which stands upon the sea shore. Here they were building a church in the
centre of the great court, which, when it is finished, will be the
largest on Mount Athos. Three Greek bishops were living here in exile. I
did not learn what the holy prelates had done, but their misdeeds had
been found out by the Patriarch, and he had sent them here to rusticate.
This monastery is of a moderate size; its founder was St. Xenophou,
regarding whose history or the period at which he lived I am unable to
give any information, as nobody knew anything about him on the spot, and
I cannot find him in any catalogue of saints which I possess. The
monastery was repaired in the year 1545 by Danzulas Bornicus and
Badulus, who were brothers, and Banus (the Ban) Barbulus, all three
nobles of Hungary, and was afterwards beautified by Matthaeus, Waywode of
Bessarabia.

The library consists of fifteen hundred printed books, nineteen MSS. on
paper, eleven on vellum, and three rolls on parchment, containing
liturgies for particular days. Of the MSS. on vellum there were three
which merit a description. One was a fine 4to. of part of the works of
St. Chrysostom, of great antiquity, but not in uncial letters. Another
was a 4to. of the four Gospels bound in faded red velvet with silver
clasps. This book they affirmed to be a royal present to the monastery;
it was of the eleventh or twelfth century, and was peculiar from the
text being accompanied by a voluminous commentary on the margin and
several pages of calendars, prefaces, &c., at the beginning. The
headings of the Gospels were written in large plain letters of gold. In
the libraries of forty Greek monasteries I have only met with one other
copy of the Gospels with a commentary. The third manuscript was an
immense quarto Evangelistarium sixteen inches square, bound in faded
green or blue velvet, and said to be in the autograph of the Emperor
Alexius Comnenus. The text throughout on each page was written in the
form of a cross. Two of the pages are in purple ink powdered with gold,
and these, there is every reason to suppose, are in the handwriting of
the imperial scribe himself; for the Byzantine sovereigns affected to
write only in purple, as their deeds and a magnificent MS. in another
monastic library, of which I have not given an account in these pages,
can testify: the titles of this superb volume are written in gold,
covering the whole page. Altogether, although not in uncial letters, it
wa