He gave them a quick glance and motioned for them to pass. Another man in black peered into the cart to see what was inside and, finding nothing, concluded that these were farm folk come up to the city to buy, and accordingly demanded but a few pieces of iron coin as tax. This paid, they took the road which ran from Mikolayska Gate to the Sukiennice, the old Cloth Hall, which stood then, as it does to-day, in the very center of the city. Krakow was flooded with a golden sunlight. Joseph, who saw for the first time a large city, gaped in very astonishment as he glanced left and right about him. Front and rear, their cart formed part of the long, straight train of carts coming to the city loaded with products of the farms. Through this line were breaking from time to time splendid horsemen wearing breastplates of steel that shone like precious metal and carrying long swords dangling from the saddles. One of these men who pushed through the crowd just in front of their horses was so splendidly arrayed that the boy took him for a very high noble, or perhaps the King himself, the peace-loving King, Kazimir Jagiello, the fourth of the name of Kazimir, and he exclaimed: [Illustration: _Guild Towers in the Old City Wall, and City Gate._] “That must be the King, father. See the shining armor and the jewels upon his saddle. And the sword must be of gold, for it shines like fire. And look,” he pointed eagerly, “see the Polish eagle worked in silver upon the saddlecloth. There beyond it is the white knight of Lithuania. Is he not indeed the King?” “No, son, no. That is but one of the guard that waits on the nobles at the royal castle.” All about them rose in the bright sunlight palaces, churches, towers, battlement walls, and Gothic buildings, as yet for the most part unadorned by the rich sculpture that was to come in a few years under the influence of the Italian Renaissance. In the distance rose against the turquoise-blue sky the cathedral on the Wawel Hill, its Romanesque tower showing high above the city. Close at hand were the two towers of the Church of Our Lady Mary, not as they appear to-day since the hand of the master architect and of the renowned sculptor, Wit Stwosz, altered them, but rising unbelfried and uncrowned above the cemetery, where white gravestones clustered at the base of the church. In the very middle of the market, surrounded by smaller wooden buildings, was the great Cloth Hall, used for the sale and exchange of cloth goods, already swarming with merchants who had been traveling all night, and for many nights perhaps, in order to close bargains early on market day before the money of purchasers had been, spent elsewhere.