TLAXCALA, a town of Mexico, capital of a State of the same name, on the Atoyac river, 7,50o ft. above the sea, 85 m. E. of Mexico City by rail. Pop. 0930), 3,199. Historic interest at taches to the church of San Francisco, the first erected on the American continent, which still contains the vestments, pulpit, font and cedar ceiling brought from Spain in 1521.
The various quarters are grouped around the principal mosque —the Jewish to the south-west, the Moorish to the south-east, that of the merchants to the north-east, while the new town with the civic buildings lies to the north-west. Of the sixty-four mosques which existed at the period of the French conquest, several have disappeared. The great mosque (Jamaa-el-Kebir) has a brick minaret 112 ft. high, adorned with marble columns, and cased with mosaic of the most varied designs ; a fountain of alabaster—of the kind known as Algerian onyx—stands in the alabaster-paved inner court; and 72 columns support the arches of the interior. This mosque was built A.D. 1136 to replace a much older building. The mihrab is finely ornamented with arabesques. The mosque of Sidi Ahmed bel Hassan, usually called Abul Hassan, built A.D. 1298, now transformed into a museum of antiquities, has two series of arches, which rest on alabaster pillars. The courts are ornamented by sculptures of great beauty and richness; the delicately-carved cedar ceiling bears traces of polychromatic painting. The mosque of El-Halawi (the Sweetmeat
Maker), dating from 1353, has eight magnificent columns of Algerian onyx. The ceiling of cedar is richly carved, and there is a fine colonnade on each side of the court. The minaret is decorated with mosaics. The military authorities occupy the Meshuar or citadel, built in 1145, which separates the Jewish and Moorish quarters and was formerly the palace of the rulers of Tlemcen. Only the minaret of the mosque, dating from the 14th century, and the battlemented wall, flanked by two towers, remain of its former magnificence. The vast basin(sahrij) under the old walls, now dry (72o ft. in length, 490 in width and i o in depth), was apparently made for naval ex hibitions. A covered market occupied the site of the Kissaria, the place of residence of European merchants from Pisa, Genoa, Catalonia and Provence. Besides the large trade carried on there are native manufac tories of cloth, carpets and leathern arti cles. A special manufacture is that of red shawls, used by Jewish women when in mourning.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the modern Tlemcen are numerous remains of the fortifications of Agadir (vide infra), and the minaret of the mosque, a beauti ful tower dating from the 13th century, the lower part of which is built of large hewn stones from the Roman Pomaria. More noteworthy, however, are the ruins of Sidi Bu Medin and of Mansura. Sidi Bu Medin (more properly El Eubbad) is a little over a mile south-east of Tlemcen. It was founded A.D. 1337 by Ali V., the first of the Beni Marin (Marinide) sultans who ruled Tlemcen. The kubba or tomb of Sidi Bu Medin, near the palace, is held in great veneration by the Arabs. The saint himself was born at Seville A.D. 1126, and died near Tlemcen in his 75th year. The adjacent mosque is a beautiful specimen of Moorish art.
Mansura, which is about i z m. west of Tlemcen, owes its foundation to the attempts of the Beni-Marin rulers of Morocco