The Nome daily nugget., 1936-04-25

Washington. D. C-wNU Service. Y HARDLY out of sight of the E smoking factory chimneys and ! scarcely out of hearing of the noise and hustle of Barcelona. busiest and most restless city of Spain, medieval Benedictine monastery clings to the face of fantastic stone peak that rises boldly from the brown foothills of Cataluna (Catalonia). It is Montserrat, the nations holiest shrine, to which thousands of the Span. ish faithful make pilgr. mage each year to pay homage to what is called the Black Virgin.
 Nlontserrat Is the name of the strange mountain, and also Of the mon- astery. which clings like swallows nest halfway up it's precipitous cliffs. The Black Virgin, wooden image darkened by age, is not the only req. son why it is place of pilgrimage Montserrat, in Catalan tradition. is the Monsalvatsh or Monsalvat of the Mid dle ages, site of the castle of the Holy Grail The Arabs called 1t Gistaus. or the stone watchman. Here Ignatius of Loyola, wounded soldier, knelt In prayer, and went away to found the Society of Jesus. In more recent years | the Montserrat choir school has be- come celebrated.
 MOntserrat is accessible to Barcelona by both railway and road. One way is as picturesque as the other; for, while the highway climbs to the monastery in a series of hairpin turns and horse shoe curves. the last few miles of the 35-mile railway journey may be made on a narrow.gauge rack-and-piniOn line or in the bJbbing cage of a new aerial cableway.
 Trip There Is Interesting. Many, who are in no hurry, choose the railway and the rack-and-pinion route. Once clear of the spreading suburbs of Barcelona, the mainline railroad strikes boldly out into the beautiful plain of Sardanola. The countryside here resembles southern California There are green fields with angular irrigation dtches; rocky river bottoms, rising at first gently and then abruptly, into brush covered foothills :; and scragcly and unkempt clumps of eucalyptus and pepper trees around the water holes.
 Gradually the scenery changes, as it enters region of irregular hills and rocky valleys, sparsely covered with vegetation. The line twists and turns. now hurdling a deep ravine on a stone viaduct. now plunsing into a short tunnel. The cars sway drunken ly from side to side a. they climb to the plateau.
 Not until one is very close to Mont serrat does the mountain come into view. The train eh.erges from tun. nel and suddenly a giant mass of rock seems to spring from the foothills, fling ing thousand cathedral pinnacles skyward! As the train swings closer. so that only deep river valley sep arates it from the BrObdingnagian mass, fantastic stone forest of smoothly weathered domes. sugar lOaves. minarets and organ pipes Is | SlhOuetteN against tle SKY.
 Of the monastery nothing is visible at first. Then. one catches a glimpse of tiny buildings which seem to be carved from the rocky cliffs them. selves. The little buildings are rath. CT extensive: but against the vast bulk of the mountain they seem no larger Il an wren houses.
 Thousand Years Old.
 The group of buildings snugly fills A notch or narrow ravine cut deep into the mountain side. A thousand feet above it, the topmost pinnacles of the mountains rise menacingly, but the notch is safe enough.
 While most of the present buildings are comparatively new. the monastery itself dates from A. D. 97G; and legend reports that nunnery that preceded it was founded in SS0. So faithfully have the monks followed the lines of the older parts of the monastery in making additions that even the new garage, for modern pilgrims who come