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 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, pyramids, clubs, pillars, and ten-pin shaped masses, which were drawn singly, or in groups of incredible distinction, against the deep blue of the sky. At the foot of the rock the buildings of the monastery and the narrow gardens completely filled and almost overhung a horizontal shelf of the mountain, under which it again fell sheer away down, down into misty depths, the bottom of which was hidden from sight. In all the galleries of memory I could find nothing resembling it." [Footnote: Taylor (B.), "Byways of Europe," Lond. 1869, i. p. 23.] The spires of rock range about 3300 feet high, jumbled together by nature in a sportive mood. Here and there, perched like nests of the solitary eagle, are the ruins of former hermitages, burnt by the French under Suchet in July 1811, when they amused themselves with hunting the hermits like chamois in the cliffs, hung the monks of the monastery, plundered it of all its contents, stripped the Virgin of her jewellery, and burnt the fine library. Hitherto the monks, when periodically dressing the image, had done so with modestly averted eyes, but Suchet's soldiers had no such scruples. This image had been entrusted in the ninth century to a hermit, Jean Garin. Now Riguilda, daughter of the Count of Barcelona, was possessed by a devil, in another word, crazy, and was sent to be cured by the image or the hermit. A temptation similar to that of S. Anthony followed, but with exactly the opposite result. To conceal his crime, Jean Garin cut off Riguilda's head, buried her, and fled. Overtaken by remorse he went to Rome, and confessed his sin to the Pope, who bade him become a beast, never lifting his face towards heaven until the hour when God himself would signify his pardon.