On the south-east side of the cathedral are the cloisters, among the most beautiful buildings of their kind. Street believes them to date from between the years 1280 and 1350. They form a quadrangle, the dimensions of each gallery being 90 feet by 22 feet. The cloisters are entered through a fine pointed arch, near the chapel of the Visitation, adorned with statues and heraldic devices. The head of St. Francis of Assisi is said to be an actual portrait. Other statues are those of the Blessed Virgin, St. Gabriel, David, and Isaiah. The tympanum is sculptured with the Baptism of Christ--the rite being administered to Christ _seated_. The reliefs on the doors, which are of later date, and were the gift of Bishop Acuña, are worthy of their splendid setting. The cloisters are in two stages, the lower being plain, the upper very ornate. The windows are ogival, of four lights, and freely decorated with traceries and foliage. The angles and niches are adorned with good statues. Among these are the effigies of St. Fernando and his wife, Doña Beatriz, each holding a ring in commemoration of their marriage at Burgos. The statues of Santiago and Abraham date from the thirteenth century. There are numerous tombs and doorways, all well sculptured. Of this cloister Street remarks, ‘I know none altogether more interesting and more varied, or more redolent of those illustrations of and links with the past, which are of the very essence of all one’s interest in such works.’ In a chapel leading from the cloisters is attached to the wall one of the celebrated trunks filled with sand which the Cid palmed off as security for a loan upon an unusually simple-minded son of Israel. It is antique and solid enough to date from those days at all events. Close by is the recumbent effigy and tomb of Juan Cuchiller, the faithful servant of Enrique III. In adjacent chapels may be seen the splendid tombs of Canon Santander, a sixteenth-century work, with an exquisite relief of the Virgin and Child; of Canon Aguilar, who died in 1482; and the monuments of other canons, chaplains, and knights. Adjoining the cloisters is the Chapter House, or Sala Capitular, with a fine _artesonado_ ceiling, and a cornice of blue and white majolica, around which run verses from the Proverbs. The room contains a Crucifixion signed _Greco_, and a St. John the Divine doubtfully attributed to Murillo. There remains to be seen the old sacristy, a spacious room over forty feet square, and with corbels quaintly carved with scenes from a lion hunt. The treasury of Burgos is not as rich as that of Toledo or Seville; but it contains some magnificent and seemingly ancient vestments, beautifully carved presses, and a long series of portraits of the occupants of the episcopal see. Below the cloister a lower story was built; but the arches are now blocked up and it is neglected, though abounding in interesting tombs and monuments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.