the; monastery of iviron 



Photograph by II. G. Dwight 

 MT. ATHOS, GREECE 



Iviron disputes with Vatopethi the honor of being the second oldest monastery on Mt. 

 Athos. Iviron was founded in the tenth century, under the Empress Theophano. It was 

 later restored and enlarged by a Georgian prince ; hence the name, for the Georgians of the 

 Caucasus were known to the Greeks as the Iberians. 



like a coil of rope dropped at random on 

 the mountain side, up and up past ter- 

 raced olive trees, past a white monastery 

 looking pleasantly at the sea from a high 

 green shelf, past reaches of budding 

 wood, to a dip on top of the ridge, we 

 came upon great shrubs and fair-sized 

 trees of holly, so plenteously burdened 

 with big red berries that the monks should 

 have destroyed them, root and branch, 

 had they properly studied their botanies. 

 We also saw blossoming heather, broom, 

 violets, anemones, spikes of classic aspho- 

 del, and I know not how many other 

 proofs that spring will be spring in spite 

 of all the monks in the world. 



And amid them all two great crosses 

 stood black on either lip of the hollow 

 against a far-away sea. So we dropped 

 at last, through what must once have 

 been a magnificent wood, to the village 

 of Karyes. 



Karyes, otherwise The Walnuts, is the 

 capital of the community. It lies just 

 under the crest of the peninsula, about 

 midway of its long eastern slope. An 

 ignorant newcomer runs fresh risk of in- 

 curring displeasure, even when he has 

 left his wife behind ; for in the streets of 

 this other-worldly capital may no man 

 ride, smoke, sing, or otherwise comport 

 himself in too self-satisfied a manner. 



Dismounting, accordingly, at a stone 

 block provided for that purpose, we had 

 the more leisure to admire Karyes — its 

 crooked alleys, its broad eaves, its om- 

 nipresent crosses, its running water, its 

 hanging gardens, its sudden visions of 

 white-capped Athos or the underlying 

 blue of the JEgean, and its grave, bearded 

 black-gowned inhabitants, with uncut hair 

 tucked under black stove-pipes ; true 

 stove-pipes they were, too, having neither 



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