he exterior to the west and south being hidden by the huge tower and
the confused mass of chapels and choir which extend to the walls and
houses.

The western entrance front is noble and dignified in its austere
severity; probably as old as the clerestory of the nave, it is a grim
sentinel from the first part of the fourteenth century. With the
exception of the entrance, it speaks the Romanesque language, although
its windows and some of its decoration are pointed. It is magnificent
and impressive, very Spanish, and almost unique in the Peninsula. Four
mighty buttresses subdivide the composition; between these is the
entrance, and to the north and south are the towers which terminate the
aisles.

The southern tower has never been finished. The northern is full of
inspiration. It is broken at two stages by double windows, the upper
ones of the belfry being crowned by pediments and surmounted by rich,
sunk tracery. The piers terminate in hexagonal pinnacles, while the
tower, as well as the rest of the front, is finished with a battlement.
The later blocking up of this, as well as the superimposed roofing, is
very evident and disturbing. All the angles of buttresses, of windows,
arches, splays, and pyramids,--those also crowning the bulky piers that
meet the flying buttresses,--are characteristically and uniquely
decorated with an ornamentation of balls. It softens the hard lines,
splashing the surface with infinite series of small, sharp shadows and
making it sparkle with life and light. The angles recall the blunt, blue
teeth of a saw.

The main entrance, as well as the first two bays of the naves underneath
the towers, must originally have been of different construction from the
present one. Inside the church, these bays are blocked off from nave and
side aisles by walls, on top of which they communicate with each other
as also with the eastern apse by galleries, probably all necessary for
the defense of troops in the early days. Possibly a narthex terminated
the nave back of the original entrance portal underneath the present
vaulted compartment.

The main entrance door is indeed a strange apparition. In its whiteness
between the sombre tints of the martial towers, it rises like a spectre
in the winding-sheets of a later age. It is distressingly out of place
and time in its dark framework.

"But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor, an