and having sent for the cook of the strangers’ kitchen, (for there are four public kitchens) and ordered him to obey our commands, he retired to evening vespers; after which he made us a short visit, and continued to do so, two or three times every day, while we staid.  Indeed, I began to fear we staid too long, and told him so; but he assured me the apartment was ours for a month or two, if we pleased.  During our stay, he admitted me into his apartments, and filled my box with delicious Spanish snuff, and shewed us every attention we would wish, and much more than, as unrecommended strangers, we could expect.  All the poor who come here are fed gratis for three days, and all the sick received in the hospital.  Sometimes, on particular festivals, seven thousand arrive in one day; but people of condition pay a reasonable price for what they eat.  There was before our apartment a long covered gallery; and tho’ we were in a deep recess of the rocks, which projected wide and high on our right and left, we had in front a most extensive view of the world below, and the more distant Mediterranean Sea.  It was a moon-light night; and, in spite of the cold, it was impossible to be shut out of the enchanting lights and shades which her silver beams reflected on the rude rocks above, beneath, and on all sides of us.—­Every thing was as still as death, till the sonorous convent bell warned the Monks to midnight prayer.  At two o’clock, we heard some of the tinkling bells of the hermits’ cells above give notice, that they too were going to their devotion at the appointed hour:  after which I retired to my bed; but my mind was too much awakened to permit me to sleep; I was impatient for the return of day-light, that I might proceed still higher; for, miser like, tho’ my coffers were too full, I coveted more; and accordingly, after breakfast, we eagerly set our feet to the first round of the hermit’s ladder; it was a stone one indeed, but stood in all places dreadfully steep, and in many almost perpendicular.  After mounting up a vast chasm in the rock, yet full of trees and shrubs, about a thousand paces, fatigued in body, and impatient for a safe resting place, we arrived at a small hole in the rock, through which we were glad to crawl; and having got to the secure side of it, prepared ourselves, by a little rest, to proceed further; but not, I assure you, without some apprehensions, that if there was no better road down, we must have become hermits.  After a second clamber, not quite so dreadful as the first, but much longer, we got into some flowery and serpentine walks, which lead to two or three of the nearest hermitages then visible, and not far off, one of which hung over so horrible a precipice, that it was terrifyingly picturesque.  We were now, however, I thought, certainly in the garden of Eden!  Certain I am, Eden could not be more beautifully adorned; for God alone is the gardener here also; and consequently, every thing prospered around us which could gratify the eye, the nose and, the imagination.