WITH THE MONKS AT METEORA 



799 



Throughout our stay in eastern Persia 

 we everywhere found conditions much 

 the same as in Zorabad. Poverty is the 

 rule, and with it go shiftlessness, lack of 

 neatness, lack of ambition, and vices such 

 as opium-smoking. It hardly seems fair 

 to condemn the Persians for these things. 

 In other parts of the country conditions 

 are much better. In the eastern half of 



Persia, however, there is so little rainfall 

 that no crops can be grown except in a few 

 pitifully poor oases. No one can hope to- 

 prosper greatly, no matter how hard he 

 may work. Therefore the inhabitants- 

 stagnate and play no part in the present 

 history of the country except as pawns- 

 to be harried by the Afghans, cowed by 

 the Russians, or cajoled by the English. 



WITH THE MONKS AT METEORA: 

 MONASTERIES OF THESSALY 



THE 



By Elizabeth Perkins 



THERE is a legend, perhaps it is 

 history, that there was once a 

 ruler in Constantinople who dis- 

 liked his brother and wished to banish 

 him to the remotest corner of his king- 

 dom. Consequently the monarch built a 

 monastery on a well-nigh inaccessible 

 mountain in Thessaly and founded a 

 brotherhood, about four hundred years 

 ago, in what seemed to be the uttermost 

 corner of the earth. 



The monastery was called "Meteora," 

 meaning "domicile of the sky." After 

 the original was built, twenty-three others 

 grouped themselves around and were 

 inhabited for awhile. They were, how- 

 ever, finally abandoned, with the excep- 

 tion of three which are still in use. 



To reach this settlement one can go di- 

 rectly from Athens by train in thirteen 

 hours, for the railroad has been lately 

 finished ; or one can cross Thessaly in 

 seven hours by train from Volos. 



The season of good weather commences 

 in April, when the mountains are green 

 and yellow with gorse and the sun snines 

 almost continually. Earlier there are apt 

 to be heavy rains, and the spring thaw 

 causes a mist to rise from the frozen 

 mountains which obscures the view, while 

 the snow, melting into the earth, makes 

 mud one or two feet deep and traveling 

 on horseback is almost impossible. 



If, however, one is fortunate enough 



to hit the last of winter, when the sun 

 shines and the mountains are still re- 

 splendent in their dazzling whiteness, 

 then one sees them in all their glory. 

 The rocky eminences on which stand the 

 twenty-four monuments of man's erst- 

 while habitation seem to forbid nearer 

 approach, and yet they lure the adven- 

 turer to them by their danger. 



The seven hours' trip across the plains 

 of Thessaly to the town of Kalabaka is 

 most enchanting. Range after range of 

 hills roll up from the plateau. The foot- 

 hills in winter are powdered with snow, 

 as though an angel had shaken the down 

 from his wings ; the higher hills are 

 whiter and bleaker, and the highest hills 

 are as pure as the drifting clouds into 

 which they seem to melt and disappear 

 into highest heaven. 



On the plains flocks of goats and sheep, 

 attended by their shepherds, are spread 

 so numerously over the land that mush- 

 rooms in a field never appeared more 

 abundant. The shepherd himself is a 

 picturesque person. His legs are encased 

 in long, white leggings, ending in pointed, 

 turned-up shoes adorned with tassels. 

 A sheepskin hangs from his shoulders 

 and a staff with crook is carried in his 

 hand. 



Our train crawls over the hills and 

 across the plains at the rate of ten miles 

 an hour, and the sheep-dogs run barking 



