Photograph by H. G. D wight 

 A VIEW OE VATOPETHi: MT. ATHOS, GREECE 



Some idea of the extent of this monastery may be gathered from the statement that it 

 covers four acres, contains sixteen churches, large and small, and has so many buildings that 

 it resembles a fortified town. 



rather grubby little establishment — half 

 shop, half inn — where we had deposited 

 them. 



A EESS FORMAL SOCIETY 



We were happy to accept the hospi- 

 tality of this kind and intelligent father, 

 who showed us many other courtesies 

 during the course of our pilgrimage, and 

 who interested me the more because he 

 happened to be an Albanian. But truth 

 compels me to add that I also returned 

 with pleasure, more than once, to that 

 same inn. Perhaps it was because our 

 pilgrimage fell in Lent, when monks fast 

 more strictly than laymen. Perhaps it 

 was because I have a leaning toward low 

 company. 



At all events, quite as characteristic as 

 the more formal society to which our 

 letter introduced us, I found the society 

 at the inn, where shopkeepers, muleteers, 

 laborers from monastery farms, pilgrims 

 of the poorer sort, hermits, itinerant 



monks, and other wanderers gathered 

 daily and nightly in the public room or 

 in the court of flower-pots and budding 

 vines behind it. 



We had had interesting glimpses of 

 two or three monasteries and had become 

 acquainted with a number of their in- 

 mates ; but it remained for us to have 

 our first real taste of monastic life at 

 Vatopethi. I write the name hesitat- 

 ingly, knowing that my choice of letters 

 will not please the more learned of my 

 readers. No monk, however, would have 

 any idea what ycu meant if you spoke of 

 Batopedion. I therefore persist in at- 

 tempting to convey the local pronuncia- 

 tion, which accents the penult and hard- 

 ens the tit. 



A MEMORABEE JOURNEY 



Not the least memorable part of the 

 experience was the journey from Karyes, 

 which we performed by mule in some 

 three hours. The trail — for so narrow 



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