ROCK HERMITAGES
the Crucifixion. When levelling the floor of this hermitage a few years ago, so as to convert it into a commodious private dwelling, a number of skeletons were found in graves sunk in the rock.
Montserrat is famous throughout Spain on account of its statue of the Virgin, which is supposed to have been made by S. Luke, and brought to Barcelona in the year 50 by
Plan of the Chapel of S. Amadou.
S. Peter, which, of course, is nonsense. S. Luke never painted, and S. Peter never visited Spain. This extraordinary mountain derives its name from its saw-like appearance, Mons serratus. It consists of pudding-stone, "a strange solitary exiled peak, drifted away in the beginning of things from its brethren of the Pyrenees, and stranded in a different geological period." Mr. Bayard Taylor thus describes the summit after a two hours' climb. "Emerging from the thickets we burst suddenly upon one of the wildest and most wonderful pictures I ever beheld. A tremendous wall of rock arose in front, crowned by colossal turrets,
215
