estored by Neagulus,
Waywode of Bessarabia. The buildings consist of a thick and lofty wall
of stone, which encompasses an irregular space of ground of between
three and four acres in extent; there is only one entrance, a crooked
passage defended by three separate iron doors; the front of the building
on the side of the entrance extends about five hundred feet. There is no
attempt at external architecture, but only this plain wall; the few
windows which look out from it belong to rooms which are built of wood
and project over the top of the wall, being supported upon strong beams
like brackets. At the south-west corner of the building there is a large
square tower, which formerly contained a printing-press: but this press
was destroyed by the Turkish soldiers during the late Greek revolution;
and at the same time they carried off certain old cannons, which stood
upon the battlements, but which were more for show than use, for the
monks had never once ventured to fire them off during the long period
they had been there; and my question, as to when they were brought there
originally, was answered by the universal and regular answer of the
Levant, "[Greek: ti exebzo]--Qui sa?--who knows?" The interior
of the monastery consists of several small courts and two large open
spaces surrounded with buildings, which have open galleries of wood or
stone before them, by means of which entrance is gained into the various
apartments, which now afford lodging for one hundred and twenty monks,
and there is room for many more. These two large courts are built
without any regularity, but their architecture is exceedingly curious,
and in its style closely resembles the buildings erected in
Constantinople between the fifth and the twelfth century: a sort of
Byzantine, of which St. Marc's in Venice is the finest specimen in
Europe. It bears some affinity to the Lombardic or Romanesque, only it
is more Oriental in its style; the chapel of the ancient palace of
Palermo is more in the style of the buildings on Mount Athos than
anything else in Christendom that I remember; but the ceilings of that
chapel are regularly arabesque, whereas those on Mount Athos are flat
with painted beams, like the Italian basilicas, excepting where they are
arched or domed; and in those cases there is little or no mosaic, but
only coarse paintings in fresco representing saints in the conventional
Greek style of superlative ugliness.

In the centre of each of these