VIII

CORDOVA AND THE WAY THERE


I should be sorry if I could believe that Cordova experienced the
disappointment in us, which I must own we felt in her; but our
disappointment was unquestionable, and I will at once offer it to the
reader as an inducement for him to go to Cordova with less lively
expectations than ours. I would by no means have him stay away; after
all, there is only one Cordova in the world which the capital of the
Caliphate of the West once filled with her renown; and if the great
mosque of Abderrahman is not so beautiful as one has been made to fancy
it, still it is wonderful, and could not be missed without loss.




I


Better, I should say, take the _rapido_ which leaves Madrid three times
a week at nine-thirty in the morning, than the night express which
leaves as often at the same hour in the evening. Since there are now
such good day trains on the chief Spanish lines, it is flying in the
face of Providence not to go by them; they might be suddenly taken off;
besides, they have excellent restaurant-cars, and there is, moreover,