ike an oasis in a desert. For
many miles around, the vicinage presents a volcanic aspect, wild,
barren, howlingly dreary. At the foot of Mt. Sanneen in the east,
beyond many ravines, are villages and verdure; and from the last
terrace in the vineyard one overlooks the deep chasm which can boast
of a rivulet in winter. But in the summer its nakedness is appalling.
The sun turns its pocket inside out, so to speak, exposing its
boulders, its little windrows of sands, and its dry ditches full of
dead fish spawn. And the cold, rocky horizon, rising so high and near,
shuts out the sea and hides from the Hermit the glory of the sundown.
But we can behold its effects on Mt. Sanneen, on the clouds above us,
on the glass casements in the villages far away. The mountains in the
east are mantled with etherial lilac alternating with mauve; the
clouds are touched with purple and gold; the casements in the distance
are scintillating with mystical carbuncles: the sun is setting in the
Mediterranean,--he is waving his farewell to the hills.

We reach the first gate of the Hermitage; and the odour peculiar to
monks and monkeries, a mixed smell of mould and incense and burning
oil, greets us as we enter into a small open space in the centre of
which is a Persian lilac tree. To the right is a barbed-wire fence
shutting in the vineyard; directly opposite is the door of the chapel;
and near it is a wicket before which stands a withered old woman.
Against the wall is a stone bench where another woman is seated. As we
enter, we hear her, standing at the wicket, talking to some one behind
the scene. "Yes, that is the name of my husband," says she. "Allah
have mercy on his soul," sighs an exiguous voice within; "pray for
him, pray for him." And the woman, taking to weeping, blubbers out,
"Will thirty masses do, think your Reverence?" "Yes, that will cheer
his soul," replies the oracle.

The old woman thereupon enters the chapel, pays the priest or
serving-monk therein, one hundred piasters for thirty masses, and
goes away in tears. The next woman rises to the gate. "I am the
mother of--," she says. "Ah, the mother of--," repeats the exiguous
voice. "How are you? (She must be an old customer.) How is your
husband? How are your children? And those in America, are they
well, are they prosperous? Yes, yes, your deceased son. Well,
h'm--h'm--you must come again. I can not tell you anything yet.
Come again next week." And she, too, visits the chapel