CHAPTERVI.THE ARCHITECTURE OF CANAAN AND MOROCCO.What we consider in architecture is form or order. The masonry of Rome and her teachers, the Etruscans, of the Pelasgi, the Cyclopes, the Druids, and the Egyptians, present us with colossal and imperishable monuments. These depend entirely on mathematical principles and mechanical adjustments, because stone alone was used, nor have we any idea of another manner of building. There was, however, still another race than these, which delighted in lofty towers and massive walls, who, without stones, built Babel and Babylon.The first point in architecture is, therefore, the material, and by that originally used must its subsequent forms and order have been established. We have, indeed, kept this primary condition in view, and carried our application of it to the most extravagant excess. The cave of the Trogloditæ, the timber origin of the Hindoo, Ancient Persian, and the Greek, the essentially rock origin of the Cyclopic, have been fully illustrated; and applying our rule in every case whence we had not a natural original, we created it. We have caused the Gothic to spring out of the interlacing branches of the forests of the North. Warburton[344]was, I think, the first who put forward this extravagance, supporting it by historical suggestions which consisted in anachronisms; but the same proposition recurs over and over again, as it furnishes a theme for that sort of stilted composition which has become the staple of the recent trade of book-making on art.[345]Architecture moulds itself into the shapes of things in usefor building; it does not copy the independent works of nature. The column and entablature, the volute, abacus and plinth, are imitations in stone of the woodwork of primitive huts; they are not copies of the growing tree. The origin of the Gothic is still to find; an earlier material than stones is to be looked for; and if we would go back to the origin, we must figure to ourselves the art of building as devised for defence, before descending to embellishments, or to the lowly habitations out of which those temples arose, which have been distributed into and constitute the five orders of architecture.The Arameans, the elder branch of the human family and the inheritors of early light, first occupied and permanently retained that fertile and well-watered region, which lies between the great limbs of the earth and the subdivisions of the ocean. There, neither strong positions were to be found, nor stones to be procured for the construction of defences. Their very existence depended upon the invention of a process by which the earth itself could be converted into walls. The soil containing a large proportion of alumine, durable walls might be made from it without the aid of any art, save that of beating and ramming down. Factitious stones might be obtained, or the mass formed at once by cases into a wall. Against injury from rain they had ready to their hand a preservative, in the bitumen with which the country abounded, and with which they cemented the bricks and besmeared the walls.[346]These walls, whether made in pieces (brick) or in blocks, were however soft and perishable without the aid of fire, which gives brick (burnt) and lime two compositions, of which, like air and water, we do not know the value, by enjoying constantly their use. These discoveries I imagine to have been connected with the sacrifice as practised by the early Arameans. The Jews were forbidden to make an altar of stone, and when they set up stones, they were forbidden to raise on them a tool ofiron.[347]They were, moreover, ordered to make the altar ofearth,[348]and traces of this practice are to be found elsewhere, as among the Phrygians[349]and the Greeks.The varieties of soil would thus expose to the fire, in various combinations, alumine, silex, carbonate and sulphate of lime (selenite). The blood flowed on it, and—as in the case of Jupiter Olympius—it was plastered over with the ashes. In the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, these altars must have been of brick in the mountainous districts, where alabaster as well as limestone abounded—gypsum and lime. At once would the substance of plaster be known, and the manner of using it, and, probably, lime was similarly treated, and thence the strength of ancient mortar. Vitruvius directs it to be mixed with ashes,[350]as it must have been in the plastering of these earth-altars.Having thus obtained lime, it was used as the discovery suggested that it should be; that is, to harden the earth-walls themselves—not to cement stones. They would soon discover that gypsum had to be set up in moulds, hardening at once of its own accord; but that lime, mixing with the earth, or with gravel, acquired consistency by being rammed down. The varieties so presented are infinite, from the rudest, the cheapest, and the most perishable walls, to the most costly and durable ramparts; and these could so be raised without machinery or science, yet affording a strength to resist the besieging operators of those times, of a height to surpass all means of assault, and of a durability that has defied Time itself. The Devonshire cobwalls and the Normandy pisé afford examples of the first;—common earth bound together, in default of lime, with chopped straw; while in the old Moorish tower of Gibraltar is a specimen of the last, a concrete possessing greater power of resistance to shot than any discovery which has been made since the introduction of artillery.When I first saw the ruins of the Phœnician city of old Tangier, which is a rough-looking wall (theopus incertumof the Romans), such as might be built by a very rude people in our times, I could not believe it to be Phœnician; but upon further examination of such ruins, and when I came to consider the nature of the soil where these structures were raised, and the merit attached to the first application of this most important material—lime—I found in that very coarseness an evidence of the high antiquity of these walls, and of the ingenuity of this people; and felt that we were indebted to them for a substance become of primary necessity.A captive, employed as the Jews in Egypt were, has thus described the task of the Christian slaves in Morocco:“Our work and daily labour was continually building of houses and walls: the material and method is so very foreign, and will appear strange to my countrymen. Here there are boxes of wood, of dimensions according to pleasure: these we fill with earth powdered, and lime and gravel well beat together andtempered with water; and when full, we remove the box according to order, and withdraw the box planks, and leave this matter to dry, which will then acquire an incredible degree of hardness and is very lasting, for we have seen walls of some hundred years’ standing, as we are informed, and all that time has not been able to do them any prejudice. The king himself (what reason for his humour may be we never had the curiosity to ask him) will sometimes vouchsafe to work in the lime and dirt for an hour together, and will bolt out an encouraging word to the slaves there, viz., as I remember, 'God send you to your own countries;’ but I judge he either does not speak from his heart, or else he hopes God will not answer the prayer of such a wretch as himself.”[351]Livy mentions the Wall of Saguntum as similarly constructed; and Pliny speaks of the “forms” which they used for ramming down the materials in constructing them. He confines the practice to Mauritania and Spain. In these two countries it has still one and the same name,Tapia. In Hebrew and in Egyptiantebis the word which we translate “brick;” it also signifies “box.” The name has been derived from the mould. The hieroglyphic fortebis a foot and a hand.No doubt from this word the name of the great city of Egypt, Thebes, is derived. I am aware that Sir Gardnor Wilkinson derives it fromap, orape, meaning the head or capital of the country; buttabis much nearer to Thebes thanaporape; and I am not aware that any city ever received its name from the head; whereas the most common of etymons for cities—at least among Arameans, is the defences which distinguish them from the inhabitants of the Tents.[352]The derivatives from this word are extraordinary from their number, and the languages through which they spread, and vouch for the importance of the object to which it was applied, and the antiquity of the language in which it was used. The Turkish has taken from it its word forfortress—“tabia,”—and formound,—“tepe.” The Arabic preserves it in its pure sense—the Spanish derives from ittaparto close, andtapetia covering;—whence in the French we havetaperandtapis;—in English we havetapestry,tap, which has been probably derived from the originalteb; we have[353]tubandtube. The Greeks have taken from itτύπος, and thenceτύπτω; whence the string of European derivatives,type,typify, &c.,ταπεινὸς, humble,i.e.beaten down; also,ταφὸς, tomb, from the association of this mode of building with that of tombs.[354]About the time that the Hebrews were taking Jericho, the Phœnicians were carrying on their commercial enterprises to the west. By this irruption into Canaan, an immense mass of colonists was placed at their disposal; and to this event in all probability is to be attributed the number and importance of their settlements. They are supposed to have reached the Northern Ocean, and especially to have had their settlements in Britain, as is indeed proved by the names still preserved in Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two counties thetapiaof Morocco is still used in building, though the species is of that inferior order in which lime is not used; or if used at all, merely for the coating—the tempering with lime of Ezekiel. In deriving it from the Phœnicians, difficulty presents itself in the name: it is calledcob:—this word is neither Teutonic, nor Celtic, Greek, nor Latin, Hebrew nor Arabic. It was after long research that the origin of it occurred to me in a word that I was in the daily habit of using, and which is the common name given in Morocco to a tomb—which is Cubbe. Many English derivatives show thatcobmeant both “wall” and “beating.”Cobweb, the web and the wall;cobden, hole in the wall;cobler, one making frequent use of the hammer;cobbing, a school-boy term for thrashing with a knotted handkerchief, besides many others—Cobbett—Cobham,—cobas applied to a breakwater—Lymecob.Cubbe designates indeed a tomb; but it might equally be rendered, building, or wall: for the cubbe are the only buildings which appear throughout the Western regions of Africa. Although the word will be found in no Arabic dictionary, it is not likely thatcob, the Devonshire name for the material from which the Moorish cubbe is built, should have been given by mere chance. As the dictionary affords no clue, we must endeavour to trace them back constructively.Bochart accounts for the story of a tomb of Hecuba, in Sicily, by supposing that the Greeks, seeing some Phœnician tomb, and inquiring what the building was, were answered, “Beth Hacub,suprema domus.” The meaning of Beth they could not mistake, and Hacub could only be the unhappy consort of Priam. Sir W. Hamilton does justice to this explanation in a rigid criticism of the author. If Beth Hacub were so employed, the contraction to the last syllable is quite natural; and as the tombs in Britain would be built of Tapia, the natives would call that substance by the same name—Cub—cob; as the Phœnicians themselves may have contracted it. The contraction has remained in Britain applicable to walls when built of this material—in Africa to the tombs which are their buildings.As each promontory in Sicily had its fable connected with a tomb, the interpretation of which forms one of the most interesting chapters of “Pheleg,” the tomb must have been, as here now, the feature of the landscape. The figure, at once the most simple and complex—the cube, the dome, the arch, and spandril, all combined, doubtless has remained unchanged. Such, then, were those tombs scattered through Greece, and which we hear of as “Phrygian,” a people which I think I shall be able to prove to be identical with the ancient inhabitants of Morocco; and to them Solon must have referred when he forbade tombs to be built with “arched roofs.”The dominant form is the cube; but this is the very word! It has been attempted to derive cube from Caaba. Here is a distinction without a difference.[355]From the Greekκύβοςwe have the term all the way downwards in every western language. Thus, the building has supplied the general name to Europe for its figure, to Devonshire for its substance, and in Morocco has remained with its primitive meaning, substance and figure.The mistranslation of the Greeks respecting Hecuba, receives a curious confirmation from a grotesque mistake of the French: they call these buildingsmarabouts, and speak and write aboutmaraboutsas if it really were either an Arabic or a French name for Cubbe.[356]Marabouts are men, and they are sometimes honoured with such a tomb.[357]The Greeks, hearing the name of the building, applied it to a supposed inmate; the French, being told the name of the inmate, applied it to the edifice.Pisé evidently comes fromπιέζω,[358]to squeeze or break; and the Phoceans, the allies of the Phœnicians, monopolised the commerce of Gaul. It is to be inferred that Cob is Phœnician; but the word is at present unknown, nor are there traces of it in the ancient language.Moors, like the Jews, as shown in Ezekiel’s parable, “temper” the earth with lime. The durability depends upon the amount of beating, and the quantity of lime; and the expense is, of course, in proportion. No ancient buildings of mere earth remain; but still in Africa, though rarely, earth alone is used: in one very important portion of their architecture the three methods are all employed together, namely, earth—earth and lime mixed, and pure lime. This is for the flat roofings of their houses, and is a matter of the greatest difficulty; in fact, the very word architecture is derived from the process of roofing; and they celebrate the covering-in of the houses with ceremonies analogous to those which we employ in laying the foundation stone. Over the wood-work earth is first beaten down, then a layer of earth and lime, and then the pure lime: each layer is separately beaten. They use a small paviour’s mallet: they work by gangs, and strike in cadence with short stroke, singing in concert, and producing a strange melody, that resounds through the neighbourhood of their silent cities, startling the echoes with a melancholy, but not unpleasing note, which recalls the tones of “Adria’s gondolier;” but the words convey simpler thoughts, and a more devotional spirit. One strain runs thus:“Yalla wo yalla amili dinu yarbi;Yalla wo yalla an azziz yarbi.”O God! O God! Eternal art thou, O my Lord!O God! O God! Dear to me art thou, O my Lord!They also apply their incantation to the case, as it may be. The traveller in Spain is often greeted by a change in the metre and words of the song, and the salutation is conveyed in their simple and pleasing extempore verse. The owner of a house visiting the work may in like manner be welcomed with such a strain as this:“Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Lord of the dwelling will recompense us!Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Master of his workmen will cause them to rejoice!”The distinction between the Aramean and the other primitive races seems to have been maintained for a couple of thousand years; but at the mixture of nations by the great conquests of the Macedonians and the Romans, we find the use of lime extending to the others, and the chiseled stones adopted by the Arameans. It is in the works of the western or Moorish branch that has been preserved the type to our day; and they have excelled all other people in the grandeur and durability of their military architecture; and, with the exception of the polygonal and cyclopic, they have embodied with their own every species of ancient building.[359]We thus identify with the Arameans, block walls, plaster of Paris, bricks and lime; and while it is to be expected that these various processes should be carried by them whither they emigrated, or taught by them to the people among whom they established colonies, or whom they instructed in the arts and sciences, still are we not to look for these as combined in one general system, but as severally or partially adopted according to the character of the surface of the country, or the nature of its soil, or as associated with the kinds of masonry already in use. In one country, however, the whole of the processes which I have noticed are still to be found. Not one is wanting; and they still possess that excellence of early structure which we have lost in Europe. In the villages round Tangier the walls are built of sunburnt brick exactly of the shape and dimensions of those of Babylon.We have united in the origin as one whole, thick tapia walls, lofty towers, and tesselated pavements. Pliny mentions the introduction of the tesselated pavement after the third Punic war. The Greeks had before them employed pavements; and this word which we associate with stone[360]comes frompavire, to ram down, and could have no reference to stone, but must have been the tapia of Canaan.When these artificers removed to countries where the soil was no longer aluminous, they would doubtless, although there were stones to build with, cling to their own fashion, as their buildings and the apertures would of necessity depend, not on the adjustment of the blocks, but on the adhesion of the walls. They clung also to their lofty towers even when they could build on strong and naturally defensible positions. Thus we find the Jews gratified by being permitted to build lofty towers, and these have been the work of predilection of the sovereigns of Morocco and of Spain.This ramming into cases explains also the rectangular forms of all their buildings: round towers are very ancient and very Eastern: those of the Hindoo were round. The primeval architecture, still preserved in Sardinia, delighted in round towers, so also those of Ireland were round. The vitrified forts[361]were round, so that this form distinguishes the Arameans from the Hindoos on the East, the Celts on the North, and the Aboriginal population of Europe on the West. The early Mussulmans borrowed in the minaret the Minar of the Persians, but in theSma[362]of Barbary the original form was maintained. The two are seen struggling and combined in the mosques of Cairo, as in the early cathedrals of Europe. In Morocco bricks are used of all the shapes, and in all the varieties in which we find them in the East. At Carteia I found the grooved bricks of Ancient Arabia. Plaster of Paris is in like manner used for building; and in Suez large portions of the houses are set up at once, cast in moulds; and, lastly, there is the block wall in all its varieties, from the earth rammed to the concrete of mortar and earth, and of mortar and stones, exactly like that which, constructed two or three thousand years ago, still stands as fresh as upon the day of erection. In fact, these block walls are to-day as perfectly Moorish as the horse-shoe arch, the arabesque ornament, or the haïk.The reason assigned by Herodotus for the selection of brick by Asychis, the successor of Mycerinus, for building his pyramid—namely, that it was more honourable than granite, as showing the power of earth, has occasioned in our times no small astonishment, and has received no explanation. After what I have said the explanation will be self-evident; and it is not absolutely decided whether these structures were raised by princes of Egyptian or Semetic blood. I think that the inscription[363]and the story go further than any positive statements of the Greek historian could have gone to give a shepherd origin to them.When the Hebrews returned to Canaan, the first obstacle they met with was the walls of Jericho, an obstacle such as to baffle their natural means and acquired skill; nor is it to be supposed that they were destitute of the means of attacking such defences; but the walls of Jericho were remarkable in a country of walled towns,[364]and the name of “moon,” which Jericho signified, might have reference to their height,[365]which a special interposition was required to overthrow. The Jews built with stones, and with enormous ones, as the siege of Jerusalem and ruins still extant attest; and they had also, as well as the Canaanites, burnt bricks. David burnt the Ammonites in their own kilns[366]at Rabbah. Ezekiel says,[367]“And one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar. Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower.” These words have to us no meaning, but they prove that building in tapia or cob was the common practice of Judæa.The great event in the early history of the Jews is the Egyptian captivity. The representatives of the Arameans were here in contact with the most remarkable builders of the other races. The task of the Jews was building: it was not masonry—it was not hewing in quarries or adjusting blocks, but building with earth: the expression used in Scripture may be interpreted as applying either to small or larger case-bricks, or entire walls. In the Egyptian paintings we see Jews[368]or Arameans occupied in the performance of their task, and the red men, the Egyptians, the task-masters over them. Here, however, it is burnt bricks we see: the clay is weighed, beaten into moulds, carried to the furnace blue, and brought back red. The Jews, therefore, had introduced this method. The soil of Egypt was not adapted for the block wall or sun-burnt brick, whilst the silex fitted it for burning.Thus having got the materials, let us see how they were used in the construction of their ordinary dwellings. The Greek Triclinium-room was copied by the Romans. The Moors have also a form of room, but the method is different. The Greek house, as the Turkish, was a variable aggregate of integers, which were invariable. No light came from the door or from the side in which it was, and by which the room adjoined to the body of the house. From the side opposite to the door—that is the top—came the light from contiguous windows, as in the oriel windows of the Middle Ages. The rooms were, therefore, struck out to catch the light, and the house was like a bunch of crystals, united at the base, no account being taken, in building it, of the exterior form, which depended on the accidental arrangement and size of the rooms, the proportions of which were invariable.With the Moors it is exactly the reverse. Their building was a square of dead walls: the rooms were made to fit that form, and their light came by the door and the door alone: the door is in the length of the room, and divides it into two equal parts. Under the tent they were encamped always ready to march—in their houses they were fortified, ever in a state of defence. Their breccia they struck out into archways, or pierced with open works; but windows were as little known to them as stirrups to the Greeks or Romans. From this court, in the centre, come the lights. I need not repeat what I have already said respecting it, which the reader will find in the account of a Jewish house at Arzela.A Moorish house was made in the style of a cavern or grotto, and its pendulous interior fret-work strikes every one as something resembling the stalactites of a cave (πετρήρεφες, αὐτοκτίτ’ ἄντρα). The weight, therefore, of the roof, and the deficiency of timber, conjoined to maintain that original structure of long narrow rooms adjoining the court-yard, which originated in the materials of their building and the necessities of their defence, and which were admirably adapted to their climate, and suited to the habit which it engendered of living in community.As the room of the Turks presents to us the Triclinium of the Greeks, so do the houses of Morocco the dwellings of the Hebrews, and furnish the explanation of obscure passages in the Scriptures: to the Moorish houses as exactly applies every term having reference to houses or buildings, as those having reference to clothing do to the Moorish dress.The Hebrews originally dwelt in tents. When they returned from Egypt they found the Holy Land filled with fenced cities. They came from the wilderness as the Arabs now do into Suez from the Sahara. They adopted the settled manners of the people, but tribes identified with them, such as the Kenites and Rechabites, continued to live under tents. The domestic architecture of the Jews was thus properly Canaanitish, and is in Morocco what it was in the Holy Land when the Jews entered.The Arab under his tent, and the Breber in his solid house of tapia, with its square towers, picture to the life the period of Caleb and Joshua. This architecture, transferred to Morocco nearly three thousand years ago, has here continued to subsist, while it has been extinguished—utterly blotted out in Judæa. It required the protecting mounds of ruins to preserve the fashions of the chambers of the Assyrian kings, which have lived through all this course of ages unharmed by the breath of heaven or the hand of man, in Tetuan and Tangier.Spain had not her tapia from the Saracens, as already shown; she received it, and with it her architecture, from the same sources as Morocco. We are informed by St. Isidore that, in the fifth century, the Goths had adopted the same mode of building—of course from the Iberians, who are the source of most things which we are so fond of calling Saracenic in Spain, whether architecture, blood, manners, or words. Like Judæa, Spain—though not to the same extent—had lost her original type, and Morocco remained, at the time of the Saracen conquest, the treasure-house of the ancient world, and the museum of human history.That Morocco did continue in the usufruct of this inheritance, may be seen in the buildings they immediately commenced in Spain, and in the accounts handed down of the splendour of the buildings of Morocco, in the first days of Islamism.If this architecture of Judæa can be understood and explained by the existing buildings in Morocco, does the converse hold? Would the description of Moorish architecture apply to the buildings of Judæa? Do we, in fact, in looking upon the Alcazars and Alhambras, behold the image of the Palace of Hiram or the Temple of Solomon? That question I cannot answer in the affirmative. There is nothing described of the buildings of Judæa that is not to be found in those of Morocco; but there is that in those of Morocco which, had it existed in Judæa, could not have failed to have been described. The descriptions of the buildings in Spain, if they disappeared, would not correspond with those of Judæa. The architecture of Canaan has undergone a change in the West.That which attracts attention to the Moresque and awakens enthusiasm, is the tracery upon the walls, the pensile figures of the arches, and the domes with their colours. To these no reference is made in ancient writers, and of them no trace has been preserved; yet are they embellishments too striking not to be observed, and too beautiful to have been lost in such an age. Had there been an Alhambra at Jerusalem or at Tyre, we should have found something like it on the banks of the Nile, where the Jews raised their rival temple; in the Baths of Lucullus or in the Palaces of Antioch. Greek Virtuosi then were spread over all these regions, and there were the Ptolemies collecting all the stores of art and literature, who garrisoned fortresses with the Jews, and who were spurred on by envy of Tyre and rivalry with Carthage.We have, then, two points most distinctly made out—first, that the substance of the walls, and the structure of the edifices, the roofing, the wood-painting, of Judæa, corresponded with those of Morocco. Secondly, that the embellishments of vivid and varied colours, and the delicate lace-work, known as Arabesque, did not exist in Judæa.The latter constitutes, to our eyes, the Moorish architecture, but, from what I have said, it will appear that it is but a garment over it. When, then, was it added thereto? by whom was it invented? where was it first applied? It is one of the greatest efforts that has been ever made; it is enough to make an epoch. We must look for it in some period of greatness, of some seat of empire, under some prince pre-eminent in all the attributes which can command the admiration of men. We turn to Damascus—to the Caliphat: we have no traces of it there, and no relic. The earliest monuments eastward are found at Alexandria, and then only in fragments; and there is neither the thing nor the type. Did it, then, spring up on the soil of Spain, in that favoured region? No. We find it in the very earliest monuments of the Moors. When they entered Spain, it was already formed and complete.It was, therefore, in Morocco, that the architecture of Judæa underwent those changes, expanded into those graceful forms, and robed itself in those rainbow colours.There are natural features and primitive habits which suggest or account for each of these modifications—features so striking that they could not fail to be observed, and so beautiful that they must have been copied: these I have described as they presented themselves to me. The types which I found in nature or in practice are of the stalactitic, dome, and arch,—the horseshoe arch, the tracery on the wall, the diversified colouring of that tracery, the half-globe dome upon the cube; and these, in fact, are the modifications that the architecture of Judæa received, and by which it has been converted into the Moorish.On the material the system of architecture depended, and it is wholly different from the classic. The great styles of antiquity depended, not on the adhesion of the stones, but their form and weight, and by science alone they obtained arches. Thus the perpendicular key-stone of the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans, the horizontal and narrowing circle of the Pelasgi, the massive rocks carved and transported by the Egyptians, the inclining jamb of the Cyclops (Tyrius and Lamos), the column and entablature of the Greek, all depended on mechanical science, and, therefore, the form of the passage through a wall, became a distinctive feature of a race. The tapia, by its adhesion, constituted as it were a rock in the form of a dwelling; they required no mechanical adjustments to obtain the openings,—they could make them at pleasure; square, or with a semicircular or pointed arch or a horse-shoe. They dug through the walls; so, in like manner, could they carry them to any height, and build them for any number of ages. Hence, the square, massive solidity of the Moorish structure; hence, the absence of all exterior lines of architecture for embellishments; hence, the ornaments of the material itself; hence, the bold facility and the endless variety which they gave to their arches; hence, the rich decorations and lightness of the interior contrasted with the exterior rudeness and gravity; hence, the adornment of that interior by tesselated pavements and variegated walls.Here was architecture in its essence: the covering-in of the top, the erecting of the wall, was the work of barrow-men. The carpenter, the craftsman was required for laying on the beams, and making the terrace water-tight. Within, the roof is as important as without; for as it is upon the roof that depends the durability, and I may say, solidity of the structure, so in the roof consists the chief embellishment of the apartment.Nothing is weak—nothing frittered away. Simple, but never rude; unadorned, but never base; severe, and yet in the highest degree attractive; the Æschylean Majesty of the Doric order is the very highest conception that even Grecian art could realize. The contemplation, even in the meanest engraving, of one of its matchless porticos, in all the stern grace of the column, capital, and cornice, is absolutely overwhelming. And this climax of pure dignity, this expression of heathendom in its noblest form, this embodiedκαλὸν, such as the Hellenic mind only could compass, we are gravely told was borrowed from the hideous and unmeaning monstrosities of the race who paid divine honours to the lowest vermin, and whom their gardens supplied with appropriate objects of veneration![369]Coleridge, by transferring into our language something of the verbal chemistry of Kant, prompted combinations of terms as if they had been compounds of simple elements; he did not give new substances, but conferred the facility of travelling out of reality. Wordsworth, using the objects of art and nature as suggesting devotional thoughts, diverted the mythology of the Greeks to the service of the faith, and thought it a conquest. Thus by peopling the forest, the cave, the vault, and the spire with mystic beings, and supplying them with hidden meanings, he contributed his part to theirs.[344]“The Goths who conquered Spain in 470, becoming Christians, endeavoured to build their churches in imitation of the spreading and interlacing boughs of the groves in which they had been accustomed to perform theirpagan ritesin their native country of Scandinavia, and they employed for this purpose Saracen Architects, whoseexoticstyle suited their purpose.”—Warburton.[345]“The soaring nave of a Gothic minster, in the clustered and banded stalks of its lofty pillars, the curling leaves of its capitals and cornices, the interlacing arches of its fretted vault, the interminable entwinings of its tracery, the countless hues that sparkle from roof, and chapiter, and wall, and window, recall no work of man, indeed—no tent, or hut, or cavern, but the sublimest temple of natural religion, the awful gloom of the deep forests of the north; the aspiring height of the slender pine, the spreading arms of the giant oak, rich with the varied tints of leaf and blossom, with the wild birds’ song for its anthem, or the rustle of the breeze in its waving branches, for the voices of the mighty multitude, or the deep notes of the solemn organ.”—Freeman’sHistory of Architecture,p.15.[346]The walls of Megalopolis in Greece were so defended.[347]“Thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster, and thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law.... Thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.”—Deut. xxvii.2-5. The stones were to be covered, and were not to be touched with iron tool; and yet all the law was to be written on them: it must, then, have been on the plaster.[348]“An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me.”—Exodusxx.24.[349]The Teucrian Girghis was, as I have shown elsewhere, a colony of Gergashites. See also Selden, Diis Syriis:Syntag. l. ii. c.2.[350]“Ex sabulone et calce etfavilla.”—Vitr.l. vii. c.4. In the Highlands of Scotland it is a tradition, that the old lime, which stands so well, was used unslaked: the very same thing has been told me in Andalusia. Recently in England they have fallen on this process for building under water.[351]Captivity of T. Phelps. London, 1685.[352]“The name Thebes is corrupted from the 'Tápé’ of the ancient Egyptians and Copts, which, in the Memphitic dialect, is pronounced Thaba, easily converted intoΘῆβαι, or Thebes. Some writers have confined themselves to a closer imitation of the Egyptian word; and Pliny and Juvenal have both adopted 'Thebe’ in the singular number as the name of this city. In hieroglyphics it is written Ap, Ape, or with the feminine article, Tápé, the meaning of which appears to be 'the head,’ Thebes being the capital of the country.”—Wilkinson,Thebes,vol. ii. p.136.[353]Barrel is also derived from the Arabic—bar, earth;barril, made of earth; which the Spaniards still apply to an earthen vessel.[354]The lexicographers deriveταφὸςfromθάπτω, and then they deriveθάπτωfromταφός.[355]Cybele is derived fromκυβήβειν,i.e.κύπτειν, for she made her servants bow.Kύβη, the head, is derived fromκύπτω.The word cupola is directly from the Arabic,Cobbal, which from the form was likewise applied to the whole building, and also to an umbrella: thus, the Mosque of Cordova was known as Cobbal al Malik, or the King’s Cupola; and an office under the Mameluk government in Egypt was entitled Cobbal u Thaïr, this functionary carrying an umbrella, and bearing on his fist a hawk.[356]I find in Richardson’s Sahara the wordmarabit. This may, indeed, be a local term for tomb. In Richardson’s Dictionary “marabet” is set down asplace of rest. It has, however, no connexion with “marabout,” or, properly,amarabout, fromamr, to command; whenceemirandadmiral.[357]Tomb, in Arabic, ismukburea, medfanè gáber turbè. In Breber it isagekka.[358]It was natural that the Phoceans should have adopted the art, and given a name to it, as was their wont, from their own language. The resemblance is too close to be accidental with “Piazza.”Piso, in Spanish, is to stamp: it is also the floor of a house, formerly made by ramming down, just as the walls were—Pistorin Latin. Their bread was better kneaded than ours; sopiston,pestle, &c.[359]At Shemish, the most remarkable Phœnician ruin that I visited, the Phœnician lime and mortar are conjoined with the Hellenic blocks.[360]The Carthaginians first used stones for paving their streets and roads, so that from them was derived one of the monuments that has mainly perpetuated the idea of Roman grandeur and magnificence.The same practice is of course used for floors in passages, and leads naturally to the ornamenting of these in colour, and to paving them in brick and pottery, as these arts took the place of the rammed-down clay, or the sun-burnt brick.[361]Vitruvius condemns square towers, as affording protection to the besiegers rather than the besieged. The Moors first invented flanking walls.[362]An old Etruscan tower at Tosconella, is exactly of the same make as the Moorish Sma.[363]“Do not despise me, for when compared to the stone pyramids, I am as superior as Jupiter to the other gods. For men, plunging poles into a lake, and collecting the mud thus extracted, formed it into bricks, of which they made me.”There is here a contempt apprehended, and the highest estimation expressed. The shepherd-king deprecates Egyptian censure, in following his country’s fashion. Sir G. Wilkinson says:—“Dr. Richardson justly asks, in what could this superiority over stone pyramids exist? and suggests, that it points to theinvention of the archthat roofed its chambers, which, provided Asychis lived prior to the sixteenth and eighteenth dynasties, may possibly be true.”“The primeval builders of Egyptian stone pyramids must have previously been earth-mound builders elsewhere, probably in Asia.”—Gliddon,Otia Egyptiaca,p.36.[364]“The cities are great and walled up to heaven.”—Deut. vii.28. “Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in and possess thirty cities fenced up to heaven.”—Deut. ix.1.[365]So “moon sails,” “mountains of the moon.”[366]2 Samuel,xii.31.[367]Ezekiel,xiii.10-11.[368]Not indeed those in captivity in Goshen, and delivered by Moses. The period is that of ThothmesIII.of the fifteenth dynasty.[369]Freeman on Architecture,p.106.
What we consider in architecture is form or order. The masonry of Rome and her teachers, the Etruscans, of the Pelasgi, the Cyclopes, the Druids, and the Egyptians, present us with colossal and imperishable monuments. These depend entirely on mathematical principles and mechanical adjustments, because stone alone was used, nor have we any idea of another manner of building. There was, however, still another race than these, which delighted in lofty towers and massive walls, who, without stones, built Babel and Babylon.
The first point in architecture is, therefore, the material, and by that originally used must its subsequent forms and order have been established. We have, indeed, kept this primary condition in view, and carried our application of it to the most extravagant excess. The cave of the Trogloditæ, the timber origin of the Hindoo, Ancient Persian, and the Greek, the essentially rock origin of the Cyclopic, have been fully illustrated; and applying our rule in every case whence we had not a natural original, we created it. We have caused the Gothic to spring out of the interlacing branches of the forests of the North. Warburton[344]was, I think, the first who put forward this extravagance, supporting it by historical suggestions which consisted in anachronisms; but the same proposition recurs over and over again, as it furnishes a theme for that sort of stilted composition which has become the staple of the recent trade of book-making on art.[345]
Architecture moulds itself into the shapes of things in usefor building; it does not copy the independent works of nature. The column and entablature, the volute, abacus and plinth, are imitations in stone of the woodwork of primitive huts; they are not copies of the growing tree. The origin of the Gothic is still to find; an earlier material than stones is to be looked for; and if we would go back to the origin, we must figure to ourselves the art of building as devised for defence, before descending to embellishments, or to the lowly habitations out of which those temples arose, which have been distributed into and constitute the five orders of architecture.
The Arameans, the elder branch of the human family and the inheritors of early light, first occupied and permanently retained that fertile and well-watered region, which lies between the great limbs of the earth and the subdivisions of the ocean. There, neither strong positions were to be found, nor stones to be procured for the construction of defences. Their very existence depended upon the invention of a process by which the earth itself could be converted into walls. The soil containing a large proportion of alumine, durable walls might be made from it without the aid of any art, save that of beating and ramming down. Factitious stones might be obtained, or the mass formed at once by cases into a wall. Against injury from rain they had ready to their hand a preservative, in the bitumen with which the country abounded, and with which they cemented the bricks and besmeared the walls.[346]
These walls, whether made in pieces (brick) or in blocks, were however soft and perishable without the aid of fire, which gives brick (burnt) and lime two compositions, of which, like air and water, we do not know the value, by enjoying constantly their use. These discoveries I imagine to have been connected with the sacrifice as practised by the early Arameans. The Jews were forbidden to make an altar of stone, and when they set up stones, they were forbidden to raise on them a tool ofiron.[347]They were, moreover, ordered to make the altar ofearth,[348]and traces of this practice are to be found elsewhere, as among the Phrygians[349]and the Greeks.
The varieties of soil would thus expose to the fire, in various combinations, alumine, silex, carbonate and sulphate of lime (selenite). The blood flowed on it, and—as in the case of Jupiter Olympius—it was plastered over with the ashes. In the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, these altars must have been of brick in the mountainous districts, where alabaster as well as limestone abounded—gypsum and lime. At once would the substance of plaster be known, and the manner of using it, and, probably, lime was similarly treated, and thence the strength of ancient mortar. Vitruvius directs it to be mixed with ashes,[350]as it must have been in the plastering of these earth-altars.
Having thus obtained lime, it was used as the discovery suggested that it should be; that is, to harden the earth-walls themselves—not to cement stones. They would soon discover that gypsum had to be set up in moulds, hardening at once of its own accord; but that lime, mixing with the earth, or with gravel, acquired consistency by being rammed down. The varieties so presented are infinite, from the rudest, the cheapest, and the most perishable walls, to the most costly and durable ramparts; and these could so be raised without machinery or science, yet affording a strength to resist the besieging operators of those times, of a height to surpass all means of assault, and of a durability that has defied Time itself. The Devonshire cobwalls and the Normandy pisé afford examples of the first;—common earth bound together, in default of lime, with chopped straw; while in the old Moorish tower of Gibraltar is a specimen of the last, a concrete possessing greater power of resistance to shot than any discovery which has been made since the introduction of artillery.
When I first saw the ruins of the Phœnician city of old Tangier, which is a rough-looking wall (theopus incertumof the Romans), such as might be built by a very rude people in our times, I could not believe it to be Phœnician; but upon further examination of such ruins, and when I came to consider the nature of the soil where these structures were raised, and the merit attached to the first application of this most important material—lime—I found in that very coarseness an evidence of the high antiquity of these walls, and of the ingenuity of this people; and felt that we were indebted to them for a substance become of primary necessity.
A captive, employed as the Jews in Egypt were, has thus described the task of the Christian slaves in Morocco:
“Our work and daily labour was continually building of houses and walls: the material and method is so very foreign, and will appear strange to my countrymen. Here there are boxes of wood, of dimensions according to pleasure: these we fill with earth powdered, and lime and gravel well beat together andtempered with water; and when full, we remove the box according to order, and withdraw the box planks, and leave this matter to dry, which will then acquire an incredible degree of hardness and is very lasting, for we have seen walls of some hundred years’ standing, as we are informed, and all that time has not been able to do them any prejudice. The king himself (what reason for his humour may be we never had the curiosity to ask him) will sometimes vouchsafe to work in the lime and dirt for an hour together, and will bolt out an encouraging word to the slaves there, viz., as I remember, 'God send you to your own countries;’ but I judge he either does not speak from his heart, or else he hopes God will not answer the prayer of such a wretch as himself.”[351]
Livy mentions the Wall of Saguntum as similarly constructed; and Pliny speaks of the “forms” which they used for ramming down the materials in constructing them. He confines the practice to Mauritania and Spain. In these two countries it has still one and the same name,Tapia. In Hebrew and in Egyptiantebis the word which we translate “brick;” it also signifies “box.” The name has been derived from the mould. The hieroglyphic fortebis a foot and a hand.
No doubt from this word the name of the great city of Egypt, Thebes, is derived. I am aware that Sir Gardnor Wilkinson derives it fromap, orape, meaning the head or capital of the country; buttabis much nearer to Thebes thanaporape; and I am not aware that any city ever received its name from the head; whereas the most common of etymons for cities—at least among Arameans, is the defences which distinguish them from the inhabitants of the Tents.[352]
The derivatives from this word are extraordinary from their number, and the languages through which they spread, and vouch for the importance of the object to which it was applied, and the antiquity of the language in which it was used. The Turkish has taken from it its word forfortress—“tabia,”—and formound,—“tepe.” The Arabic preserves it in its pure sense—the Spanish derives from ittaparto close, andtapetia covering;—whence in the French we havetaperandtapis;—in English we havetapestry,tap, which has been probably derived from the originalteb; we have[353]tubandtube. The Greeks have taken from itτύπος, and thenceτύπτω; whence the string of European derivatives,type,typify, &c.,ταπεινὸς, humble,i.e.beaten down; also,ταφὸς, tomb, from the association of this mode of building with that of tombs.[354]
About the time that the Hebrews were taking Jericho, the Phœnicians were carrying on their commercial enterprises to the west. By this irruption into Canaan, an immense mass of colonists was placed at their disposal; and to this event in all probability is to be attributed the number and importance of their settlements. They are supposed to have reached the Northern Ocean, and especially to have had their settlements in Britain, as is indeed proved by the names still preserved in Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two counties thetapiaof Morocco is still used in building, though the species is of that inferior order in which lime is not used; or if used at all, merely for the coating—the tempering with lime of Ezekiel. In deriving it from the Phœnicians, difficulty presents itself in the name: it is calledcob:—this word is neither Teutonic, nor Celtic, Greek, nor Latin, Hebrew nor Arabic. It was after long research that the origin of it occurred to me in a word that I was in the daily habit of using, and which is the common name given in Morocco to a tomb—which is Cubbe. Many English derivatives show thatcobmeant both “wall” and “beating.”Cobweb, the web and the wall;cobden, hole in the wall;cobler, one making frequent use of the hammer;cobbing, a school-boy term for thrashing with a knotted handkerchief, besides many others—Cobbett—Cobham,—cobas applied to a breakwater—Lymecob.
Cubbe designates indeed a tomb; but it might equally be rendered, building, or wall: for the cubbe are the only buildings which appear throughout the Western regions of Africa. Although the word will be found in no Arabic dictionary, it is not likely thatcob, the Devonshire name for the material from which the Moorish cubbe is built, should have been given by mere chance. As the dictionary affords no clue, we must endeavour to trace them back constructively.
Bochart accounts for the story of a tomb of Hecuba, in Sicily, by supposing that the Greeks, seeing some Phœnician tomb, and inquiring what the building was, were answered, “Beth Hacub,suprema domus.” The meaning of Beth they could not mistake, and Hacub could only be the unhappy consort of Priam. Sir W. Hamilton does justice to this explanation in a rigid criticism of the author. If Beth Hacub were so employed, the contraction to the last syllable is quite natural; and as the tombs in Britain would be built of Tapia, the natives would call that substance by the same name—Cub—cob; as the Phœnicians themselves may have contracted it. The contraction has remained in Britain applicable to walls when built of this material—in Africa to the tombs which are their buildings.
As each promontory in Sicily had its fable connected with a tomb, the interpretation of which forms one of the most interesting chapters of “Pheleg,” the tomb must have been, as here now, the feature of the landscape. The figure, at once the most simple and complex—the cube, the dome, the arch, and spandril, all combined, doubtless has remained unchanged. Such, then, were those tombs scattered through Greece, and which we hear of as “Phrygian,” a people which I think I shall be able to prove to be identical with the ancient inhabitants of Morocco; and to them Solon must have referred when he forbade tombs to be built with “arched roofs.”
The dominant form is the cube; but this is the very word! It has been attempted to derive cube from Caaba. Here is a distinction without a difference.[355]From the Greekκύβοςwe have the term all the way downwards in every western language. Thus, the building has supplied the general name to Europe for its figure, to Devonshire for its substance, and in Morocco has remained with its primitive meaning, substance and figure.
The mistranslation of the Greeks respecting Hecuba, receives a curious confirmation from a grotesque mistake of the French: they call these buildingsmarabouts, and speak and write aboutmaraboutsas if it really were either an Arabic or a French name for Cubbe.[356]Marabouts are men, and they are sometimes honoured with such a tomb.[357]The Greeks, hearing the name of the building, applied it to a supposed inmate; the French, being told the name of the inmate, applied it to the edifice.
Pisé evidently comes fromπιέζω,[358]to squeeze or break; and the Phoceans, the allies of the Phœnicians, monopolised the commerce of Gaul. It is to be inferred that Cob is Phœnician; but the word is at present unknown, nor are there traces of it in the ancient language.
Moors, like the Jews, as shown in Ezekiel’s parable, “temper” the earth with lime. The durability depends upon the amount of beating, and the quantity of lime; and the expense is, of course, in proportion. No ancient buildings of mere earth remain; but still in Africa, though rarely, earth alone is used: in one very important portion of their architecture the three methods are all employed together, namely, earth—earth and lime mixed, and pure lime. This is for the flat roofings of their houses, and is a matter of the greatest difficulty; in fact, the very word architecture is derived from the process of roofing; and they celebrate the covering-in of the houses with ceremonies analogous to those which we employ in laying the foundation stone. Over the wood-work earth is first beaten down, then a layer of earth and lime, and then the pure lime: each layer is separately beaten. They use a small paviour’s mallet: they work by gangs, and strike in cadence with short stroke, singing in concert, and producing a strange melody, that resounds through the neighbourhood of their silent cities, startling the echoes with a melancholy, but not unpleasing note, which recalls the tones of “Adria’s gondolier;” but the words convey simpler thoughts, and a more devotional spirit. One strain runs thus:
“Yalla wo yalla amili dinu yarbi;Yalla wo yalla an azziz yarbi.”O God! O God! Eternal art thou, O my Lord!O God! O God! Dear to me art thou, O my Lord!
“Yalla wo yalla amili dinu yarbi;Yalla wo yalla an azziz yarbi.”O God! O God! Eternal art thou, O my Lord!O God! O God! Dear to me art thou, O my Lord!
“Yalla wo yalla amili dinu yarbi;
Yalla wo yalla an azziz yarbi.”
O God! O God! Eternal art thou, O my Lord!
O God! O God! Dear to me art thou, O my Lord!
They also apply their incantation to the case, as it may be. The traveller in Spain is often greeted by a change in the metre and words of the song, and the salutation is conveyed in their simple and pleasing extempore verse. The owner of a house visiting the work may in like manner be welcomed with such a strain as this:
“Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Lord of the dwelling will recompense us!Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Master of his workmen will cause them to rejoice!”
“Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Lord of the dwelling will recompense us!Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!The Master of his workmen will cause them to rejoice!”
“Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!
The Lord of the dwelling will recompense us!
Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!
The Master of his workmen will cause them to rejoice!”
The distinction between the Aramean and the other primitive races seems to have been maintained for a couple of thousand years; but at the mixture of nations by the great conquests of the Macedonians and the Romans, we find the use of lime extending to the others, and the chiseled stones adopted by the Arameans. It is in the works of the western or Moorish branch that has been preserved the type to our day; and they have excelled all other people in the grandeur and durability of their military architecture; and, with the exception of the polygonal and cyclopic, they have embodied with their own every species of ancient building.[359]
We thus identify with the Arameans, block walls, plaster of Paris, bricks and lime; and while it is to be expected that these various processes should be carried by them whither they emigrated, or taught by them to the people among whom they established colonies, or whom they instructed in the arts and sciences, still are we not to look for these as combined in one general system, but as severally or partially adopted according to the character of the surface of the country, or the nature of its soil, or as associated with the kinds of masonry already in use. In one country, however, the whole of the processes which I have noticed are still to be found. Not one is wanting; and they still possess that excellence of early structure which we have lost in Europe. In the villages round Tangier the walls are built of sunburnt brick exactly of the shape and dimensions of those of Babylon.
We have united in the origin as one whole, thick tapia walls, lofty towers, and tesselated pavements. Pliny mentions the introduction of the tesselated pavement after the third Punic war. The Greeks had before them employed pavements; and this word which we associate with stone[360]comes frompavire, to ram down, and could have no reference to stone, but must have been the tapia of Canaan.
When these artificers removed to countries where the soil was no longer aluminous, they would doubtless, although there were stones to build with, cling to their own fashion, as their buildings and the apertures would of necessity depend, not on the adjustment of the blocks, but on the adhesion of the walls. They clung also to their lofty towers even when they could build on strong and naturally defensible positions. Thus we find the Jews gratified by being permitted to build lofty towers, and these have been the work of predilection of the sovereigns of Morocco and of Spain.
This ramming into cases explains also the rectangular forms of all their buildings: round towers are very ancient and very Eastern: those of the Hindoo were round. The primeval architecture, still preserved in Sardinia, delighted in round towers, so also those of Ireland were round. The vitrified forts[361]were round, so that this form distinguishes the Arameans from the Hindoos on the East, the Celts on the North, and the Aboriginal population of Europe on the West. The early Mussulmans borrowed in the minaret the Minar of the Persians, but in theSma[362]of Barbary the original form was maintained. The two are seen struggling and combined in the mosques of Cairo, as in the early cathedrals of Europe. In Morocco bricks are used of all the shapes, and in all the varieties in which we find them in the East. At Carteia I found the grooved bricks of Ancient Arabia. Plaster of Paris is in like manner used for building; and in Suez large portions of the houses are set up at once, cast in moulds; and, lastly, there is the block wall in all its varieties, from the earth rammed to the concrete of mortar and earth, and of mortar and stones, exactly like that which, constructed two or three thousand years ago, still stands as fresh as upon the day of erection. In fact, these block walls are to-day as perfectly Moorish as the horse-shoe arch, the arabesque ornament, or the haïk.
The reason assigned by Herodotus for the selection of brick by Asychis, the successor of Mycerinus, for building his pyramid—namely, that it was more honourable than granite, as showing the power of earth, has occasioned in our times no small astonishment, and has received no explanation. After what I have said the explanation will be self-evident; and it is not absolutely decided whether these structures were raised by princes of Egyptian or Semetic blood. I think that the inscription[363]and the story go further than any positive statements of the Greek historian could have gone to give a shepherd origin to them.
When the Hebrews returned to Canaan, the first obstacle they met with was the walls of Jericho, an obstacle such as to baffle their natural means and acquired skill; nor is it to be supposed that they were destitute of the means of attacking such defences; but the walls of Jericho were remarkable in a country of walled towns,[364]and the name of “moon,” which Jericho signified, might have reference to their height,[365]which a special interposition was required to overthrow. The Jews built with stones, and with enormous ones, as the siege of Jerusalem and ruins still extant attest; and they had also, as well as the Canaanites, burnt bricks. David burnt the Ammonites in their own kilns[366]at Rabbah. Ezekiel says,[367]“And one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar. Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower.” These words have to us no meaning, but they prove that building in tapia or cob was the common practice of Judæa.
The great event in the early history of the Jews is the Egyptian captivity. The representatives of the Arameans were here in contact with the most remarkable builders of the other races. The task of the Jews was building: it was not masonry—it was not hewing in quarries or adjusting blocks, but building with earth: the expression used in Scripture may be interpreted as applying either to small or larger case-bricks, or entire walls. In the Egyptian paintings we see Jews[368]or Arameans occupied in the performance of their task, and the red men, the Egyptians, the task-masters over them. Here, however, it is burnt bricks we see: the clay is weighed, beaten into moulds, carried to the furnace blue, and brought back red. The Jews, therefore, had introduced this method. The soil of Egypt was not adapted for the block wall or sun-burnt brick, whilst the silex fitted it for burning.
Thus having got the materials, let us see how they were used in the construction of their ordinary dwellings. The Greek Triclinium-room was copied by the Romans. The Moors have also a form of room, but the method is different. The Greek house, as the Turkish, was a variable aggregate of integers, which were invariable. No light came from the door or from the side in which it was, and by which the room adjoined to the body of the house. From the side opposite to the door—that is the top—came the light from contiguous windows, as in the oriel windows of the Middle Ages. The rooms were, therefore, struck out to catch the light, and the house was like a bunch of crystals, united at the base, no account being taken, in building it, of the exterior form, which depended on the accidental arrangement and size of the rooms, the proportions of which were invariable.
With the Moors it is exactly the reverse. Their building was a square of dead walls: the rooms were made to fit that form, and their light came by the door and the door alone: the door is in the length of the room, and divides it into two equal parts. Under the tent they were encamped always ready to march—in their houses they were fortified, ever in a state of defence. Their breccia they struck out into archways, or pierced with open works; but windows were as little known to them as stirrups to the Greeks or Romans. From this court, in the centre, come the lights. I need not repeat what I have already said respecting it, which the reader will find in the account of a Jewish house at Arzela.
A Moorish house was made in the style of a cavern or grotto, and its pendulous interior fret-work strikes every one as something resembling the stalactites of a cave (πετρήρεφες, αὐτοκτίτ’ ἄντρα). The weight, therefore, of the roof, and the deficiency of timber, conjoined to maintain that original structure of long narrow rooms adjoining the court-yard, which originated in the materials of their building and the necessities of their defence, and which were admirably adapted to their climate, and suited to the habit which it engendered of living in community.
As the room of the Turks presents to us the Triclinium of the Greeks, so do the houses of Morocco the dwellings of the Hebrews, and furnish the explanation of obscure passages in the Scriptures: to the Moorish houses as exactly applies every term having reference to houses or buildings, as those having reference to clothing do to the Moorish dress.
The Hebrews originally dwelt in tents. When they returned from Egypt they found the Holy Land filled with fenced cities. They came from the wilderness as the Arabs now do into Suez from the Sahara. They adopted the settled manners of the people, but tribes identified with them, such as the Kenites and Rechabites, continued to live under tents. The domestic architecture of the Jews was thus properly Canaanitish, and is in Morocco what it was in the Holy Land when the Jews entered.
The Arab under his tent, and the Breber in his solid house of tapia, with its square towers, picture to the life the period of Caleb and Joshua. This architecture, transferred to Morocco nearly three thousand years ago, has here continued to subsist, while it has been extinguished—utterly blotted out in Judæa. It required the protecting mounds of ruins to preserve the fashions of the chambers of the Assyrian kings, which have lived through all this course of ages unharmed by the breath of heaven or the hand of man, in Tetuan and Tangier.
Spain had not her tapia from the Saracens, as already shown; she received it, and with it her architecture, from the same sources as Morocco. We are informed by St. Isidore that, in the fifth century, the Goths had adopted the same mode of building—of course from the Iberians, who are the source of most things which we are so fond of calling Saracenic in Spain, whether architecture, blood, manners, or words. Like Judæa, Spain—though not to the same extent—had lost her original type, and Morocco remained, at the time of the Saracen conquest, the treasure-house of the ancient world, and the museum of human history.
That Morocco did continue in the usufruct of this inheritance, may be seen in the buildings they immediately commenced in Spain, and in the accounts handed down of the splendour of the buildings of Morocco, in the first days of Islamism.
If this architecture of Judæa can be understood and explained by the existing buildings in Morocco, does the converse hold? Would the description of Moorish architecture apply to the buildings of Judæa? Do we, in fact, in looking upon the Alcazars and Alhambras, behold the image of the Palace of Hiram or the Temple of Solomon? That question I cannot answer in the affirmative. There is nothing described of the buildings of Judæa that is not to be found in those of Morocco; but there is that in those of Morocco which, had it existed in Judæa, could not have failed to have been described. The descriptions of the buildings in Spain, if they disappeared, would not correspond with those of Judæa. The architecture of Canaan has undergone a change in the West.
That which attracts attention to the Moresque and awakens enthusiasm, is the tracery upon the walls, the pensile figures of the arches, and the domes with their colours. To these no reference is made in ancient writers, and of them no trace has been preserved; yet are they embellishments too striking not to be observed, and too beautiful to have been lost in such an age. Had there been an Alhambra at Jerusalem or at Tyre, we should have found something like it on the banks of the Nile, where the Jews raised their rival temple; in the Baths of Lucullus or in the Palaces of Antioch. Greek Virtuosi then were spread over all these regions, and there were the Ptolemies collecting all the stores of art and literature, who garrisoned fortresses with the Jews, and who were spurred on by envy of Tyre and rivalry with Carthage.
We have, then, two points most distinctly made out—first, that the substance of the walls, and the structure of the edifices, the roofing, the wood-painting, of Judæa, corresponded with those of Morocco. Secondly, that the embellishments of vivid and varied colours, and the delicate lace-work, known as Arabesque, did not exist in Judæa.
The latter constitutes, to our eyes, the Moorish architecture, but, from what I have said, it will appear that it is but a garment over it. When, then, was it added thereto? by whom was it invented? where was it first applied? It is one of the greatest efforts that has been ever made; it is enough to make an epoch. We must look for it in some period of greatness, of some seat of empire, under some prince pre-eminent in all the attributes which can command the admiration of men. We turn to Damascus—to the Caliphat: we have no traces of it there, and no relic. The earliest monuments eastward are found at Alexandria, and then only in fragments; and there is neither the thing nor the type. Did it, then, spring up on the soil of Spain, in that favoured region? No. We find it in the very earliest monuments of the Moors. When they entered Spain, it was already formed and complete.
It was, therefore, in Morocco, that the architecture of Judæa underwent those changes, expanded into those graceful forms, and robed itself in those rainbow colours.
There are natural features and primitive habits which suggest or account for each of these modifications—features so striking that they could not fail to be observed, and so beautiful that they must have been copied: these I have described as they presented themselves to me. The types which I found in nature or in practice are of the stalactitic, dome, and arch,—the horseshoe arch, the tracery on the wall, the diversified colouring of that tracery, the half-globe dome upon the cube; and these, in fact, are the modifications that the architecture of Judæa received, and by which it has been converted into the Moorish.
On the material the system of architecture depended, and it is wholly different from the classic. The great styles of antiquity depended, not on the adhesion of the stones, but their form and weight, and by science alone they obtained arches. Thus the perpendicular key-stone of the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans, the horizontal and narrowing circle of the Pelasgi, the massive rocks carved and transported by the Egyptians, the inclining jamb of the Cyclops (Tyrius and Lamos), the column and entablature of the Greek, all depended on mechanical science, and, therefore, the form of the passage through a wall, became a distinctive feature of a race. The tapia, by its adhesion, constituted as it were a rock in the form of a dwelling; they required no mechanical adjustments to obtain the openings,—they could make them at pleasure; square, or with a semicircular or pointed arch or a horse-shoe. They dug through the walls; so, in like manner, could they carry them to any height, and build them for any number of ages. Hence, the square, massive solidity of the Moorish structure; hence, the absence of all exterior lines of architecture for embellishments; hence, the ornaments of the material itself; hence, the bold facility and the endless variety which they gave to their arches; hence, the rich decorations and lightness of the interior contrasted with the exterior rudeness and gravity; hence, the adornment of that interior by tesselated pavements and variegated walls.
Here was architecture in its essence: the covering-in of the top, the erecting of the wall, was the work of barrow-men. The carpenter, the craftsman was required for laying on the beams, and making the terrace water-tight. Within, the roof is as important as without; for as it is upon the roof that depends the durability, and I may say, solidity of the structure, so in the roof consists the chief embellishment of the apartment.
Nothing is weak—nothing frittered away. Simple, but never rude; unadorned, but never base; severe, and yet in the highest degree attractive; the Æschylean Majesty of the Doric order is the very highest conception that even Grecian art could realize. The contemplation, even in the meanest engraving, of one of its matchless porticos, in all the stern grace of the column, capital, and cornice, is absolutely overwhelming. And this climax of pure dignity, this expression of heathendom in its noblest form, this embodiedκαλὸν, such as the Hellenic mind only could compass, we are gravely told was borrowed from the hideous and unmeaning monstrosities of the race who paid divine honours to the lowest vermin, and whom their gardens supplied with appropriate objects of veneration![369]
Coleridge, by transferring into our language something of the verbal chemistry of Kant, prompted combinations of terms as if they had been compounds of simple elements; he did not give new substances, but conferred the facility of travelling out of reality. Wordsworth, using the objects of art and nature as suggesting devotional thoughts, diverted the mythology of the Greeks to the service of the faith, and thought it a conquest. Thus by peopling the forest, the cave, the vault, and the spire with mystic beings, and supplying them with hidden meanings, he contributed his part to theirs.
[344]“The Goths who conquered Spain in 470, becoming Christians, endeavoured to build their churches in imitation of the spreading and interlacing boughs of the groves in which they had been accustomed to perform theirpagan ritesin their native country of Scandinavia, and they employed for this purpose Saracen Architects, whoseexoticstyle suited their purpose.”—Warburton.
[345]“The soaring nave of a Gothic minster, in the clustered and banded stalks of its lofty pillars, the curling leaves of its capitals and cornices, the interlacing arches of its fretted vault, the interminable entwinings of its tracery, the countless hues that sparkle from roof, and chapiter, and wall, and window, recall no work of man, indeed—no tent, or hut, or cavern, but the sublimest temple of natural religion, the awful gloom of the deep forests of the north; the aspiring height of the slender pine, the spreading arms of the giant oak, rich with the varied tints of leaf and blossom, with the wild birds’ song for its anthem, or the rustle of the breeze in its waving branches, for the voices of the mighty multitude, or the deep notes of the solemn organ.”—Freeman’sHistory of Architecture,p.15.
[346]The walls of Megalopolis in Greece were so defended.
[347]“Thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster, and thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law.... Thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.”—Deut. xxvii.2-5. The stones were to be covered, and were not to be touched with iron tool; and yet all the law was to be written on them: it must, then, have been on the plaster.
[348]“An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me.”—Exodusxx.24.
[349]The Teucrian Girghis was, as I have shown elsewhere, a colony of Gergashites. See also Selden, Diis Syriis:Syntag. l. ii. c.2.
[350]“Ex sabulone et calce etfavilla.”—Vitr.l. vii. c.4. In the Highlands of Scotland it is a tradition, that the old lime, which stands so well, was used unslaked: the very same thing has been told me in Andalusia. Recently in England they have fallen on this process for building under water.
[351]Captivity of T. Phelps. London, 1685.
[352]“The name Thebes is corrupted from the 'Tápé’ of the ancient Egyptians and Copts, which, in the Memphitic dialect, is pronounced Thaba, easily converted intoΘῆβαι, or Thebes. Some writers have confined themselves to a closer imitation of the Egyptian word; and Pliny and Juvenal have both adopted 'Thebe’ in the singular number as the name of this city. In hieroglyphics it is written Ap, Ape, or with the feminine article, Tápé, the meaning of which appears to be 'the head,’ Thebes being the capital of the country.”—Wilkinson,Thebes,vol. ii. p.136.
[353]Barrel is also derived from the Arabic—bar, earth;barril, made of earth; which the Spaniards still apply to an earthen vessel.
[354]The lexicographers deriveταφὸςfromθάπτω, and then they deriveθάπτωfromταφός.
[355]Cybele is derived fromκυβήβειν,i.e.κύπτειν, for she made her servants bow.Kύβη, the head, is derived fromκύπτω.
The word cupola is directly from the Arabic,Cobbal, which from the form was likewise applied to the whole building, and also to an umbrella: thus, the Mosque of Cordova was known as Cobbal al Malik, or the King’s Cupola; and an office under the Mameluk government in Egypt was entitled Cobbal u Thaïr, this functionary carrying an umbrella, and bearing on his fist a hawk.
[356]I find in Richardson’s Sahara the wordmarabit. This may, indeed, be a local term for tomb. In Richardson’s Dictionary “marabet” is set down asplace of rest. It has, however, no connexion with “marabout,” or, properly,amarabout, fromamr, to command; whenceemirandadmiral.
[357]Tomb, in Arabic, ismukburea, medfanè gáber turbè. In Breber it isagekka.
[358]It was natural that the Phoceans should have adopted the art, and given a name to it, as was their wont, from their own language. The resemblance is too close to be accidental with “Piazza.”Piso, in Spanish, is to stamp: it is also the floor of a house, formerly made by ramming down, just as the walls were—Pistorin Latin. Their bread was better kneaded than ours; sopiston,pestle, &c.
[359]At Shemish, the most remarkable Phœnician ruin that I visited, the Phœnician lime and mortar are conjoined with the Hellenic blocks.
[360]The Carthaginians first used stones for paving their streets and roads, so that from them was derived one of the monuments that has mainly perpetuated the idea of Roman grandeur and magnificence.
The same practice is of course used for floors in passages, and leads naturally to the ornamenting of these in colour, and to paving them in brick and pottery, as these arts took the place of the rammed-down clay, or the sun-burnt brick.
[361]Vitruvius condemns square towers, as affording protection to the besiegers rather than the besieged. The Moors first invented flanking walls.
[362]An old Etruscan tower at Tosconella, is exactly of the same make as the Moorish Sma.
[363]“Do not despise me, for when compared to the stone pyramids, I am as superior as Jupiter to the other gods. For men, plunging poles into a lake, and collecting the mud thus extracted, formed it into bricks, of which they made me.”
There is here a contempt apprehended, and the highest estimation expressed. The shepherd-king deprecates Egyptian censure, in following his country’s fashion. Sir G. Wilkinson says:—
“Dr. Richardson justly asks, in what could this superiority over stone pyramids exist? and suggests, that it points to theinvention of the archthat roofed its chambers, which, provided Asychis lived prior to the sixteenth and eighteenth dynasties, may possibly be true.”
“The primeval builders of Egyptian stone pyramids must have previously been earth-mound builders elsewhere, probably in Asia.”—Gliddon,Otia Egyptiaca,p.36.
[364]“The cities are great and walled up to heaven.”—Deut. vii.28. “Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in and possess thirty cities fenced up to heaven.”—Deut. ix.1.
[365]So “moon sails,” “mountains of the moon.”
[366]2 Samuel,xii.31.
[367]Ezekiel,xiii.10-11.
[368]Not indeed those in captivity in Goshen, and delivered by Moses. The period is that of ThothmesIII.of the fifteenth dynasty.
[369]Freeman on Architecture,p.106.