It was nearly night when we got back to the monastery, and as soon as we had dined we went to the church. It was wrapped in utter darkness, all but the sanctuary, which was blazing with lamps around the Madonna and the tabernacle. We knelt down in the obscurity close to the _reja_. In a short time thirty or forty students entered in their white tunics, and, encircling the altar, began the _Rosario_ in a measured, recitative way that was almost a chant. Then they gathered around the organ and sang the _Salve_ and _Tota pulchra es_ with admirable expression. The lateness of the hour, the vast nave shrouded in darkness, the blazing altar, with the black Madonna above in her golden robes after the Spanish fashion, the groups of worshippers motionless as statues, the venerable monks of St. Benedict in the choir, and the white-robed singers around the organ, gave great effect to the scene. We wished we might keep our vigil before the altar, like St. Ignatius; but one of the lay brothers, with a queer old lantern that must have been handed down from the Goths, began to hustle us out of the church as soon as the devotions were over, and we went stumbling through the dark court into the open air; and giving one look at the violet heavens, across which flashed a shooting-star, and to the tall black cliffs that overshadowed us, we went to our rooms, our hearts still under the influence of the music. The bells of the monastery kept ringing from time to time as long as we were awake, and they roused us again at an early hour the following morning, as if the _laus perennis_ were still kept up as in the olden time. It was not yet day, but we hurried to the early Mass, which is sung with the aid of the students, followed by another chanted by the monks, and the sun was just rising out of the sea when we came from the church. As soon as breakfast was over we went to visit the cave of Fray Juan Garin, which is in the side of an enormous cliff it seemed fearful to live under. He was lying there in effigy, with his book and rosary, a water-jar at his feet, and a basket at his head, as if he had just gone to sleep. His legend, though not pleasing, is too closely connected with the early history of the mountain to be wholly omitted. It has been sung, too, by poets, and one scene, at least, in his life has been perpetuated in sculpture.