The Moors of Barbary seem to care but little for the exploits of their ancestors:  their minds are centred in the things of the present day, and only so far as those things regard themselves individually.  Disinterested enthusiasm, that truly distinguishing mark of a noble mind, and admiration for what is great, good, and grand, they appear to be totally incapable of feeling.  It is astonishing with what indifference they stray amongst the relics of ancient Moorish grandeur in Spain.  No feelings of exultation seem to be excited by the proof of what the Moor once was, nor of regret at the consciousness of what he now is.  More interesting to them are their perfumes, their papouches, their dates, and their silks of Fez and Maraks, to dispose of which they visit Andalusia; and yet the generality of these men are far from being ignorant, and have both heard and read of what was passing in Spain in the old time.  I was once conversing with a Moor at Madrid, with whom I was very intimate, about the Alhambra of Granada, which he had visited.  “Did you not weep,” said I, “when you passed through the courts, and thought of the, Abencerrages?” “No,” said he, “I did not weep; wherefore should I weep?” “And why did you visit the Alhambra?” I demanded.  “I visited it,” he replied, “because being at Granada on my own affairs, one of your countrymen requested me to accompany him thither, that I might explain some of the inscriptions.  I should certainly not have gone of my own accord, for the hill on which it stands is steep.”  And yet this man could compose verses, and was by no means a contemptible poet.  Once at Cordova, whilst I was in the cathedral, three Moors entered it, and proceeded slowly across its floor in the direction of a gate, which stood at the opposite side; they took no farther notice of what was around them than by slightly glancing once or twice at the pillars, one of them exclaiming, “Huaije del Mselmeen, huaije del Mselmeen” (things of the Moors, things of the Moors); and showed no other respect for the place where Abderrahman the Magnificent prostrated himself of old, than facing about on arriving at the farther door and making their egress backwards; yet these men were hajis and talebs, men likewise of much gold and silver, men who had read, who had travelled, who had seen Mecca, and the great city of Negroland.

I remained in Cordova much longer than I had originally intended, owing to the accounts which I was continually hearing of the unsafe state of the roads to Madrid.  I soon ransacked every nook and cranny of this ancient town, formed various acquaintances amongst the populace, which is my general practice on arriving at a strange place.  I more than once ascended the side of the Sierra Morena, in which excursions I was accompanied by the son of my host,—­the tall lad of whom I have already spoken.  The people of the house, who had imbibed the idea that I was of the same way of thinking as themselves, were exceedingly