dry, with shrivelled skin and brown threadbare frock. He received my
companion with a warm affectionate smile. The Marques told him that I
was an Englishman who was curious about the work in which he was
engaged, and he spoke to me at once with the politeness of a man of
sense. After a few questions asked and answered, he took us out to a
shed among the roof-tiles, where he kept his large telescope, his
equatorial, and his transit instruments--not on the great scale of
State-supported observatories, but with everything which was really
essential. He had a laboratory, too, and a workshop, with all the recent
appliances. He was a practical optician and mechanic. He managed and
repaired his own machinery, observed, made his notes, and wrote his
reports to the societies with which he was in correspondence, all by
himself. The outfit of such an establishment, even on a moderate scale,
is expensive. I said I supposed that the Government gave him a grant.
'So far from it,' he said, 'that we have to pay a duty on every
instrument which we import.' 'Who, then, pays for it all?' I asked. 'The
order,' he answered, quite simply.

The house, I believe, _was_ a gift, though it cost the State nothing,
having been simply seized when the monks were expelled. The order now
maintains it, and more than repays the Government for their single act
of generosity. At my companion's suggestion Father Vinez gave me a copy
of his book on hurricanes. It contains a record of laborious journeys
which he made to the scene of the devastations of the last ten years.
The scientific value of the Father's work is recognised by the highest
authorities, though I cannot venture even to attempt to explain what he
has done. He then conducted us over the building, and showed us the
libraries, dormitories, playgrounds, and the other arrangements which
were made for the students. Of these we saw none, they were all out, but
the long tables in the refectory were laid for afternoon tea. There was
a cup of milk for each lad, with a plate of honey and a roll of bread;
and supper would follow in the evening. The sleeping gallery was
divided into cells, open at the top for ventilation, with bed, table,
chest of drawers, and washing apparatus--all scrupulously clean. So far
as I could judge, the Fathers cared more for the boys' comfort than for
their own. Through an open door our conductor faintly indicated the
apartment which belonged to himself. Four bare walls, a bare