To the east of him, the nave terminates in a semicircular chapel, the farther end of which boasts of an immense _retablo_; to the west, the choir, with its stalls and organs, interrupts likewise the continuity of the nave. Both choir and altar are rich in decorative details. Behind the high altar runs the ambulatory, joining the aisles and separating the former from the apse and its chapels. The rear wall of the high altar (in the ambulatory) is called the _trasaltar_, where a small altar is generally situated in a recess and dedicated to the patron saint, that is, if the cathedral itself be dedicated to the Virgin, as generally happens. Sometimes an oval window pierces the wall of the _trasaltar_ and lets the light from the apsidal windows enter the high altar; this arrangement is called a _transparente_. The choir, as wide as the nave and often as high, is rectangular; an altar-table generally stands in the western extremity, which is closed off by a wall. The rear of this wall (facing the western entrance to the temple) is called the _trascoro_, and contains the altar or a chapel; the lateral walls are also pierced by low rooms or niches which serve either as chapels or as altar-frames. The placing of the choir in the very centre of the church, its width and height, and its enclosure on the western end by a wall, render impossible a view of the whole building such as occurs in Northern cathedrals, and upon which the impression of architectural grandeur and majesty largely depends. It was as though Spanish architects were utterly foreign to the latter impression, or wilfully murdered it by substituting another more to their taste, namely, that of magnificence and sumptuousness. Nowhere--to the author's knowledge--is this impression more acutely felt than in a Spanish cathedral, viewed from beneath the _croisée_. Glittering brilliancy, dazzling gold, silver, or gilt, polished marble, agate, and jasper, and a luxuriance of vivid colours meet the visitor's eyes when standing there. The effect is theatrical, doubtless, but it impresses the humble true believer as Oriental splendour; and what, in other countries, might be considered as grotesque and unhealthy art, must in Spain be regarded as the very essence of the country's worship, the very _raison d'être_ of the cathedral. Neither can it be considered as unhealthy: with us in the North, our _religious awe_ is produced by the solemn majesty of rising shafts and long, high, and narrow aisles; this fails to impress the Iberian of to-day; and yet, the same sentiment of _religious awe_, of the terrible unknown, be it saint, Saviour, Virgin, or God, is imparted to him by this brilliant display of incalculable wealth.