Entering the church from hence we find a very solid, simple, and dignified building, spoilt indeed as much as possible by yellow wash, but still in other respects very little damaged. It is groined throughout, and the groining has the peculiarity of having ridge ribs longitudinally but not transversely. This is common in Spain; but it is impossible to see why one ridge should require it and the other not, and the only explanation is that possibly the architect wished to lead the eye on from end to end of the building. In the groining of an apse this ridge-rib in its western part always looks very badly, and jars with the curved lines of all the rest of the ribs. The columns of the nave arcades are circular, with eight smaller engaged shafts around them, those under the western tower being rather more elaborate and larger than the others. Here we see a clear imitation of the very similar planning of the cathedral nave. The planning of the east end is more interesting, because, whilst it has no precedent in the cathedral, it is one of the evidences we have of the connexion of the Spanish architecture of the middle ages with that of other countries, which we ought not to overlook. I have said something on this in speaking of the plan of Las Huelgas. Here, however, I do not think we can look in the same direction for the original type of plan; for, numerous as are the varieties of ground-plan which we see in France, there is one--the parallel-triapsidal--which we meet so seldom that we may almost say it does not occur at all. In Germany, on the other hand, it is seen everywhere, and there, indeed, it is the national plan: in Italy it is also found constantly. In Spain, however, it was quite as much the national ground-plan as it was in Germany; almost everywhere we see it, and in any case the fact is of value as proving that the Spaniards adopted their own national form of Gothic, and were not indebted solely to their nearest neighbours, the French, for their inspiration and education in architecture, though undoubtedly they owed them very much. [Illustration: NO. 5 SAN ESTEBAN, BURGOS. p. 49. INTERIOR LOOKING WEST.] San Esteban is lighted almost entirely from windows set very high up in the walls. Those in the apses are in the position of clerestory windows, their sills being level with the springing of the groining. The consequence of this arrangement--a very natural one in a country where heat and light are the main things to be excluded from churches--was that a great unbroken space was left between the floor and the windows; and hence it happened that the enormous Retablos, rising seldom less than twenty feet, and often thirty, forty, or even sixty feet from the floors, naturally grew to be so prominent and popular a feature. In San Esteban the Retablos are none of them old, but doubtless take the place of others which were so.