rfect in Europe.

VI

SANTANDER

The foundation of Santander is attributed to the Romans who baptized it
Harbour of Victory. Its decadence after the Roman dominion seems to have
been complete, and its name does not appear in the annals of Spanish
history until in 1187, when Alfonso, eighth of that name and King of
Castile, induced the repopulation of the deserted hamlet by giving it a
special _fuero_ or privilege. At that time a monastery surrounded by a
few miserable huts seems to have been all that was left of the Roman
seaport; this monastery was dedicated to the martyr saints Emeterio and
Celedonio, for it was, and still is, believed that they perished here,
and not in Calahorra, as will be seen later on.

The name of the nascent city in the times of Alfonso VIII. was Sancti
Emetrii, from that of the monastery or of the old town, but within a
few years the new town eclipsed the former in importance and, being
dedicated to St. Andrew, gave its name to the present city
(San-t-Andres, Santander).

As a maritime town, Santander became connected with all the naval events
undertaken by young Castile, and later by Philip II., against England.
Kings, princes, princess-consorts, and ambassadors from foreign lands
came by sea to Santander, and went from thence to Burgos and Valladolid;
from Santander and the immediate seaports the fleet sailed which was to
travel up the Guadalquivir and conquer Sevilla; in 1574 the Invincible
Armada left the Bay of Biscay never to return, and from thence on until
now, Santander has ever remained the most important Spanish seaport on
the Cantabric Sea.

Its ecclesiastical history is uninteresting--or, rather, the city
possesses no ecclesiastical past; perhaps that is one of the causes of
its flourishing state to-day. In the thirteenth century the monastical
Church of San Emeterio was raised to a collegiate and in 1775 to a
bishopric.

The same unimportance, from an art point of view, attaches itself to the
cathedral church. No one visits the city for the sake of the heavy,
clumsy, and exceedingly irregularly built temple which stands on the
highest part of the town. On the contrary, the great attraction is the
fine beach of the Sardinero which lies to the west of the industrial
town, and is, in summer, the Brighton of Spain. The coast-line, deeply
dentated and backed by the Cantabric Mountains, is far more delightful
and attractive than the Gothic cathedral structure of the th