“It is difficult to say how much they have destroyed,” continued L’Isle.  “But, beside the voice of history, proofs enough remain that Evora was, in the days of Sertorius, of Caesar, and in after-times, a favorite spot with the Romans.  This temple before us, mutilated as it is, and the aqueduct, though repaired in modern times, are still Roman; and no ancient monument in Italy is in better preservation than the beautiful little castellum which crowns its termination.  Even where Roman buildings have been destroyed we still see around us the stones with ancient and classic inscriptions built into new walls.  The plough, too, of the husbandman still at times turns up the coins of Sertorius, bearing a profile showing the wound he had received in his eye, while the reverse represents his favorite hind leaning against a tree.”

“How completely do these things carry us back to ancient times, and make even Plutarch’s novels seem verities of real life,” said Lady Mabel.  “These same Romans, whom we read of and wonder at, have indeed left behind them, wherever they came, foot-prints indelibly stamped on the face of the country.”

“They did more,” said L’Isle, “wherever civilization extends, they still set their marks upon the minds of men.”

“How barbarous seem the Moorish buildings, which we still see here and at Elvas,” said Lady Mabel, “compared with these monuments of a yet earlier day.”

“The Moors had a style of their own,” said L’Isle.  “Indifferent to external decoration, they reserved all their ingenuity for the interior of their edifices.  Stimulated by a sensuous religion and a luxurious climate, they there lavished whatever was calculated to delight the senses, and accord with a sedentary and voluptuous life.  They sought a shady privacy amidst sparkling fountains, artificial breezes, and sweet smelling plants; amidst brilliant colors and a profusion of ornaments, seen by a light sobered from the glare of a southern sun.  Numberless were the luxurious palaces the Moors reared in Portugal and Spain.  The Alhambra yet stands a model of their excellence in the arts; although many of its glories have departed, its walls have become desolate, and many of them fallen into ruin, though its gardens have been destroyed, and its fountains ceased to play.  Charles V. commenced a palace within the enclosure of the Alhambra, in rivalry of what he found there.  It stands but an arrogant intrusion, and is already in a state of dilapidation far beyond the work of the Arabs.  In them the walls remain unaltered, except by injuries inflicted by the hand of man.  The colors of the painting, in which there is no mixture of oil, preserve all their brightness—­the beams and wood work of the ceilings show no signs of decay.  The art of rendering timber and paints durable, and of making porcelain mosaics, arabesques, and other ornaments, began and ended in western Europe with the Spanish Arabs.  But perhaps the most curious achievement attributed to them is, that spiders, flies, and other insects, shunned their apartments at all seasons.”