frightful precipice,--a precipice, so very tremendous, that I am
persuaded there are many people whose imagination would be so
intoxicated by looking at it, that they might be in danger of throwing
themselves over: I do not know whether you will understand my meaning by
saying so; but I have more than once been so bewildered with such
alarming _coup d'oeil_ on this mountain, that I began to doubt whether
my own powers were sufficient to protect me:--Horses, from sudden
fright, will often run into the fire; and man too, may be forced upon
his own destruction, to avoid those sensations of danger he has not been
accustomed to look upon. Perhaps I am talking non-sense; and you will
attribute what I say to lowness of spirits; on the contrary, I had those
feelings about me only during the time my eyes were employed upon such
frightful objects; for my spirits were enlivened by pure air, exercise,
and temperance:--nay, I remember to have been struck in the same manner,
when the grand explosion of the fireworks was played off, many years
ago, upon the conclusion of peace! The blast was so great, that it
appeared as if it were designed to take with it all earthly things; and
I felt almost forced by it, and summoned from my seat, and could hardly
refrain from jumping over a parapet wall which stood before me. The
building of this hermitage, however, is very secure; nothing can shake
or remove it, but that which must shake or remove the whole mountain. At
this cell, small as it is, King Philip the Third dined on the eleventh
of July 1599;--a circumstance, you may be sure, the inhabitant will
never forget, or omit to mention. It commands at noon-day a fine
prospect eastward, and is approached by a good stage of steps. Not far
from it, on the road side, is a little chapel called St. Michael, a
chapel as ancient as the monastery itself; and a little below is the
grotto, in which the image of the Virgin, now fixed in the high altar of
the church, was found. The entrance of this grotto is converted into a
chapel, where mass is said every day by one of the monks. All the
hermitages, even the smallest, have their little chapel, the ornaments
for saying mass, their water cistern, and most of them a little garden.
The building consists of one or two little chambers, a little refectory,
and a kitchen; but many of them have every convenience within and
without that a single man can wish or desire, except he should wish for
or desire _such thi