The Cathedral of Valencia is a noble edifice, and has one magnificent entrance of richly decorated Gothic. There is, in the Colegio del Patriarca, a ceremony every week on Friday, which attracts a number of people. It consists in letting down an altar piece by concealed machinery; and then, by withdrawing a curtain, there is disclosed a large picture of our Saviour on the Cross. Those who assemble to witness this ceremony, are required to appear in mourning. I explored the city from end to end, and found it by no means so uninteresting as some represent it. We started in the evening for Cordova, a long distance; but as it was accomplished in darkness, I noticed nothing by the way, except stoppages at stations and a change of trains. We crossed the Sierra Morena, which, in some places, at least, must be very magnificent, if one may judge from an engraving of tall rocks facing each other, leaving scarcely room for muleteers to pass between. The approach to Cordova is inviting, and the Moorish city is beheld amidst a fertile region, across which runs the Guadalquivir. We had been invited to take up our abode with an exemplary Scotch missionary in the city. The sojourn was in a quiet street at a comfortable dwelling, with an open space in the middle of the residence, planted with shrubs. Upon this we looked down from windows in our apartments. One room on the ground floor is sufficiently large to receive a congregation of about fifty people. We were there on a Sunday and attended worship in the evening. The Mosque of Cordova, now a cathedral, is one of the most wonderful buildings in the world. The surrounding walls are from thirty to sixty-feet high. The courtyard measures 430 feet by 210. Once there were nineteen entrance gates, now there is but one. Formerly there were inside the mosque 1200 monolithic columns, now there are only 850. What is the _coro_, or choir, of the cathedral, was erected in the sixteenth century, after the Mohammedan mosque had become a Catholic church. We had pleasant walks and drives in the neighbourhood. The next celebrated place in our route was the far-famed Granada, of which expectations were highly raised, without any disappointment. We wandered about the Alhambra for several days. The Hall of the Lions, the Hall of the Ambassadors, and the Hall of the Abencerrages,—with their arches and columns, courts and colonnades, fountains and flowers,—kept us spel-bound day by day. We read Washington Irving on the fascinating spots which he describes so vividly. We could but bow to his relentless fidelity, where he assures us that, after examining Arabic authorities and letters, written by Boabdil’s contemporaries, he was convinced, that the whole collection is fictitious with a few grains of truth at the bottom.