converge into the blue.

When prosperity came again to Burgos, as to many other Spanish cities,
it was owing to the wise enactments of Isabella the Catholic. The
concordat of 1851 enumerated nine archbishoprics in Spain, among which
Burgos stands second on the list.

Such is Burgos, serenely beautiful, rich and exultant, the apotheosis of
the Spanish Renaissance as well as studded with exquisitely beautiful
Gothic work. She is mighty and magnificent, speaking perhaps rather to
the senses than the heart, but in a language which can never be
forgotten. Although various epochs created her, radically different in
their means and methods, still there is a certain intangible unity in
her gorgeous expression and a unique picturesqueness in her dazzling
presence.

III

AVILA

[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid

CATHEDRAL OF AVILA]

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays
With splendor upon splendor multiplied.

_Longfellow._

The Cathedral of San Salvador is the strongest link in the chain that
encircles the city of Avila,--"cuidad de Castilla la vieja." Avila lies
on a ridge in the corner of a great, undulating plain, clothed with
fields of grain, bleached light yellow at harvest, occasional groups of
ilex and straggling pine and dusty olives scrambling up and down the
slopes. Beyond is the hazy grayish-green of stubble and dwarfed
woodland, with blue peaks closing the horizon. To the south rises the
Sierra Gredos, and eastwards, in the direction of Segovia, the Sierra de
Guadarrama. The narrow, murky Adaja that loiters through the upland
plain is quite insufficient to water the thirsty land. Thistles and
scrub oak dot the rocky fields. Here and there migratory flocks of sheep
nibble their way across the unsavory stubble, while the dogs longingly
turn their heads after whistling quails and the passing hunter.

The crenelated, ochre walls and bastions that, like a string of amber
beads, have girdled the little city since its early days, remain
practically unbroken, despite the furious sieges she has sustained and
the battles in which her lords were engaged for ten centuries. As many
as eighty-six towers crown, and no less than ten gateways pierce, the
walls which follow the rise or fall of the gr