There are also many Retablos, and some of them ancient. That behind the high altar is a grand work, of so great height that it rises quite from the floor to the roof, being filled with subjects from our Lord’s life, arranged with the most complete disregard to their chronology, and, so far as I could see, without any other better system of arrangement. The whole, however, is most effective, the subjects being richly painted and gilded, and the whole of the canopies and niches covered with gold, so that the effect is one of extreme richness and perfect quietness combined, the usual result of the ample use of gold. Many other small Retablos exist elsewhere, and many have been destroyed.[247] The difficulty in the way of seeing to sketch anything inside the cathedral is as great as it usually is in Spain, but not at all in consequence of the absence of windows; for, as will have been seen from my description, the windows are both many and large: all of them, however, are filled with stained glass, and hence, in addition to the wonderful charm of contrasted lights and shades, which we have here in marvellous perfection, we have also the charm of seeing none but coloured rays of light where any fall through the windows on the floor or walls. Most of the glass appeared to me to be of the fifteenth century, and later. The rose of the north transept, which is earlier, has already been described; and the glass in the eastern windows of the transept clerestory (single figures under canopies) looked as if it were of the same date, or at any rate earlier than A.D. 1350. The rest of the church is glazed rather uniformly with cinquecento glass of extreme brilliancy and unusual depth of colour, the upper windows having generally single figures, the others subjects in medallions. I had not time to make out the scheme of their arrangement; but I observed that the medallions of the clerestory of the intermediate aisle began at the west end, with the Expulsion from Paradise, and went on with subjects from the Old Testament. Of colour on the walls, little, alas! remains. They have been whitewashed throughout, and in the choir coarsely diapered with broad gilt masonry lines, edged with black. The internal tympanum of the south transept door has a tree of Jesse, and close to it is an enormous painting of S. Christopher; and the cloister walls had remains of paintings which used to be attributed (but without the slightest foundation, I believe) to Giotto, but these have now given way to new wall-paintings of poor design and no value of any kind.