sixty years of age, struck me as a fine specimen of what an
abbot of an ascetic monastery ought to be; simple and kind, yet clever
enough, and learned in the divinity of his church, he set an example to
the monks under his rule of devotion and rectitude of conduct; he was
not slothful, or haughty, or grasping, and seemed to have a truly
religious and cheerful mind. He was looked up to and beloved by the
whole community; and with his dignified manner and appearance, his long
grey hair, and dark flowing robes, he gave me the idea of what the
saints and holy men of old must have been in the early days of
Christianity, when they walked entirely in the faith, and--if required
to do so--willingly gave themselves up as martyrs to the cause: when in
all their actions they were influenced solely by the dictates of their
religion. Would that such times would come again! But where every one
sets up a new religion for himself, and when people laugh at and
ridicule those things which their ignorance prevents them from
appreciating, how can we hope for this?

Early in the morning I started from my comfortable couch, and ran
scrambling down the hill, over the rolling-stones in the dry bed of the
torrent on which the monastery of the "dry river" ([Greek:
xeropotamou]--courou chesme in Turkish) is built. We got into the boat:
our carpets, some oranges, and various little stores for a day's
journey, which the good monks had supplied us with, being brought down
by sundry good-natured lubberly [Greek: katakymenoi]--religions
youths--who were delighted at having something to do, and were as
pleased as children at having a good heavy praying-carpet to carry, or a
basket of oranges, or a cushion from the monastery. They all waited on
the shore to see us off, and away we went along the coast. As the sun
got up it became oppressively hot, and the first monastery we came
abreast of was that of Simopetra, which is perched on the top of a
perpendicular rock, five or six hundred feet high at least, if not twice
as much. This rather daunted me: and as we thought perhaps to-morrow
would not be so hot, I put off climbing up the precipice for the
present, and rowed gently on in the calm sea till we came before the
monastery of

ST. NICHOLAS,

the smallest of all the convents of Mount Athos. It was a most
picturesque building, stuck up on a rock, and is famous for its figs, in
the eating of which, in the absence of more interesting matter, we all