William Malim, the Headmaster, who wrote an account of Eton for the Royal Commission who visited the school in 1561, thus described the Montem of his day:-- About the festival of the Conversion of Saint Paul, at nine o’clock on a day chosen by the Master, in the accustomed manner in which they go to collect nuts in September, the boys go ad montem. The hill is a sacred spot according to the boyish religion of the Etonians; on account of the beauty of the countryside, the delicious grass, the cool shade of bowers, and the melodious chorus of birds, they make it a holy shrine for Apollo and the Muses, celebrate it in songs, call it Tempe, and extol it above Helicon. Here the novices or new boys, who have not yet submitted to blows in the Eton ranks, manfully and stoutly, for a whole year, are first seasoned with salt and then separately described in little poems which must be as salted and graceful as possible. Next, they make epigrams against the new boys, one vying with another to surpass in all elegance of speech and in witticisms. Whatever comes to the lips may be uttered freely so long as it is in Latin, courteous, and free from scurrility. Finally they wet their faces and cheeks with salt tears, and then at last they are initiated in the rites of the veterans. Ovations follow, and little triumphs, and they rejoice in good earnest, because their labours are past, and because they are admitted to the society of such pleasant comrades. These things finished they turn home at five o’clock and after dinner play till eight. In the days of Elizabeth, and during the turbulent time of the Civil War, Montem seems to have assumed a more regular and ceremonious form. Only, however, at the beginning of the eighteenth century did it acquire those military characteristics which it retained with little modification till its abolition in 1847. Till the middle of the eighteenth century (1759) it was held in the last week in January, but at that date Whitsun-Tuesday was appointed as the great day. Dr. Barnard it was who altered the dresses and formed the boys into a regular collegiate regiment.