rooping their leaves over the grey
soil; but the other side of the rock, the side that faces the ocean, is
barren and deserted, and so steep that the shrubs that grow there have a
hard time to remain where they are and look as if they were about to
topple over every minute.

When you are standing up there, enjoying as much space as the human eye
can possibly encompass and looking at the ocean and the horizon of the
coast, which forms an immense bluish curve, or at the wall of La
Merveille with its thirty-six huge counterparts upreared on a
perpendicular cliff, a laugh of admiration parts your lips, and you
suddenly hear the sharp noise of the weaving-looms. The people
manufacture linen, and the shrill sound of the shuttles produces a very
lively racket.

Between two slender towers, which represent the uplifted barrels of two
cannons, is the entrance to the castle, a long, arched hallway, at the
end of which is a flight of stone steps. The middle of the hall is
always dark, being insufficiently lighted by two skylights one of which
is at the bottom of the hall and the other at the top, between the
interval of the drawbridge; it is like a subterranean vault.

The guard-room is at the head of the stairs as you enter. The voice of
the sergeants and the clicking of the guns re-echoed along the walls.
They were beating a drum.

Meanwhile a _garde-chiourme_ returned with our passports, which M. le
gouverneur had wished to see; then he motioned us to follow him; he
opened doors, drew bolts, and led us through a maze of halls, vaults and
staircases. Really, one can lose oneself in this labyrinth, for a single
visit does not enable you to understand the complicated plan of these
combined buildings, where a fortress, a church, an abbey, a prison and a
dungeon, are mingled, and where you can find every style of
architecture, from the Romance of the eleventh century to the
bewildering Gothic of the sixteenth. We could catch only a glimpse of
the knights' hall, which has been converted into a loom-room and is for
this reason barred to the public. We saw only four rows of columns
supporting a ceiling ornamented with salient mouldings; they were
decorated with clover leaves. The monastery is built over this hall, at
an altitude of two hundred feet above the sea level. It is composed of a
quadrangular gallery formed by a triple line of small granite, tufa, or
stucco columns. Acanthus, thistles, ivy, and oak-leaves wind around
their