Vine and Olive by Oliver Optic

Cordova is a gloomy and desolate city with about forty thousand inhabitants. It was once the capital of the kingdom of Cordova, and had two hundred thousand people within its walls; and some say a million, though the former number is doubtless nearer the truth. The grass grows in its streets now, and it looks like a deserted city, as it is. There is only one thing to see in Cordova, and that is the mosque. As soon as the party had been to breakfast, they hastened to visit it.

"We will first take a view of the outside," said the doctor to his pupils when they had reached the mosque. "This square in front of it is the Court of Oranges; you observe a few palms and cypresses, as well as orange–trees. The fountain in the centre was built by the Moors nearly a thousand years ago."