ALPUJARRAS, or ALPUXARRAS, THE (Moorish al Busherat, " the grass-

See also:

• LAND

land ")  , a mountainous district of southern Spain, in the province of Granada, consisting principally of valleys which descend at right angles from the crest of the Sierra Nevada on the north, to the Sierras Almijara, Contraviesa and Gador, which sever it from the Mediterranean Sea, on the south: These valleys are among the most beautiful and fertile in Spain . They contain a rich abundance of fruit trees, especially vines, oranges, lemons and figs, and in some parts present scenes of almost Alpine grandeur . The inhabitants are the descendants of the Moors, who, after the Spanish conquest of Granada in 1492, vainly sought to preserve the last relics of their independence in their mountain fastnesses . Many of the names of places in the Alpujarras are of Moorish origin . The district contains many villages of i000 to 4000 inhabitants, the four largest being Lanjaron, with its ruined castle and chalybeate baths, Orgiba, Trevelez and Ugijar; all situated at a considerable elevation . Trevelez, the highest, stands 5332 ft. above the sea . `ALQAMA IBN `ABADA, generally known as `ALQAMA AL-FAIL, an Arabian poet of the tribe Tamim, who flourished in the second half of the 6th century . Of his life we know practically nothing except that his chief poem concerns an incident in the wars between the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids (see ARABIA, History) . Even the date of this is doubtful, but it is generally referred to the period after the middle of the 6th century . His poetic description of ostriches is said to have been famous among the Arabs . His diwan consists of three qasidas (elegies) and eleven fragments . Asma' I considered three of the poems genuine .

The poems were edited by A . Socin with Latin

translation as Die Gedichte des 'Alkama Alfahl (Leipzig, 1867), and are contained in W . Ahlwardt's The Diwans of the six ancient Arabic Poets (Loud., 1870) ; cf . W . Ahlwardt's Bemerkungen ilber die Aechtheit der alten arabischen Gedichte (Greifswald, 1872), pp . 65-71 and 146-168 . (G . W .