The cathedral is an object of interest on account of its ancient architecture more than age, having been commenced in 1793. The church in use previous to its erection was located on the west side of St. George Street. The engineers and officers belonging to the Government--Don Mariana and Don P. Berrio--directed the work, it being completed at a cost of over sixteen thousand dollars. During the many improvements made in the city, the main part of the cathedral has remained the same for nearly the past century, while time has touched it lightly--thus forming a link with the present in a useful state of preservation. The walls are built of coquina of no modern thickness, but as if designed to resist a siege. Its Moorish belfry with four bells, and the town-clock, form a complete cross. One of these bells was taken from Tolemato Chapel, it having been originally brought from Rome, as the lettering indicates. It bears the following date and inscription: "_Sancte Joseph, Ora pro nobis, 1682_." The cathedral also contains a crucifix, which is brought into requisition once every year on Good Friday, it being a relic from "_Nuestro Cano de la Leche_," which is all that remains. The front doors of the cathedral are now kept locked, as it has been a resort for so many inconsiderate persons, who went there smoking and talking in loud, irreverent tones, as though it was a theater, where some kind of daylight drama was being enacted, instead of a house devoted to worship, and entered with purity of feeling, if not according to prescribed rules, which the faith of everybody induces them to adopt. To the minds of these Church-devotees all other pageant fades into insignificance before the festivities and solemnities of the Holy Days connected with their Church-services, and the veneration due to their patron saints. Whatever vicissitudes or changes may take place with them in other respects, their religion remains the same; it is, indeed, a part of their being, without which their lives would be considered incomplete, their existence blank as the brutes, which die that others may live. Some of the worshipers rush to the cathedral with the rapidity of an opera-goer, who is afraid the seats will all be taken before he arrives, but enter with the same degree of veneration as the pilgrims who visit and kiss the statue of St. Peter--still clinging to their catechism and creeds firmly, as a part of their life, while their well-learned prayers are repeated as a talisman against temptation and violent death. These old cathedral walls have witnessed stately ceremonials, heard the prayers and confessions of many penitents, whose troubled consciences and sin-burdened hearts could find no relief except at the confessional.