church, which is not till seven o'clock at night; the pilgrims continue
there in prayer the greater part of the night.

I should have told you, that beside the superior among the hermits,
there are two sorts of them, neither of which can possess a hermitage
till they have spent seven years in the monastery, and given proofs of
their holy disposition, by acts of obedience, humility, and
mortification; during, which they spend most of their time, night as
well as day, in the church, but they never sing or chant. After the
expiration of the seven years, the Abbot takes the advice of his
brethren, and if they think the probationer's manners and life entitle
him to a solitary life above, he is sent,--but not, perhaps, without
being enjoined to wait upon some old hermit, who is past doing the
necessary offices of life for himself.--Their habit, as I said before,
is brown, and they wear their long beards; but sometimes the hermits are
admitted into holy orders, and then they wear black, and shave their
beards: however, they are not actually fixed to the lonely habitations
at first, but generally take seven or eight months trial. Many of the
abbes, whose power, you may be sure, is very great, and who receive an
homage from the inferiors, very flattering, have, nevertheless, often
quitted their power for a retirement above. They observe religiously
their abstinence from all sorts of flesh; nor are they permitted to eat
but within their cells. When any of them are very ill, they are brought
down to the convent; and all buried in one chapel, called St. Joseph.

The lay-brothers are about fourscore in number; they wear a brown habit,
and are shaved; their duty is to distribute bread, wine, and other
necessaries, to the poor and the pilgrims, and lodge them according to
their condition: and many of them are sent into remote parts of the
kingdom, as well as France and other Catholic countries, to collect