Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/83

Situated in the midst of a tract of country which reminds one of the Grande Chartreuse of Grenoble, the convent of the Desierto is, to all outward appearance, far from being in a ruinous condition. Its cupolas and spires still shoot as high as ever above the pines which surround it; and although half a century has rolled away since the monks quitted it, ivy has not yet entirely covered the embrasures of its deserted cells. The green moss which grows upon its walls shows only the want of repair and the ravages of time. You must pass through the first quadrangle, which is still in good preservation, so as to reach the interior of the convent, before seeing the spectacle of melancholy and desolation which there meets your eye. The dilapidated cupolas admit the daylight through large chinks, the pilasters in the cloisters are crumbling away, large stones have been forced from their sockets, heaps of ruins block up the choir and the nave of the chapel, and a thick mantle of pellitories covers the rubbish. The vapors which hang in a dense curtain round the summit of the mountain, at the foot of which the convent is built, fall in fine rain on the bare stones, and cover every thing with an icy moisture. Above the high altar, through one of the numerous fissures in the dome, the condensed vapor escapes, and falls drop by drop with the regularity of a water-clock, as if to mark the flight of time, and to relieve, by the light noise it makes on the marble, the melancholy silence which reigns in this dreary solitude. Such is the convent of the Desierto, seen by the light of day and under a clear sky. Let any one fancy its appearance at the time we sought refuge within its walls, when the storm, which had lasted since twilight, was scarcely over. Imagine the beams of the moon, fitfully streaming