The Christians in Spain didn’t like the Moors, so they fought them, and at last the Christians drove the Moorsout of Spain, drove them across the Strait of Gibraltar back into Africa whence they had come. The Spanish Queen received Columbus in the Alhambra and bade him good-by before he started out for the New World, but no one nowlives there. It is still there on the hill at Granada and Spain keeps it as it once was, so that people may visit it. The walls, instead of being plastered or painted, are covered with colored tiles. The doorways, insteadof being square, are shaped like a horseshoe, and its court-yards have splashing fountains and walled-in pools where the Moorish princesses used to bathe instead of in bathtubs.

A city in Spain called Seville has a great Cathedral, the second largest church in the World. It was built, of course,after the Moors had been driven out of Spain, as it is a Christian church, built where there once was a Moorish church. In this Cathedral are buried what are supposed to be the ashes of Columbus, though we think, as I toldyou before, that they are not his ashes at all, but the ashes of his son, and that his real ashes are in Haiti.

Moorish women used to wear veils over their faces. It was thought immodest for them to go out on the street withtheir faces uncovered. The Spanish women often wear veils too, but they wear them over their heads instead of hats, and some of the veils made of lace are very beautiful and very costly. They also wear very big and high combsin their hair and bright-colored silk shawls over their shoulders, and in summer carry beautiful fans, for it gets very warm in Seville—so warm that during the middle of the day no one goes out-of-doors who doesn’t haveto. In our country young children take naps during the day, but in Spain grown-ups take naps too, after their midday meal, only they call a nap by the very pretty name “siesta.”