J 94 LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE 



LETTER V. 



My Lord, Salonica, April 27. 1801. 



Though I am not very sure that this letter may reach Your Lordship, 

 yet I cannot help endeavouring to communicate to you that I have 

 at length finished the investigation of all the MSS. contained on 

 Mount Athos. I had always wished to make the examination ot 

 them as it has hitherto been in some measure a desideratum in 

 literature, but the letter I received from Your Lordship, determined 

 me if possible to attempt it. 



After leaving Constantinople therefore, and spending sixteen or 

 seventeen most interesting days upon the Troad, I proceeded by the 

 route of Tenedos and Lemnos to the Holy mountain. In my voyage 

 between the two last places I was exposed to a most dreadful storm, 

 which we have every reason to believe proved fatal to several vessels 

 of the same size as ours, that quitted Lemnos in company with us ; 

 but a merciful God thought fit to preserve us ; after being buffeted 

 about in our little caique for upwards of twelve hours, we were 

 safely landed under the hospitable walls of one of the monasteries in 

 the peninsula of Mount Athos. As I had previously provided myself 

 with letters both from the government and the Patriarch, I was 

 received with every mark of kindness, and introduced into every 

 repository that I wished to examine. The whole number of convents 

 upon the mountain consists of twenty-two, and each of these is 

 furnished with a library of MSS., more or less numerous according 

 to the wealth and importance of the society to which it belongs. 

 The monasteries lie at different distances from each other, and in 

 fact with their dependencies of cells and farms, people the peninsula, 

 into which not one female of any kind, even to a sheep or a hen is 

 ever admitted. Their situation is the most various, and at the 

 same time the most romantic that can be conceived. Out of the 



