voit me dedommager de la peine qu'il me falloit
prendre pour y monter, en grimpant pendant plus de heux heures. J'aurois
pre me servir de ma mule, mais il m'auroit fallu prendre un chemin ou
j'aurois mis le double du tems. Je m'armai donc de courage, & entre dans
une enceinte par une porte que l'on m'ouvrit avec peine au dehors du
monastere, je commencai a monter par des degres qui sembloient
perpendiculaires, tant ils etoient roides; & je fus oblige de
m'agraffer a des barres qui y font placees expres: ensuite, je me
trainai par-dessous de grosses pierres, qui sont comme des voutes
ruinees, dont les ouvertures sont le seul passage qu'il y ait pour
quiconque a la temerite de s'engager dans ces defiles; apres avoir
grimpe, environ mille pas, je trouvai un petit terrein uni ou je me
laissai tomber tout etendu afin de reprendre ma respiration qui
commencoit a me manquer_." And yet this was only the Frenchman's first
stage on his way to the first and nearest hermitage; and who I find
clambered up the very road we did, rather than take the longer route on
mule-back; and, for aught I know, a route still more dangerous, for
there are many places where the precipice is perpendicular on both sides
of a ridge, and where the road is too narrow even to turn the mule; so
he that sets out, must proceed.

After ascending a ladder fixed in the same pine where _St. Onofre_ is
situated, at an hundred and fifty paces distant, is the fifth hermitage
of the penitent _Madalena_; it stands between two lofty pines, and on
some elevated rocks, and commands a beautiful view, towards noon-day, to
the East and West; and near to it, in a more elevated pine, stands its
chapel, from whence you look down (dreadful to behold) a rugged
precipice and steep hills, upon the convent at two miles distance where
are two roads, or rather passages, to this cell, both exceedingly
difficult; by one you mount up a ladder of at least an hundred steps;
the other is of stone steps, and pieces of timber to hold by; that the
hermit who dwells there says, the whistling of the wind in tempestuous
nights sounds like the roaring of baited bulls.

LETTER XXIII.

I must now lead you up to the highest part of the mountain; it is a long
way up, not less than three thousand five hundred paces from _St.
Madalena_, and over a very rugged and disagreeable road for the feet,
which leads, however, to the cell of _St. Geronimo_; from the two
turrets of which, an immense sc