Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.

From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar _(El-Kasr),_ or Palace of the
Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish facade, with its pointed
arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.

We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
trees, bending to earth under the