MOUNT ATHOS. 



203 



The water with which this convent and its gardens are supplied is 

 brought thither in an open canal from a distance of some miles. It is 

 conducted along the sides of the mountains, and sometimes crosses 

 the glens and vallies in most picturesque situations. A walk shaded 

 by trees runs along the whole extent of this stream, which we often 

 followed up to its source in a romantic cleft of the mountain, where 

 there is a fine natural cascade. In one of our rambles near the monas- 

 tery, we went to a small building, and to our surprise and horror 

 found it filled with piles of skulls of such Monks and Caloyers as have 

 died within the walls of the convent. A little church, dedicated to 

 all the saints, is placed over this awful repository of mortality. By the 

 canons of the order, no Caloyer or Monk can eat meat, except in case 

 of great or extreme illness. He must also abstain from eggs, oil, and 

 fish*, on all Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The food on those 

 days is restricted to bread, salted olives, and vegetable soup. This is 

 made of dried peas, beans, or other pulse ; onions and leeks : the latter 

 grow to a most extraordinary size. The Hegoumenos assured us they 

 sometimes weighed an oke (or 2f lbs. avoirdupois) each. 



No woman is suffered to enter the gates of this, or even of any other 

 convent on the Holy mountain-f*, ( gens (eterna, in qua nemo nascitur;) 

 nor is any female animal permitted to come upon the peninsula, a 

 prejudice to which the Turks conform by not allowing the Vaivode at 

 Chariess to have any woman with him during the period of his govern- 

 ment. A still more whimsical regulation is, that neither cows, ewes, 

 or hens are suffered to be brought to the peninsula ; the inhabitants, 



* On the peninsula of Athos, Belon found the river crab, cancer Jluviatilis ; it is con- 

 sidered a great delicacy, and is eaten by the Greeks in many pai'ts of Turkey, in Lent 

 time. " Les Caloires les mangent cruds, et nous asseurent," says Belon, " qu'ils estoyent 

 meilleurs que cuicts." They are found near Aleppo, and are there in perfection in the 

 season of the white mulberries; the ripe fruit scattered on the ground under the trees is 

 eaten by them. — Russell, ii. 221. 



f " 'Oo yvvccixcov IxeV £ovauA<a," says Nicephorus Gregoras, in his account of Mount 

 Athos, lib. xiv. The words in the text are those of Pliny, when speaking of the Thera- 

 peutae. 



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