This court is not large; the ceiling is high, and a light portico runs round it upheld by white marble columns in clusters of two, three, or more, so arranged as to resemble trees coming up from the ground. Above the columns the designs almost resemble curtains, and there are little graceful suggestions like ribbons and waving flowers. "From the middle of the shortest sides advance two groups of columns, which form two species of square temples of nine arches each (see cut) surmounted by as many colored cupolas. The walls of these little temples and the exterior of the portico are a real lace-work of stucco, embroideries, and hems, cut and pierced from one side to the other, and as transparent as net-work, changing in design at every step. Sometimes they end in points, in crimps, in festoons, sometimes in ribbons waving round the arches, in kinds of stalactites, fringes, trinkets, and bows which seem to move and mingle with each other at the slightest breath of air. Large Arabic inscriptions run along the four walls, over the arches, around the capitals, and on the walls of the little temples. In the centre of the court rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions (see cut), and surrounded by a little paved canal.... At every step one takes in the court that forest of columns seems to move and change place, to form again in another way; behind one column, which seems alone, two, three, or a row will spring out; others separate, unite, and separate again.... We remained for more than an hour in the court, and it passed like a flash; I, too, did what almost all people do, be they Spanish or strangers, men or women, poets or not. I ran my hand along the walls, touched all the little columns, and passed my two hands around them, one by one, as around the waist of a child; I hid among them, counted them, looked at them on a hundred sides, crossed the court in a hundred ways, tried if it were true that in saying a word, _sotto voce_, into the mouth of one lion, one could hear it distinctly from the mouths of all the others; I looked on the marbles for the spots of blood of poetic legends, and wearied both brain and eye over the arabesques.... In all my life I have never thought, nor said, nor shall I say, so many foolish, stupid, pretty, senseless things as I said and thought in that hour." The study of Saracenic architecture in Turkey, Persia, and India is very interesting, but our space warns us that we must hasten to leave this dreamy, fairy-like part of our subject and come down to later times and more realistic matters. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 1400 A.D. TO THE PRESENT TIME. All Architecture since the time of the Renaissance is called Modern Architecture; this term, therefore, embraces all edifices erected during nearly four centuries.