out of Jerusalem, while the aged and the infirm, the women and children, eke out a miserable existence at home, feeding on beans, vetches, roots, bark of trees—often horseflesh and mare's milk furnish a delicious repast. During the intervals between the various Crusades those few who return, are so accustomed to their roving and plundering life that it is impossible for them to settle down to mechanical or industrial pursuits.
The Jews devote themselves almost exclusively to the industries, and for this they suffer much. Commerce is not safe. The feudal lords descend from their fortresses to pillage the merchant's goods. The highways are besieged by licensed robbers, who confiscate the merchandise, murder the owners, or sell them as slaves, or exact enormous ransoms. Might makes right, and the most powerful are the most distinguished for their unscrupulous robberies. Their castles, erected on almost inaccessible heights among the pathless woods, become the secure receptacles of predatory bands, who spread terror over the country and make traffic and enterprise insecure and next to impossible. And as it is on land so it is at sea, where a vessel is never secure from an attack of the pirates, and where neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals is obtained from governments, which sometimes fear the plunderer and sometimes connive at the offense.
The political state of Europe we find still worse. The word liberty has not yet found its way into the dictionaries of the people. By far the greater part of society is everywhere bereaved of its personal liberty.
Everyone that is not Noble is a slave. Warfare is the rule of the day. The Church tramples upon kings and nobles; these, in their turn, such is the prestige of the feudal system, tyrannize over the next lower order, the next lower order apes the example of its superior upon its inferior, and so on from lower to lower caste, till the lowest, the peasants, who have sunk into a qualified slavery called serfdom. The fight for supremacy between Church and State, the dreadful oppression of the several orders of feudalism, convulses society with their perennial feuds, the pride of the countries are either cruelly butchered or employed more frequently in laying waste the fields of their rivals, or putting the destructive firebrand, or the ruthless sword upon the prosperity of their foe, than improving their own.
Let this report, meager as it is, suffice. The ignorance and misery and suffering and cruelties that abound everywhere are too revolting to tempt a longer stay. Like Ajax, we pray for light. Away from the jaws of darkness.
Ye sailors, ho! furl your sails, raise the anchor, clear the harbor. And thou goodly vessel, staunch and strong, hie thee straight across the foaming deep. And thou, O Aeolus, blow cheerily and lustily thy southern winds upon us. And thou, O Neptune, speed thou our course, haste us back again to fair Andalusia, to beauteous Cordova, for there is no spot on earth like Cordova, "the city of the seven gates," "the tent of Islam," "the abode of the learned," "the meeting place of the eminent," the city of parks and palaces, aqueducts and public baths, the city of chivalrous knights and enchanting ladies.
Aeolus and Neptune answer our prayer. The goodly ship she spins along. "She walks the waters like a thing of life." Soon the lands we eager seek will be descried, and, once again upon the sunny shore, we shall continue our observations, and freely share them with our friend upon Columbia's virgin soil.
CHAPTER IV.
OUR RETURN TO CORDOVA.
CORDOVA AT DAY-BREAK.—THE MOHAMMEDAN SABBATH.—THE YOUTH OF CORDOVA DISPORTS ITSELF UPON THE WATER.—SONG.—CHALLENGE BETWEEN OARSMAN.—THE MUEZZIN'S CALL.—THE GREAT MOSQUE.—A SERMON.—CHASDAI IBN SHAPRUT, THE JEWISH MINISTER TO THE CALIPH.—DUNASH IBN LABRAT.—ON THE WAY TO ABDALLAH IBN XAMRI, THE MOORISH POET.
Again our light-winged boat glides upon the broad and silvery bosom of the majestic Guadalquiver, along parks filled with flowering shrubs, along glittering palaces and song-resounding woods, along palmy islets, and sweet scented and crimson-tinted hills.
It is an early spring morning, nearly 1,000 years back in the world's history. Our boat makes a sudden turn, and Cordova, all glistening in the morning dew, raises her head as if from a bath in the crystal stream. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, blushes in the sky, and with her rosy fingers she sports playfully with the golden tresses of Andalusia's fairest daughter. It is morn,
"When the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each moment, as slowly it breaks;
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth everyone
Out of darkness, as if but just born of the sun."
It is with difficulty that our agile oarsman, the raven-locked and graceful featured Jewish youth, whose services as guide we have again secured, makes his way among the countless pleasure boats that ply to and fro. We marvel at this, for distinctly we remember how the broad stream was furrowed during our first visit by boats of traffic only. "It is Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath," our guide informs us, and we no longer wonder. The boats, some gilded, some festooned, some decked with the richest tapestry, are peopled with gay and happy pleasure seekers. The whole youth of Cordova seems to disport itself upon the water. The air re-echoes their merry laughters and their music:
"From psaltery, pipe and lutes of heavenly thrill,
Or there own youthful voices, heavenlier still."
The winged chorister of the woods and parks take up the refrain, and warble their sweetest, as if in contest with voices human for supremacy in song. But what is most strange and most charming is the continual challenge between the oarsmen for repartee songs, which are either extemporized at the moment, or quotations from their numerous poets. A boat crosses our path, stays our course, and its oarsman to test our guide's readiness to sing Cordova's praise, thus begins in the sweet tones of the poetic Arabic tongue:
"Do not talk of the court of Bagdad and its glittering magnificence.
Do not praise Persia and China, and their manifold advantages,
For there is no spot on earth like Cordova,
Nor in the whole world beauties like its beauties."
To which our guide instantly replies, with a sweet and pure tenor voice:
"O, my beloved Cordova!
Where shall I behold thine equal.
Thou art like an enchanted spot,
Thy fields are luxuriant gardens,
Thy earth of various colors
Resembles a flock of rose colored amber."
The challenging oarsman had met his peer. He is pleased with the reply and clears the path. Now our oarsman impedes the path of a boat, and taking for his theme, "The Ladies," challenges its oarsman thus:
"Bright