CHAPTER XXVII.

The Monastery of Russico--Its Courteous Abbot--The Monastery of Xeropotamo--Its History--High Character of its Abbot--Excursion to the Monasteries of St. Nicholas and St. Dionisius--Interesting Relics--Magnificent Shrine--The Library--The Monastery of St. Paul--Respect shown by the Monks--Beautiful MS.--Extraordinary Liberality and Kindness of the Abbot and Monks--A valuable Acquisition at little Cost--The Monastery of Simopetra--Purchase of MS.--The Monk of Xeropotamo--His Ideas about Women--Excursion to Cariez--The Monastery of Coutloumoussi--The Russian Book-Stealer--History of the Monastery--Its reputed Destruction by the Pope of Rome--The Aga of Cariez--Interview in a Kiosk--The She Cat of Mount Athos.

From Xenophou I went on to

RUSSICO,

where also they were repairing the injuries which different parts of the edifice had sustained during the late Greek war. The agoumenos of this monastery was a remarkably gentlemanlike and accomplished man; he spoke several languages and ruled over a hundred and thirty monks. They had, however, amongst them all only nine MSS., and those were of no interest. The agoumenos told me that the monastery formerly possessed a MS. of Homer on vellum, which he sold to two English gentlemen some years ago, who were immediately afterwards plundered by pirates, and the MS. thrown into the sea. As I never heard of any Englishman having been at Mount Athos since the days of Dr. Clarke and Dr. Carlysle, I could not make out who these gentlemen were: probably they were Frenchmen, or Europeans of some other nation. However, the idea of the pirates gave me a horrid qualm; and I thought how dreadful it would be if they threw my Alexius Comnenus into the sea; it made me feel quite uncomfortable. This monastery was built by the Empress Catherine the First, of Russia--or, to speak more correctly, repaired by her--for it was originally founded by Saint Lazarus Knezes, of Servia, and the church dedicated to St. Panteleemon the Martyr. A ride of an hour brought me to

XEROPOTAMO,

where I was received with so much hospitality and kindness that I determined to make it my headquarters while I visited the other monasteries, which from this place could readily be approached by sea. I was fortunate in procuring a boat with two men--a sort of naval lay brethren,--who agreed to row me about wherever I liked, and bring me back to Xeropotamo for fifty piastres, and this they would do whenever I chose, as they were not very particular about time, an article upon which they evidently set small value.

This monastery was founded by the Emperor Romanus about the year 920; it was rebuilt by Andronicus the Second in 1320; in the sixteenth century it was thrown down by an earthquake, and was again repaired by the Sultan Selim the First, or at least during his reign--that is, about 1515. It was in a ruinous condition in the year 1701; it was again repaired, and in the Greek revolution it was again dismantled; at the time of my visit they were actively employed in restoring it. Alexander, Waywode of Wallachia, was a great benefactor to this and other monasteries of Athos, which owe much to the piety of the different Christian princes of the Danubian states of the Turkish empire.

The library over the porch of the church, which is large and handsome, contains one thousand printed books and between thirty and forty manuscripts in bad condition. I saw none of consequence: that is to say, nothing except the usual volumes of divinity of the twelfth century. In the church is preserved a large piece of the holy cross richly set with valuable jewels. The agoumenos of Xeropotamo, a man with a dark-grey beard, about sixty years of age, struck me as a fine specimen of what an abbot of an ascetic monastery ought to be; simple and kind, yet clever enough, and learned in the divinity of his church, he set an example to the monks under his rule of devotion and rectitude of conduct; he was not slothful, or haughty, or grasping, and seemed to have a truly religious and cheerful mind. He was looked up to and beloved by the whole community; and with his dignified manner and appearance, his long grey hair, and dark flowing robes, he gave me the idea of what the saints and holy men of old must have been in the early days of Christianity, when they walked entirely in the faith, and--if required to do so--willingly gave themselves up as martyrs to the cause: when in all their actions they were influenced solely by the dictates of their religion. Would that such times would come again! But where every one sets up a new religion for himself, and when people laugh at and ridicule those things which their ignorance prevents them from appreciating, how can we hope for this?

Early in the morning I started from my comfortable couch, and ran scrambling down the hill, over the rolling-stones in the dry bed of the torrent on which the monastery of the "dry river" (ξηροποταμου--courou chesmé in Turkish) is built. We got into the boat: our carpets, some oranges, and various little stores for a day's journey, which the good monks had supplied us with, being brought down by sundry good-natured lubberly κατακυμενοι--religions youths--who were delighted at having something to do, and were as pleased as children at having a good heavy praying-carpet to carry, or a basket of oranges, or a cushion from the monastery. They all waited on the shore to see us off, and away we went along the coast. As the sun got up it became oppressively hot, and the first monastery we came abreast of was that of Simopetra, which is perched on the top of a perpendicular rock, five or six hundred feet high at least, if not twice as much. This rather daunted me: and as we thought perhaps to-morrow would not be so hot, I put off climbing up the precipice for the present, and rowed gently on in the calm sea till we came before the monastery of

ST. NICHOLAS,

the smallest of all the convents of Mount Athos. It was a most picturesque building, stuck up on a rock, and is famous for its figs, in the eating of which, in the absence of more interesting matter, we all employed ourselves a considerable time; they were marvellously cool and delicious, and there were such quantities of them. We and the boatmen sat in the shade, and enjoyed ourselves till we were ashamed of staying any longer. I forgot to ask who the founder was. There was no library; in fact, there was nothing but figs; so we got into the boat again, and sweltered on a quarter of an hour more, and then we came to

ST. DIONISIUS.

This monastery is also built upon a rock immediately above the sea; it is of moderate size, but is in good repair. There was a look of comfort about it that savoured of easy circumstances, but the number of monks in it was small. Altogether this monastery, as regards the antiquities it contained, was the most interesting of all. The church, a good-sized building, is in a very perfect state of preservation. Hanging on the wall near the door of entrance was a portrait painted on wood, about three feet square, in a frame of silver-gilt, set with jewels; it represented Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of Trebizonde, the founder of the monastery. He it was, I believe, who built that most beautiful church a little way out of the town of Trebizonde, which is called St. Sofia, probably from its resemblance to the cathedral of Constantinople. He is drawn in his imperial robes, and the portrait is one of the most curious I ever saw. He founded this church in the year 1380; and Neagulus and Peter, Waywodes of Bessarabia, restored and repaired the monastery. There was another curious portrait of a lady; I did not learn who it was: very probably the Empress Pulcheria, or else Roxandra Domna (Domina?), wife of Alexander, Waywode of Wallachia; for both these ladies were benefactors to the convent.

I was taken, as a pilgrim, to the church, and we stood in the middle of the floor before the ικονοsτασις, whilst the monks brought out an old-fashioned low wooden table, upon which they placed the relics of the saints which they presumed we came to adore. Of these some were very interesting specimens of intricate workmanship and superb and precious materials. One was a patera, of a kind of china or paste, made, as I imagine, of a multitude of turquoises ground down together, for it was too large to be of one single turquoise; there is one of the same kind, but of far inferior workmanship, in the treasury of St. Marc. This marvellous dish is carved in very high relief with minute figures or little statues of the saints, with inscriptions in very early Greek. It is set in pure gold, richly worked, and was a gift from the Empress or imperial Princess Pulcheria. Then there was an invaluable shrine for the head of St. John the Baptist, whose bones and another of his heads are in the cathedral at Genoa. St. John Lateran also boasts a head of St John, but that may have belonged to St. John the Evangelist. This shrine was the gift of Neagulus, Waywode or Hospodar of Wallachia: it is about two feet long and two feet high, and is in the shape of a Byzantine church; the material is silver-gilt, but the admirable and singular style of the workmanship gives it a value far surpassing its intrinsic worth. The roof is covered with five domes of gold; on each side it has sixteen recesses, in which are portraits of the saints in niello, and at each end there are eight others. All the windows are enriched in open-work tracery, of a strange sort of Gothic pattern, unlike anything in Europe. It is altogether a wonderful and precious monument of ancient art, the production of an almost unknown country, rich, quaint, and original in its design and execution, and is indeed one of the most curious objects on Mount Athos; although the patera of the Princess Pulcheria might probably be considered of greater value. There were many other shrines and reliquaries, but none of any particular interest.

I next proceeded to the library, which contained not much less than a thousand manuscripts, half on paper and half on vellum. Of those on vellum the most valuable were a quarto Evangelistarium, in uncial letters, and in beautiful preservation; another Evangelistarium, of which three fly-leaves were in early uncial Greek; a small quarto of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, διαλογοι Γρεγοριου του θεολογου, not in uncial letters, with twelve fine miniatures; a small quarto New Testament, containing the Apocalypse; and some magnificent folios of the Fathers of the eleventh century; but not one classic author. Among the manuscripts on paper were a folio of the Iliad of Homer, badly written, two copies of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, and a multitude of books for the church-service. Alas! they would part with nothing. The library was altogether a magnificent collection, and for the most part well preserved: they had no great number of printed books. I should imagine that this monastery must, from some fortunate accident, have suffered less from spoliation during the late revolution than any of the others; for considering that it is not a very large establishment, the number of valuable things it contained was quite astonishing.

A quarter of an hour's row brought us to the scaricatojo of

ST. PAUL,

from whence we had to walk a mile and a half up a steep hill to the monastery, where building repairs were going on with great activity. I was received with cheerful hospitality, and soon made the acquaintance of four monks, who amongst them spoke English, French, Italian, and German. Having been installed in a separate bed-room, cleanly furnished in the Turkish style, where I subsequently enjoyed a delightful night's rest, undisturbed by a single flea, I was conducted into a large airy hall. Here, after a very comfortable dinner, the smaller fry of monks assembled to hear the illustrious stranger hold forth in turn to the four wise fathers who spoke unknown tongues. The simple, kind-hearted brethren looked with awe and wonder on the quadruple powers of those lips that uttered such strange sounds: just as the Peruvians made their reverence to the Spanish horses, whose speech they understood not, and whose manners were beyond their comprehension. It was fortunate for my reputation that the reverend German scholar was of a close and taciturn disposition, since my knowledge of his scraughing language did not extend very far, and when we got to scientific discussion I was very nearly at a stand still; but I am inclined to think that he upheld my dignity to save his own; and as my servant, who never minced matters, had doubtless told them that I could speak ninety other languages, and was besides nephew to most of the crowned heads of Europe, if a phœnix had come in he would have had a lower place assigned him. I found also that in this--as indeed in all the other monasteries--one who had performed the pilgrimage to the Holy Land was looked upon with a certain degree of respect. In short, I found that at last I was amongst a set of people who had the sense to appreciate my merits; so I held up my head, and assumed all the dignified humility of real greatness.

This monastery was founded for Bulgarian and Servian monks by Constantine Biancobano, Hospodar of Wallachia. There was little that was interesting in it, either in architecture or any other walk of art; the library was contained in a small light closet, the books were clean, and ranged in order on the new deal shelves. There was only one Greek manuscript, a duodecimo copy of the Gospels of the twelfth or thirteenth century. The Servian and Bulgarian manuscripts amounted to about two hundred and fifty: of these three were remarkable; the first was a manuscript of the four Gospels, a thick quarto, and the uncial letters in which it was written were three fourths of an inch in height: it was imperfect at the end. The second was also a copy of the Gospels, a folio, in uncial letters, with fine illuminations at the beginning of each Gospel, and a large and curious portrait of a patriarch at the end; all the stops in this volume were dots of gold; several words also were written in gold. It was a noble manuscript. The third was likewise a folio of the Gospels in the ancient Bulgarian language, and, like the other two, in uncial letters. This manuscript was quite full of illuminations from beginning to end. I had seen no book like it anywhere in the Levant. I almost tumbled off the steps on which I was perched on the discovery of so extraordinary a volume. I saw that these books were taken care of, so I did not much like to ask whether they would part with them; more especially as the community was evidently a prosperous one, and had no need to sell any of their goods.

After walking about the monastery with the monks, as I was going away the agoumenos said he wished he had anything which he could present to me as a memorial of my visit to the convent of St Paul. On this a brisk fire of reciprocal compliments ensued, and I observed that I should like to take a book. "Oh! by all means!" he said; "we make no use of the old books, and should be glad if you would accept one." We returned to the library; and the agoumenos took out one at a hazard, as you might take a brick or a stone out of a pile, and presented it to me. Quoth I, "If you don't care what book it is that you are so good as to give me, let me take one which pleases me;" and, so saying, I took down the illuminated folio of the Bulgarian Gospels, and I could hardly believe I was awake when the agoumenos gave it into my hands. Perhaps the greatest piece of impertinence of which I was ever guilty, was when I asked to buy another; but that they insisted upon giving me also; so I took the other two copies of the Gospels mentioned above, all three as free-will gifts. I felt almost ashamed at accepting these two last books; but who could resist it, knowing that they were utterly valueless to the monks, and were not saleable in the bazaar at Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, or any neighbouring city? However, before I went away, as a salve to my conscience I gave some money to the church. The authorities accompanied me beyond the outer gate, and by the kindness of the agoumenos mules were provided to take us down to the sea-shore, where we found our clerical mariners ready for us. One of the monks, who wished for a passage to Xeropotamo, accompanied us; and, turning our boat's head again to the north-west, we arrived before long a second time below the lofty rock of

SIMOPETRA.

This monastery was founded by St. Simon the Anchorite, of whose history I was unable to learn anything. The buildings are connected with the side of the mountain by a fine aqueduct, which has a grand effect, perched as it is at so great a height above the sea, and consisting of two rows of eleven arches, one above the other, with one lofty arch across a chasm immediately under the walls of the monastery, which, as seen from this side, resembles an immense square tower, with several rows of wooden balconies or galleries projecting from the walls at a prodigious height from the ground. It was no slight effort of gymnastics to get up to the door, where I was received with many grotesque bows by an ancient porter. I was ushered into the presence of the agoumenos, who sat in a hall, surrounded by a reverend conclave of his bearded and long-haired monks; and after partaking of sweetmeats and water, and a cup of coffee, according to custom, but no pipes--for the divines of Mount Athos do not indulge in smoking--they took me to the church and to the library.

In the latter I found a hundred and fifty manuscripts, of which fifty were on vellum, all works of divinity, and not above ten or twelve of them fine books. I asked permission to purchase three, to which they acceded. These were the 'Life and Works of St. John Climax, Agoumenos of Mount Sinai,' a quarto of the eleventh century; the 'Acts and Epistles,' a noble folio written in large letters, in double columns: a very fine manuscript, the letters upright and not much joined together: at the end is an inscription in red letters, which may contain the date, but it is so faint that I could not make it out. The third was a quarto of the four Gospels, with a picture of an evangelist at the beginning of each Gospel. Whilst I was arranging the payment for these manuscripts, a monk, opening the copy of the Gospels, found at the end a horrible anathema and malediction written by the donor, a prince or king, he said, against any one who should sell or part with this book. This was very unlucky, and produced a great effect upon the monks; but as no anathema was found in either of the two other volumes, I was allowed to take them, and so went on my way rejoicing. They rang the bells at my departure, and I heard them at intervals jingling in the air above me as I scrambled down the rocky mountain. Except Dionisiou, this was the only monastery where the agoumenos kissed the letter of the patriarch and laid it upon his forehead: the sign of reverence and obedience which is, or ought to be, observed with the firmans of the Sultan and other oriental potentates.

The same evening I got back to my comfortable room at Xeropotamo, and did ample justice to a good meagre dinner after the heat and fatigues of the day. A monk had arrived from one of the outlying farms who could speak a little Italian; he was deputed to do the honours of the house, and accordingly dined with me. He was a magnificent-looking man of thirty or thirty-five years of age, with large eyes and long black hair and beard. As we sat together in the evening in the ancient room, by the light of one dim brazen lamp, with deep shades thrown across his face and figure, I thought he would have made an admirable study for Titian or Sebastian del Piombo. In the course of conversation I found that he had learnt Italian from another monk, having never been out of the peninsula of Mount Athos. His parents and most of the other inhabitants of the village where he was born, somewhere in Roumelia--but its name or exact position he did not know--had been massacred during some revolt or disturbance. So he had been told, but he remembered nothing about it; he had been educated in a school in this or one of the other monasteries, and his whole life had been passed upon the Holy Mountain; and this, he said, was the case with very many other monks. He did not remember his mother, and did not seem quite sure that he ever had one; he had never seen a woman, nor had he any idea what sort of things women were, or what they looked like. He asked me whether they resembled the pictures of the Panagia, the Holy Virgin, which hang in every church. Now, those who are conversant with the peculiar conventional representations of the Blessed Virgin in the pictures of the Greek church, which are all exactly alike, stiff, hard, and dry, without any appearance of life or emotion, will agree with me that they do not afford a very favourable idea of the grace or beauty of the fair sex; and that there was a difference of appearance between black women, Circassians, and those of other nations, which was, however, difficult to describe to one who had never seen a lady of any race. He listened with great interest while I told him that all women were not exactly like the pictures he had seen, but I did not think it charitable to carry on the conversation farther, although the poor monk seemed to have a strong inclination to know more of that interesting race of beings from whose society he had been so entirely debarred. I often thought afterwards of the singular lot of this manly and noble-looking monk: whether he is still a recluse, either in the monastery or in his mountain-farm, with its little moss-grown chapel as ancient as the days of Constantine; or whether he has gone out into the world and mingled in its pleasures and its cares.

I arranged with the captain of a small vessel which was lying off Xeropotamo taking in a cargo of wood, that he should give me a passage in two or three days, when he said he should be ready to sail; and in the mean time I purposed to explore the metropolis of Mount Athos, the town of Cariez; and then to go to Caracalla, and remain there till the vessel was ready.

Accordingly, the next morning I set out, the Agoumenos supplying me with mules. The guide did not know how far it was to Cariez, which is situated almost in the centre of the peninsula. I found it was only distant one hour and a half; but as I had not made arrangements to go on, I was obliged to remain there all day. Close to the town is the great monastery of

COUTLOUMOUSSI,

the most regular building on Mount Athos. It contains a large square court with a cloister of stone arches all round it, out of which the cells and chambers open, as they do in a Roman Catholic convent. The church stands in the centre of this quadrangle, and glories in a famous picture of the Last Judgment on the wall of the narthex, or porch, before the door of entrance. The monastery was at this time nearly uninhabited; but, after some trouble, I found one monk, who made great difficulties as to showing me the library, for he said a Russian had been there some time ago, and had borrowed a book which he never returned. However, at last I gained admission by means of that ingenious silver key which opens so many locks.

In a good-sized square room, filled with shelves all round, I found a fine, although neglected, collection of books; a great many of them thrown on the floor in heaps, and covered all over with dust, which the Russian did not appear to have much disturbed when he borrowed the book which had occasioned me so much trouble. There were about six or seven hundred volumes of printed books, two hundred MSS. on paper, and a hundred and fifty on vellum. I was not permitted to examine this library at all to my satisfaction. The solitary monk thought I was a Russian, and would not let me alone, or give me the time I wanted for my researches. I found a multitude of folios and quartos of the works of St. Chrysostom, who seems to have been the principal instructor of the monks of Mount Athos, that is, in the days when they were in the habit of reading--a tedious custom, which they have long since given up by general consent. I met also with an Evangelistarium, a quarto in uncial letters, but not in very fine condition. Two or three other old monks had by this time crept out of their holes, but they would not part with any of their books: that unhappy Russian had filled the minds of the whole brotherhood with suspicion. So we went to the church, which was curious and quaint, as they all are; and as we went through all the requisite formalities before various grim pictures, and showed due respect for the sacred character of a Christian church, they began at last to believe that I was not a Russian; but if they had seen the contents of the saddle-bags which were sticking out bravely on each side of the patient mule at the gate, they would perhaps have considered me as something far worse.

Coutloumoussi was founded by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, and, having been destroyed by "_the Pope of Rome_," was restored by the piety of various hospodars and waywodes of Bessarabia. It is difficult to understand what these worthy monks can mean when they affirm that several of their monasteries have been burned and plundered by the Pope. Perhaps in the days of the Crusades some of the rapacious and undisciplined hordes who accompanied the armies of the Cross--not to rescue the holy sepulchre from the power of the Saracens, but for the sake of plunder and robbery--may have been attracted by the fame of the riches of these peaceful convents, and have made the differences in their religion a pretext for sacrilege and rapacity. Thus bands of pirates and brigands in the middle ages may have cloaked their acts of violence under the specious excuse of devotion to the Church of Rome; and so the Pope has acquired a bad name, and is looked upon with terror and animosity by the inhabitants of the monasteries of Mount Athos.

Having seen what I could, I went on to the town of Cariez, if it can properly be called such; for it is difficult to explain what it is. One may perhaps say that what Washington is to the United States, Cariez is to Mount Athos. A few artificers do live there who carve crosses and ornaments in cypress-wood. The principal feature of the place is the great church of Protaton, which is surrounded by smaller buildings and chapels. These I saw at a distance, but did not visit, because I could get no mules, and it was too hot to walk so far. A Turkish aga lives here: he is sent by the Porte to collect the revenue from the monks, and also to protect them from other Turkish visitors. He is paid and provided with food by a kind of rate which is levied on the twenty-one monasteries of [Greek: agion oros αγιον ορος], and is in fact a sort of sheep-dog to the flock of helpless monks who pasture among the trees and rocks of the peninsula. On certain days the Agoumenoi of the monasteries and the high officers of their communities meet at the church of Protaton for the transaction of business and the discussion of affairs. I am sorry I did not see this ancient house of parliament. The rooms in which these synods or convocations are held adjoin the church. Situated at short distances around these principal edifices are numerous small ecclesiastical villas, such as were called cells in England before the Reformation: these are the habitations of the venerable senators when they come up to parliament. Some of them are beautifully situated; for Cariez stands in a fair, open vale, half-way up the side of the mountain, and commands a beautiful view to the north of the sea, with the magnificent island of Samotraki looming superbly in the distance. All around are large orchards and plantations of peach-trees and of various other sorts of fruit-bearing trees in great abundance, and the round hills are clothed with greensward. It is a happy, peaceful-looking place, and in its trim and sunny arbours reminds one of Virgil and Theocritus.

I went to the house of the aga to seek for a habitation, but the aga was asleep; and who was there so bold as to wake a sleeping aga? Luckily he awoke of his own accord; and he was soon informed by my interpreter that an illustrious personage awaited his leisure. He did not care for a monk, and not much for an agoumenos; but he felt small in the presence of a mighty Turkish aga. Nevertheless, he ventured a few hints as usual about the kings and queens who were my first cousins, but in a much more subdued tone than usual; and I was received with that courteous civility and good breeding which is so frequently met with among Turks of every degree. The aga apologised for having no good room to offer me; but he sent out his men to look for a lodging; and in the mean time we went to a kiosk, that is, a place like a large birdcage, with enough roof to make a shade, and no walls to impede the free passage of the air. It was built of wood, upon a scaffold eight or ten feet from the ground, in the corner of a garden, and commanded a fine view of the sea. In one corner of this cage I sat all day long, for there was nowhere else to go to; and the aga sat opposite to me in another corner, smoking his pipe, in which solacing occupation to his great surprise I did not partake. We had cups of coffee and sherbet every now and then, and about every half-hour the aga uttered a few words of compliment or welcome, informing me occasionally that there were many dervishes in the place, "very many dervishes," for so he denominated the monks. Dinner came towards evening. There was meat, dolmas, demir tatlessi, olives, salad, roast meat, and pilau, that filled up some time; and shortly afterwards I retired to the house of the monastery of Russico, a little distance from my kiosk; and there I slept on a carpet on the boards; and at sunrise was ready to continue my journey, as were also the mules. The aga gave me some breakfast, at which repast a cat made its appearance, with whom the day before I had made acquaintance; but now it came, not alone, but accompanied by two kittens. "Ah!" said I to the aga, "how is this? Why, as I live, this is a _she_ cat! a cat feminine! What business has it on Mount Athos? and with kittens too! a wicked cat!"

"Hush!" said the Aga, with a solemn grin; "do not say anything about it. Yes, it must be a she-cat: I allow, certainly, that it must be a she-cat. I brought it with me from Stamboul. But do not speak of it, or they will take it away; and it reminds me of my home, where my wife and children are living far away from me."

I promised to make no scandal about the cat, and took my leave; and as I rode off I saw him looking at me out of his cage with the cat sitting by his side. I was sorry I could not take aga and cat and all with me to Stamboul, the poor gentleman looked so solitary and melancholy.