Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/270

238 words: "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum," i.e. "That which always, everywhere, and by all has been believed."

Happening to let fall a word or two in English, the Prior, drawing me aside, said, "I am English; stay behind, and I will show you what I do not usually show to visitors." He is an Oxford man who has joined the Roman Communion. Taking me to his rooms, he showed me valuable manuscripts, and a splendid chromo-lithographic copy of a presentation book they had taken six years to complete as an offering to the Pope, on the occasion of his Jubilee. It contained the Magnificat in every known language, with illustrations in colour and photography of each country to which the language belonged. Turning over the leaves, I came across the Magnificat in Maori. The Prior seemed well pleased with the chance of a talk with a fellow Oxford man, and before I took leave of him, led me down to a typical monastic cellar, where stood brass bound barrels of wine, and bottles of a famous liqueur, made from herbs found in the island. The cellarer produced biscuits and glasses, and we toasted each other happily. On the seaward side of the island there is a picturesque fortress, built by the Monks about 1100 A.D. to protect the island from Saracen pirates, who were ravaging the Mediterranean. They beat them off, but later the place was taken by Genoese marauders and held by them for a short time, until help came from France.

At Cannes, meeting some old friends, we drove from Nice by the Via Corniche, the road which Napoleon cut across the spurs of the maritime Alps. The road rises at one point to a great height at Turbie, where there is a grand relic of Roman greatness, a