The detail of the work in this front is of great interest, inasmuch as it is clearly by another and an earlier workman than that of the western part of the church. There are three shafts in each jamb of the doors, whereof the outer are of marble, the rest of stone. These marble shafts are carved with extreme delicacy with a series of figures in niches, the niches having round arches, which rest upon carved and twisted columns separating the figures. The work is so characteristic as to deserve illustration. It is executed almost everywhere with that admirable delicacy so conspicuous in early Romanesque sculpture. The other shafts are twisted and carved in very bold fashion. [Illustration: No. 18. SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL p. 150. SHAFTS IN SOUTH DOORWAY] The jamb of this door retains an inscription deeply cut in large letters, which appears to give the same date--Era 1116, 5 Ides of July--that I have already quoted from the ‘Historia Compostellana.’ But as the reading of this inscription is open to doubt, I think it well to engrave it. This Era would make the date of these doors agree with the commencement of the works. Figures on either side support the ends of the lintels of the doors, but the tympana and the wall above for some feet are covered with pieces of sculpture, evidently taken down and refixed where they are now seen. They are arranged, in short, like the casts at the Crystal Palace, as if the wall were part of a museum. One of the stones in the tympanum of the eastern door has the Crowning with Thorns and the Scourging; and on other stones above are portions of a Descent into Hades, in which asses with wings are shown kneeling to our Lord. Asses and other beasts are carved elsewhere, and altogether the whole work has a rude barbaric splendour characteristic of its age. [Illustration: Inscription on South Door.] The windows above deserve special notice. Their shafts and archivolts are very richly twisted and carved, and the cusping of the inner arch is of a rare kind. It consists of five complete foils, so that the points of the lowest cusp rest on the capital, and, to a certain extent, the effect of a horseshoe arch is produced. This might be hastily assumed to be a feature borrowed from the Moors; but the curious fact is that this very rare form of cusping is seen in many, if not most, of the churches of the Auvergnat type, to which reference has already been made, and it must be regarded here, therefore, as another proof of the foreign origin of most of the work at Santiago, rather than of any Moorish influence. I have omitted to say that in addition to the other steeples there is a modern dome over the crossing. The lower part of the lantern is old, and the four piers which support it are somewhat larger than the rest. The exterior of the cloister is rather Renaissance than Gothic in its character, and has some picturesque small towers at the angles.