There are considerable remains of the old walls, with circular towers rather closely set around them. The bishop’s palace retains a fine tower, which seems to have been connected with the town walls. It is plain below, but has turrets picturesquely corbelled out on machicoulis over the centre of each side and at each angle. A wing of the palace which joins this tower has some very remarkable domestic windows, which deserve illustration. The shafts are of marble, the tracery and the wall below the sill of stone, but the wall of brick. The shafts are set behind each other, there is a good ball-flower enrichment in the label, and the mouldings are rich and good of their kind. Such a window seems to unite the characteristics of two or three countries, and is, indeed, in this, an epitome of Spanish art, which borrowed freely from other lands, and often imported foreign architects, yet, in spite of all this, is still almost always national in its character. It is an easy journey from Alcalá to Guadalajara; and though the latter place disappointed me much, it is still worthy of a few hours’ delay to those who pass by it on the Madrid and Zaragoza railway. Seen from the distance it is an imposing city, and if it be seen as I saw it during fair time, full of peasants in gay costume, the general impression may be not unpleasant; but unfortunately, the early architectural remains are few and generally insignificant. The church of Sta. Maria is the subject of a picturesque view in Villa Amil’s book, and he deserves great praise for the skill with which he has created something out of nothing. I could find no feature worth recording save its two Moresque doorways, in one of which--that at the west end--the arch is of the pointed horseshoe form, and the archivolt is built of bricks, some of which are set forward from the face of the wall in the fashion of the rustic work in the execution of which certain schools of architects everywhere seem to take a grave pleasure, of which, perhaps, it would be unkind to wish to deprive them.