Near the Cathedral, law courts, and Provincial Parliament House stands another picturesque old palace of comparatively modern date, yet Saracenic aspect, and containing one of the most curious historic treasures in Europe. This is the palace of the kings of Aragon, or Archivo General de la Corona de Aragon. The exterior, as is usual with Spanish buildings, is massive and gloomy. Inside is a look of Oriental lightness and gaiety. Slender columns, painted red, enclose an open court, and support a little terrace planted with shrubs and flowers. Here in perfect order and preservation, without a break, are stored the records of upwards of a thousand years, the earlier consisting of vellum scrolls and black letter, the latter showing the progress of printing from its beginning down to our own day. The first parchment bears date A. D. 875. Among the curiosities of the collection are no less than eight hundred and two Papal Bulls from the year 1017 to 1796. Besides the archives of Barcelona itself, and of the kingdom of Aragon, to which it was annexed in the twelfth century, the palace contains many deeply interesting manuscripts found in the suppressed monasteries. The archives have been ingeniously arranged by the learned keeper of records. The bookcases, which are not more than six feet high, stand on either side of the vast library, at some distance from the wall, made staircase-wise; one set of volumes just above the other, with the result that no accumulation of dust is possible, and that each set is equally accessible. The effect on the eye of these symmetrically-placed volumes in white vellum is very novel and pleasing. We seem to be in a hall, the walls of which are of fluted cream-colored marble. The little museum of local antiquities in the ruined Church of Santa Agneda, the somber old churches of San Pablo del Campo, Santa Maria del Mar and Belen, the fragments of mediæval domestic architecture remaining here and there--all these will detain the archæologist. Of more general interest are the modern monuments of Barcelona. In no city have civic lavishness and public spirit shone forth more conspicuously.