or three festivals in the course of the year. On these occasions only
is any speech or oral communication between the members permitted.
There is a library tolerably well furnished with historical as well as
theological works. But it is evidently never used. Nor is there any
sign that the little gardens are in any degree cultivated by the
occupants of them. I remarked to George Eliot on the strangeness of
this abstinence from both the two permitted occupations, which might
seem to afford some alleviation of the awful solitude and monotony of
the eremitical life. But she remarked that the facts as we saw them
were just such as she should have expected to find!

The Sagro Eremo is inhabited by three classes of inmates; firstly, by
novices, who are not permitted to come down to the comparative luxury
and comfort and milder climate of the convent till they have passed
three or four years at the Sagro Eremo. Secondly, by those who have
been sent thither from the convent below as punishment for some
misdoing. Thirdly, by those who remain there of their own free will,
in the hope of meriting a higher and more distinguished reward for
their austerities in a future life. One such was pointed out to us,
who had never left the Eremo for more than fifty years, a tall,
very gaunt, very meagre old man with white hair, hollow cheeks, and
parchment skin, a nose like an eagle's beak, and deep-set burning
eyes--as typical a figure, in its way, as the rosy mountain of a man
whom we met travelling down in his ox cart.

Lewes was always anxious lest George Eliot should over-tire herself.
But she was insatiably interested both in the place and the denizens
of it.

Then before supper at the _forestieria_ was ready, our friend the
father _forestieraio_ insisted on showing us the growing crop of
haricot beans, so celebrated for their excellence that some of them
were annually sent to Pope Gregory the Sixteenth as long as he lived.

Then followed another night in the cow-house for George Eliot and for
us in the convent, and the next morning we started with Antonio and
his horses for La Vernia.

The ride thither from Camaldoli, though less difficult, is also less
peculiar than that from Prato Vecchio to the latter monastery, at
least, until La Vernia is nearly reached. The _penna_ (Cornish, Pen;
Cumbrian, Penrith; Spanish, Pena) on which the monastery is built is
one of the numerous isolated rocky points which have given their names
to the