e North. Though it is upwards of two thousand three hundred
paces from the convent, yet it hangs so directly over it, that the rocks
convey not only the sound of the organ, and the voices of the monks
singing in the choir, but you may hear men in common conversation from
the piazza below.

This is a long letter; but I know you would not willingly have left me
in the midst of danger, or before I was safe arrived at the first stage
towards heaven, and seen one humble host on GOD's high road.

_P.S._ At two o'clock, after midnight, these people rise, say mass, and
continue the remainder of the night in prayer and contemplation. The
hermits tell you, it was upon high mountains that God chose to manifest
his will:--_fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis_, say they;--they
consider these rocks as symbols of their penitence, and mortifications;
and their being so beautifully covered with fine flowers, odoriferous
and rare plants, as emblems of the virtue and innocence of the religious
inhabitants; or how else, say they, could such rocks produce
spontaneously flowers in a desart, which surpass all that art and nature
combined can do, in lower and more favourable soils? They may well think
so; for human reason cannot account for the manner by which such
enormous quantities of trees, fruits, and flowers are nourished,
seemingly without soil. But that which established a church and convent
on this mountain, was the story of a hermit who resided here many years;
this was _Juan Guerin_, who lived on this mountain alone, the austerity
of whose life was such, that the people below believed he subsisted
without eating or drinking. As some very extraordinary circumstances
attended this man's life, all which are universally believed here, it
may not be amiss to give you some account of him:--You must know, Sir,
then, that the devil envying the happiness of this good man equipped
himself in the habit of a hermit, and possessed himself of a cavern in
the same mountain, which still bears the name of the _Devil's Grot_;
after which he took occasion to throw himself in the way of poor
_Guerin_, to whom he expressed his surprize at seeing one of his own
order dwell in a place he thought an absolute desert; but thanked God,
for giving him so fortunate a meeting. Here the devil, and _Guerin_
became very intimate, and conversed much together on spiritual matters;
and things went on well enough between them for a while, when another
devil chum to th