612 The Cave of Har Hassan. [JUNE, 



seeking the aperture, which, as we were told, at a middle height between 

 our own level and that of the sea, led to the hermitage of Hassan. The 

 sea was far below us, and stretching our view to the verge of its distant 

 horizon, we sighed as though we could evoke the spirit of the recluse 

 from the land of his forefathers. But the sun was fast sinking to his 

 bed, and the shadows from the insulated rock of Filfla already extended 

 to the distant point of shore, above which we were standing. In despair, 

 the donkeys' heads were turned homewards ; the vexation of our party 

 broke out in low English curses, which our Maltese conducteur vainly 

 endeavoured to interpret ; and, retracing our steps, we clambered dili- 

 gently over the whole series of broken walls, which were no longer a 

 " neighbour's land-mark/' 



. ft You might have gone by a nearer route, without doing all this mis- 

 chief," cried some one close to us; and looking on the other side of a clump 

 of stones that stood in the angle of the field, we saw a stout old man, 

 leaning on a spade, and brushing away the heavy moisture which his 

 then interrupted labour had collected on his brow. He had a benign 

 expression of face, and in the tone of his reproof there was nothing of 

 that moroseness which might have been expected from an owner of the 

 demolished fences. Satisfied with this mild correction, he was resuming 

 his work, when one of us ventured to ask, whether he had guessed our 

 purpose in crossing his fields, that he could thus convict us of having 

 taken a circuitous route ? 



" I conceive you were looking for the Cave of Har Hassan ?" 

 . " Yes, we went in search of it, but," 



" You failed ? Of course you did ; what do these simple fellows 

 know of its situation ? and if they did, would they venture to be your 

 pilot, think you, when not one of them would trust himself there for his 

 life ? Do you still wish to see it ?" 



To this we replied, that we had hunted for it in every direction, and 

 despaired of finding it ; that it must be at some distance, and it was now 

 too late to linger so far from the city, &c. He answered us with an 

 assurance, that we were then not a hundred yards from the entrance, and 

 that he had observed us, shortly before, standing directly over its mouth. 

 If we had any wish, he would be happy to conduct us thither. This 

 proposal was cheerfully assented to ; and the courteous old man, laying 

 aside his spade, and resuming an ancient coat, whose colour and shape 

 indicated that it belonged to one of the clerical order, instantly set for- 

 ward, and in a few minutes had advanced to the brink of the eminence, 

 where we ourselves had been so recently. Here he raised a thin slab of 

 stone, about two feet square, and discovered the commencement of a rude 

 staircase, cut in the side of the rock, so narrow as scarcely to suffice for 

 safe footing, and almost enclosed from above by the projection of rude 

 masses of stone. This descent was almost indistinguishable from any 

 point on the terra-firma where we had been standing, and fatally 

 hazardous to any whose foot or hand could be shaken by the difficulties of 

 its passage. The rocks below us, sometimes fell in a scarped, direct line 

 to the surface of the water, sometimes jutted out in fantastic forms, but 

 never swelling so gradually and obliquely as to allow any deviation from 

 the path prescribed by the limits of the rude staircase. Occasionally the old 

 priest gave his hand, for better security, to his immediate follower, when 

 the projecting rocks above and around us were not sufficiently ragged to 

 he clasped as we advanced. And many were the distrustful doubts, as 



