and monks of the middle ages have paid their devotion at his shrine, and
troops of pilgrims in all ages, even to this day, when a party of
English school-girls come tripping across the bay, provided with a
passport and a fee, bent upon having the terrors of the prison-house
shewn to them as easily as the 'chamber of horrors' at Madame Tussaud's.

Before us, as we walk the last mile, the granite rock gradually becomes
a mountain surrounded by a wide plain of sand, covered with clustering
houses, towers, turrets, and fortifications, and surmounted by a Gothic
church nearly 400 feet above the sea. There is a little town upon the
rock, old, tumble-down, irregular, and picturesque, like Bastia in
Corsica--constructed by a hardy sea-faring people, who have built their
dwellings in the sides of this conical rock, like the sea-birds; and
there is a little inn called the _Lion d'or_, with windows built out
over the ramparts, from which we can see the shore.

On arriving at the island we pass under two ancient towers, and into
'the court of the Lion;' then to a third gate, with its towers and
battlements, and frowning portcullis; and we see, as we pass, the lion
(the insignia of the knights of Mont St. Michael) carved in stone, and
set into the wall. We are received in the ancient guard-room by a 'young
brother,' who has (shall it be repeated?) 'turned the guard-room into a
cheerful bazaar for the sale of photographs, ivory carvings and the
like.' We are on the threshold of the sanctuary, at the end of our
pilgrimage; we offer up no prayers, as of old, for safe deliverance from
peril, but we set to work at once, and 'invest in a pocketful of little
presents, which another brother (on business thoughts intent) packs for
us neatly in a pasteboard box.' We are shewn the apartments in the 'Tour
des Corbins,' with its grand staircase, called 'l'escalier des exils,'
and the crypt one hundred feet long, built by the monks in the eleventh