were high above the plains; the train had to descend into the valley,
then re-ascend into the mountains. Far down was the little town of
Monistrol, with its white houses. The river rushed and frothed over its
weir, spanned by a picturesque stone bridge of many arches. As the train
twisted and turned like a serpent, it seemed that we must every moment
topple over into the seething foam, but nothing happened. Down, down we
went, until we rolled over the bridge, felt the cool wind of the water
upon our faces, and drew up at the little station amongst the white
houses of the settlement.

Here people from the hot towns spend the months of summer, exchanging in
this hill-enclosed valley one species of confinement for another. It was
the perfection of quiet life, no sound disturbing the air but the
falling water. Not a soul was visible; the lifeless village, like Rip
Van Winkle, seemed enjoying a long sleep. We might have been a phantom
train in a phantom world. Though the train stopped at the little
station, no one got in or out--no one but the postman, who silently
exchanged attenuated letter-bags. Evidently the correspondence of this
enchanted place was not extensive. Not here were wars planned or
treaties signed.

[Illustration: MONISTROL.]

Away we went again and now began to ascend. Every moment widened our
view and added to its splendour. Until recently all this had to be
done by coach, a journey of many hours of courageous struggling. Now the
whole thing is over in three-quarters of an hour, and it is good to feel
that all the hard work is done mechanically. We had once gone through
something similar in the Hex River Valley of South Africa, but in the
Montserrat journey there was a more romantic element; the charm and
glamour surrounding antiquity, the keen human interest attached to a
religious institution dating from past ages. We easily traced the old
zigzag carriage road up which horses had once toiled and struggled.
Almost as zigzag was our present road, winding about like forked flashes
of lightning.

The scene was almost appalling. Before us the ponderous Mons Serratus,
with all its cracks and fissures, ready to fall and reduce the earth to
powder. Its sharp, fantastic peaks against the clear sky looked like the
ruins of some mighty castle. The mountain rises four thousand feet high
and is twenty-four miles in circumference--a grey, barren mass of
tertiary conglomerate, an overwhelming amount of rock upon ro