Near Barcelona is Montserrat, the _Mons Serratus_ of the Romans. Upon a wild and rugged mountain, hewn and carved into a weird distorted mass by the mysterious forces of nature, is pitched a monastery. The view from the summit is, of course, magnificent, and the innumerable grottoes with which the great serrated mountain is honeycombed, are as usual very dark, damp, fatiguing, and unwholesome. Though no doubt they are curious and wonderful, one is apt, after having done a certain amount of grottoes and stalactite caverns in various parts of the world, to say, when the words "How marvellous!" are dinned into the ear, "We wish to goodness it was impossible!" as Dr. Johnson observed when he was listening to some celebrated performer on the fiddle. The blunt lexicographer, who was no respecter of persons, was, however, possibly right, for, when flatterers meet, Satan goes to dinner--there is no need for him to stay, in fact; those whom he leaves behind him will do all the work for him. The railway from Barcelona to Gerona passes through a succession of lovely landscapes. The traveller is carried past lofty chains of hills clothed up to their summits in the deep green of the waving pine. The iron road then passes through sweet valleys, the gentle floors of which, smiling in the sunshine, are covered with the richest verdure. Occasionally the eminences which crown these valleys are crested with the broken masonry of other days; as we journey onwards--castles, forts, old ramparts, crumbling walls, rear up in all directions like skeletons of the past. When the scene begins to show signs of human habitation, we pass white villas and farm-houses, terraced round and hung with balconies, over which grow luxuriant creepers. Solitary mansions are sometimes seen gleaming out from the dark verdure of the woods, or sitting on the velvet surface of ample plains. Then the railway carries us past the channels of dried-up rivers, and over stony plains, which appear to stretch away until, in the distant horizon, they meet the soft blue line of the Mediterranean. There we enjoyed from a considerable distance our last few glimpses of those fairy waters, with many a white lateen sail resting upon them, like the weary wings of some exhausted sea-bird. [Illustration: [++] Decorative Image] CHAPTER XVIII. ANCIENT BRIDGE OF GERONA.--THE POPULATION.--A FIESTA.--SEARCH FOR AN HOTEL.--THE FONDA DE LA ESTRELLA.--LAST SIEGE OF GERONA.--THE CATHEDRAL.--A FEW CONCLUDING WORDS ON SPAIN.