edy, hardly
a city excepting Toledo and Salamanca can compete with Burgos.
Historical events, produced by throne usurpers and defenders, by
continual strife, by the obstinacy of the noblemen and the perfidy of
the monarchs,--all interwoven with beautiful dames and cruel
warriors--are sufficiently numerous to enable every house in and around
Burgos to possess some secret or other, generally gruesome and
licentious, which means chivalrous. The reign of Peter the Cruel and of
his predecessor Alfonso, the father of four or five bastards, and the
lover of Dona Leonor; the heroic deeds of Fernan Gonzalez and of the Cid
Campeador (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar); the splendour of the court of Isabel
I., and the peculiar constitution of the land with its Cortes, its
convents, and monasteries,--all tend to make Burgos the centre of a
chivalrous literature still recited by the people and firmly believed in
by them. Unluckily their recital cannot find a place here, and we pass
on to examine the grand cathedral, object of the present chapter.

* * * * *

The train, coming from the north, approaches the city of Burgos. A low
horizon line and undulating plains stretch as far as the eye can reach;
in the distance ahead are two church spires and a castle looming up
against a blue sky.

The train reaches the station; a mass of houses and, overtopping the
roofs of all buildings, the same spires as seen before, lost as it were
in a forest of pinnacles, emerging from two octagonal lanterns or
cimborios. In the background, on a sandy hill, are the ruins of the
castle which once upon a time was the stronghold of the Counts of
Castile.

Burgos! Passing beneath a four-hundred-year-old gateway--Arco de Santa
Maria--raised by trembling bourgeois to appease a monarch's wrath, the
visitor arrives after many a turn in a square situated in front of the
cathedral.

A poor architectural element is this western front of the cathedral as
regards the first body or the portals. Devoid of all ornamentation, and
consequently naked, three doors or portals, surmounted by a peculiar
egg-shaped ogival arch, open into the nave and aisles. Originally they
were richly decorated by means of sculptural reliefs and statuary, but
in the plateresque period of the sixteenth century they were demolished.
The two lateral doors leading into the aisles are situated beneath the
275 feet high towers of excellent workmanship.

[Illustration: BURGO