After looking at these interesting relics of mortality, the tourists descended to the pantheon, which is a heathenish name to apply to a Christian burial-place erected by one so pious as Philip II. It is octagonal in form, forty-six feet in diameter and thirty-eight feet high. It is built entirely of marble and jasper. It contains an altar of the same stone, where mass is sometimes celebrated. These mortuary chapels were not built by Philip II., who made only plain vaults; but by Philip III. and Philip IV., who did not inherit the taste for simplicity of their predecessor on the throne. Around the tomb are twenty-six niches, all of them made after the same pattern, each containing a sarcophagus, in most of which is the body of a king or queen. On the right of the altar are the kings, and on the left the queens. All of them are labelled with the name of the occupant, as “Carlos V.,” “Filipe II.,” “Fernando VII.,” &c.
“Can it be possible that we see the coffins of Charles V. and Philip II.?” said Sheridan, who was very much impressed by the sight before him.
“There is no doubt of it,” replied the doctor.
“I can hardly believe that the body of Philip II. is in that case,” added the captain. “I see no reason to doubt the fact; but it seems so very strange that I should be looking at the coffin of that cold and cruel king who lived before our country was settled, and of whom I have read so much.”
“I think before you leave Spain you will see something that will impress you even more than this.”
“What is it?”
“I will not mention it yet; for it is better not to anticipate these things. All the kings of Spain from Charles V. are buried here, except Philip V. and Ferdinand VI.”
“What an odd way they have here of spelling Charles and Philip!” said Murray. “These names don’t look quite natural to me.”
“Carlos Quinto is the Spanish for Charles Fifth; and Ferdinand Seventh is Fernando Septimo, as you see on the urn. But our way of writing these things is as odd to the Spaniards as theirs is to us. The late queen and her father, when they came to the Escurial, used to hear mass at midnight in this tomb.”
“That was cheerful,” added Sheridan.