Travel

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Montserrat

Tip: traveller who enters Spain by the little frontier town of Portbou will have seen the crude colours of the Midi merge gradually into the soft misty landscape, the tender hues which characterize the flat country by the sea. The atmosphere changes. The vigorous, pulsing life of Gascony gives place to the suave tolerance of a different race. Veiled eyes look sombrely out of dark faces. Leisurely officials courteously impel the passenger into a compartment whose vast cushions receive him caressingly, and whose wide, low windows are open, and reveal the landscape on either side.

For miles the train ambles smoothly along the coast, with glimpses of miniature bays—beaches covered with shingle and lapped by waves small as those of a lake. There are trans, lucent deeps from which the rocks rise sheer, fishing villages, where among the rows of boats brown-skinned boys mend their nets. To the north towers the mountain which ends the chain of the Pyrenees. Beyond it the Catalonian plain stretches misty and blue. Olive and almond tree, grey scrub and orange willow, white houses packed in green, mono- tonously succeed each other. The drowsy air puffs warm scents through the window, the domed arch of the sky is like a vast turquoise matrix: It is only as the afternoon light is beginning to fade that one sees in the distance a hump against the horizon. Montserrat thrusts its pinnacles and crags four thousand feet into the sky. Even at this distance it seems to rise from the peaceful plain unreal and aloof, emblem of the miracle it is supposed to typify. Among smooth, placid folds of hills whose sub-strata are red earth, rise the huge irregular peaks of granite, eighteen miles in circumference, which form the mountain. Small wonder that primitive man, groping dimly after a Deity, should see herea supernatural pheno- menon, and that legend should have become so entwined with history that it is impossible to disentangle one from the other.

That the mountain was standing when the Iberia of the Romans was a savage land peopled by wild tribes is estab- lished ' • but legend has it that iii- those far-off days it was domed and smooth, and that at the dread. moment of the Crucifixion, when the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, a terrible upheaval took place. Darkness covered the land ; and when light dawned, the awestruck inhabitants of the lower slopes saw strange dents and fissures; towering peaks, and sharp points against the sky. Time has softened the outlines of those forbidding crags, and hung trailing green against their sides ; and the Monastery and Chapel, 2,910 feet up the side of the mountain, wedged close against the precipice like an eagle's nest, are shaded with trees on the south side. To-day barrack-like buildings house the Benedictine Order of Monks, and afford shelter to the sixty thousand pilgrims who at various times of the year visit the shrine of the sacred image of the Virgin, who, like our Lady of Lourdes, is renowned for cures and miracles.

The statue is fashioned from a solid block of black wood. The expression of the face is gentle and sweet. Said to have been carved by St. Luke, it was brought to Barcelona by St. Peter in A.D. 30, and for nearly seven hundred years there is no mention made of its presence, but that it was already held in veneration is evident from the fact that when the. Moors invaded Spain in 717 it was taken to Montserrat, hidden on the mountain, and the record of its hiding-place lost. In the year 880 Gonzavo, Bishop of Vich, was Passing across the mountain with his retinue on his way home to Manresa, after a pastoral visit to Barcelona. Riding ahead on his white mule caparisoned in purple, he suddenly felt the animal stiffen beneath him and stop. His ears and nostrils were then instantly assailed by strange sweet sounds and fair odours, which appeared to issue from a grotto in a bank above the road. Discerning the supernatural, he dismounted, and clamber-- ing up the steep rock discovered the image, Overjoyed, the little company proceeded on its way, the Bishop himself carrying the statue, his heart filled with praise, his thoughts caressing the vision of the shrine wrought of gold and h'ory in which he would encase the miraculous trouvaitle. The ceremony of its inauguration should be magnificent. Weary pilgrims would come to lay their sorrows at its feet. Manresa would become famous. He was overwhelmed with bliss. But- alas for his visions ! On arriving at the top of a high precipice, where the narrow path pressed closely against the side, obliging the party to go in single file, Gonzavo felt the precious burden in his arms become heavy as lead. Alarmed he strove to support it, but his mule staggered under the weight, and he

was forced to descend, realizing that this bare crag was the place elected for the enshrinement of the mystery. Thwarted in his dreams, he yet set himself humbly to fulfil the Divine behest, and thus began the building of the Chapel which is now famous.

A platform was hollowed out in the hard rock in preparation for the building materials, which had to be brought from the coast thirty miles away.. For years trains of mules bearing marble from Greece, gold and silver, preeious sandalwood-and embroideries from the Indies, passed up and down-the white road between the harbour and the mountain. For. years the hardy little donkeys, whose sure feet could alone negotiate the steep paths, climbed laboriously up -to the -platform, and scuttled down again, swinging round the sharp corners' ith.the

regularity of clockwork. .

And the Chapel grew. The rough native granite was polished, and laid-in pillars against the porch. Fragile-carvaers and veined marbles clustered under the soaring arches. The altar steps mounted higher. . The lancet windows of the transept gleamed with pearly -.light; and at last the sacred image was enshrined in its magnificent setting.-- It stands there-to-day -unchanged,-save that the- hand-is almost -mire away by the lips of the faithful ; it may yet stand' for cen- turies; a witness to the steadfast courage and- faith-of Spain.

The Chapel was despoiled -in the Napoleonic Wars, and to- day much of the original beauty has been overlaid-with finrid ornament.. The high aspirations which found expression in the filigree of the reredos soaring to the Crucifix, whose flaming halo foreshadows the shape of the Gothic Roman arch above, are deadened by an immense golden garland and three massive crowns.

The sacrificial flames of candles have 'been- replaced by electric light, and &noisy sacristan conducts parties to exclaim over the jewels and votive offerings which are displayed in the antechamber. --But -enter the Chapel an hour betbre 'Vespers. In contrast to the brilliant sunshine outside all is dim. The eternallight seems to flicker in mid-air. 'Arotmd.it hang wisps of incense smoke in blue mist, and gradually the rieligildings and coldurs emerge, subdued in the dusk to a perfect tone, You may then see visions, ghosts reran the historic pait .

Charlemagne standing `motionless, arms extended &MSS- wise, eyes downcast, praying for strength to smite the Saracen ; his golden surtout gleams palely in the candle- light, and on the altar he has laid his sword . .

Galahad, his -pale face uplifted to the vision of the Grail, kneels in a folded trance. Saint Louis,_the great Roy .Lois, humbles himself before his King.. Sir Ferumbras, Roland, Bayard . . . They pass before you under- their- gleanaing banners, with their high visions, their triumphs, their martyrs' The mountain is easy of access-in these. days. Funicular railways. convey the visitor to all parts, and there is choice of accommodation. The pilgrims Can occupy cells if they wish, and on arrival are giVen a pilfowbaie, a cake. of soap, and a jug of water. There is a hotel open all the yearsound, from which one can obtain magnificent views of the umber landscape below, and see the glittering range of the Pyrenees 'against the horizon.

But a mile along -the road -toivaids Manresa stands a posada, lime-washed with wide windows. There is a courtyard where dusty vines hang in clusters over the wooden balcony. Little donkeys stand patiently under huge panniers. There is a sound of mule-bells as the team canters in bringing goat- skin bags of crude, strong wine to ripen in the great casks in the cellar. There the harsh guttural speech of Catalonia mingles with suave Latin words, the " Ave Maria Purisima," the buenos digs " of greeting, the " adios " of departure. In the eomedor hangs the odour of coffee, garlic, tobacco, that subtle aroma that spells Spain ; and you can eat home-baked bread, creamy cheeses and omelettes, munch grapes which you will be wise to wash in the red wine which flows as liberally as water, and smoke little heady cigarillos whose yellow paper crackles as it burns. . . . You will sleep between sheets of coarse linen whose touch is rough but cool, and you can step out of your window on to the edge of the plateau.

In the early spring the wind rises with the gathering dusk, and sweeps down the road the Romans laid centuries ago. There are strange noises then, marching of many feet, the roll of drums, thin cries of martyrs, and shouts of praise. Echoes from the past, borne by the wind from between the gaunt pinnacles which tower above you.

But some May night you may step out into a soft warm darkness that enfolds like a lover, and is like a tranquil hand laid over the heart.

Hidden behind the turn of the road lies the Monastery, the sleeping pilgrims and their dreams ; the wakeful, whose winged thoughts cluster round the feet of the dark Virgin, but here you are alone ; you are en the edge of the world. In the blue gulf below—stars. Tiny and clear the lights of Manresa twinkle. In the gulf above—stars : the shining constellation that bloomed miraculously in memory of dead Crusaders flings its glittering arch across the sky.

H. DE MILANkS.