The railroad, which is now open to Burgos, follows very much the same line as the old road. As far as Miranda the scenery is generally very beautiful, and here there is a junction with the wonderfully-engineered railway to Bilbao, which is continued again on the other side until it joins the Pamplona and Tudela Railway near the latter city. It is therefore a very good plan to enter Spain by the steamboat from Bayonne to Bilbao, to come thence by railway, join the main line at Miranda, and so on to Burgos, or else by the valley of the Ebro to Tudela and Zaragoza. The passage of the Pancorbo defile by the railway is even finer than by the road; and for the remainder of the distance to Burgos the traveller’s feeling must be in the main one of joy at finding himself skimming along with fair rapidity over the tame country, in place of loitering over it in a tiresome diligence. CHAPTER II. BURGOS. There are some views of Burgos Cathedral which are constantly met with, and upon which I confess all my ideas of its style and merits had been founded, to their no little detriment. The western steeples, the central lantern, and the lantern-like roof and pinnacles of the chapel of the Constable at the east end, are all very late in date--the first of the latest fifteenth century, and the others of early Renaissance work; and their mass is so important, their character so picturesque, and their detail so exuberantly ornate, that they have often been drawn and described to the entire exclusion of all notice of the noble early church, out of which they rise. The general scheme of the ground-plan of the cathedral is drawn with considerable accuracy in the illustration which I give of it.[7] The fabric consists of a thirteenth-century church, added to somewhat in the fourteenth century, altered again in the fifteenth, and even more in the sixteenth century. The substratum, so to speak, is throughout of the thirteenth century, but the two western steeples, with their crocketed and perforated spires, the gorgeous and fantastic lantern over the crossing, and the lofty and sumptuous monumental chapel at the east end, are all later additions, and so important in their effect, as at first sight to give an entirely wrong impression both of the age and character of the whole church. The various dates are, as well as the scale will admit, explained by the shading of the plan. The early church seems to have consisted of a nave and aisles of six bays, deep transepts, and a choir and aisles, with apses and chapels round it. The transepts probably had chapels on the east, of which one still remains in the north transept; but this is the only original chapel, none of those round the chevet having been spared. Externally, the two transept fronts are the only conspicuous portions of the old church, but, on mounting to the roof, the flying buttresses, clerestory windows, and some other parts, are found still little damaged or altered.