The fiesta of Elche takes place within the cathedral. I was fortunate enough to be able to witness the ceremony from a small window just below the dome and hundreds of feet above the people. The first part is the cleansing of the temple of the Jews. A large crowd in rags and gabardines, with beards, evidently false, attempt to come in, but are fallen upon by the audience, flagellated, and flung out of the church. All having quieted again, a most dramatic thing happens. Suddenly, seemingly, the whole dome (a part twenty-five feet in diameter) begins to move and slowly come down. From my seat I could now and then see the operation of the windlass, but to the people below it must have looked like the petals of a water lily detaching themselves and opening into a golden flower. The stamens held two men angels with golden wings and wearing costumes hundreds of years old, so beautiful that I did not notice the colors. I have never seen any fabric so wonderful except the old Breton communion lace and the costumes of the Javanese dancers. The pistil had, for a stigma, a cherub—as far as they could see below—in empty air. He was a beautiful ten-year-old boy held only from behind by a gilded shaft of steel with two little places for his feet. As he descended and came about opposite me, he fainted away, but the two men’s arms flashed out to hold him, so that it was not noticed below. Then the angels scatter the pollen—little bits of gold leaf—all over the church, and as this is supposed to be very holy and of great curative value, everyone strives to pick up a piece. The boy angel, supposedly come down from heaven, delivers to the Virgin the palm branch which is symbolic of a productive year. Just at this moment a tiny sparrow (not on the program) circled our heads like a soul in flight. The angels begin to rise, are carried to the dome, the petals of the huge flower close, and the whole ceremony seems to have been but a figment of the imagination.