_ But
on no account would I have the reader avoid the Church of Santa Maria
Mayor. It is so dark within that he will not see the finely carved choir
seats without the help of matches, or the pictures at all; but it is
worth realizing, as one presently may, that the hither part of the
church is a tolerably perfect mosque of Moorish architecture, through
which you must pass to the Renaissance temple of the Christian faith.
Near by is the Casa de Mondragon which he should as little miss if he
has any pleasure in houses with two _patios_ perching on the gardened
brink of a precipice and overlooking one of the most beautiful valleys
in the whole world, with donkey-trains climbing up from it over the face
of the cliff. The garden is as charming as red geraniums and blue
cabbages can make a garden, and the house is fascinatingly quaint and
unutterably Spanish, with the inner _patio_ furnished in bright-colored
cushions and wicker chairs, and looked into by a brown wooden gallery. A
stately lemon-colored elderly woman followed us silently about, and the
whole place was pervaded by a smell that was impossible at the time and
now seems incredible.
III
I here hesitate before a little adventure which I would not make too
much of nor yet minify: it seems to me so gentle and winning.
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