irteenth
century.

Consequently, little need be said about it. In the interior, the height
of the nave and aisles, rendered more pronounced by the pointed ogival
arches, gives the building a somewhat aerial appearance that is belied
by the view from without.

[Illustration: CRYPT OF SANTANDER CATHEDRAL]

The square tower on the western end is undermined by a gallery or tunnel
through which the Calle de Puente passes. To the right of the same, and
reached by a flight of steps, stands the entrance to the crypt, which is
used to-day as a most unhealthy parish church. This crypt of the late
twelfth century or early thirteenth shows a decided Romanesque tendency
in its general appearance: it is low, massive, strong, and crowned by
a semicircular vaulting reposing on gigantic pillars whose capitals are
roughly sculptured. The windows which let in the little light that
enters are ogival, proving the Transition period to which the crypt
belongs; it was originally intended as the pantheon for the abbots of
the monastery. But unlike the Galician Romanesque, it lacks an
individual _cachet_; if it resembles anything it is the pantheon of the
kings in San Isidoro in Leon, though in point of view of beauty, the two
cannot be compared.

The form of the crypt is that of a perfect Romanesque basilica, a nave
and two aisles terminating a three-lobed apse.

In the cathedral, properly speaking, there is a baptismal font of
marble, bearing an Arabic inscription by way of upper frieze; it is
square, and of Moorish workmanship, and doubtless was brought from
Cordoba after the reconquest. Its primitive use had been practical, for
in Andalusia it stood at the entrance to some mezquita, and in its
limpid waters the disciples of Mahomet performed their hygienic and
religious ablutions.

VII

VITORIA

If the foreigner enter Spain by Irun, the first cathedral town on his
way south is Vitoria.

Gazteiz seems to have been its Basque name prior to 1181, when it was
enlarged by Don Sancho of Navarra and was given a _fuero_ or privilege,
together with its new name, chosen to commemorate a victory obtained by
the king over his rival, Alfonso of Castile.

Fortune did not smile for any length of time on Don Sancho, for
seventeen years later Alfonso VIII. incorporated the city in his kingdom
of Castile, and it was lost for ever to Navarra.

As regards the celebrated _fueros_ given by the last named monarch to
the inhabitants of the c