The paved path mostly followed the course of the Fosso of Camaldoli which rises above the Eremo. Dante apparently looked upon this stream not as a tributary of the Archiano, but as the Archiano itself, for he lets Buonconte in Purgatory speak of the Archiano as “taking its rise above the hermitage.” The river came down between moss-grown rocks, carrying with it a stream of mountain fragrance, and the path which followed it ended on a wide grass-grown space, at one end of which stood the hermitage. And up here, in the midst of the forest, at an elevation of 3700 feet above sea level, and in a climate which these thin-skinned southerners talked of as cold and rough in the extreme, stood the twenty-four little stone cells of the hermitage, each inside the walled enclosure of its garden. Here in the depth of mountain solitude, cut off from intercourse with the world, and restricted in their intercourse with each other, the hermits of Camaldoli lived the same life of seclusion and solitude which St Romuald considered the surest way of attaining to happiness and heaven. Here they lived, dwelling alone, eating alone and working alone, with the conceptions of time and space obliterated as far as disregard of the ordinary interests of life will obliterate them, with no hope or expectation of change, a life in which time can mend and mar nothing. We were told that all the cells were tenanted except the original cell of St Romuald, which is always kept standing empty. All the cells are constructed on the same plan. Each consists of a small house divided into two rooms opening out of each other, with an additional recess in which stands the bed. The windows and the door open on a small garden, which is surrounded by walls so as to close in the view. Each hermit attends to his own garden, in which he grows herbs and vegetables. The cooking for the whole settlement is done in an outhouse, and the food is brought round and handed in to each of the cells. Seven times in the twenty-four hours the hermits wander forth and assemble in church to pray together; otherwise they are alone.