In spite of the severe strictures of fastidious observers, the Alcazar produces a very pleasing impression on northern visitors. Mr W. M. Gallichan writes: “It is a palace of dreams, encircled by lovely perfumed gardens. Its courts and salons are redolent of Moorish days and haunted by the spirits of turbaned sheiks, philosophers, minstrels, and dark-eyed beauties of the harem.... The nightingales still sing among the odorous orange bloom, and in the tangles of roses birds still build their nests. Fountains tinkle beneath gently moving palms; the savour of orientalism clings to the spot. Here wise men discussed in the cool of summer nights, when the moon stood high over the Giralda and white beams fell through the spreading boughs of the lemon trees, and shivered upon the tiled pavements. “In this garden the musicians played and the tawny dancers writhed and curved their lissome bodies, in dramatic Eastern dances. _Ichabod!_ The moody potentate, bowed down with the cares of high office, no longer treads the dim corridor or lingers in the shade of the palm trees, lost in cogitation. No sound of gaiety reverberates in the deserted courts; no voice of orator is heard in the Hall of Justice. The green lizards bask on the deserted benches of the gardens. Rose petals strew the paved paths. One’s footsteps echo in the gorgeous _patios_, whose walls have witnessed many a scene of pomp, tragedy, and pathos. The spell of the past holds one; and before the imagination troops a long procession of illustrious sovereigns, courtiers, counsellors, and menials.”