Many Of The Women Were In Flowing Riding-Dresses Of Pure White, Over Which Their Unbound Hair, And Wreaths Of Carmine-Tinted Flowers Fell Most Picturesquely.

All this time I had not seen our domicile, and when our drive ended under the quivering shadow of

Large tamarind and algaroba trees, in front of a long, stone, two-storied house with two deep verandahs festooned with clematis and passion flowers, and a shady lawn in front, I felt as if in this fairy land anything might be expected.

This is the perfection of an hotel. Hospitality seems to take possession of and appropriate one as soon as one enters its never- closed door, which is on the lower verandah. There is a basement, in which there are a good many bedrooms, the bar, and billiard-room. This is entered from the garden, under two semicircular flights of stairs which lead to the front entrance, a wide corridor conducting to the back entrance. This is crossed by another running the whole length, which opens into a very large many-windowed dining-room which occupies the whole width of the hotel. On the same level there is a large parlour, with French windows opening on the verandah. Upstairs there are two similar corridors on which all the bedrooms open, and each room has one or more French windows opening on the verandah, with doors as well, made like German shutters, to close instead of the windows, ensuring at once privacy and coolness. The rooms are tastefully furnished with varnished pine with a strong aromatic scent, and there are plenty of lounging-chairs on the verandah, where people sit and receive their intimate friends.

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