was from home; but as there was no fastening to his doors, I examined all his worldly goods, and found that most of them were the work of his own ingenious hands.  A little distant from hence stands a wooden cross, at which the road divides; one path leads to St. Benito, the other to the Holy Trinity.  By the archives of the convent, it appears, that in the year 1272, Francis Bertrando died at the hermitage of St. Salvador, after having spent forty-five years in it, admired for his sanctity and holy life, and that he was succeeded therein by Francois Durando Mayol, who dwelt in it twenty-seven years.

Descending from hence about six or seven hundred paces, you arrive at the ninth hermitage, St. Benito; the situation is very pleasing, the access easy, and the prospects divine.  It was founded by an Abbot, whose intentions were, that it should contain within a small distance, four other cells, in memory of the five wounds made in the body of Christ.  This hermit has the privilege of making an annual entertainment on a certain day, on which day all the other hermits meet there, and receive the sacrament from the hands of the mountain vicar; and after divine service, dine together.  They meet also at this hermitage on the day of each titular saint, to say mass, and commune with each other.

LETTER XXIV.

I cannot say a word to you on any other subject, till you have taken a turn with me in the shrubberies and gardens of the glorious (so they call it) hermitage of St. Ana.  Coming from St. Benito, by a brook which runs down the middle of the mountain, six hundred paces distant from it, stands St. Ana, in a spacious situation, and much larger than any other, and is nearly in the center of them all.  The chapel here is sufficiently large for the whole society to meet in, and accordingly they do so on certain festivals and holidays, where they confess to their mountain vicar, and receive the sacrament, This habitation is nobly adorned with large trees; the ever-green oak, the cork, the cypress, the spreading fig-tree, and a variety of others; yet it is nevertheless dreadfully exposed to the fury of some particular winds; and the buildings are sometimes greatly damaged, and the life of the inhabitant endangered, by the boughs which are torn off and blown about his dwelling.  The foot-road from it to the monastery is only one thousand three hundred paces, but it is very rugged and unsafe; the mule-road is above four times as far:  it was built in 1498, and is the hermitage where all the pilgrims pay their ordinary devotion.