brothers became seculars or regular priests; others turned to worldly
pursuits; and of this once powerful order, but eleven are now left who
wear the garb of the Franciscan monks.

It was in company with one of these that I paid my last visit to this
convent. We entered by the great portal of the castle wall into an
overgrown courtyard. In front was the convent, with its large corridors
and two great churches, the walls of all three standing, but without
doors or windows. The roof of one of the churches had fallen, and the
broad glare of day was streaming into the interior. We entered the
other--the oldest, and identified with the times of the conquerors.
Near the door was a blacksmith's forge. A Mestizo was blowing at the
bellows, hauling out a red-hot bar of iron, and hammering it into
spikes. All along the floor were half-naked Indians and brawny
Mestizoes, hewing timber, driving nails, and carrying on the business
of making gun-carriages for artillery. The altars were thrown down and
the walls defaced; half way up were painted on them, in coarse and
staring red characters (in Spanish), "First squadron," "Second
squadron;" and at the head of the church, under a golden gloria, were
the words "Comp'y Light Infantry." The church had been occupied as
barracks, and these were the places where they stacked their arms. As
we passed through, the workmen stared at my companion, or rather at the
long blue gown, the cord around his waist, and the cross dangling from
it--the garb of his scattered order. It was the first time he had
visited the place since the expulsion of the monks. To me it was
mournful to behold the destruction and desecration of this noble
building; what, then, must it have been to him? In the floor of the
church near the altar and in the sacristia were open vaults, but the
bones of the monks had been thrown out and scattered on the floor. Some
of these were the bones of his earliest friends. We passed into the
refectory, and he pointed out the position of the long table at which
the brotherhood took their meals, and the stone fountain at which they
performed their ablutions. His old companions in their long blue gowns
rose up before him, now scattered forever, and their home a desolation
and ruin.

But this convent contains one memorial far more interesting than any
connected with its own ruin; one that carries the beholder back through
centuries of time, and tells the story of a greater and a sadder fall.