雙語+MP3|美國學生世界地理31 西班牙城堡

     WHEN-I-WAS-A-BOY I used to plan the kind of home I would have when I grew up and had plenty of money. It was to have a gymnasium in the attic, a zoo for pets in the cellar, a museum of curiosities in the parlor, and a soda-water fountain in the dining-room. My mother used to say that was my Castle in Spain, and when I asked her what a Castle in Spain was, she said, "Any wonderful home-in your mind."
     But Spain is a real place, a real country, and there are real castles there even now.
     The map of Europe is like a puzzle-picture. If you turn it around or look at it sideways you will see a little old woman with a big head, a hump-back, and a long leg kicking a football into the sea. The head is called Spain, and the cap that Spain is wearing on the front of her head is called Portugal. Where the head joins France there is a collar of mountains called the Pyrenees.


     At one time Spain not only looked like the head of Europe, she really was the head of Europe, for she owned a great part of Europe. Then there came a time just after Columbus discovered America when Spain was the head not only of Europe but of all the World. She then owned a great part of North America and all of South America, except Brazil. So she was the greatest country i. t. w. W.. Now, however, Spain doesn't even own all of Spain. On the map Spain seems to be rubbing her nose against the nose of Africa, as some savages rub noses when they meet. This nose of Spain is called Gibraltar, but Gibraltar does not belong to Spain; it belongs to England.
     Gibraltar looks like a nose on the map, but if you were in a boat out on the Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar would look like a long, high rock. Between it and Africa there is a narrow strip of water called the Strait of Gibraltar. It is only about thirteen miles across. It is about half as wide as the Strait of Dover, but powerful currents are pulling and pushing in and out from the Atlantic Ocean, and only recently has any one been able to swim across it. Inside of the Rock of Gibraltar, England has cut hallways and rooms and windows with long-distance guns in them, and placed her soldiers there to watch out over the water, and in time of war to fire on any one England does not want to pass through the water-gate.
     Long years ago most all of the World that people knew was chiefly around the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Sailors at that time thought it dangerous to go outside this gate, the Strait of Gibraltar, into the great ocean, and-so the story goes-they set up Pillars on each side of the Strait like gate-posts. They called them the Pillars of Hercules, and they put up a sign to warn sailors that it was dangerous to go beyond these Pillars. The sign said "Non Plus Ultra," which meant "Nothing More Beyond." It was supposed that not far outside the Pillars of Her-cules the ocean came to an edge where you would tumble off down, down, down to bottomless nothing. Columbus did not believe any such foolishness; he was not afraid. He sailed from Spain, starting from a place outside the Pillars of Hercules called Palos. He sailed on and on and on until, as you know, he came to America.


     Just before Columbus sailed from Spain there were people living there called Moors, who had come across from Africa and made their home in Spain. The Moors were different from other people in Europe. They did not believe in Christ; they were not Christians. They believed in a man named Mohammed and a god whom they called Allah. The Moors built beautiful palaces, but they were different from Christian palaces. The Moorish princes lived in one of these palaces on a hill in the city of Granada, which is not far from Gibraltar. The palace in Granada was called the Alhambra.


     The Christians in Spain didn't like the Moors, so they fought them, and at last the Christians drove the Moors out of Spain, drove them across the Strait of Gibraltar back into Africa whence they had come. The Spanish Queen received Columbus in the Alhambra and bade him good-by before he started out for the New World, but no one now lives there. It is still there on the hill at Granada and Spain keeps it as it once was, so that people may visit it. The walls, instead of being plastered or painted, are covered with colored tiles. The doorways, instead of being square, are shaped like a horseshoe, and its court-yards have splashing fountains and walled-in pools where the Moorish princesses used to bathe instead of in bathtubs.
     A city in Spain called Seville has a great Cathedral, the second largest church in the World. It was built, of course, after the Moors had been driven out of Spain, as it is a Christian church, built where there once was a Moorish church. In this Cathedral are buried what are supposed to be the ashes of Columbus, though we think, as I told you before, that they are not his ashes at all, but the ashes of his son, and that his real ashes are in Haiti.
     Moorish women used to wear veils over their faces. It was thought immodest for them to go out on the street with their faces uncovered. The Spanish women often wear veils too, but they wear them over their heads instead of hats, and some of the veils made of lace are very beautiful and very costly. They also wear very big and high combs in their hair and bright-colored silk shawls over their shoulders, and in summer carry beautiful fans, for it gets very warm in Seville-so warm that during the middle of the day no one goes out-of-doors who doesn't have to. In our country young children take naps during the day, but in Spain grown-ups take naps too, after their midday meal, only they call a nap by the very pretty name "siesta."