62 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY very luxurious and dissipated." It was held to be a delightful boating river. The environs of Seville were very picturesque — olives, figs, and sugar-cane abounded, and the banks of the river were covered with fruit-trees '* forming a sort of canopy, so that it was possible to sail sheltered from the rays of the sun, and listening to the melody of singing-birds along the banks." The river ran for a course of thirty miles through clusters of buildings and farmhouses, high towers and strong castles, forming a continued city. The mildness of the temperature, the purity of the air, the abundance of provisions and commodities which were to be found in its markets, made it an agreeable place of residence. There was a saying, common in Andalusia, ** If thou seekest for bird's milk, by Allah ! thou shalt find it in Seville." The love of music of its inhabitants has been already mentioned. They were, Ash-shakandi says, ''the merriest people upon earth, always singing, playing on instruments, and drinking wine, which among them is not considered forbidden so long as it is used with moderation." Amongst its many manufactures Seville was as famous for oil as Malaga was for wine. Beja, a town in its territory, was famous for its cotton manufactures.

Other Spanish towns — Granada with its magnificent chestnut trees, Toledo, Valencia rich in trade and noted for the paper manufactories of Xatina in its neighbourhood ; Jaen, so famous for its silk manufactures that it was called *'Jaen of the Silk"; Murcia, Xeres, Malaga, Lisbon, each famous for their special products ; Saragossa, afterwards the seat of Empire of the Huddites, in which there was a wonderful palace with a golden hall of extraordinary beauty of design and workmanship, and many more, are described by Ash-shakandi in detail enough to present a vivid picture of the wealth, importance, and refinement of civilisation which distinguished the Spain of the thirteenth century.

If his opponents in the literary contest had anything like the same account to give of the African half of the Arab Empire, the condition of this portion of the Western world