ot reach
the ground, but only support the upper body, and unite it with the
lower, forming thus a sort of crown for the latter's benefit.

Personally--and the author must be excused if he emit his opinion--he
considers the old apse of the cathedral in Lugo to be one of the finest
pieces of architecture to be met with in Galicia. It belongs to what has
been called the period of Transition (compare previous remarks in
another chapter concerning this style), and yet it has a character of
its own not to be found elsewhere, and the harmony of ogival and
Romanesque has been so artfully revealed that it cannot fail to appeal
to the tourist who contemplates it carefully.

V

ORENSE

Coming by rail from Lugo or Monforte toward Tuy and Vigo, the train
suddenly escapes from the savage canon where the picturesque Mino rushes
and boils beside the road, and emerges into a broad and fertile valley
where figs, grapes, and olives grow in profusion. This valley is broad,
its soil is of golden hue, and the sky above it is as brilliantly blue
as a sapphire. In its centre Orense, heavy Orense, which claims as its
founder a Greek hero fresh from the pages of the Iliad, basks in the sun
beside the beautiful Mino; the while its cathedral looms up above the
roofs of the surrounding houses.

The history of the town is as agitated as any in Galicia and shows the
same general happenings. The Romans appreciated it for its sulphur baths
and called it Auria (golden) from the colour of the soil, of the water,
and perhaps also on account of certain grains of gold discovered in the
sands of the Mino.

The Suevos, who dominated Galicia and proved so beneficial to Tuy, did
not ignore the importance of Orense: one of the first bishoprics, if not
_the_ first historical one in Galicia, was that of Orense, dating from
before the fourth century, at least such is the opinion of to-day.

More than any other Galician city, excepting Tuy, it suffered from the
Arab invasions. Entirely destroyed, razed to the ground upon two
occasions, it was ever being rebuilt by the returning inhabitants who
had fled. Previous to these Arab incursions the cathedral had been
dedicated to St. Martin de Tours (France), and yearly pilgrimages took
place to the Galician shrine, where some relics belonging to the saint
were revered. But with the infidels these relics, or whatever they were,
were dispersed, and the next century (the eleventh) saw the new
cathedral dedica