assical and of very little interest leading to the parish
church; the second is the Puerto de los Naranjos.

In the Puerta del Lagarto, where the Giralda abuts the Cathedral, there
hangs a poor stuffed crocodile, once sent by a Sultan of Egypt in token
of admiration to Saint Ferdinand. The beast, having died on his way from
the Nile, could never crawl in the basins of the Alcazar gardens, but
found a resting-place under the shelves of the Columbina library.

On the opposite side of the orange-tree court is the Puerta del Perdon.
The Florentine relief above, representing the crouching traders as they
were driven from the Temple, naturally spoils the effectiveness of the
magnificent Moorish portal below. Its horseshoe curve, with delicate
Moorish interlacing, arabesques, frieze and bronze doors, is a curious
and striking note of a bygone age, leading as it does to the walled and
fragrant courtyard of its builders, and the fountain where they made
their ablutions. Later Renaissance statues of the Annunciation and Saint
Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Florentine pilasters and ornament,
flank the Moorish moldings in an utterly meaningless manner.

On the south is the gate of San Cristobal, or of the Lonja, finished
only a few years ago.

In and out of these many entrances the populace stream, to worship, to
whisper, to gossip, to rest, to bargain, to beg, and to make love. The
whole drama of life in its conglomerate population goes on within the
walls of the Cathedral. It is the most frequented thoroughfare, where
the people enter as often with a song on their lips as with a prayer.
The great edifice with all the ceremonial of its religious services is
woven into their life, as is the sound of the guitars and castanets that
echo within its portals and courtyards. The church and her children are
not strangers. The Sevillian does not approach her altars with religious
awe and fear, but with a childish trust; he kneels down before them as
much at home as when rolling his cigarette on the bench of his cafe. The
Cathedral, like the houses nestling and crumbling around it, opens wide
and hospitable gates that lead to the refreshing shade and comfort
within.

The western front is practically the only one which presents the
Cathedral unobscured by adjacent buildings climbing up its sides or
struggling between the buttresses,--or which is not concealed by
enclosing screenwork. To the north the walls of the Orange Court block
th