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A DESCRIPTION OF ANTIQUITIES AT CORDOVA. 
der of the Faithful, whom God prosper, com- 
his minister and chamberlain, Jaafar, the son of 
hman, with whom may God be pleased, to found 
o wings* among what (other structures) he raised 
towards God, and for (the divine) favour. And 
completed in the month Dhu-l-Hijja, in the year 
"three hundred and fifty-four" (A. D. 965). 
The former part of this inscription is taken from the Koran, 
Surit vii. Ayat 44 ; in which Mohammed is announcing the judg- 
ments, which God will inflict on the infidels, and the rewards 
and blessings of Paradise, which he will bestow on the faithful. 
See Sale's Korin, pp. 120, 121. 
PLATE IX. 
THE BRIDGE OF CORDOVA. 
TRADITION relates, that there formerly was a bridge over the 
Guadalquivir, erected on the site of the present structure, 
* Literally, shoulders. It is by no means clear, what sort of building is
actually intended. 
I     I   I      I  r- .1  * --   I -   .1 -- "IL 
about two hundred years belore the arrival ot the Moors in 
Spain: but, this edifice being greatly decayed, the Arabs 
built the bridge delineated in our engraving, during the vice- 
royship of Assamh, A. H. ioi-A. D. 720 or 721.         This 
noble structure is four hundred paces, or one thousand feet, 
in length, at two feet six inches each pace; its breadth is 
twenty-two feet eight inches within the parapet. The passage 
over the bridge is a straight line, from one end to the other ; 
the arches are sixteen in number; and the buttresses of the 
piers are much stronger and better adapted for similar pur- 
poses, than the modern tri-lateral cut-waters. Nearly eleven 
centuries have these buttresses withstood the rapid floods of 
the Guadalquivir, without sustaining any material injury. 
In the river are erected several mills, the horizontal wheels 
of which are worked by the stream. One of them, of Arabian 
construction, was visited by the author, who observed three 
pair of mill-stones grinding corn. The terraced roof of the 
building is supported by crescent arches; and the whole is 
strongly cemented, and well calculated to resist the pressure 
of the current. 
END OF THE DESCRIPTION OF THE ANTIQUITIES AT CORDOVA.