necks are driven in. The bull welcomes them as friends, and goes out in their company. The darts are removed, the sore parts rubbed with salt and vinegar. It is not often that a bull goes twice into the ring. He learns the trick the first time, and if called upon for a second performance, stolidly takes his place in the corner, and watches his enemies skip around without budging.

This is cruel enough to our Anglo-Saxon eyes, and we would be sorry to see even Portuguese bull-fighting introduced into New York. But how humane, compared with the bull-fight in Spain! The two forms of amusement show one essential point of variance between the two countries, for in nothing can you read a people so clearly as in their amusements. Alike in so many things-shoots from the same tree-contiguous in territory, the languages in affinity, more closely allied in all respects than any other two neighboring nations in Europe. In one you see progress in thought, public freedom, manners, and morals

an effort to keep abreast of the century. The best friends of Spain rejoice if they can see that she is not more than a century in the rear. The influences that have affected Portugal, however, will in time awaken in Spain the better sentiment of her people.

CHAPTER XXVII.

GENERAL GRANT RETURNS TO SPAIN

A VISIT TO COR

DOVA-THE FAMOUS MOSQUE - THE HISTORY OF THE
A CHAT WITH MONTPENSIER

CITY

SEVILLE

BEAUTIFUL CITY THE ANGELUS BELLS.

From Portugal General Grant and his party returned to Spain. The first place visited was Cordova. A correspondent to the New York Herald writes: — It was late in the evening, and a heavy rain was falling, when General Grant and his party reached Cordova. The Governor of the city and the authorities were waiting at the station. After the long ride from Lisbon it was pleasant to rest, even in the indifferent condition of comfort provided in a Spanish inn. There was a visit to the theatre, a ramble about the streets, which is General Grant's modern fashion of taking possession of a town; there was a stroll up the Roman bridge, the arches of which are as stout and fresh as if the workmen had just laid down their tools. There was a visit to a Moorish mill in which the millers were grinding wheat. There was the casino, and the ascent of a tower from which Andalusia is seen spreading out before us green and smiling. And this sums up Cordova. What you read of its ancient Roman and Moorish splendor, all traces of it have vanished, and you feel, as you wind and unwind yourself through the tortuous streets, that you are in a forgotten remnant of Spain; that civilization has changed its course, as rivers at home sometimes do, and

run into a new channel, leaving Cordova to one side. The only evidence of modern life is the railway-station.

It was pleasant while at Cordova to meet Mr. Hett, the American Secretary of Legation at Paris, and his wife, who were returning to France from a holiday in the Peninsula. In the morning the mosque was visited. We had thought that it might be better to visit the mosque alone, without state or ceremony, but the authorities of Cordova were in an advanced stage of courtesy, and our visit was in state. It seemed almost like a desecration - this dress

and parade within these unique and venerable walls. The mosque is even now among the wonders of Europe. It stands on the site of an ancient temple of Janus. Eleven centuries ago, the Moors resolved to build a temple to the worship of God and Mohammed His prophet, which should surpass all other temples in the world. Out of this resolution came this building. You can see even now the mosque in its day justified the extravagant commendations

of the Arabian historians. There was an enclosed courtyard, in which orange-trees were growing, and priests walking up and down, taking the morning air. This enclosure seemed to be a bit out of Islam, and it looked almost like a profanation of Moslem rites to see men in attendance wearing the garb of Rome - so cool, so quiet, so retired, so sheltered from the outer world that one could well imagine it to have been the place of refuge and rest which Mohammed intended as the special purpose of every mosque. every mosque. As you enter, the first impression is as of a wilderness of low columns that run in all directions. These columns were formerly whitewashed by the Christians, after the taking of Cordova, but under Isabella's government the whitewash was removed, and you now see the ancient red and white brick walls and precious stones of which they are made. There is a tradition that most of these columns were made out of the materials of the ancient Roman temple which stood on this site, and that some were sent from the temples of Carthage. It was easy to see that they were not the work of any one mind, but rather represent the enterprise of the builders in rummaging among other ruins, or the generosity of priests and rulers, who showed their desire to stand well with the Governor of Cordova by sending a quantity of columns for the mosque. In this way it happens that some of the columns are of jasper, others of porphyry, others of choice marbles. Some, you notice, are short, and have had to be supplemented by mechanical contrivances. But although a close examination of the mosque shows these differences and really adds to its interest, the general effect is unique and imposing. You note with impatience that the governors under Charles V. had a large part of this incomparable series of arches removed to build a modern chapel, and, although the chapel was not without interest in respect to woodwork and tapestry, its presence here

seems a violence to all the laws of art, and one can understand the chagrin of Charles V., who, when he examined the mosque for the first time in 1526, and saw what had been done in the building of this chapel, said, "You have built here what any one might have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the

world."

It is difficult to give an exact description of the mosque. Its value lies in the impression it makes on you, and in the fact that it is an almost perfect monument of Moslem civilization in Spain. There is the ever-recurring Oriental arch, the inventor of which you sometimes think must have found his type in the orange. There are elaborate and gorgeous decorations of the sacred places of the mosque, where the Koran was kept, where the guilty ones sought refuge and unfortunate ones succor, where justice was administered and the laws of the Koran expounded. It all seems as clear and fresh-so genial is this Andalusian atmosphere- as it came from the hand of the faithful kings who built it. As one strolls through the arches, studying each varying phase of Oriental taste, the voices of the priests chanting the morning service and the odor of incense are borne upon the air. It is startling to find Christians in the performance of their sacred office within the walls of a building consecrated by the patience and devotion of the unfortunate Moors. The lesson you always learn in Spain is what you see to-day, and what you admire as the work of destiny, are only phases of changing and vanishing civilizations. The Moor may have mused over the ruins of Roman splendor even as we are musing over the monuments of the Moor's pride; and even after we are gone others may look with wondering eyes upon that monument of Christian art and fanaticism - the Escurial.