e _white_ vellum. The characters were a
kind of semi-uncial, rather round in their forms, of large size, and
beautifully executed, but often joined together and having many
contractions and abbreviations, in these respects resembling the Mount
Sinai MS. This magnificent volume was given to the monastery by the
Emperor Andronicus Comnenus about the year 1184; it is consequently not
an early MS., but its imperial origin renders it interesting to the
admirers of literary treasures, while the very rare occurrence of a
_Greek_ MS. written in letters of gold would make it a most desirable
and important acquisition to any royal library; for besides the two
above-mentioned there are not, I believe, more than seven or eight MSS.
of this description in existence, and of these several are merely
fragments, and only one is on white vellum: this is in the library of
the Holy Synod at Moscow. Five of the others are on blue or purple
vellum, viz., Codex Cottonianus, in the British Museum, Titus C. 15, a
fragment of the Gospels; an octavo Evangelistarium at Vienna; a fragment
of the books of Genesis and St. Luke in silver letters at Vienna; the
Codex Turicensis of part of the Psalms; and six leaves of the Gospels of
St. Matthew in silver letters with the initials in gold in the Vatican.
There may possibly be others, but I have never heard of them. Latin MSS.
in golden letters are much less scarce, but Greek MSS., even those which
merely contain two or three pages written in gold letters, are of such
rarity that hardly a dozen are to be met with; of these there are three
in the library at Parham. I think the Codex Ebnerianus has one or two
pages written in gold, and the tables of a gospel at Jerusalem are in
gold on deep purple vellum. At this moment I do not remember any more,
although doubtless there must be a few of these partially ornamented
volumes scattered through the great libraries of Europe.

From Kiliantari, which is the last monastery on the N.E. side of the
promontory, we struck across the peninsula, and two hours' riding
brought us to

ZOGRAPHOU,

through plains of rich green grass dotted over with gigantic single
trees, the scenery being like that of an English pork, only finer and
more luxuriant as well as more extensive. This monastery was founded in
the reign of Leo Sophos, by three nobles of Constantinople who became
monks; and the local tradition is that it was destroyed by the "_Pope of
Rome_." How that happened