tand Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain;
beneath them stands the Lady Beatrice Enriquez de Bobadilla; beside her
is Charles VIII., King of France.

The first figure of the lowest pair on the door is Henry VII. of
England; beside him stands John II., King of Portugal.

Then, in the same line with them, across the panel, is Alonzo Pinzon.

In the niche above Alonzo Pinzon stands Bartolomeo Columbus, the brother
of the great navigator.

Then comes Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and in the niche above, again at the
top of the door, stands the figure of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror
of Peru.

Between the panels and at top and bottom of the valves of the door are
ten projecting heads. Those between the panels are historians who have
written Columbus' voyages from his own time down to the present day,
ending with Washington Irving and William Hickling Prescott.

The two heads at the tops of the valves are female heads, while the two
next the floor possess Indian characteristics.

Above, over the transom arch, looks down, over all, the serene grand
head of Columbus. Beneath it, the American eagle spreads out his widely
extended wings.

Mr. Rogers[55] received $8,000 for his models, and Mr. Von Muller was
paid $17,000 in gold for casting the door. To a large portion of this
latter sum must be added the high premium on exchange which ruled during
the war, the cost of storage and transportation, and the expense of the
erection of the door in the Capitol after its arrival. These items
would, added together, far exceed $30,000 in the then national currency.

SANTA MARIA RABIDA, THE CONVENT--RABIDA.

SAMUEL ROGERS, the English banker-poet. Born near London, July 30,
1763; died December, 1855. Translated from a Castilian MS., and
printed as an introduction to his poem, "The Voyage of Columbus."
It is stated that he spent $50,000 in the illustrations of this
volume of his poems.

In Rabida's monastic fane
I can not ask, and ask in vain;
The language of Castille I speak,
'Mid many an Arab, many a Greek,
Old in the days of Charlemagne,
When minstrel-music wandered round,
And science, waking, blessed the sound.

No earthly thought has here a place,
The cowl let down on every face;
Yet here, in consecrated dust,
Here would I sleep, if sleep I must.
From Genoa, when Columbus came
(At once her glory and her sham