themselves in linen of spotless whiteness. The same luxury
prevailed in their military equipments. Their armor was inlaid and
chased with gold and silver. The sheaths of their scimetars were
richly labored and enamelled, the blades were of Damascus bearing
texts from the Koran or martial and amorous mottoes; the belts were
of golden filigree studded with gems; their poniards of Fez were
wrought in the arabesque fashion; their lances bore gay bandaroles;
their horses were sumptuously caparisoned with housings of green and
crimson velvet, wrought with silk and enamelled with gold and silver.
All this warlike luxury of the youthful chivalry was encouraged by the
Moorish kings, who ordained that no tax should be imposed on the
gold and silver employed in these embellishments; and the same
exxfxception was extended to the bracelets and other ornaments worn
by the fair dames of Granada.

Of the chivalrous gallantry which prevailed between the sexes in
this romantic period of Moorish history we have traces in the
thousand ballads which have come down to our day, and which
have given a tone and coloring to Spanish amatory literature and
to everything in Spain connected with the tender passion.

War was the normal state of Granada and its inhabitants; the common
people were subject at any moment to be summoned to the field, and
all the upper class was a brilliant chivalry. The Christian princes, so
successful in regaining the rest of the Peninsula, found their triumphs
checked at the mountain-boundaries of this kingdom. Every peak
had its atalaya, or watch-tower, ready to make its fire by night or
to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion at which
the whole country was on the alert. To penetrate the defiles of this
perilous country, to surprise a frontier fortress, or to make a foray