The square tower on the western end is undermined by a gallery or tunnel through which the Calle de Puente passes. To the right of the same, and reached by a flight of steps, stands the entrance to the crypt, which is used to-day as a most unhealthy parish church. This crypt of the late twelfth century or early thirteenth shows a decided Romanesque tendency in its general appearance: it is low, massive, strong, and crowned by a semicircular vaulting reposing on gigantic pillars whose capitals are roughly sculptured. The windows which let in the little light that enters are ogival, proving the Transition period to which the crypt belongs; it was originally intended as the pantheon for the abbots of the monastery. But unlike the Galician Romanesque, it lacks an individual _cachet_; if it resembles anything it is the pantheon of the kings in San Isidoro in Leon, though in point of view of beauty, the two cannot be compared. The form of the crypt is that of a perfect Romanesque basilica, a nave and two aisles terminating a three-lobed apse. In the cathedral, properly speaking, there is a baptismal font of marble, bearing an Arabic inscription by way of upper frieze; it is square, and of Moorish workmanship, and doubtless was brought from Cordoba after the reconquest. Its primitive use had been practical, for in Andalusia it stood at the entrance to some mezquita, and in its limpid waters the disciples of Mahomet performed their hygienic and religious ablutions. VII VITORIA If the foreigner enter Spain by Irun, the first cathedral town on his way south is Vitoria. Gazteiz seems to have been its Basque name prior to 1181, when it was enlarged by Don Sancho of Navarra and was given a _fuero_ or privilege, together with its new name, chosen to commemorate a victory obtained by the king over his rival, Alfonso of Castile. Fortune did not smile for any length of time on Don Sancho, for seventeen years later Alfonso VIII. incorporated the city in his kingdom of Castile, and it was lost for ever to Navarra. As regards the celebrated _fueros_ given by the last named monarch to the inhabitants of the city, a curious custom was in vogue in the city until a few years ago, when the Basque Provinces finally lost the privileges they had fought for during centuries. When Alfonso VIII. granted these privileges, he told the citizens they were to conserve them "as long as the waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro."