THE NORTH WEST SIDE OF THE PROMONTORY OF MOUNT ATHOS, WITH A VIEW OF THE THE MONASTERY OF PANTOCRATORASTHE NORTH WEST SIDE OF THE PROMONTORY OF MOUNT ATHOS, WITH A VIEW OF THE THE MONASTERY OF PANTOCRATORAS
Constantinople—The Patriarch's Palace—The Plague, Anecdotes, Superstitions—The Two Jews—Interview with the Patriarch—Ceremonies of Reception—The Patriarch's Misconception as to the Archbishop of Canterbury—He addresses a Firman to the Monks of Mount Athos—Preparations for Departure—The Ugly Greek Interpreter—Mode of securing his Fidelity.
Ihadbeen for some time enjoying the hospitality of Lord and Lady Ponsonby at the British palace at Therapia, when I determined to put into execution a project I had long entertained of examining the libraries in the monasteries of Mount Athos. As no traveller had been there since the days of Dr. Clarke, I could obtain but little information about the place before I left England. But the Archbishop of Canterbury was kind enough to give me a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in which he requested him to furnish me with any facilities in his power in my researches among the Greek monasteries which owned his sway.
Armed with this valuable document, one day in the spring of the year 1837 I started in a caïque withsome gentlemen of the embassy, and proceeded to the palace of the Patriarch in the Fanar—a part of Constantinople situated between the ancient city wall and the port so well known by its name of the Golden Horn. The Fanar does not derive its appellation from the word fanar, a lantern or lighthouse, but from the two wordsfena yer, a bad place; for it is in a low, dirty situation, where only the conquered Greeks were permitted to reside immediately after the conquest of their metropolis by the Sultan Mahommed II. The palace is a large, dilapidated, shabby-looking building, chiefly of wood painted black; it stands in an open court or yard on a steep slope, and looks out over some lower houses to the Golden Horn and the hills of Pera and Galata beyond.[12]
After waiting a little while in a large, dirty ante-room, during which time there was a scuffling and running up and down of priests and deacons, who were surprised and perhaps a little alarmed at a visit fromso numerous a company of gentlemen belonging to the British embassy, we were introduced into a large square room furnished with a divan under the windows and down two sides of the chamber. This divan was covered with a rough sacking of grey goats' hair—a stuff which is said not to be susceptible of the plague; and people sitting on it, or on the bare boards, are not considered to be "compromised"—a word of fearful import when that awful pestilence is raging in this neglected city. When any person is compromised, he is obliged to separate from all society, and to place himself in strict quarantine for forty days, at the end of which period, if the fright and anxiety have not brought on the plague, he is received again by his acquaintances. Dealers in oil, and persons who have an open issue on their bodies, are considered secure from the plague as far as they themselves are concerned; but as their clothes will convey the infection, they are as dangerous as others to their neighbours.
There was an old Armenian, who, whether he considered himself invulnerable, or whether poverty and misfortune made him reckless, I do not know; but he set up as a plague-doctor, and visited and touched those who were stricken with the pestilence. Whenever he came down the street, every one would start aside and give him three or four yards' space at least. Sometimes he had men who walked before him and cried to the people to get out of the way. As the oldman moved on in his long, dark robes, shunned with such horror by all, the mind was awfully impressed with the fearful nature of the disease; for if the Prince of Darkness himself had made his appearance in the face of day, no one could have shown greater alarm at his approach than they did when the men cried out that the Armenian plague-doctor was coming down the street.
One peculiarity of the disease is the disinclination which is always shown by those who are plague-stricken to confess that they are so, or even to own that they are ill. They invariably conceal it as long as possible; and even when burning with fever and in an agony of pain, they will pretend that they are well, and try to walk about. But this attempt at deception continues for a very short period, for they soon become either delirious or insensible, and generally are unable to move. There is a look about the eye and an expression of anxiety and horror in the face of one who has got the plague which is not to be mistaken nor forgotten by those who have once seen them. One day at Galata I nearly ran against a man who was sitting on the ground on a hand-bier, upon which some Turks were about to carry him away; and the look of the unfortunate man's face haunted me for days. The expression of hopeless despair and agony was indeed but too applicable to his case; they were going to carry him to the plague hospital, from whence I neverheard of any one returning. It would have been far more merciful to have shot him at once.
There are many curious superstitions and circumstances connected with the plague. One is, that when the destroying angel enters into a house the dogs of the quarter assemble in the night and howl before the door; and the Greeks firmly believe that the dogs can see the evil spirit of the plague, although it is invisible to human eyes. Some people, however, are said to have seen the plague, its appearance being that of an old woman, tall, thin, and ghastly, and dressed sometimes in black, sometimes in white: she stalks along the streets—glides through the doors of the habitations of the condemned—and walks once round the room of her victim, who is from that moment death-smitten. It is also asserted that, when three small spots make their appearance upon the knee, the patient is doomed—he has got the plague, and his fate is sealed. They are called the pilotti—the pilots and harbingers of death. Some, however, have recovered after these spots have shown themselves.
I had at this time a lodging in a house at Pera, which I occupied when anything brought me to Constantinople from Therapia. On one occasion I was sitting with a gentleman whose filial piety did him much honour, for he had attended his father through the horrors of this illness, and he had died of the plague in his arms, when we heard the dogs bayingin an unusual way.[13]On looking out of the window there they were all of a row, seated against the opposite wall, howling mournfully, and looking up at the houses in the moonlight. One dog looked very hard at me, I thought: I did not like it at all, and began to investigate whether I had not some pain or other about me; and this comfortable feeling was not diminished when my friend's Arab servant came into the room and said that another person who lodged in the house was very unwell; it was said that he had had a fall from his horse that morning. The dogs, though we escaped the plague ourselves, were right; the plague had got into one of the houses close to us in the same street; but how many died of it I did not learn.
It was about this time that two Jews—extortioners, poor men, whom consequently nobody cared about—were walking together in a narrow street at Galata, when they both dropped down stricken with the plague: there they lay upon the ground; no one would touch them; and, as the street was extremely narrow, no one could pass that way; it was in effect blocked up by the two unhappy men. They did not die quickly. "The devil was sure of them," the charitable people said, "so he was in no hurry." There they lay a long time—many days; and people called to them, and put their heads round the cornerof the street to look at them. Some, tenderer-hearted than the rest, got a long pole from a dyer's shop hard by, and pushed a tub of water to them, and threw them some bread, for no one dared approach them. One Jew was quiet: he ate a little bread and drank some water, and lay still. The other was violent: the pain of his livid swellings drove him wild, and he shouted and raved and twisted about upon the ground. The people looked at him from the corner, and shuddered as they quickly drew back their heads. He died; and the other Jew still lay there, quiet as he was before, close to the quiet corpse of his poor friend. For some time they did not know whether he was dead or not; but at last they found he drank no more water and ate no more bread; so they knew that he had died also. There lay the two bodies in the way, till some one paid a hamal—a Turkish porter—who, being a stanch predestinarian, caring neither for plague, nor Jew, nor Gentile, dead or alive, carried off the two bodies on his back; and then the street was passable again.
The Turks have a touching custom when the plague rages very greatly, and a thousand corpses are carried out daily from Stamboul through the Adrianople gate to the great groves of cypress which rise over the burial-grounds beyond the walls. At times of terror and grief, such as these, the Sheikh Ul Islam causes all the little children to be assembled on a beautiful green hill called the Oc Maidan—the Place of Arrows—andthere they bow down upon the ground, and raise their innocent voices in supplication to the Father of Mercy, and implore his compassion on the afflicted city!
But the grey goats' hair divan of the Patriarch's hall of audience has led me a long way from the Patriarch himself, who entered the chamber shortly after our arrival. He appeared to be rather a young man, certainly not more than thirty-five years of age, with a reddish beard, which is uncommon in this country. He was dressed in purple silk robes, like a Greek bishop, and took his seat in the corner of the divan, and said nothing, and stroked his beard as a pasha might have done.
When we had made our "téménahs," that is, salutations, and little bows, &c., and were still again, the curtain over the doorway was pushed aside, and various priestly servants, all without shoes, came in, one of them bearing a richly embossed silver tray, on which were disposed small spoons filled with a preserve of lemon-peel; each of us took a spoonful, and returned the spoon to the dish. Then came various servants—as many servants as guests—and one presented to each of us a cut-glass cup with a lid, full of fresh spring-water. Then these disappeared; and others came in bearing pipes to each of us—a separate servant always coming in for each person of the company. After we had smoked our pipes for a short time, a mighty crowdof attendants again entered at the bottom of the room, among whom was one with a tray, which was covered over with a satin shawl or cover as richly embroidered with gold as was possible for its size, and with a deep gold fringe. Another servant took off this covering, and placed it over the left shoulder of the tray-bearer, who stood like a statue all the while. Now appeared a man with a silver censer suspended by three silver chains, and having a coffee-pot standing upon the burning coals within it. Another man took off the cups which were upon the tray, filled them with coffee; and then various servants, each armed with a coffee-cup placed on its silver zarf or saucer, which he held in his left hand with his thumb and forefinger only, strode forward with one accord, and we all at the same moment were presented with our diminutive cup of coffee; the attendants received the empty cups with both hands, and, walking backwards, disappeared as silently as they came. All this is a scene of every-day occurrence in the East, and, with more or less of display, takes place in the house of every person of consideration.
When we had smoked our pipes for a while, and all the servants had gone away, I presented the letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was received in due form; and, after a short explanatory exordium, was read aloud to the Patriarch, first in English, and then translated into Greek.
"And who," quoth the Patriarch of Constantinople, the supreme head and primate of the Greek Church of Asia—"who is the Archbishop of Canterbury?"
"What?" said I, a little astonished at the question.
"Who," said he, "is this Archbishop?"
"Why, the Archbishop of Canterbury."
"Archbishop ofwhat?" said the Patriarch.
"Canterbury," said I.
"Oh," said the Patriarch. "Ah! yes! and who is he?"
Here all my English friends and myself were taken aback sadly; we had not imagined that the high-priest before us could be ignorant of such a matter as the one in question. The Patriarch of the Greek church, the successor of Gregory Nazianzen, St. John Chrysostom, and the heresiarch Nestorius, seemed not to be aware that there were any other denominations of Christians besides those of his own church and the Church of Rome. But the fact is that the Patriarch of Constantinople is merely the puppet of an intriguing faction of the Greek bankers and usurers of the Fanar, who select for the office some man of straw whom they feel secure they can rule, and whose appointment they obtain by a heavy bribe paid to the Sultan; for the head of the Christian Church is appointed by the Mahomedan Emperor!
We explained, and said that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a man eminent for his great learningand his Christian virtues; that he was the primate and chief of the great reformed Church of England, and a personage of such high degree, that he ranked next to the blood-royal; that from time immemorial the Archbishop of Canterbury was the great dignitary who placed the crown upon the head of our kings—those kings whose power swayed the destinies of Europe and of the world; and that this present Archbishop and Primate had himself placed the crown upon the head of King William IV., and that he would also soon crown our young Queen.
"Well," replied the Patriarch, "but how is that? how can it happen that the head of your Church is only an Archbishop? whereas I, the Patriarch, command other patriarchs, and under them archbishops, archimandrites, and other dignitaries of the Church? How can these things be? I cannot write an answer to the letter of the Archbishop of—of—"
"Of Canterbury," said I.
"Yes! of Canterbury; for I do not see how he who is only an archbishop can by any possibility be the head of a Christian hierarchy; but as you come from the British embassy I will give my letters as you desire, which will ensure your reception into every monastery which acknowledges the supremacy of theorthodoxfaith of the Patriarch of Constantinople."
He then sent for his secretary, that I might give that functionary my name and designation. Thesecretary accordingly appeared; and, although there are only six letters in my name, he set it down incorrectly nearly a dozen times, and then went away to his hole in a window, where he wrote curious little memoranda at the Patriarch's dictation, from which he drew up the firman which was sent me a few days afterwards, and which I found of great service in my visits to various monasteries. As few Protestants have been favoured with a document of this sort from the Primate of the Greek Church, I subjoin a translation of it. It will be perceived that it is written much in the style of the epistles of the early patriarchs to the archbishops and bishops of their provinces. To the requisitions contained in this firman it was incumbent upon those to whom it was addressed to pay implicit obedience.[14]
My business being thus happily concluded with this learned personage, we all smoked away again for a short time in tranquil silence; and then the Universal Patriarch—for so he styles himself—clapped his hands, and in swarmed the whole tribe of silent, bare-footed priestly followers, bringing us sherbet in glass cups. Whilst we drank it, their reverences held the saucer under our chins: and when we had had enough, those who chose it wiped their lips and moustaches on a long, narrow towel, richly embroidered at the two ends with gold and bright-coloured silks. I prefer on these occasions my pocket-handkerchief, as the period at which these rich towels are washed is by no means a matter of certainty. We took our leave with the numerous bows and compliments, and went on our way rejoicing.
My preparations for my expedition were soon made. I hired a Greek servant, whom I intended should serve as interpreter and factotum. He was a sharp, active man—as most Greeks are; and he had an intelligentway of doing things, which pleased me; but he was an ugly, thin, little fellow, and his right eye had a curious obliquity of vision, which was not particularly calculated to inspire confidence. As nobody else was to accompany me, I made various inquiries about him, and, although I did not hear any particular harm of him, yet I failed to become acquainted with any good actions of his performance; and as I was going into a country which at that time was almost entirely unknown, and which had moreover an unpleasant celebrity for pirates, klephti, and other sorts of thieves, I felt that the moral character of my new follower was an important consideration; and that if I could prop up his honesty and fidelity by any artificial means, I might not be doing amiss.
In a few days the firman or letter of the patriarch arrived, and I packed my things and got ready to start. Unknown to my servant I had caused a belt of wash-leather to be made, in which were numerous little divisions calculated to hold a good many pieces of gold without their jingling, and it had a long flap which buttoned down over the series of compartments. I had besides a large ostentatious purse, in which was a small sum for the expenses of the journey, and as I wished to have it supposed that I had but little cash, I made my Greek buy various things for me out of his own money. All being ready, we started in a caïque very early in the morning, and went downthe Bosphorus from Therapia to Stamboul, where we got on board a steamer. On handing up the things, my servant found that his box, in which were his new clothes and valuables, was missing—his bag only had come. "Good gracious!" said I, "was that the box with two straps?" "Yes," said he, "a handsome brown box, about so large." "Well," said I, "it is a most unfortunate thing; but when I saw that box in my room this morning I locked it up in the closet and told H—— not to give up the key of the door to anybody till I returned to the embassy again. How very unlucky! however, we shall soon be back, and you have biancheria enough in your bag for so short a journey as the one before us." We were soon under way, and passing the Seraglio Point stood down the swift current in the sea of Marmora, our luggage encumbering but a very small space upon the deck.
Coom Calessi—Uncomfortable Quarters—A Turkish Boat and its Crew—Grandeur of the Scenery—Legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece—The Island of Imbros—Heavy Rain Storm—A Rough Sea—Lemnos—Bad Accommodation—The Old Woman's Mattress and its Contents—Striking View of Mount Athos from the Sea—The Hermit of the Tower.
Onlanding at Coom Calessi, the European castle of the Dardanelles, I found that there was no inn or hotel in the place; but it appeared that the British consul, who lived on the top of the hill two miles off, had built a new house in the town for purposes of business, and upon the payment of a perquisite to the Jew who acted as his factotum, I was presently installed in the new house, which, as houses go in this country, was clean and good, but not a scrap of furniture was there in it, not even a pipkin or a casserole—it was as empty as any house could be. I sent my man out into the bazaar and we got some cabobs and yaourt and salad, and various flaps of bread, and managed so far pretty well, and then we went to the port, and after much waste of time and breath I engaged a curious-looking boat belonging to a Turk, who by the by was the only Turkish sailor I ever had anything todo with, as the seamen are generally Greeks; and then I returned to my house to sleep, for we were not to set out on our voyage till sunrise the next morning. The sleeping was a more difficult affair than the dinner, for after the beds at the embassy the boards did seem supernaturally hard; but I spread all my property on the floor, and lying down on it flat on my back, out of compassion to my hips, I got through the night at last.
All men were up and about in the Turkish town of Coom Calessi as soon as the sun tinged the hills of Olympus, and the gay boat in which I was to sail was bounding up and down on the bright transparent waves by the sandy shore. The long-bearded captain sat on a half deck with the tiller under his arm; he neither moved nor said a word when I came on board, and before the god of day arose in his splendour over the famous plains of Troy my little boat was spreading its white wings before the morning wind. Every moment more and more lovely scenes opened to my delighted eyes among the rocky and classic islands of the Archipelago. How fair and beautiful is every part of that most favoured land! how fresh the breezes on that poetic sea! how magnificent the great precipices of the rocky island of Samotraki seemed as they loomed through the decreasing distance in the morning sun! But no words, no painting can describe this glorious region.
I had hired my grave sailors to take me to Lemnos, but the wind did not serve, so we steered for Imbros, where we arrived in the afternoon. My boat was an original-looking vessel to an English eye, with a high bow and stem covered with bright brass; over the rudder there hung a long piece of network ornamented with blue glass beads: flowers and arabesques were carved on the boards at each end of the vessel, which had one low mast with a single sail. It is the national belief in England that ugliness is the necessary concomitant of utility, but for my own part I confess that I delight in redundant ornament, and I liked my old boat the better and was convinced that it did not sail a bit the worse because it was pleasing to the eye.
We rowed away towards Imbros, and passed in our course a curious line of waves, which looked like a straight whirlpool, if such an epithet may be used; for where the mighty stream of the Dardanelles poured forth into the Egean Sea, the two waters did not immediately mix together, but rolled the one over the other in a long line which seemed as if it would suck down into its snaky vortex anything which approached it. It was not dangerous, however, for we rowed along it and across it; but still it had a look about it which made me feel rather glad than sorry when we had lost sight of its long, straight, curling line of waves.
As I sat in my beautifully-shaped and ornamented boat, which looked like those represented in antiquesculptures, with its high stem and lofty prow, I thought how little changed things were in these latitudes since the brave Captain Jason passed this way in the good ship Argo; and if an old author who wrote on the Hermetic philosophy may be taken as authority, that worthy's errand was much the same as mine; for he maintains that the golden fleece was no golden fleece at all, "for who," says he, like a sensible man, "ever saw a sheep of gold?" But what Jason sought was a famous volume written in golden letters upon the skins of sheep, wherein was described the whole science of alchemy, and that the man who should possess himself of that inestimable volume should conquer the green dragon, and being able by help of the grand magisterium to transmute all metals, and draw from the alembic the precious drops of the elixir vitæ, men and nations and languages would bow down before him as the prince of the pleasures of this world.
In the afternoon we arrived at the island of Imbros. The Turkish pilot would go no farther, for he said there would be a storm. I saw no appearance of the kind, but it was of no use talking to him; he had made up his mind, so we drew the boat up on the sand in a little sheltered bay, and making a tent of the sail, the sailors lit a fire and sat down and smoked their pipes with all that quietness and decorum which is so characteristic of their nation. I wandered about the island, but saw neither man nor habitation. Ishot at divers rock-partridges with a rifle and hit none; nevertheless towards evening we cooked up a savoury mess, whereof the old bearded Turk and his grave crew ate also, but sparingly: I then curled myself up in a corner inside the boat under the sail, and took to reading a volume of Sir Walter Scott's poems.
I was deep in his romantic legends when of a sudden there came a roar of thunder and such quick bright flashes of sharp lightning that the mountains seemed on fire. Down came the rain in waterfalls, and in went Walter Scott and all his chivalry into the first safe hiding-place I could find. The crew had got under a projecting rock, and I had the boat to myself; the rain did not come in much, and the rattle of the thunder by degrees died away among the surrounding hills. The rain continued to pour down steadily and the fire on the beach went out, but my berth was snug enough, and the dull monotonous sound of the splashing rain and the dashing of the breakers on the shore soon lulled me to sleep, and I was more comfortable than I had been the night before in the bare, empty house at Coom Calessi.
Very early in the morning I peeped out; the rain was gone and the sun shone brightly; all the Turks were up smoking their eternal pipes, so I asked the old captain when we should be off. "There is too much wind," was his laconic reply. We were in a sheltered place, so we felt no wind, but on the other side of arocky headland we could see the sea running like a cataract towards the south, although it was as smooth as glass in our bay. We got through breakfast, and for the sake of the partridges I repented that I had brought no shot. At last the men began righting the boat and getting things ready, doing everything as quietly and deliberately as usual, and scarcely saying a word to each other. In course of time the captain sat himself down by the rudder, and beckoning to me with his hand he took the pipe out of his mouth and said "Gel" (come). I came, and away we went smoothly with the help of two or three oars till we rounded the rocky headland, and then all at once we drifted into the race, and began dancing, and leaping, and staggering before the breeze in a way I never saw before nor since. Like the goats, from whom this sea is said to have been named, we leaped from the summit of one wave to that of the next, and seemed hardly to touch the water. We had up a small sail, and we sat still and steady at the bottom of the vessel. Never had I conceived the possibility of a boat scampering along before the wind at such a rate as this. My man crossed himself. I looked up at the old pilot, but he went on quietly smoking his pipe with his finger on the bowl to keep the ashes from being blown away. It was a marvel to me with what exactness he touched the helm just at the right instant, for it seemed as if we had sixty narrow escapes every minute, but the old man did notstir an inch. Gallantly we dashed, and skipped, and bounded along. What a famous lively little boat it was, yet it was carved and gilt and as pretty as anything could be! We were soon running down the west coast of Lemnos, where the surf was lashing the precipice in fury with an angry roar that resounded far out to sea: then of a sudden we rounded a sharp point and shot into such smooth water so instantaneously that one could scarcely believe that the blue waves of the Holy Sea,Αγιος πελαγος, as the Greeks call it still, could be the same as the furious and frenzied ocean out of which we had darted like an arrow from a bow.
We had a long row in the hot sun along the sheltered coast till we landed at a rotten wooden pier before the chief city or rather the dirty village of the Lemnians. I had a letter to a gentleman who was sent by a merchant of Constantinople to collect wool upon this island; so to him I bent my way, hooted at by some Lemnian women, the worthy descendants probably of those fair dames who have gained a disagreeable immortality by murdering their husbands. Here it was that Vulcan broke his leg, and no wonder, for a more barren, rocky place no one could have been kicked down into. My friend of the woolpacks, who was a Frenchman, was very kind and civil, only he had nothing to offer me beyond the bare house, like the consul's Jew at the Dardanelles, so I walked about and looked at nothing, which was all there was to see,whilst my servant hired a little square-rigged brig to take me next day to Mount Athos.
After dinner I made inquiries of my host what he had in the way of bed. His answer was specific. There was no bed, no mattress, no divan; sheets were unknown things, and the wool he did not recommend. But at last I was told of a mattress which an old woman next door was possessed of, and which she sometimes let out to strangers; and in an evil hour I sent for it. That treacherous bed and its clean white coverlet will never be forgotten by me. I laid down upon it and in one minute was fast asleep—the next I started up a perfect Marsyas. Never until that day had I any idea of what fleas could do. So simultaneous and well conducted was their attack that I was bitten all over from top to toe at the first assault. They evidently were delighted at the unexpected change of diet from a grim, skinny old woman to a well-fed traveller fresh from the table of the embassy. I examined the white coverlet—it was actually brown with fleas. I threw away my clothes, and taking desperate measures to get rid of some myriads of my assailants, I ran out of the room and put on a dressing-gown in the outer hall, at the window of which I sat down to cool the fever of my blood. I half expected to see the fleas open the door and march in after me, as the rats did after Bishop Hatto on his island in the Rhine; but fortunately the villains didnot venture to leave their mattress. There I sat, fanning myself in the night air and bathing my face and limbs in water till the sun rose, when with a doleful countenance I asked my way to a bath. I found one, and went into the hot inner room with nothing on but a towel round my waist and one on my head, as the custom is. There was no one else there, and when the bath man came in he started back with horror, for he thought I had got that most deadly kind of plague which breaks out in an eruption and carries off the patient in a few hours. When it was explained to him how I had fallen into the clutches of these Lemnian fleas, he proceeded to rub me and soap me according to the Turkish fashion, and wonderfully soothing and comforting it was.
As there was a rumour of pirates in these seas, the little brig would not sail till night, and I passed the day dozing in the shade out of doors; when evening came I crept down to the port, went on board, and curled myself up in the hole of a cabin among ropes and sails, and went to sleep at once, and did not wake again till we arrived within a short distance of the most magnificent mountain imaginable, rising in a peak of white marble ten thousand feet straight out of the sea. It was a lovely fresh morning, so I stood with half of my body out of the hatchway enjoying the glorious prospect, and making my toilette with the deck for a dressing-table, to thegreat admiration of the Greek crew, who were a perfect contrast to my former Turkish friends, for they did nothing but lounge about and chatter, and give orders to each other, every one of them appearing unwilling to do his own share of the work.
GREEK SAILOR.GREEK SAILOR.
We steered for a tall square tower which stood on a projecting marble rock above the calm blue sea at the S.E. corner of the peninsula; and rounding a small cape we turned into a beautiful little port or harbour, the entrance of which was commanded by this tower and by one or two other buildings constructed for defence at the foot of it, all in the Byzantine style of architecture. The quaint half-Eastern half-Norman architecture of the little fortress, my outlandish vessel, the brilliant colours of the sailors' dresses, the rich vegetation and great tufts of flowers which grew in crevices of the white marble, formed altogether one of the most picturesque scenes it was ever my good fortune to behold, and which I always remember with pleasure. We saw no one, but about a mile off there was the great monastery of St. Laura standing above us among the trees on the side of the mountain, and this delightful little bay was, as the sailors told us, the scarricatojo or landing-place for pilgrims who were going to the monastery.
We paid off the vessel, and my things were landed on the beach. It was not an operation of much labour, for my effects consisted principally of an enormous pairof saddle-bags, made of a sort of carpet, and which are called khourges, and are carried by the camels in Arabia; but there was at present mighty little in them: nevertheless, light as they were, their appearance would have excited a feeling of consternation in the mind of the most phlegmatic mule. After a brisk chatter on the part of the whole crew, who, with abundance of gesticulations, all talked at once, they got on board, and towing the vessel out by means of an exceeding small boat, set sail, and left me and my man and the saddle-bags high and dry upon the shore. We were somewhat taken by surprise at this sudden departure of our marine, so we sat upon two stones for a while to think about it. "Well," said I, "we are at Mount Athos; so suppose you walk up to the monastery, and get some mules or monks, or something or other to carry up the saddle-bags. Tell them the celebrated Milordos Inglesis, the friend of the Universal Patriarch, is arrived, and that he kindly intends to visit their monastery; and that he is a great ally of the Sultan's, and of all the captains of all the men of war that come down the Archipelago: and," added I, "make haste now, and let us be up at the monastery lest our friends in the brig there should take it into their heads to come back and cut our throats."
Away he went, and I and the saddle-bags remainedbelow. For some time I solaced myself by throwing stones into the water, and then I walked up the path to look about me, and found a red mulberry-tree with fine ripe mulberries on it, of which I ate a prodigious number in order to pass away the time. As I was studying the Byzantine tower, I thought I saw something peeping out of a loophole near the top of it, and, on looking more attentively, I saw it was the head of an old man with a long grey beard, who was gazing cautiously at me. I shouted out at the top of my voice, "Kalemera sas, ariste, kalemera sas (good day to you, sir); ora kali sas (good morning to you);του δἁπομειβομενος;" he answered in return, "Kalos orizete?" (how do you do?) So I went up to the tower, passed over a plank that served as a drawbridge across a chasm, and at the door of a wall which surrounded the lower buildings stood a little old monk, the same who had been peeping out of the loophole above. He took me into his castle, where he seemed to be living all alone in a Byzantine lean-to at the foot of the tower, the window of his room looking over the port beneath. This room had numerous pegs in the wall, on which were hung dried herbs and simples; one or two great jars stood in the corner, and these and a small divan formed all his household furniture. We began to talk in Romaic, but I was not very strong in that language, and presently stuck fast. Heshowed me over the tower, which contained several groined vaulted rooms one above another, all empty. From the top there was a glorious view of the islands and the sea. Thought I to myself, this is a real, genuine, unsophisticated live hermit; he is not stuffed like the hermit at Vauxhall, nor made up of beard and blankets like those on the stage; he is a genuine specimen of an almost extinct race. What would not Walter Scott have given for him? The aspect of my host and his Byzantine tower savoured so completely of the days of the twelfth century, that I seemed to have entered another world, and should hardly have been surprised if a crusader in chain-armour had entered the room and knelt down before the hermit's feet The poor old hermit observing me looking about at all his goods and chattels, got up on his divan, and from a shelf reached down a large rosy apple, which he presented to me; it was evidently the best thing he had, and I was touched when he gave it to me. I took a great bite: it was very sour indeed; but what was to be done? I could not bear to vex the old man, so I went on eating a great deal of it, although it brought the tears into my eyes.
We now heard a holloing and shouting, which portended the arrival of the mules, and, bidding adieu to the old hermit of the tower, I mounted a mule; the others were lightly loaded with my effects, and wescrambled up a steep rocky path through a thicket of odoriferous evergreen shrubs, our progress being assisted by the screams and bangs inflicted by several stout acolytes, a sort of lay-brethren, who came down with the animals from the convent.
Monastery of St. Laura—Kind Reception by the Abbot—Astonishment of the Monks—History of the Monastery—Rules of the Order of St. Basil—Description of the Buildings—Curious Pictures of the Last Judgment—Early Greek Paintings; Richness of their Frames and Decorations—Ancient Church Plate—Beautiful Reliquary—The Refectory—The Abbot's Savoury Dish—The Library—The MSS.—Ride to the Monastery of Caracalla—Magnificent Scenery.
Wesoon emerged upon a flat piece of ground, and there before us stood the great monastery of
ST. LAURA.
It appeared like an ancient fortress, surrounded with high blank walls, over the tops of which were seen numerous domes and pinnacles, and odd-shaped roofs and cypress-trees, all jumbled together. In some places one of those projecting windows, which are called shahneshin at Constantinople, stood out from the great encircling wall at a considerable height above the ground; and in front of the entrance was a porch in the Byzantine style, consisting of four marble columns, supporting a dome; in this porch stood the agoumenos, backed by a great many of the brethren. My servant had, doubtless, told him what an extraordinarily great personage he was to expect, for he received mewith great deference; and after the usual bows and compliments the dark train of Greek monks filed in through the outer and two inner iron gates, in a sort of procession, with which goodly company I proceeded to the church, which stood in the middle of the great court-yard. We went up to the screen of the altar, and there everybody made bows, and said "Kyrie eleison," which they repeated as quickly and in as high a key as they could. We then came out of the church, and the agoumenos, taking me by the hand, led me up divers dark wooden staircases, until we came into a large cheerful room well furnished in the Turkish style, and having one of the projecting windows which I had seen from the outside. In this room, which the agoumenos told me I was to consider as my own, we had coffee. I then presented the letter of the patriarch; he read it with great respect, and said I was welcome to remain in the monastery as long as I liked; and after various compliments given and received he left me; and I found myself comfortably installed in one of the grand—and, as yet, unexplored—monasteries of the famous sanctuary of Mount Athos: better known in the Levant by the appellation ofΑγιον Ορος, or, as the Italian hath it, Monte Santo.
Before long I received visits from divers holy brethren, being those who held offices in the monastery under my lord the agoumenos, and there was no end to the civilities which passed between us. At lastthey all departed, and towards evening I went out and walked about; those monks whom I met either opening their eyes and mouths, and standing still, or else bowing profoundly and going through the whole series of gesticulations which are practised towards persons of superior rank; for the poor monks never having seen a stranger before, or at least a Frank, did not know what to make of me, and according to their various degrees of intellect treated me with respect or astonishment. But Greek monks are not so ill-mannered as an English mob, and therefore they did not run after me, but only stared and crossed themselves as the unknown animal passed by.
I will now, from the information I received from the monks and my own observation, give the best account I can of this extensive and curious monastery. It was founded by an Emperor Nicephorus, but what particular Nicephorus he was nobody knew. Nicephorus, the treasurer, got into trouble with Charlemagne on one side, and Haroun al Raschid on the other, and was killed by the Bulgarians in 811. Nicephorus Phocas was a great captain, a mighty man of valour; who fought with everybody, and frightened the Caliph at the gates of Bagdad, but did good to no one; and at length became so disagreeable that his wife had him murdered in 969. Nicephorus Botoniates, by the help of Alexius Comnenus, caught and put out the eyes of his rival Nicephorus Bryennius, whoseson married that celebrated blue-stocking Anna Comnena. However, Nicephorus Botoniates having quarrelled with Alexius Comnenus, that great man kicked him out and reigned in his stead, and Botoniates took refuge in this monastery, which, as I make out, he had founded some time before. He came here about the year 1081, and took the vows of a kaloyeri, or Greek monk.
πατρηζαπατρηζα
This word kaloyeri means a good old man. All the monks of Mount Athos follow the rule of St. Basil: indeed, all Greek monks are of this order. They are ascetics, and their discipline is most severe: they never eat meat, fish they have on feast-days; but on fast-days, which are above a hundred in the year, they are not allowed any animal substance or even oil; their prayers occupy eight hours in the day, and about two during the night, so that they never enjoy a real night's rest. They never sit down during prayer, but as the services are of extreme length they are allowed to rest their arms on the elbows of a sort of stalls without seats, which are found in all Greek churches, and at other times they lean on a crutch. A crutch of this kind, of silver, richly ornamented, forms the patriarchal staff:it is called the patritza, and answers to the crosier of the Roman bishops. Bells are not used to call the fraternity to prayers, but a long piece of board, suspended by two strings, is struck with a mallet. Sometimes, instead of the wooden board, a piece of iron, like part of the tire of a wheel, is used for this purpose. Bells are rung only on occasions of rejoicing, or to show respect to some great personage, and on the great feasts of the church.
The accompanying sketches will explain the forms of the patriarchal staff, the board, and the iron bar.
τοκμακ, a hammer, in Turkish.τοκμακ, a hammer, in Turkish.
τοκμακ, a hammer, in Turkish.
The latter are called in Romaicσημανδρος, a word derived fromσημασοκτουμαι, to gather together.
According to Johannes Comnenus, who visited Mount Athos in 1701, and whose works are quoted in Montfaucon, 'Paleographia Græca,' page 452, St. Laura was founded by Nicephorus Phocas, and restoredby Neagulus, Waywode of Bessarabia. The buildings consist of a thick and lofty wall of stone, which encompasses an irregular space of ground of between three and four acres in extent; there is only one entrance, a crooked passage defended by three separate iron doors; the front of the building on the side of the entrance extends about five hundred feet. There is no attempt at external architecture, but only this plain wall; the few windows which look out from it belong to rooms which are built of wood and project over the top of the wall, being supported upon strong beams like brackets. At the south-west corner of the building there is a large square tower, which formerly contained a printing-press: but this press was destroyed by the Turkish soldiers during the late Greek revolution; and at the same time they carried off certain old cannons, which stood upon the battlements, but which were more for show than use, for the monks had never once ventured to fire them off during the long period they had been there; and my question, as to when they were brought there originally, was answered by the universal and regular answer of the Levant, "τι εξεβζο—Qui sa?—who knows?" The interior of the monastery consists of several small courts and two large open spaces surrounded with buildings, which have open galleries of wood or stone before them, by means of which entrance is gained into the various apartments, which now afford lodging forone hundred and twenty monks, and there is room for many more. These two large courts are built without any regularity, but their architecture is exceedingly curious, and in its style closely resembles the buildings erected in Constantinople between the fifth and the twelfth century: a sort of Byzantine, of which St. Marc's in Venice is the finest specimen in Europe. It bears some affinity to the Lombardic or Romanesque, only it is more Oriental in its style; the chapel of the ancient palace of Palermo is more in the style of the buildings on Mount Athos than anything else in Christendom that I remember; but the ceilings of that chapel are regularly arabesque, whereas those on Mount Athos are flat with painted beams, like the Italian basilicas, excepting where they are arched or domed; and in those cases there is little or no mosaic, but only coarse paintings in fresco representing saints in the conventional Greek style of superlative ugliness.
In the centre of each of these two large courts stands a church of moderate size, each of which has a porch with thin marble columns before the door; the interior walls of the porches are covered with paintings of saints and also of the Last Judgment, which, indeed, is constantly seen in the porch of every church. In these pictures, which are often of immense size, the artists evidently took much more pains to represent the uncouthness of the devils than thebeauty of the angels, who, in all these ancient frescos, are a very hard-favoured set. The chief devil is very big; he is the hero of the scene, and is always marvellously hideous, with a great mouth and long teeth, with which he is usually gnawing two or three sinners, who, to judge from the expression of his face, must be very nauseous articles of food. He stands up to his middle in a red pool which is intended for fire, and wherein numerous little sinners are disporting themselves like fish in all sorts of attitudes, but without looking at all alarmed or unhappy. On one side of the picture an angel is weighing a few in a pair of scales, and others are capering about in company with some smaller devils, who evidently lead a merry life of it. The souls of the blessed are seated in a row on a long hard bench very high up in the picture; these are all old men with beards; some are covered with hair, others richly clothed, anchorites and princes being the only persons elevated to the bench. They have good stout glories round their heads, which in rich churches are gilt, and in the poorer ones are painted yellow, and look like large straw hats. These personages are severe and grim of countenance, and look by no means comfortable or at home; they each hold a large book, and give you the idea that except for the honour of the thing they would be much happier in company with the wicked little sinners and merry imps in the crimson lake below. Thispicture of the Last Judgment is as much conventional as the portraits of the saints; it is almost always the same, and a correct representation of a part of it is to be seen in the last print of the rare volume of the Monte Santo di Dio, which contains the three earliest engravings known: it would almost appear that the print must have been copied from one of these ancient Greek frescos. It is difficult to conceive how any one, even in the dark ages, can have been simple enough to look upon these quaint and absurd paintings with feelings of religious awe; but some of the monks of the Holy Mountain do so even now, and were evidently scandalized when they saw me smile. This is, however, only one of the numberless instances in which, owing to the differences of education and circumstances, men look upon the same thing with awe or pity, with ridicule or veneration.[15]
The interior of the principal church in this monastery is interesting from the number of early Greek pictures which it contains, and which are hung on the walls of the apsis behind the altar. They are almost all in silver frames, and are painted on wood; most of them are small, being not more than one or two feet square; the back-ground of all of them is gilt; and in many of them this back-ground is formed of plates of silver or gold. One small painting is ascribed to St. Luke, and several have the frames set with jewels, and are of great antiquity. In front of the altar, and suspended from the two columns nearest to theικονοsτασις—the screen which, like the veil of the temple, conceals the holy of holies from the gaze of the profane—are two pictures larger than the rest: the one represents our Saviour, the other the Blessed Virgin. Except the faces they are entirely covered over with plates of silver-gilt; and the whole of both pictures, as well as their frames, is richly ornamented with a kind of coarse golden filigree, set with large turquoises, agates, and cornelians. These very curious productions of early art were presented to the monastery by the Emperor Andronicus Paleologus, whose portrait, with that of his Empress, is represented on the silver frame.
The floor of this church, and of the one which stands in the centre of the other court, is paved with rich coloured marbles. The relics are preserved in that division of the church which is behind the altar; their number and value is much less than formerly, as during the revolution, when the Holy Mountain was under the rule of Aboulabout Pasha, he squeezed all he could out of the monks of this and all the other monasteries. However, as no Turk is a match for a Greek, they managed to preserve a great deal of ancient church plate, some of which dates as far back as the days of the Roman emperors, for few of the Christian successors of Constantine failed to offer some little bribe to the saints in order to obtain pardon for the desperate manner in which they passed their lives. Some of these pieces of plate are well worthy the attention of antiquarians, being probably the most ancient specimens of art in goldsmith's work now extant; and as they have remained in the several monasteries ever since the piety of their donors first sent them there, their authenticity cannot be questioned, besides which many of them are extremely magnificent and beautiful.
The most valuable reliquary of St. Laura is a kind of triptic, about eighteen inches high, of pure gold, a present from the Emperor Nicephorus, the founder of the abbey. The front represents a pair of folding-doors, each set with a double row of diamonds (the most ancient specimens of this stone that I have seen),emeralds, pearls, and rubies as large as sixpences. When the doors are opened a large piece of the holy cross, splendidly set with jewels, is displayed in the centre, and the inside of the two doors and the whole surface of the reliquary are covered with engraved figures of the saints stuck full of precious stones. This beautiful shrine is of Byzantine workmanship, and, in its way, is a superb work of art.