shady space on the side of the cathedral young
men and women were waltzing, or dancing some
sort of saraband, to the music of a modest
little band. The streets and squares were alive
with a spontaneous fair which had organized
itself on the sidewalk. As the day passed away,
we could see groups of peasants gathering, with
the standard-poles fastened to their mules, and
the women and children clustering together in
their pretty costumes, to walk or to ride home.
The holiday was over.
We all agreed to make an early start the next
morning, that the artists might work while the
shadows were long and the air cool. We went
out from the quaint old archway, where the sen-
tinels now knew us to be peaceful townspeople,
and a pretty sight it was to see the people strag-
gling off for their day's work. The harvest of
wheat in the fields round the barn was nearly
ready to be cut. The picturesqueness of the
quaint old town, built for its three thousand peo-
ple, walled in by a wall, almost circular, — oh,
so exactly like Jericho or Ai on the old picture-
map of Palestine, — is something hard to descriJDe
to an American who has not travelled. Outside
the walls the green, fresh country comes up,
as the ocean comes to the sides of a ship ; and
the town and the country mix as little as do the
ship and the ocean. Close to the walls on the



JACA. 293

outside is a promenade, and the walk round
takes perhaps fifty minutes. Three or four gates
give ingress and egress, and apparently at only
one of -these was the form of a sentry main-
tained. But perhaps when I passed he was
hidden.
