The moment the visitor enters the church, he is forcibly arrested by a _chef-d'œuvre_ of incomparable beauty, namely, the carved wooden door leading to the cloisters. Among the other bas-reliefs upon it, there is one representing our Saviour's entry into Jerusalem: the jambs and crosspieces are covered with delicious little figures, so elegant in their form, and of such extreme delicacy, that it is difficult to understand how so heavy and solid a substance as wood could ever be made to lend itself to so capricious and ethereal a production of the imagination. It is certainly the most beautiful door in the whole world, if we except that executed by Ghiberti, at Florence, and which Michael Angelo, who understood something about these matters, pronounced worthy of being the door of Paradise. There certainly ought to be a bronze copy taken of this admirable work of art, so that it might at least live as long as the work of men's hands can live. [Illustration: CLOISTERS, BURGOS CATHEDRAL.] The choir, in which are the stalls, called in Spanish _silleria_, is enclosed by gates of wrought iron of the most wonderful workmanship; the pavement, as is the custom in Spain, is covered with immense mats made of spartum, besides which, each stall has its own little carpet of dry grass or reeds. On looking up, you perceive a kind of dome formed by the interior of the tower to which I have before alluded. It is one mass of sculptures, arabesques, statues, columns, nerves, and pendentives, sufficient to make your brain turn giddy. Were a person to gaze for two years, he still would not be able to see everything in it. The various objects are as densely crowded together as the leaves of a cabbage; there is as much open work as in a fish-slice; it is as gigantic as a pyramid, and as delicate as a woman's earring. How such a piece of filigree work can have remained erect during two centuries surpasses human comprehension! What kind of men could those have been who raised these marvellous buildings, which not even a fairy palace could ever surpass in profuse magnificence? Is the race extinct? Are not we, who are always boasting of our high state of civilization, but decrepit barbarians in comparison? I am always oppressed with a profound sentiment of melancholy whenever I visit any of these prodigious edifices of the past; my heart is overwhelmed by a feeling of utter discouragement, and the only wish I have is to withdraw to some retired spot, to place a stone upon my head, and, in the immovability of contemplation, to await death, which is immovability itself. Why should I work? Why should I exert myself? The most mighty effort of which man is capable will never produce anything more magnificent than what I have just described; and yet we do not even know the name of the divine artists to whom we owe it; and, if we wish to obtain the slightest information concerning them, we are obliged to seek it in the dusty leaves of the monastical archives.