these two impregnable fastnesses were, they told me, so suspicious
of strangers and in such a state of alarm, that there was no use in my
visiting them, as to a certainty they would not admit me; and as it
appeared that everything portable had been removed when the caloyeri
(the monks) had departed from their impoverished homes, I gave up the
idea.

I then proceeded along a romantic path to the monastery of Agia Triada,
and on the way my servants entertained me by an account of what the
monks had told them of their admiration of the Pasha of Tricala, whom
they considered as a perfect model of a governor; and that it would be a
blessing for the country if all other pashas were like him, as then all
the roving bands of robbers, who spread terror and desolation through
the land, would be cleared away. There is, it seems, a high tower over
the gate of the town of Tricala, and when the Pasha caught any people
whom he thought worthy of the distinction, he had them taken up to the
top of this tower and thrown from it against the city walls, which his
provident care had furnished with numerous large iron hooks, projecting
about the length of a man's arm, which caught the bodies of the culprits
as they fell, and on which they hung on either side of the town gate,
affording a pleasing and instructive spectacle to the people who came in
to market of a morning.

Agia Triada contains about ten or twelve monks, who pulled me up to the
entrance of their monastery with a rope thirty-two fathoms long. This
monastery, like the others, resembles a small village, of which the
houses stand huddled round the little painted church. Here I found one
hundred books, all very musty and very uninteresting. I saw no
manuscripts whatever, nor was there anything worthy of observation in
the habitation of the impoverished community. Having paid my respects to
the grim effigies of the bearded saints upon the chapel walls, I was let
down again by the rope, and walked on, still through most romantic
scenery, to the monastery of Hagia Roserea.

The rock upon which this monastery stands is about a hundred feet high;
it is perfectly isolated, and quite smooth and perpendicular on all
sides, and so small that there is only room enough for the various
buildings, without leaving any space for a garden. In fact, the
buildings, although far from large, cover the whole summit of the rock.
When we had shouted and made as much noise as we could for some time, an