PECTINID^. — SCALLOP. 
Ill 
Aigues-Mortes, in Languedoc ; a town which he had 
founded, that he might have a seaport on the Mediter- 
ranean. He also embarked at that place on his unsuc- 
cessful crusade in 1270, having assembled a fleet of 800 
galleys, and an army of 40,000 men. 
The following description of the apostle St. James, 
patron of Spain, given by Bernard Picart,* may not 
be uninteresting to some of my readers. He says, St. 
James, Patron of all Spain, has rested for these 900 
years past in the Metropolitan Church of Compostella. 
The image of this blessed apostle is upon the high altar ; 
it is a small wooden bust, with forty or fifty white tapers 
constantly burning before it. Pilgrims kiss it three 
times, and put their hats upon the head of it, with abun- 
dance 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 
HI. 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 perform another cere- 
mony 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 pil- 
grims enter into the high-road to salvation. Some who 
had forgotten to pass under the stone cross, have gone 
back five hundred leagues to perform this ceremony.’^ 
* ‘ Eeligious Ceremonies,’ p. 432. 
