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Certain it is that these tombs in the midst of the wilderness are peculiarly the property of the Bedouin, and, though visited, and to a certain extent venerated, by the Arabs, the latter do not attach so much importance to them as they do to the tombs of their own walis or saints, which are always covered tombs, near or in the centre of the towns.
With equal hypocrisy Yussef humbly thanked him for his abdication; the sheiks and walis were summoned to witness the renewed declaration of the emir, after which the two princes separated. The following day, however, Abu-Bekr received a magnificent present from Yussef, who, indeed, continued to send him one every year to the period of his death. Such a gift was worthy of royalty.
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth Al-Malik al-Nasir to the three Walis, "I desire each of you to recount me the marvellousest thing which hath befallen him during his term of office." So they answered, "We hear and we obey."
Formerly all the piers of the old cathedral of Coimbra were covered with such tiles, but they have lately been swept away, and only those left which line the aisle walls. At Cintra there are a few which it is supposed may have belonged to the palace of the Walis, or perhaps it would be safer to say to the palace before it was rebuilt by Dom João.
Two of these are encircled by the old Moorish fortification which climbs up and down over huge granite boulders, and on a projecting spur near their foot, and to the north, there stands the old palace of Cintra. As long as the Walis ruled at Lisbon, it was to Cintra that they came in summer for hunting and cool air, and some part at least of their palace seems to have survived till to-day.
So long, indeed, as the walis were eager only to preserve or to extend their authority, independent of each other and of every superior, this success need not surprise us we may rather be surprised that the Mahometans were allowed to retain any footing in the Peninsula. Probably they would at this time have been driven from it but for the seasonable arrival of the victorious Almohades.
The never-ceasing contest with the Christians was waged year by year; and the Princes of Oviedo, though often defeated in the plain and driven back into their mountains, when the forces of Andalus were gathered against them; yet surely, though slowly, gained ground against the provincial walis or viceroys.
Said he, "When I return from my journey, I will take another wife;" and she, "My luck is with Allah!" Then he went out from her and both repented of the sharp words spoken each to other. So she took up her stand under the windows of the Emir's house, and fell to calling aloud upon Allah's name and saying, "Be present, O ye Walis, ye friends of the Lord!"
The chapel stands at the northern edge of the palace buildings, having beyond it a terrace called the Terreiro da Meca or of Mecca; partly from this name, and partly from the tiles which still cover the middle of the floor it is believed that the chapel stands exactly on the site of the Walis' private mosque, with perhaps the chancel added.
Christian, clerical even, though he was, he had inherited a melancholy, dreamy turn of mind from the very Arabs who had created all that Eden. He pictured to himself the tiny kingdoms of those old walis; vassal districts very like the one his family ruled.
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