Immediately above the panels of the door, which are covered with twelfth-century metal reliefs, there is a stone plaque or low relief, representing the Passion scene; to the left of it is to be seen a kneeling woman holding a skull in her hand. Evidently it is a weeping, penitent Magdalene. The popular tongue has invented a legend--perhaps a true one--concerning this woman, who is believed to symbolize the adulteress. It appears that a certain hidalgo, discovering his wife's sins, killed her lover by cutting off his head; he then obliged her to kiss and adore the skull twice daily throughout her life,--a rather cruel punishment and a slow torture, quite in accordance with the mystic spirit of the Celts. The apse of the church, circular in the interior, is squared off on the outside by the addition of chapels. As regards the plateresque northern and western façades, they are out of place, though the former might have passed off elsewhere as a fairly good example of the severe sixteenth-century style. The general plan of the building is Roman cruciform; the principal nave is high, and contains both choir and high altar; the two aisles are much lower and darker, and terminate behind the high altar in an ambulatory walk. The width of the transept is enormous, and is composed of a nave and two aisles similar in size to those of the body of the church. The _croisée_ is surmounted by a dome, which, though not Romanesque, is certainly an advantageous addition. Excepting the high altar with its _retablo_, the choir with its none too beautiful stalls, and the various chapels of little interest and less taste, the general view of the interior is impressively beautiful. The height of the central nave, rendered more elegant by the addition of a handsome Romanesque triforium of round-headed arches, contrasts harmoniously with the sombre aisles, whereas the bareness of the walls--for all mural paintings were washed away by a bigoted prelate somewhere in the fifteenth century--helps to show off to better advantage the rich sculptural decorations, leaf and floral designs on capitals and friezes. The real wonder of the cathedral is the far-famed Portico de la Gloria, the vestibule or narthex behind the western entrance of the church, and as renowned as its sculptural value is meritorious. So much has already been written concerning this work of art that really little need be mentioned here. Street, who persuaded the British Government to send a body of artists to take a plaster copy of this strange work, could not help declaring that: "I pronounce this effort of Master Mathews at Santiago to be one of the greatest glories of Christian art."