oreover they
had another convent down in the vale yonder, to which they could retire
at their pleasure.' I asked him the reason of his antipathy to the
friars, to which he replied that he had been their vassal, and that they
had deprived him every year of the flower of what he possessed.
Discoursing in this manner we reached a village just below the convent,
where he left me, having first pointed out to me a house of stone with an
image over the door, which he said once also belonged to the _canalla_
(rabble) above.

The sun was setting fast, and, eager to reach Villafranca, where I had
determined on resting and which was still distant three leagues and a
half, I made no halt at this place. The road was now down a rapid and
crooked descent which terminated in a valley, at the bottom of which was
a long and narrow bridge. Beneath it rolled a river descending from a
wide pass between two mountains, for the chain was here cleft probably by
some convulsion of nature. I looked up the pass and on the hills on both
sides. Far above on my right, but standing out bold and clear, and
catching the last rays of the sun, was 'the Convent of the Precipices';
whilst directly over against it, on the further side of the valley, rose
the perpendicular side of the rival hill which, to a considerable extent
intercepting the light, flung its black shadow over the upper end of the
pass, involving it in mysterious darkness. Emerging from the centre of
this gloom with thundering sound dashed a river, white with foam and
bearing along with it huge stones and branches of trees, for it was the
wild Sil, probably at that [time] swollen by the recent rains, which I
now saw hurrying to the ocean from its cradle in the heart of the
Asturian hills. Its fury, its roar, and the savage grandeur of the
surrounding scenery which was worthy of the pencil of Salvator recalled
to my mind the powerful lines of Stolberg addressed to a mountain
torrent--

'The pine-trees are shaken, they yield to thy shocks,
And, crashing, they tumble in wild disarray;
The rocks fly before thee--thou seizest the rocks
And whirlst them, like pebbles, contemptuous away.'

Hours again passed away. It was now night, and we were in the midst of
woodlands, feeling our way, for the darkness was so great that I could
scarcely see the length of a yard before my horse's head. The animal
seemed uneasy, and would frequently stop short, prick up his ears, and
utt