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`So shone the sun upon the arrowy
Guadalquivir, when Spain was ruled by
a Christian, and the Cross of God rose
where now the Moslem Crescent gleams!'

These words were slowly and sadly
spoken by a venerable, apostolic-looking
man with a lofty and towering form, a
pale, thoughtful brow, and features of the
most noble outline. He wore a garment
of close cloth, girded by a thong of untanned
leather about his waist, and descending to his feet, which were sandalled
with untanned hide, strapped with
cords across his naked feet. To his
brown-hued coarse robe was attached a
hood, which hung down his shoulders,
leaving exposed his fine silvery head and
commanding brow. His beard like a
cataract of shining snow, descended into
his bosom and was lost there. His eye

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was as clear as light and as gentle as
that of a maiden's, white his pure complexion
was as soft as an infant's, the effect
of rigid abstinence from animal aliment,
and of many a long fast and wasting
vigil.

There was a lustre and transparency
to his countenance that seemed to belong
more to heaven than to earth—an ethereal,
saint-like expression that gave it an
aspect almost divine.

The words he had uttered fell unexpectedly
and startlingly upon the car of
a young man seated at his feet upon a
rock, which, being near the Sierra Morena,
commanded a wide and magnificent
prospect of the green vale of the
Guadalquivir, and the silver white towers
and dark walls of Cordova upon its
banks.

He was a young shepherd of tha Sierras
by his garb, which was a baregan
of dark cloth fastened at his neck by a
loop of leather, bound with a girdle of
goat's hide, and terminating at the knee,
which, with half the leg, were encased
in coarse mountain boots of dried skin.
By his side was a rudely-made hat of
palm leaves, with the brim thriee the
breadth of the crown, and also a strong
oak pike, seven feet long, terminating in
a hook, not unlike a shepherd's crook.

His age was not more than three or
four and twenty at the most; yet the
mountain life he had led matured a nobly
developed form, which was moulded
as if it had been the original for the
Greek Apollo. Though his cheek was
as brown as the chesnut of his native Sierras,
his face was remarkably handsome
and lighted by an eye at once soft as the
gazelles and piercing as that of the mountain
eagle.

He was reclining at his ease upon a
rock, which stood upon the very pinnacle
and outer verge of a cliff that towered a
thousand feet from the valley in a sheer
precipice. He had been collecting his
goats and gazelles, of which he had a
flock numbering more than one hundred,
and having gathered them from the nooks
and shelves and peaks of the mountain,
whither they had dispersed themselves
seeking the scanty herbage of the heights,
be gaided them into the rocky pathway
which led down the mountain side home
ward, and here turned aside, as he was
wont to linger and gaze upon the fair
valley, lighted up with the splendor of
the setting sun.

And a fair and glorious sun it was that
made the goat-herd loiter on his homeward
path till often the shadows of night
would hasten upon him and render his
passage down the steep footway perilous
even to his practised tread. Beauteous
as the Vale of Paradise itself, the verdant
plain of the golden Guadalquivir lay before
his admiring and wistful eyes. Terminating
on the south at the majestic
wall of the dazzling Sierra Nevada,
whose purple sides were finely blended
with their snowy crests, and embraced in
the north by the encircling arms of the
Morena Mountains, with the beautiful
river meandering through its green bosom,
its banks studded with cities and
towers, and lovely with groves and gardens,
it seemed truly to be, as it was
termed by the Moors, `the guarded emerald
of the earth.'

In the midst of the charming valley sat
Cordova, upon a throne of towers, the
Queen of all the fair scene. Upon her
hundred minarets sparkled the crescent
of Islam, and from the bosom of her
groves rose side by side with the cathedral
of the Nazarene, the Mosque of Omar.

A league from the base of the mountain,
along a winding road, a party of
travelling merchants, with their long train
of laden mules and horses was visible,
making its way from a pass in the hills
towards the city, ere the gates should be
closed for the night; and off the road,
beneath a grove of stately palms, that
flung their delicate shadows far across
the green plain, were assembled a caravan
of Moorish travellers, with one or
two camels and many horses and mules,
some laden, others garnished with gay
trappings, while here and there moving
about the picturesque encampment, were
seen cavaliers in turbans and embroidered
vests. The eminences along the face of
the Sierras, were frowning with castle
and tower, many of them in ruins, yet
all adding to the effect of the picture
spread before the eyes of the young
mountaineer.

He had reclined at first upon the
rock, and gazed with a subdued look of

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enjoyment; but gradually his eyes lighted
up, and an expression of decision,
not untinged with melancholy, passed
across his handsome face.

It was at this moment, that the words
spoken by the hermit fell upon his ear.
Upon hearing his voice he started quickly
to his feet, and turned towards the
speaker and knelt with an air of reverence
upon his knee, while he said
earnestly,

`Thy blessing, father.'

`Thou hast it, son!' responded the
hermit, laying his hand upon his head.

The young man kissed the hand with
affectionate veneration, and then standing
up said—

`You are far from your cell, father,
for this hour. It will be night ere you
reach it, and the way is perilous to one
of thy years! Let me guide thee, father.'

`Stay, not yet, son. I will sit here
and rest with thee. This stone is a
sacred seat. 'Tis said the Holy Paul
when he first preached in Spain the
cross of the Crucified, was five days
wandering among these mountains, to
which he had been driven by those in
Cordova, who would not hear his doctrine.
He was secreted here by a converted
Israelite, and from this rock gazed
upon Cordova as we do now.'

`How knowest thou this, father?' asked
the young mountaineer, reverently,
stepping aside from the spot, and gazing
with holy awe upon the little recess in
which he had been reclining.

`Tradition, son, which never suffers
ought to perish touching the followers of
the Messiah.' `And tradition, father,
says that Paul from this rock shook off
from his feet the dust of the city, and
said, prophetically, `Thou hast rejected
the Cross; therefore thou shalt wear the
yoke.'

`And that yoke, father?'

`Is the crescent—and a grievous yoke
has it been this twenty years to Cordova.
The rule of the Moslem is a punishment
of Heaven upon the land that proved itself
unworthy to bear the foot of an apostle.
Yes, my son, in the rule of the
Moor we behold the retribution which
was denounced upon yonder city. As
now it shines in the setting sun, fair and
glorious to the eye it shone twenty years
ago the pride of a Christian King, and
Christian people. But then the sun lighted
up no infidel crescent. A thousand
crosses flung back his beams. Look! can
thy young glance espy even one lowly
symbol of Christ in all this vale of beauty?

`The crescent is everywhere, father.
I see no cross.'

`No. Not one is left standing. The
sign of the False Prophet usurps even
upon the Temples of God, the place of
the Son of Man. The church is desecrated
into a mosque; and the muezzin calls
the prayer from the tower in which once
chimed the vesper and matin-bell. It is a
sad sight, my son, for the eyes of a Christian
man to gaze upon. But prayer and
faith will yet avail to turn aside the judgment
that is upon us. Penitence and
deep humiliation among the great and the
rich, aye among the priests of the altar,
are needful. This has come upon us for
the worldliness of the church, the licentiousness
of the priesthood. God has bridged
the sea to the infidel, and given the
fair lands into his hand to waste and to
pollute. Let me lean on thy shoulder,
my son, I will accept thy guidance.

`Willingly, holy hermit,' answered
the young man as he placed the hand of
the venerable recluse upon his shoulder
and turned to support him up the mountain
to his cell, which was situated at
least four hundred feet higher than the
lofty projection on which they were standing.

`Not this way, my son. I go down
into the valley,' he said, pointing down
the steep path, that was lost to the eye,
a thousand feet below in a ravine, in the
shadows of which lay half-buried a shepherd's
hamlet.

`Then you have just come down from
the summit, father?'

`Yes; I have an errand of mercy below
to-night.'

`It is not often you are found out of
your cell, father, when the evening star
rises over the peak;' said the young man,
as he directed his steps away from the
cliff-verge and began to descend a precipitous
goat-track, that wound down the
western side of the Sierra. Slowly they
descended together, that youth and aged
man, the younger supporting the elder
with tenderness, mingled with reverence.

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