A VISIT TO THE MONASTERIES OF MOUNT ATHOS. 145 



There are two kinds of monasteries. In the 

 Koinobite monasteries they never eat meat, property 

 is held in common, and the Hegumenos has supreme 

 authority over the monks. In the Idiorythmic, where 

 they seldom eat meat, the Agoumenos is head, and 

 everything is at his disposal. Of one thing the 

 traveller may be sure, that he will meet no other 

 tourists at Mount Athos. 



The traveller on arrival at each monastery, if he is 

 provided with a letter from the Patriarch, will be 

 received with most sumptuous and old-fashioned hos- 

 pitality of the Middle Ages ; will be entertained with 

 almost regal pomp on the plainest fare and good wine ; 

 will be lodged in the best rooms or the best guest- 

 chambers of the monastery, fitted up with divans in 

 Oriental style and hung round with quaint prints and 

 pictures of monastic life, sometimes startlingly con- 

 trasted with flaring coloured worldly drawings; or 

 sometimes queer old-time woodcuts of rows of unhappy 

 monks ascending one by one a ladder into heaven, 

 from which some are being dragged by devils with 

 long grappling poles and thrown into flames below, 

 while close by rows of mitred bishops are uncon- 

 cernedly celebrating religious rites. But four pictures 

 the traveller will almost invariably see namely, of 

 the Emperor and Empress of Eussia and the King and 

 Queen of Greece ; while occasionally a shrine, before 

 which burns a perennial lamp, like the vestal fire 

 constantly renewed, will illumine his chamber in a 

 ghostly and dim manner during the long watches of 



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