]1() EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



altar : it is a small wooden bust, with fortv or fiftv 

 white tapers constantly burning before it. Pilgrims 

 kiss it three times, and put their hats upon the head 

 of it, with abundance of respect and devotion. There 

 are thirty silver lamps always burning in the church, 

 and six large silver candlesticks five feet high, which 

 were given by Philip III. There are five platforms 

 of large freestones, for walking all round the church, and 

 above it is another of the same kind, where the pilgrims 

 ascend and fix some remnant of their clothes to a stone 

 cross, which is erected thereon. They likewise per- 

 form another ceremony as singular as this. They pass 

 under this cross three times, through such a small hole 

 that they are obliged to slide through with their breasts 

 against the pavement, so that such as are never so little 

 too fat must suffer severely, and yet through they must 

 go if they will obtain the indulgence thereto affixed. 

 This is the strait gate of the gospel, through which 

 the pilgrims enter into the high-road of salvation. Some 

 who had forgotten to pass under the stone cross have 

 gone back five hundred leagues to perform this cere- 

 mony.* Mr. Street, in his l Gothic Architecture in 

 Spain/ states that even in that country, the old belief of 

 the power of the bones of St. James of Compostella to 

 work miracles appear now practically to have died out, 

 and that there are no longer great pilgrimages to his 

 shrine. However, at Santiago de Compostella, he sawcme 

 professional pilgrim with his rags covered with scallop 

 shells, whom he had previously seen begging at Zara- 

 goza; and in one of the Plazas at Santiago an old woman 

 was selling scallop shells. The doors in Toledo are 

 studded with many and fanciful forms of door-nails, of 

 * ' Religious Ceremonies,' by Picart, p. 432. 



