CHAPTER VI.
PILGRIMS It is not often that nature takes the trouble to stir the heart of man into any emotion stronger than a quiet admiration or a peaceful wonder.
Here and there on the face of the earth, however, the astonishing work of God gives pause to the most casual observer, the most thoughtless traveler.
"Why did He do this ?" one wonders.

And no geologist--not even a French geologist with his quick imagination and lively sense of the picturesque--can answer the question.
On first perceiving the sudden, uncouth height of Montserrat the traveler must assuredly ask in his own mind, "Why ?" The mountain is of granite, where no other granite is.

It belongs to no neighbouring formation.

It stands alone, throwing up its rugged peaks into a cloudless sky.

It is a piece from nothing near it---from nothing nearer, one must conclude, than the moon.