ON THE RIGHT IS THE GUEST HOUSE OE VATOPETHI 



Photograph by H. G. Dwight 

 MT. ATHOS, GREECE 



According to Riley, whose book, "Athos the Mount of the Monks," is an authority, more 

 than 250 tons of grapes are made into wine at the Vatopethi Monastery annually, and each 

 monk and servant gets a dailv allowance of wine. 



nity and the square old tower beside it. 

 Far more imposing was the pretorian 

 guardsman, who stood at the gate. Four 

 of these, we later learned, are attached 

 to the service of parliament, while a 

 larger standing army of- 20 men, called 

 serddrs, scour the lonely trails of the 

 peninsula. 



THE ETIQUETTE OF THE TRAY 



Having sent in our letter by the hand 

 of the white-kilted warrior, we presently 

 had the honor to be received by the 

 Council of Five, in a long, bare room al- 

 most entirely surrounded by a low divan. 

 Two of the councilors spoke French, it 

 appeared, which comforted us not a little 

 in discharging the formidable compli- 

 ments of the occasion. Then, while the 

 secretary prepared the circular, which we 

 were to have in exchange for our patri- 

 archal missive, one of the guardsmen ap- 



peared before us with a tray. Its be- 

 wildering multiplicity of spoons, saucers, 

 glasses, and refreshments presented well- 

 nigh insoluble problems. I am not sure 

 that we solved them with perfect cor- 

 rectness then ; but since we never paid a 

 visit on Mt. Athos without meeting the 

 counterpart of that tray, I am now pre- 

 pared to expound its etiquette to any 

 prospective traveler in the Levant. 



You choose a spoon ; you dip it into a 

 jar of preserves; you put it into your 

 mouth and turn it gracefully over, in 

 order to lose nothing of its sweetness ; 

 you drop it into a glass of water provided 

 for that purpose ; you drink a little water 

 from another glass ; you raise a third 

 glass, containing a heady liqueur, with as 

 handsome a speech to the company as 

 your knowledge of strange tongues will 

 devise; you drink — if you choose — more 

 water, and you end with a cup of Turk- 



255 



