The exterior of the cathedral at Santiago--to a more detailed description of which I must now devote myself--is almost completely obscured and overlaid by modern additions. The two old western steeples shown on the plan are old only about as high as the side walls of the church, and have been raised to a very considerable height, and finished externally with a lavish display of pilasters, balustrades, vases, and what not, till they finish in a sort of pepper-box fashion with small cupolas. Between them is a lofty niche over the west front, which contains a statue of the tutelar.[156] Fortunately the whole of the façade between the steeples was built on in front of, and without destroying, Master Matthew’s great work, the western porch. The ground falls considerably to the west, and a rather picturesque quadruple flight of steps, arranged in a complicated fashion, leads up from the Plaza to the doors. There are two great and two lesser flights of steps, so that a procession going up might be divided into four lines; a doorway in the centre of the western wall below these steps leads into a chapel constructed below the western porch. This is now called the Chapel of St. Joseph, but seems to have been known of old as Santiago la Vajo. The arrangement of its plan is very peculiar.[157] There are two large central piers east and west of a sort of transept; to the west of this are two old arches, and then the modern passage leading to the doorway at the foot of the steps. To the east of the transept is an apse consisting of an aisle formed round the great central pier, with small recesses for altars round it. The aisle is covered with a round-arched waggon-vault; it has five recesses for altars; the easternmost _seems_ to have a square east end, the next to it on either side have apses, and the others are very shallow recesses hardly large enough for altars. There can be no doubt whatever, I think, that this is the work on which Master Matthew was first employed; it is exactly under the porch and doorway, on which, as we know by the inscription on the lintel of the door, he wrought; and as he was first at work here in A.D. 1168, and finished the doors in A.D. 1188, we may safely put down this chapel as having been begun and finished circa A.D. 1168-1175. In this the bases are some of them square, some circular in plan; the sculpture of the capitals is elaborate and similar in character to most of the later work in the cathedral. The favourite device of pairs of animals regarding each other is frequently repeated; and there are moulded and spiral shafts in the jambs of the western arches. My view of the interior of this interesting little chapel will best explain its general character and peculiarities, and it will be felt, I think, that it is certainly not earlier than the date I have assigned, and therefore, like the great western door, of later date than the church in connection with which it was built.