A VISIT TO THE MONASTERIES OF MOUNT ATHOS. 155 



coveted a photograph of a Moorish woman which I 

 chanced to have among others ; he therefore, having 

 directed my attention to some object visible from the 

 window, placed it, as he thought unobserved, within 

 the folds of his dress, where I allowed it to remain. 

 I next visited S. Dionysio, S. Pauvolo (where, owing 

 to the weather, I remained for three nights), and 

 thence to 8. Lauro, the largest of all. In this mo- 

 nastery, which is a Koinobite one, the library, accord- 

 ing to Curzon, contains about 5,000 volumes, of 

 which 4,000 are printed and are mostly on divinity, 

 and 900 written on paper and 100 on vellum, com- 

 prising Aldine classics, Anthologia, Homer, Hesiod, 

 works on botany, liturgies, books of prayer and divi- 

 nity. Some are folios of the works of St. Chry- 

 sostom and other Greek fathers of the eleventh and 

 twelfth centuries, and copies of the Gospels of about 

 the same age. 



Other monasteries have libraries of similar cha- 

 racter. 



Many of the monks used to insist on detailing all 

 their symptoms to me. This was especially the case 

 at the next monastery, of Caracalla, where the last 

 thing I saw as I turned to look back at the building, 

 a hundred yards behind me, as I quitted it next 

 morning, was one of the old hypochondriacs standing 

 at the portal, with his mouth yet wide open and 

 tongue protruded for my inspection. Thence I went 

 on to the monasteries of Iveron, Stauroniketes, and 

 Pantokrator ; and thence back to Karies to obtain the 



