The cloister of San Cugat has afforded the Romanesque sculptors the opportunity of gratifying their most exuberant fancy in stone. The capitals reveal an extraordinary profusion and variety of designs--Biblical scenes being associated with fables, conventional designs, and animals’ heads. Examples of the quaint and more childlike conceptions of a rather later age (fourteenth century) may be found in some curious paintings, set in retablos, still adorning the church. They are specimens of a style peculiar to Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands, at the period “which analogies [says one authority] with the early Tuscan and old Cologne schools.” GERONA Gerona deserves to be, but through some freak of fortune is not, as famous as Saragossa. Its many sieges, especially those that took place in the Peninsular War, are among the many proofs of the Spaniard’s extraordinary tenacity in the defence of positions. Numantia, Saguntum, Saragossa, Gerona, and Cartagena--can any other country boast so many and such glorious instances of heroism and resistance to an overwhelming foe? These five names should be inscribed on the national escutcheon. They might even one day have more than a sentimental value, and cause potential invaders to think twice before violating Spanish soil. Gerona, then, has covered itself with glory, not once, but repeatedly. The very paynim Moors were invigorated by the heroic atmosphere, for we read that as long ago as 785 they defied the arms of Louis the Pious, till the Christian townsfolk, thinking that enough had been done for the renown of Gerona, arose and expelled them. In the succeeding centuries the Geronese grew used to this business of sieges, and their assailants grew more wary. In 1285 the French King, Philippe le Hardi, sat down before the town and contentedly starved it into submission. Gerona yielded under protest, and took care to place it on record that she was not taken by force but by hunger, as the inscription not “per forsa, mes per fam” over the Puerta de la Cárcel to this day testifies. More than four centuries later came another Philippe from beyond the Pyrenees, welcomed by all Spaniards except Catalans. Gerona stubbornly held out for Austrian Charles, and her garrison of 2000 men bade defiance to Philippe’s 9000. The Bourbon won; and to punish the recalcitrant city abolished her University. But a hundred years after, Gerona recovered her laurels. Her garrison of three hundred men, commanded by Colonel O’Daly, withstood successfully the repeated assaults of 6000 French under Duhesme, and beheld in August 1808 the hurried and inglorious flight of the besiegers. Of the great siege of 1809 you may read in the pages of Napier. The commander and hero of the defence was Mariano Alvarez--a much finer fellow than Palafox; and had he not been stricken with fever and rendered unconscious, the town might not have surrendered, as it ultimately did after a seven months’ siege. It had