ubtless the same as
that of the _trascoro_; both are contemporaneous--the author is inclined
to believe--with the erection of the Pillar in Saragosse; at least, they
resemble each other in certain unmistakable details.

_Calahorra._--The fourth of the cathedral churches of Upper Rioja is
that of Calahorra. After the repopulation of the town by Alfonso VI. of
Castile in the eleventh century, the bodies of the two martyr saints
Emeterio and Celedonio were pulled up out of a well (to be seen to-day
in the cloister) where they had been hidden by the Christians, when
the Moors conquered the fortress, and a church was built near the same
spot. Of this eleventh-century church nothing remains to-day.

[Illustration: WESTERN FRONT OF CALAHORRA CATHEDRAL]

In the twelfth century, a new building was begun, but the process of
construction continued slowly, and it was not until two hundred years
later that the apse was finally finished. The body of the church, from
the western front (this latter hideously modern and uninteresting) to
the transept, is the oldest part,--simple Gothic of the thirteenth
century.

The numerous chapels which form a ring around the church have all been
decorated in the grotesque style of the eighteenth century, and with
their lively colours, their polychrome statues, and overdone
ornamentation, they offer but little interest to the visitor. The
_retablo_ of the high altar is one of the largest to be seen anywhere;
but the Renaissance elegance of the lower body is completely drowned by
the grotesque decoration of the upper half, which was constructed at a
later date.

The choir stalls are fine specimens of that style in which the artist
preferred an intricate composition to simple beauty. Biblical scenes,
surrounded and separated by allegorical personages and symbolical lines
in great profusion, show the carver's talent rather than his artistic
genius.

IX

SORIA

The Duero River, upon leaving its source at the foot of the Pico de
Urbion (near Vinuesa), flows eastward for about fifty miles, then
southward for another fifty miles, when it turns abruptly westward on
its lengthy journey across the Iberian peninsula.

The circular region, limited on three sides by the river's course, is
the historical field of Soria--part of the province of the same name,
Numantia, Rome's great enemy and almost the cause of her ruin, lay
somewhere in this part of the country, though where is not exactly
kno