I know you will not like to leave _St. Catherine_'s harmonious cell so
soon;--nor should I, but that I intend to visit it again. I will
therefore conduct you to _St. Juan_, about four hundred paces distant
from it, on the east side of which, you look down a most horrid and
frightful precipice,--a precipice, so very tremendous, that I am
persuaded there are many people whose imagination would be so
intoxicated by looking at it, that they might be in danger of throwing
themselves over: I do not know whether you will understand my meaning by
saying so; but I have more than once been so bewildered with such
alarming _coup d'oeil_ on this mountain, that I began to doubt whether
my own powers were sufficient to protect me:--Horses, from sudden
fright, will often run into the fire; and man too, may be forced upon
his own destruction, to avoid those sensations of danger he has not been
accustomed to look upon. Perhaps I am talking non-sense; and you will
attribute what I say to lowness of spirits; on the contrary, I had those
feelings about me only during the time my eyes were employed upon such
frightful objects; for my spirits were enlivened by pure air, exercise,
and temperance:--nay, I remember to have been struck in the same manner,
when the grand explosion of the fireworks was played off, many years
ago, upon the conclusion of peace! The blast was so great, that it
appeared as if it were designed to take with it all earthly things; and
I felt almost forced by it, and summoned from my seat, and could hardly
refrain from jumping over a parapet wall which stood before me. The
building of this hermitage, however, is very secure; nothing can shake
or remove it, but that which must shake or remove the whole mountain. At
this cell, small as it is, King Philip the Third dined on the eleventh
of July 1599;--a circumstance, you may be sure, the inhabitant will
never forget, or omit to mention. It commands at noon-day a fine
prospect eastward, and is approached by a good stage of steps. Not far
from it, on the road side, is a little chapel called St. Michael, a
chapel as ancient as the monastery itself; and a little below is the
grotto, in which the image of the Virgin, now fixed in the high altar of
the church, was found. The entrance of this grotto is converted into a
chapel, where mass is said every day by one of the monks. All the
hermitages, even the smallest, have their little chapel, the ornaments
for saying mass, their water cistern, and most of them a little garden.
The building consists of one or two little chambers, a little refectory,
and a kitchen; but many of them have every convenience within and
without that a single man can wish or desire, except he should wish for
or desire _such things_ as he was obliged to renounce when he took
possession of it.
From hence, by a road more wonderful than safe or pleasing, you are led
on a ridge of mountains to the lofty cell of _St. Onofre_. It stands in
a cleft in one of the pine heads, six and thirty feet (I was going to
say) above the earth; its appearance is indeed astonishing, for it seems
in a manner hanging in the air; the access to it is by a ladder of sixty
steps, extremely difficult to ascend, and even then you have a wooden
bridge to cross, fixed from rock to rock, under which is an aperture of
so terrifying an appearance, that I still think a person, not over
timid, may find it very difficult to pass over, if he looks under,
without losing in some degree that firmness which is necessary to his
own preservation. The best and safest way is, to look forward at the
building or object you are going to.--Fighting, and even courage, is
mechanical; a man may be taught it as readily as any other science; and
I would _pit_ the little timid hermit of _St. Onofre_ to a march, on
the margin of the precipices on this mountain, against the bravest
general we have in America. The man that would not wince at the whistle
of a cannon-ball over his head, may find his blood retire, and his
senses bewildered, at a dreadful precipice under his feet. _St. Onofre_
possesses no more space than what is covered in by the tiling, nor any
prospect but to the South. The inhabitant of it says, he often sees the
islands of _Minorca_, _Mallorca_, and _Ivica_, and the kingdoms of
_Valencia_ and _Murcia_. The weather was extremely fine when I visited
it, but there was a distant haziness which prevented my seeing those
islands; indeed, my eyes were better employed and entertained in
examining objects more interesting, as well as more pleasing. Going from
this hermitage, you have a view of the vale of _St. Mary_, formerly
called la _Vallee Amere_, through which the river _Lobregate_ runs, and
which divides the bishoprick of Barcelona from that of _De Vic_.
Lest you should think I am rather too tremendously descriptive of this
_upland_ journey, hear what a French traveller says, who visited this
mountain about twenty years ago. After examining every thing curious at
the convent, he says, "_Il ne me restoit plus rien a voir que
l'hermitage qui est renomme, il est dans la partie la plus elevee de la
montagne, & partage en treize habitations, pour autant d'hermites. Le
plaisir de le voir devoit me dedommager de la peine qu'il me falloit
prendre pour y monter, en grimpant pendant plus de heux heures. J'aurois
pre me servir de ma mule, mais il m'auroit fallu prendre un chemin ou
j'aurois mis le double du tems. Je m'armai donc de courage, & entre dans
une enceinte par une porte que l'on m'ouvrit avec peine au dehors du
monastere, je commencai a monter par des degres qui sembloient
perpendiculaires, tant ils etoient roides; & je fus oblige de
m'agraffer a des barres qui y font placees expres: ensuite, je me
trainai par-dessous de grosses pierres, qui sont comme des voutes
ruinees, dont les ouvertures sont le seul passage qu'il y ait pour
quiconque a la temerite de s'engager dans ces defiles; apres avoir
grimpe, environ mille pas, je trouvai un petit terrein uni ou je me
laissai tomber tout etendu afin de reprendre ma respiration qui
commencoit a me manquer_." And yet this was only the Frenchman's first
stage on his way to the first and nearest hermitage; and who I find
clambered up the very road we did, rather than take the longer route on
mule-back; and, for aught I know, a route still more dangerous, for
there are many places where the precipice is perpendicular on both sides
of a ridge, and where the road is too narrow even to turn the mule; so
he that sets out, must proceed.
After ascending a ladder fixed in the same pine where _St. Onofre_ is
situated, at an hundred and fifty paces distant, is the fifth hermitage
of the penitent _Madalena_; it stands between two lofty pines, and on
some elevated rocks, and commands a beautiful view, towards noon-day, to
the East and West; and near to it, in a more elevated pine, stands its
chapel, from whence you look down (dreadful to behold) a rugged
precipice and steep hills, upon the convent at two miles distance where
are two roads, or rather passages, to this cell, both exceedingly
difficult; by one you mount up a ladder of at least an hundred steps;
the other is of stone steps, and pieces of timber to hold by; that the
hermit who dwells there says, the whistling of the wind in tempestuous
nights sounds like the roaring of baited bulls.