Boys and men saunter in and out of the court-yard, chatting or calling in their musical patois; once in a while there is a thud and clatter of hoofs, a rider arriving or departing.

It is an entertaining scene, charming in its monotony of small changes and evolutions; you can sit watching it in a half-doze for twenty years at a stretch, and it may seem only as many minutes, or vice versa.
Most of the rooms in the wings are used for the kitchens and other servants' quarters; but one large chamber is devoted to a special purpose of the general's own: it is a museum; the Curiosity-Room, he calls it.

It is lighted by two windows opening on opposite sides, one on the court-yard, the other on an orange grove at the south end of the house.

Besides being, in itself, a cool and pleasant spot, it is full of interest to any one who cares about the relics and antiquities of an ancient and vanishing race, concerning whom little is or ever will be known.

There are two students in it at this moment; though whether they are studying antiquities is another matter.