astery became
possessed of so inestimable a medicine, I was gravely informed that,
after the assumption of the Blessed Virgin, St. Thomas went up to heaven
to pay her a visit, and there she presented him with her girdle. My
informant appeared to have the most unshakeable conviction as to the
truth of this history, and expressed great surprise that I had never
heard it before.

The library, although containing nearly four thousand printed books, has
none of any high antiquity or on any subject but divinity. There are
also about a thousand manuscripts, of which three or four hundred are on
vellum; amongst these there are three copies of the works of St
Chrysostom: they also have his head in the church--that golden mouth out
of which proceeded the voice which shook the empire with the thunder of
its denunciations. The most curious manuscripts are six rolls of
parchment, each ten inches wide and about ten feet long, containing
prayers for festivals on the anniversaries of the foundation of certain
churches. There were at this time above three hundred monks resident in
the monastery; many of these held offices and places of dignity under
the agoumenos, whose establishment resembled the court of a petty
sovereign prince. Altogether this convent well illustrates what some of
the great monastic establishments in England must have been before the
Reformation. It covers at least four acres of ground, and contains so
many separate buildings within its massive walls that it resembles a
fortified town. Everything told of wealth and indolence. When I arrived
the lord abbot was asleep; he was too great a man to be aroused; he had
eaten a full meal in his own apartment, and he could not be disturbed.
His secretary, a thin pale monk, was deputed to show me the wonders of
the place, and as we proceeded through the different chapels and
enormous magazines of corn, wine, and oil, the officers of the different
departments bent down to kiss his hand, for he was high in the favour of
my lord the abbot, and was evidently a man not to be slighted by the
inferior authorities if they wished to get on and prosper. The cellarer
was a sly old fellow with a thin grey beard, and looked as if he could
tell a good story of an evening over a flagon of good wine. Except at
some of the palaces in Germany I have never seen such gigantic tuns as
those in the cellars at Vatopede. The oil is kept in marble vessels of
the size and shape of sarcophagi, and there