is tenant was suffering from
consumption--an illness believed to be infectious by the Majorcans--gave
the whole party notice to quit. The invalid improving somewhat, though
still too weak to attempt the return journey to France, Madame Sand
transported her ambulance, as she styled it, to some tolerable quarters
she had already discovered in the deserted Carthusian monastery of
Valdemosa--"a poetical name and a poetical abode," she writes; "an
admirable landscape, grand and wild, with the sea at both ends of the
horizon, formidable peaks around us, eagles pursuing their prey even
down to the orange-trees in our garden, a cypress walk winding from the
top of our mountain to the bottom of the gorge, torrents over-grown with
myrtles, palm-trees below our feet, nothing could be more magnificent
than this spot."

Parts of the old monastic buildings were dilapidated; the rest were in
good order, being frequented as a summer retreat by the inhabitants of
Palma. Now, in December, the Chartreuse was entirely abandoned, except
by a housekeeper, a sacristan and a lone monk, the last offshoot of the
community--a kind of apothecary, whose stock-in-trade was limited to
guimauve and dog-grass.

The rooms into which the travellers moved had just been vacated by a
Spanish family of political refugees departing for France. These
lodgings were at least provided with doors, window-panes, and decent
furniture; but the luxury of chimneys was unknown, and a stove, which
had to be manufactured at an enormous price on purpose for the party, is
described as "a sort of iron cauldron, that made our heads ache and
dried up our throats." Continuous stormy weather having suspended steam
traffic with the mainland, the visitors had no choice but to remain
prisoners some two months more, during which the deluge went on with
little intermission.

Still, to young and romantic imaginations the island and life in the
ex-monastery offered considerable charm. Madame Sand and her children
were delighted with the unfamiliar vegetation, the palms, aloes, olives,
almond and orange trees, the Arab architecture, and picturesque
costumes. Valdemosa itself was splendidly situated among the mountains,
in a stone-walled garden surrounded with cypress trees and planted with
palms and olives. In the morning, Madame Sand gave lessons to the
children; in the afternoon, they ran wild out of doors whilst she
wrote--when the invalid musician was well enough to be left. In t