But the stranger does not come to Seville to visit courts or to hear about public executions--unless these happened two or three centuries ago, when as Sir W. S. Gilbert somewhere observes, they are looked at through the glamour of romance. The searcher for the beautiful is usually rewarded here by finding it in unexpected corners of the monotonous labyrinth of lanes and alleys. Plunging into the maze of white-walled dwellings in the north-eastern quarter of the city, a minaret only less beautiful than the Giralda seems to beckon us from afar. It appears and reappears, and we lose our way a dozen times before we stand at its foot. It is a beautiful tower in the purest Almohade or Mauritanian style, without any features borrowed from Christian architecture. The highest edifice, this, in Seville, except the Giralda. From its summit Cervantes used to scan the streets below, at certain hours of the day, for the form of a local beauty of whom he was enamoured. Here, of course, stood a mosque in Mussulman days, on the site of the adjacent church of San Marcos. The portal is very fine, but the Moorish features are the work of Mudejar and not Almohade artisans. We wander on, and are presently surprised by the superb frontal of the convent church of Santa Paula. It is faced with white and blue azulejos, the work of Francesco of Pisa and Pedro Millán. Over the arch are disposed seven medallions illustrating the birth of Christ and the life of St. Paul, the figures white on a blue ground. On the tympanum of the arch is displayed the Spanish coat of arms in white marble, flanked by the escutcheons of the inevitable and ubiquitous Ferdinand and Isabella. Having seen this, it is hardly worth our while to enter the church, which contains the tombs of the founders, Dom Joao de Henriquez, Constable of Portugal, and his wife Donha Isabel. In the same quarter of the city, though some distance away, is a monument of some interest--the church of Omnium Sanctorum, built in 1356 on the site of a Roman temple. Here again there is a tower graceful enough, in its lower storey recalling the Giralda. The church exhibits a rather happy combination of the Moorish and Gothic styles. On one of the doors is the coat of arms of Portugal, commemorating the pious generosity of Diniz, king of that country. This must have belonged to the earlier structure. [Illustration: SEVILLE--PLAZA DE SAN FERNANDO]