Page:Impressions of Spain in 1866.djvu/32

18 in the south transept still remains, recording the massacre ; but the monument of Theodoric has been mutilated and destroyed. The Christian spoilers have done their work more effectually than the Moslem! Sorrowfully our travellers left this beautiful spot, thinking bitterly on the so-called age of progress which had left the abode of so much learning and piety to the owls and the bats; and partly walking, partly driving, returned without accident to the city. One more memento of the Cid at Burgos deserves mention. It is the lock on which he compelled the king, Alonso VI., to swear that he had had no part in his brother Sancho's assassination at Zamora. All who wished to confirm their word with a solemn oath used to touch it, till the practice was abolished by Isabella, and the lock itself hung up in the old Church of St. Gadea, on the way to the Castle Hill, where it still rests. This is the origin of the peasant custom of closing the hand and raising the thumb, which they kiss in token of asseveration; and in like manner we have the old Highland saying: 'There's my thumb. I'll not betray you.'

Another charming expedition was made on the following day to Las Huelgas, the famous Cistercian nunnery, built in some gardens outside