The nave, exceedingly high, is decorated by a blind triforium of ogival arches; the aisles are sombre and lower than the nave. On the other hand, the transept, broad and simple, is similar to the nave and as long as the width of the church, including the lateral chapels. The _croisée_ is surmounted by a _cimborio_, insignificant in comparison to those of Salamanca, Zamora, and Toro. The northern and southern extremities of the transept differ from each other as regard style. The southern has an ogival portal surmounted by a rosace; the northern, one that is plateresque, the rounded arch, delicately decorated, reposing on Corinthian columns. The eastern end of the church has been greatly modified--as is clearly seen by the mixture of fifteenth-century styles, and not to the advantage of the ensemble. Byzantine pillars, and even horseshoe arches, mingle with Gothic elements. Of the chapels, the greater number are richly decorated, not only with sepulchres and sepulchral works, but with paintings, some of them by well-known masters. Taken all in all, the cathedral of Cuenca does not inspire any of the sentiments peculiar to religious temples. Not the worst cathedral in Spain, by any means, neither as regards size nor majesty, it nevertheless lacks conviction, as though the artist who traced the primitive plan miscalculated its final appearance. The additions, due to necessity or to the ruinous state of some of the parts, were luckless, as are generally all those undertaken at a posterior date. The decorative wealth of the chapels, which is really astonishing in so small a town, the luxurious display of grotesque elements, the presence of a fairly good _transparente_, as well as the rich leaf-decoration of Byzantine pillars and plateresque arches, give a peculiar _cachet_ to this church which is not to be found elsewhere. The same can be said of the city and of the inhabitant. In the words of an authority, "Cuenca is national, it is Spanish, it is a typical rural town." Yet, it is so typical, that no other city resembles it. VII TOLEDO A forest of spires and _alminar_ towers rising from a roof-covered hill to pierce the distant azure sky; a ruined cemetery surrounded on three sides by the rushing Tago as it cuts out a foaming path through foothills, and stretching away on the fourth toward the snow-capped Sierra de Gredo in the distance, beyond the fruitful prairies and the intervening plains of New Castile. Such is Toledo, the famous, the wonderful, the legend-spun primate city of all the Spains, the former wealthy capital of the Spanish Empire! Madrid usurped all her civic honours under the reign of Philip II., he who lost the Armada and built the Escorial. Since then Toledo, like Alcalá de Henares, Segovia, and Burgos, has dragged along a forlorn existence, frozen in winter and scorched in summer, and visited at all times of the year by gaping tourists of all nationalities.