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.