The hospital kitchen is also a sight worthy of inspection. One hundred and eight litres of milk enter its doors daily, with some eighty kilos of beef, three hundred and eighty eggs, and three hundred and fifty-two kilos of bread, besides chickens. There is not a chair in this lofty kitchen, for no one there has time to think of sitting down even for a minute; a man-cook presides over a large stove in the centre, and four or five Sisters move briskly round it. One thousand eggs were brought to the outer kitchen while we were there; they had come from the neighbouring villages, neatly packed in layers with straw. The Sisters rise at four o’clock even in winter, and those who are not on night duty retire at nine. I was struck with their peaceful contented faces, and their gentle and refined manners. The Gallegan poor are indeed fortunate to have such women as these to care for them. The hospital is in close connection with the Medical School of the University, and has some clever surgeons among its staff, whose successful operations have earned them a good deal of fame. Röntgen rays have been installed there since 1901, the electricity being supplied from a factory on the river Tambre, fourteen kilometres from Santiago. In 1903, in token of his appreciation of the work done by Dr. Miguel Gil Casares, King Alfonso XIII. made a handsome contribution towards the expenses of this department of the hospital, and the _Gabinete de Radiologia_ has recently been fitted up with the latest improvements, including the apparatus of Dr. Albeis, and is now considered to be the best of its class in Spain. [Illustration: A CORNER OF A CLOISTER] [Illustration: A DOORWAY LEADING TO A CLOISTER THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO PHOTOS. BY VARELA] [Illustration: A SCULPTURED ALTAR] CHAPTER XII THE COLEGIATA DE SAR Peculiar architecture--An expedition to Sar--The river Sar--Eight square pillars--The first impulse--Seven and a half centuries--The present Gothic vaulting--A feat of architectural skill--The wooden floor--Odd ideas--Foreign admirals visit Sar--Archbishop Bernard--Opening his tomb--The inscription--The original cloister--Rebuilding the monastery--A hospital for canons Amongst some photographs that were offered me for sale on the day after my arrival in Santiago I noticed one, the interior of a church, of which the perspective seemed to be quite wrong. “The man who took this one cannot be a good photographer,” I remarked. “No photographer who understood his business could take such a picture as that.”