Reflections like these--which I do not expect will profoundly influence ethnologists--occupied me as I pursued my tortuous course to the Casa de Pilatos. When I at last found it, I was struck by the plain and dignified exterior. To the left of the door I observed a plain cross of jasper. The story goes that in October, 1521, the Marquis de Tarifa, on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, placed this cross against the wall and counted thence the fourteen stations of the Cross, according to their order in the Holy City. The last fortuitously coincided with the Cruz del Campo, raised near the Caños de Carmona in 1482. I doubt if the marquis had any such thought when he raised this jasper cross, for the distance from the Prætorium at Jerusalem to the chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that marks the site of Calvary is greatly less than the distance between the two points mentioned here in Seville. But why the house was called after Pilate is not easy to determine. It was begun in 1500 and finished thirty-three years after by Don Per Afan de Ribera, first Duke of Alcalá, and sometime Viceroy of Naples. This great nobleman was the Mæcenas of his generation. Not only did he enrich his house with priceless works of art and a fine library--since removed to Madrid--but he made it the rendezvous of all the art and talent of Andalusia. Hither came Gongora, the poet, to converse, it is said, with Cervantes. Here Pacheco, the artist-inquisitor, discussed the mission of art with Herrera. Here came Rioja, Cespedes, Jauregui, and others of less note. The example set by the Medici was followed by many of the great grandees of Spain at this time. The Velascos presided over a coterie of literati at Burgos; the Duke of Villahermosa, at Zaragoza, affected to delight in the company of the brilliant and learned. Even so small a place as Plasencia had its own patron of the arts in Don Luis de Avila, and in Madrid there was "the feast of reason and the flow of soul" at the mansion of Don Antonio Perez. But for all its associations, like the Alcazar, the Casa de Pilatos remains very much like a museum. [Illustration: SEVILLE--CASA DE PILATOS]