"I lost a damsel in that hour, Of all the land the loveliest flower; Doubloons a hundred would I pay, And think her ransom cheap that day. Woe is me, Alhambra." As one has written: "Beautiful Granada, how is thy glory faded! The flower of thy chivalry lies low in the land of the stranger; no longer does the Bivarambla echo to the tramp of steed and the sound of trumpet; no longer is it crowded with thy youthful nobles, gloriously arrayed for the tilt and tourney. Beautiful Granada! The soft note of the lute no longer floats through thy moonlit streets; the serenade is no more heard beneath thy balconies; the lively castanet is silent upon thy hills; the graceful dance of the Zambra is no more seen beneath thy bowers. Beautiful Granada! why is the Alhambra so forlorn and desolate? The orange and the myrtle still breathe their perfumes into its silken chambers; the nightingale still sings within its groves; its marble halls are still refreshed with the plash of fountains and the gush of the limpid rills! Alas! the countenance of the king no longer shines within those halls. The light of the Alhambra is set for ever!" "Farewell, farewell, Granada! thou city without peer! Woe, woe, thou pride of heathendom! seven hundred years and more Have gone since first the faithful thy royal sceptre bore! Thou wert the happy mother of a high-renowned race; Within thee dwelt a haughty line that now go from their place; .............................................................. Here gallants held it little thing for ladies' sake to die, Or for the Prophet's honor and the pride of Soldanry; For here did valor flourish and deeds of warlike might Ennobled lordly palaces in which was our delight. The gardens of thy Vega, its fields and blooming bowers, Woe, woe! I see their beauty gone, and scattered all their flowers!" XII WOMEN OF CHINA AND COREA China, once the country of perpetual calm, has in recent years become the land of magnificent disturbances. Not an unimportant factor in the changes that have lately taken place in the Flowery Kingdom has been woman. The influence of the women of the nations is generally centripetal. Of the peoples of the earth the Chinese would doubtless be named as altogether the most conservative, and in this conservatism the Chinese women play a most important part.