“The square door is the door of the Holy Chamber, which is in the form of a complete church, and you descend to it by twelve steps. The body of this church is twenty-four feet in length, and sixteen in width. Its arched roof is of the same dimensions. The roof is most richly wrought, and supported upon six columns of divers kinds of marble, all precious and right beautiful, upon which the twelve apostles are sculptured, two and two. The ground is laid with Mosaic work, with variety of columns, representing jasper ware. The Bishop Sampyro had good reason to complain of the darkness of this church, which has only one small window in the upper part of the chapel; and, therefore, in this which we call the body of the church, there are commonly three silver lamps burning, the one in the middle larger than the other two, and many other lights are kindled when the relics are shewn. These are kept within a grating, which divides the chapel from the church. The chapel has two rich marbles at the entrance; it is eighteen feet in length, and its width somewhat less; the floor and the roof are after the same fashion as those of the church, but it is one _estado_ lower, which in those times seems to have been customary in Asturias and in Gallicia, the Capillas Mayores, or principal chapels, being much lower than the body of the church. The roof of the chapel is plain, and has painted in the middle our Saviour in the midst of the four evangelists; and this performance is so ancient, that it is manifestly of the age of the founder. At this iron grating strangers are usually detained; there is a lower one within of wood, to which persons are admitted who deserve this privilege for their dignity; and few there be who enter farther. This church the king built to remove to it, as accordingly he forthwith removed, the Holy Ark, the holy bodies, and the other great relics, which, at the destruction of Spain, were hidden in the cave and well of Monsagro, and for this cause he had it built with so much care, and so richly, and with such security.——