Some sort of sanctuary had existed here from the fifteenth century, but it was not until the middle of the seventeenth that a miraculous figure of Christ drew to the hermitage large numbers of pilgrims, and gradually in the later eighteenth century the present structures grew under the care of successive archbishops of Braga. Standing upon the spacious open terrace before the church on the summit I looked down soon after sunrise upon the scene spread before me. If the view hitherward from the Guadalupe was fine this was more striking still. Wreaths of grey mist still floated in the valley far below, and the vast plain with Braga in its centre embosomed amongst trees, and surrounded as far as the eye reached with red-roofed hamlets, still lay in grey shadow. But ridge over ridge, crag beyond crag, in the background rose the mountains all tipped with shining gold with chasms of tender heliotrope; and then, before the mind had well realised the beauty of the contrast, the whole plain woke and smiled with sunshine. The platform or terrace upon which I stood with my back to the church was flanked with granite obelisks and statues, and fronted by a wide stone parapet with a beautiful stone fountain above it. By two broad flights of steps at the sides a lower landing, or platform, was reached with an arched fountain set in the face of the wall, then by steps down to a similar platform, whence a pair of flights led to yet another, and so on, the parapets and balustrades in each case being surmounted by obelisks and statues, the fountains on the wall-faces being, like the figures, an extraordinary mixture of sacred and mythological art. Each alternate pair of platforms, after the first six, extending right across the structure and paved with the favourite black and white stone mosaic, was flanked by two shrines or little open chapels, each with a beautiful life-sized coloured group of figures representing scenes in the passion of our Lord. Half-way down there was an entrance from one of the platforms into a lovely old-world terraced garden, overflowing with flowers, palms, and sweet-scented verdure, and overhung by the dark yews and pines that bordered the graded descent from top to bottom. At length after descending many flights of steps and passing many terraced platforms with fountains, figures, and obelisks, a large mosaic-paved semicircular space was reached, ending in a stone parapet. Turning and looking upwards from here an extraordinary effect was presented. The alternate zigzags of the stairs and the faces of the walls, indeed all the architectural features, were outlined, like the great church towering far overhead, with brown grey granite, and faced with perfectly white plaster. Stage upon stage the great staircase rose, its parapets at the side and the centre line being marked by statues rising alternately one over the other at each successive stage of the ascent. Dark greenery, palms, yews, acacias, orange trees, and trailing flowers