A VISIT TO THE MONASTERIES OF MOUNT ATHOS. 147 



many as twenty-five churches or chapels, and some- 

 times more, in each monastery), as he undoubtedly 

 will, in the first two or three monasteries he enters, 

 he will see a sight at once picturesque and solemn, 

 painful and interesting. All are built on the same 

 principle, and decorated in the same way. A dimly- 

 lighted, domed, cruciform building ; painted, frescoed, 

 and hung with pictures, brass pendants, candlesticks ; 

 and walled with tall black pews, in which loll, recline, 

 half standing, half sitting, rows of old, black-robed, 

 white-bearded, half somnolent monks, who all night 

 long will take up one by one with monotonous intona- 

 tion the rolling chant. He will be conducted to a 

 conspicuous seat, where, in a worldly check tweed 

 suit, he will feel strangely out of place. He will have 

 the advantage of being in a lighted part of the chapel, 

 while the corner whence he had hoped to observe un- 

 noticed is bathed in the deepest gloom, and the disad- 

 vantage of not being able to escape without exciting 

 attention. He will possibly have a struggle to 

 maintain an unmoved countenance when he sees all 

 the inhabitants of the monastery, monks, caloyers, 

 servants, priests, pressing forward to kiss a little 

 picture of the saint, whose festa it may be on the 

 morrow, or bowing forward to sniff as much as 

 possible of the holy fragrance of the incense which 

 the acolyte comes round swinging before each of them 

 in turn, or in turn prostrating themselves many times 

 in succession and touching with their foreheads the 

 pavement before the high altar. 



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