Moorish

“ While I looked I saw multitudes of people in Moorish dresses, some on horseback, some on foot, arriving as if borne by the wind from all points of the compass, and hurrying into the mouth of the cavern like bees into a hive. Before I could ask a question, the trooper struck his long Moorish spurs into the horse’s flanks, and dashed in with the throng. ”

“ When a Moor came by in sad array, and Zaide was his name.
Disguised, because his heart was sad with love's consuming flame;
No shield he bore, he couched no lance, he rode no warrior steed;
No plume nor mantle he assumed, motto or blazon screed;
Still on the flank of his mantle blank one word was written plain,
In the Moorish of the people, "I languish through disdain."
A flimsy cape his shoulders clad, for, when the garb is poor,
Nobility is honored most because 'tis most obscure. ”

“ A few minutes might bring up the Moorish king with an overwhelming force. Despoiling the slain, and taking with them some thirty horses, the victorious Spaniards rode in triumph back to Castellar.
The Moorish king, hearing the exaggerated report of the fugitives, feared that all Xeres was up and in arms.
"Our road is blocked," cried some of his officers. "We had better abandon the animals and seek another route for our return."
"Not so," cried the old king; "no true soldier gives up his booty without a blow. Follow me; we will have a brush with these dogs of Christians." ”

“ The curse of sterility, and the freezing winds that sweep over this cheerless region, seem to discourage the hope that it will ever regain its former productiveness. The incessant march of the Moorish armies for a quarter of a century obliterated every sign of animal and vegetable life. ”

“ The light Moorish cavalry swept like a hurricane along the frontier of Navarre. The comparative poverty of the inhabitants presented few attractions to the invaders, who were forced to content themselves with flocks and the produce of the fields instead of the more tempting booty offered by the opulence and luxury of more civilized nations. The accumulation of provisions was so great in the Arab camp that they could not be removed, and a vast quantity of wheat was given to the flames to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. ”

“ It may be so, but the Moorish style is so imprinted on the tastes of the people that they build age after age with substantially the same models, and it is not safe to affirm that the hands of the Moors laid any of these stones. ”

“ Through this brilliant court, the visitor will proceed or linger as his spirit directs. There are no statues to examine, for the religion of the Moors forbade the representation of living objects; in truth, the exquisitely wrought tracery on every side, upon which the Moorish mind was thus forced to concentrate all its artistic power and skill, is in itself sufficient exclusively to arrest and to enchain the attention. ”

“ Though the preparations for this cavalcade had occupied but little time, yet the rumour of its approach had already spread through the city, and the people, who were as curious to behold the beautiful Moor as to know what could be her business at the palace, were collected in crowds in the streets through which she must of necessity pass. She was dressed in a most magnificent Moorish habit, and had neglected nothing that could add to her beauty on so important an occasion. ”

“ Ladies are carried, more solemnly, in chairs upon a pair of swarthy Moslem shoulders. The Moors are a handsome race of men; not nearly so black as the Othello of the stage, not generally tall, but the turban and haick add greatly to their apparent height. They also make the most of themselves by an upright and dignified carriage. Their black eyes are full of fire and intelligence. Their bronze complexions and long, swarthy beards, contrast strongly with their snow-white costume.
The circumstance of arriving on a Sunday was favorable to our first impression of a Moorish town. ”

“ The greatest of Moorish princes have been represented by zealous but malignant churchmen as barbarians, persecutors, idolaters. The accumulated wisdom and labor of centuries manifested in rare copies of the literary treasures of antiquity, chronicles descriptive of epochs now veiled in hopeless obscurity, elegant productions of the most accomplished poets of Cordova and Seville, innumerable treatises of mathematical and physical science, have been consigned to the flames by ignorant prelates, who regarded these precious works as copies of the Koran or works on magic and necromancy. ”

“ No prince of the Alhamares, of his years, ever achieved such celebrity. Nature had bestowed upon him every gift of mind and person which could elicit the approbation of the wise or arouse the enthusiasm of the multitude. His face was handsome, his stature above the middle height, his limbs models of athletic symmetry. Skilled in every exercise, he delighted in those passages of arms so popular among the Moorish chivalry. Prominent in a nation of bold and dexterous horsemen, he was universally accounted the finest lance in the Moslem army. ”

“ It cannot be said that the Moorish women of to-day still retain that grace of form and charm of manner which the Moorish lady of five centuries ago possessed. A prominent woman, who has travelled widely in Moslem countries, has given this rather repellent description of the women of the Moors of to-day. "They are huge puncheons of greasy flesh, daubed with white and scarlet, strung with a barbaric wealth of jewels and scented beads. They eat and sleep, and then for variety's sake they sleep and eat. They gossip, scold, and intrigue; and are valued according to their weight. ”

“ The country devastated by these incessant and destructive inroads never recovered its prosperity. The once beautiful regions of the Ebro and the Pisuerga now present to the eye the sombre and monotonous aspect of a desert, and portions of the valley of the Guadalquivir, which under Moorish rule were clothed with extensive orchards and luxuriant harvests, have lapsed into primeval desolation. ”

“ But sorest is the thought that I to Lindaraja swore:
If Jaen should repulse me I'd return to her no more;
No more a happy lover would I linger at her side,
Until Granada's warrior host had humbled Jaen's pride."
Then turning to his warriors, the Moorish cavalier
Asks for their counsel and awaits their answer while with fear.
Five thousand warriors tried and true the Moors were standing near,
All armed with leathern buckler, all armed with sword and spear.
"The place," they answer, "is too strong, by walls too high 'tis bound,
Too many are the watch-towers that circle it around. ”

“ He wore a white woollen chivala and a black woollen, hooded Arab cloak, and was called by the Spaniards, Manos-gordas, and by the Moors, Admet-Ben-Carime-el-Abdoun.
When the Moor saw the Chapel-master approaching, he rose and advanced to meet him, making deep salaams at every step, and when they were close together, he said cautiously:
"You want a little Moorish girl? I bring to-morrow little dark girl of twelve—"
"My wife wants no more Moorish servants," answered the musician stiffly. ”

“ At the risk of being suspected of exaggeration we can only say that it is impossible to praise too highly the care with which they have been prepared. There are some hundreds of them, of which between eighty and ninety are exact reproductions in colour and gold of various portions of the marvellously beautiful decorations so beloved of the Moors and so characteristic of their work. The other illustrations are so numerous and well chosen as to give a perfect series of pictures of every portion of these Moorish buildings. ”

“ Their batteries were mounted with cannon but little inferior in weight and equal in range to those of the Spaniards; the artillerists who served them were among the most skilful marksmen of the age. The garrison of the city was numerous and well equipped; the governor, a veteran grown gray in a score of wars. Every circumstance contributed to animate the Moors to a desperate resistance. Should the invader be repelled, it would restore the lost prestige of the Moorish name. Defeat meant the infliction of every injury that could be devised by fanaticism and hatred. ”

“ Educated by two Moorish preceptors, under the superintendence of a cardinal,—a curious circumstance which indicates that infidel learning had not yet entirely succumbed to ecclesiastical prejudice,—he in time became proficient in all the arts and accomplishments possessed by that remarkable people whose erudition and industry were admired and feared by the dominant race whose members the fortune of arms had made the depositaries of power and the interpreters of orthodoxy. ”

“ And the Moors of the town and foreign Moors, established their trade in this city, in which they increased so much in wealth, that they revolted with the country and caused the neighbouring inhabitants to turn Moors, and they set up a Moorish king over them, without paying further obedience to the said King of Ansyam. Many Moorish merchants reside in it, and also Gentiles, particularly Chetis, who are natives of Cholmendel: and they are all very rich and have many large ships, which they call jungos. ”

“ From Moorish sources, through intercourse with the Hispano-Arabs and the medium of French and Sicilian conquest, were derived those maxims of chivalry which modified the turbulent barbarism of feudal Europe, the courteous gallantry of the tournament, idolatrous devotion to the female character, a [103] high sense of honor and personal dignity, and the refining amenities of social life. ”

“ Those who were finally excluded were probably not more than half of the entire Moorish population. No statistics are accessible in our day from which an estimate can be formed of the vast number that perished by famine, by torture, by massacre. Their trials were not at an end even in Africa; they were pursued for sectarian differences, and some who were sincere Christians returned to Spain, where they were at once sentenced to the galleys. The skill and thrift of the Moriscoes, qualities which should have made them desirable, rendered them everywhere unpopular ”

“ The south, while tormented by the hot winds that blow over from Africa, is genial, well watered, and capable of high cultivation. A great plateau divides the two, and though this fell chiefly on the Moorish side, it was to some extent debatable land and insecurely held. Its chilly heights rendered it distasteful to lovers of sunshine like the Moors, and they confided it chiefly to the care of the Berber tribes who had first come over with Tārik, and who were always held in poor estimation by the true Arabs who reaped the fruits of the conquest. ”

“ But that kingdom was destroyed half a thousand years ago when the Moors were driven from Granada.”
A miracle must have happened here that time should have remained stationary. Here was the pure Moorish impress. Most of the houses are windowless. The flat roofs are sometimes the road to the higher houses, and always their foot-stool. And although the water of baptism has wetted the women’s hair, they pass veiled in the Moorish fashion along the streets. ”

“ They are very warlike and by no means affable, and are most expert both in running and swimming. Their religion is idolatrous, but we have no account whatever respecting their original. The Moors had possessed themselves of this country not long before the coming of the Portuguese, as a Mahometan priest who had come along with the first of the Moorish invaders was still alive at the arrival of Brito. ”

“ The conquest had caused the division of the extensive estates held by the privileged classes, and obtained by centuries of extortion and cruelty, into innumerable farms, a condition which facilitated cultivation and increased agricultural wealth. Many of these lands, formerly devoted to pasturage and to the sports of the nobility, were now improved, and under the skilful efforts of Moorish industry yielded immensely profitable returns.
Each Christian community was rigidly isolated from its Moslem neighbors. ”

“ Famine threatened them and they determined to cut their way through the army of the Moors. Suddenly and swiftly they poured from the gate of Alcocer, and a terrible battle was fought. The two Moorish chiefs were taken prisoners and thirteen hundred of their men were killed in the battle. The Cid then became a vassal of the Moorish king of Saragossa. ”

“ They found the king in no very great state, yet he received them well, and commanded the Moors who had brought them on shore to show them the city. In going through the streets, our men saw many prisoners in irons; but, not knowing the language, they could not ask who or what these were, yet believed they might be Christians, us our general was informed by the Moorish pilots, and the kings two messengers, that there were Christians on the island, and that the Christians and the Moors had wars together. ”

“ Moorish Proverb.
Few of us realize to what an extent our amusements, pastimes, and recreations enter into the formation of our individual, and consequently of our national, character. It is therefore well worth our while to take a glance at the Moor at play, or as near play as he ever gets. The stately father of a family must content himself, as his years and flesh increase, with such amusements as shall not entail exertion. ”

“ They call these Moors Mapulers, they carry on nearly all the trade of the seaports: and in the interior of the country they are very well provided with estates and farms. So that if the King of Portugal had not discovered India this country would have had a Moorish king: because many of the gentiles turned Moors for any offence which they received amongst one another: and the Moors did them great honour, and if they were women they immediately married them. These people have many mosques in the country in which they also unite in council. ”