from which we learnt further particulars than had been related by the
_cicerone_. Silence seemed to be the rule of the establishment during the
whole twenty-four hours, the exceptions being very few: one of the
brethren, we were told, had never been known to speak for about thirty
years, in accordance with a vow, and was supposed to have become dumb.

When one monk met another, the salutation was limited to this simple
expression--"Brother, we must die." And lest this fact should not have
been sufficiently kept in recollection, a grave was constantly open in the
burying-ground at hand, the digging of which was a source of bodily
exercise and recreation to the brethren; a new one being always made when
a tenant was found for that which already gaped to receive him.

I need scarcely observe, that from the rigid silence vowed and practised,
the order of La Trappe includes no females in its over-zealous ordinances.
The only books allowed those who could read were Missals and the Bible,
which were constantly in their hands.

Medical aid was not denied, when occasion required it, from one qualified
to practise among the Weld colony in the village, who of course was no
heretic; but the ordinary management of the _materia medica_, furnished by
the garden, rested with such of the fraternity as were gifted in the art
of healing.

In addition to all the mortification of the flesh pointed out to us, we
were given to understand that the twisted cords around the waist were
frequently employed in self-inflicted scourgings at the altar, to which
the superior exhorted the brethren as a penance for past, and humiliation
for future, sins; a ceremony which, by all accounts, was in some instances
unjustly taken out of the hands of the public executioner, while in others,