On the opposite side of the orange-tree court is the Puerta del Perdon. The Florentine relief above, representing the crouching traders as they were driven from the Temple, naturally spoils the effectiveness of the magnificent Moorish portal below. Its horseshoe curve, with delicate Moorish interlacing, arabesques, frieze and bronze doors, is a curious and striking note of a bygone age, leading as it does to the walled and fragrant courtyard of its builders, and the fountain where they made their ablutions. Later Renaissance statues of the Annunciation and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Florentine pilasters and ornament, flank the Moorish moldings in an utterly meaningless manner. On the south is the gate of San Cristobal, or of the Lonja, finished only a few years ago. In and out of these many entrances the populace stream, to worship, to whisper, to gossip, to rest, to bargain, to beg, and to make love. The whole drama of life in its conglomerate population goes on within the walls of the Cathedral. It is the most frequented thoroughfare, where the people enter as often with a song on their lips as with a prayer. The great edifice with all the ceremonial of its religious services is woven into their life, as is the sound of the guitars and castanets that echo within its portals and courtyards. The church and her children are not strangers. The Sevillian does not approach her altars with religious awe and fear, but with a childish trust; he kneels down before them as much at home as when rolling his cigarette on the bench of his café. The Cathedral, like the houses nestling and crumbling around it, opens wide and hospitable gates that lead to the refreshing shade and comfort within. The western front is practically the only one which presents the Cathedral unobscured by adjacent buildings climbing up its sides or struggling between the buttresses,--or which is not concealed by enclosing screenwork. To the north the walls of the Orange Court block the view; to the east, the high screen; and to the south, the chapter house and the Dependencias de la Hermanidad and the sacristy. The mass of domes with supporting flying buttresses, ramps and finials above it,all remind one curiously of a transplanted and ecclesiasticized Chambord. [Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE Gateway of Perdon in the Orange Tree Court] As the plan conforms to the conditions of the old rectangular mosque and has neither projecting transepts nor semicircular chevet, it can scarcely be called Gothic. It consists of nave and double side aisles,--the nave 56 feet wide from centre to centre of the columns and 145 feet high, and the inner side aisles 40 wide and about 100 high. Outside these is another aisle filled with various chapels.