THE HOARY MONASTERIES OF MT. ATHOS 



By H. G. Dwight 



EXTENDING out into the iEgean 

 Sea from the mainland of Chal- 

 cidice, in northeastern Greece, 

 like the prongs of a trident, are three 

 peninsulas. They leave the mainland 

 some forty miles southeast of Saloniki 

 and look as though they might be the 

 fork with which Neptune planned to 

 throw the island of Chios, on the Smyrna 

 coast, out of the sea. The easternmost 

 of these peninsulas is that of Athos, 

 named from the great terminal peak 

 which rises like a pyramid out of the sea 

 at its JEgean end. The peninsula is about 

 forty miles long, varying in width from 

 four to seven miles, and it is entirely 

 owned and controlled by a group of mo- 

 nastic communities, which govern it under 

 a republican system (see map, page 271). 

 Alt. Athos chose to make its first ap- 

 pearance to us in the melodramatic light 

 of a midnight moon — a pale pyramid 

 looming vaguely above a high black 

 ridge, where a few lamps glimmered far 

 apart. Such a light was needed to lend 

 interest to Daphne, the port of the penin- 

 sula. In the less romantic clarity of a 

 March morning it appeared a dingy little 

 hamlet enough, consisting of a custom- 

 house, a postoffice, an inn, and the quar- 

 ters of the few residents so unfortunate 

 as to be stationed there. 



WHERE NO WOMAN MAY TREAD 



In normal times of peace a weekly 

 Russian steamer and occasional Greek 

 ones constitute the sole incidents of their 

 lives, deprived, as they are — shall I say 

 of what is for other men the great inter- 

 est of life? For I must reveal to you, O 

 feminists, suffragists, suffragettes, and 

 ladies militant of the western world, that 

 here is a stronghold secure against your 

 attacks. 



To put it more plainly, an ancient law 

 forbids any female creature to set foot on 

 the soil of the Sacred Mount. As one 

 might expect, of course, in a world in- 

 habited by descendants of Eve, that law 

 has been broken. There are legends of 



inquisitive empresses who were miracu- 

 lously prevented, at the door, from defil- 

 ing certain monasteries by their intrusion. 

 There are other legends of monasteries 

 subjected to fasting, humility, and purifi- 

 cation by reason of some such uninvited 

 guest. 



Moreover, a monk confessed to me in 

 whispers that during the terror of the 

 Greek War of Independence his mother 

 spent several months in asylum at the 

 monastery of St. Paul. And' I have seen 

 water-colors of several of the monasteries 

 painted by Miss Canning, daughter of the 

 famous British Ambassador, Lord Strat- 

 ford de Redcliffe, who boldly accompa- 

 nied her father to Mt. Athos in the uni- 

 form of a midshipman of the Royal 

 Navy. But no such blinking of the law 

 is possible to an inn-keeper or unhappy 

 officer of customs. 



Even the furred and feathered colo- 

 nists of Mt. Athos are supposed to leave 

 their harems at home. Neither cow nor 

 hen wakens the echoes of the monastic 

 community, and the monks' kitchens are 

 supplied with milk, butter, and eggs from 

 their distant farms on the mainland. The 

 dispiriting effects of celibacy are nowhere 

 so visible as among the army of tomcats 

 that haunt the cloisters. I must confess, 

 however, that I more than once had rea- 

 son to suspect a shameless bayadere of a 

 tabby of having secretly stolen across the 

 border. 



And our mules had not borne us far 

 from barren Daphne before we perceived 

 other indications that the monks had not 

 altogether succeeded in eradicating the 

 eternal feminine from their midst. We 

 presently turned from the rocky seashore 

 into a gorge with a stone bridge at the 

 bottom of it and a waterfall hanging half 

 way from the top, where birds called so 

 cozeningly to each other that I can never 

 believe only bachelor birds were there. 



"spring wiel be spring" 



Then as we zigzagged up a roughly 

 paved trail that looked from a distance 



