I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze With forms of saints and holy men who died, Here martyred and hereafter glorified; And the great Rose upon its leaves displays Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays With splendor upon splendor multiplied. _Longfellow._ The Cathedral of San Salvador is the strongest link in the chain that encircles the city of Avila,--"cuidad de Castilla la vieja." Avila lies on a ridge in the corner of a great, undulating plain, clothed with fields of grain, bleached light yellow at harvest, occasional groups of ilex and straggling pine and dusty olives scrambling up and down the slopes. Beyond is the hazy grayish-green of stubble and dwarfed woodland, with blue peaks closing the horizon. To the south rises the Sierra Gredos, and eastwards, in the direction of Segovia, the Sierra de Guadarrama. The narrow, murky Adaja that loiters through the upland plain is quite insufficient to water the thirsty land. Thistles and scrub oak dot the rocky fields. Here and there migratory flocks of sheep nibble their way across the unsavory stubble, while the dogs longingly turn their heads after whistling quails and the passing hunter. The crenelated, ochre walls and bastions that, like a string of amber beads, have girdled the little city since its early days, remain practically unbroken, despite the furious sieges she has sustained and the battles in which her lords were engaged for ten centuries. As many as eighty-six towers crown, and no less than ten gateways pierce, the walls which follow the rise or fall of the ground on which the city has been compactly and narrowly constructed for safest defense. It must look to-day almost exactly as it did to the approaching armies of the Middle Ages, except that the men-at-arms are gone. The defenses are so high that what is inside is practically hidden from view and all that can be seen of the city so rich in saints and stones[7] are the loftiest spires of her churches. To the Romans, Avela, to the Moors, Abila, the ancient city, powerfully garrisoned, lay in the territory of the Vaccæi and belonged to the province of Hispania Citerior. During three later centuries, from time to time she became Abila, and one of the strongest outposts of Mussulman defense against the raids of Christian bands from the north. Under both Goths and Saracens, Avila belonged to the province of Merida. At a very early date she boasted an episcopal seat, mentioned in church councils convoked during the seventh century, but, during temporary ascendencies of the Crescent, she vanishes from ecclesiastical history. For a while Alfonso I held the city against the Moors, but not until the reign of Alfonso VI did she permanently become "Avila del rey," and the quarterings of her arms, "a king appearing at the window of a tower," were left unchallenged on her walls. [Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF AVILA CATHEDRAL