CATHOLIC GRANADA 87 



the early Christians of Illiberis. Some rocks 

 may be noticed, in parts worn away by the 

 repeated kisses of devotees. There is a super- 

 stition that the person who kisses the stone the 

 first time will marry within the year, and that a 

 second kiss will ensure to those already married 

 an early dissolution of the conjugal tie. 



On the opposite side of the city, also in the 

 outskirts, is a little Mohammedan oratory, now 

 disfigured and restored beyond recognition. It 

 is called the Ermita de San Sebastian, and was 

 the place where Boabdil gave up the keys of 

 Granada to Ferdinand and Isabel. 



When we walk through the streets of the 

 modern Granada, with its tawdry churches and 

 commonplace private houses, it does not seem 

 that the city has gained much by its change of 

 masters. But its decline was not at least very 

 marked till many years after the Reconquest. 

 The French invasion, and still more the ruin of the 

 silk industry, completely undermined the pros- 

 perity of the place. During the last century it 

 lost its rank as the seat of a Captain General. But 

 a new day is dawning for the proudest city of the 

 Moor, as for all Spain. Granada is content no 

 longer to brood over its splendid past ; indeed, its 

 citizens seem to prize but lightly the monuments 

 of those days. There is a general appearance 

 of wealth and elegance about the promenaders 



