MOUNT ATHOS. 



205 



number ; and after reading our letters of introduction, they assured 

 us, that we might visit every part of the Holy mountain in perfect 

 security without a guard. We then waited on the Turkish Aga, who 

 had the civil jurisdiction of the peninsula ; he was a young man 

 belonging to the corps of Bostangees or life-guards of the Grand 

 Seignior ; and no situation can be conceived more ridiculous than that 

 in which we found him. His house adjoined the great church of 

 Chariess, called Protaton, round which a number of idle boys, and 

 some hundreds of noisy pilgrims were assembled. The bells were 

 ringing*, cannons and muskets incessantly firing; some were 

 chanting the liturgy in honour of the Christian festival of Easter, 

 while the Mahometan Aga, jovially drunk, was smoking his pipe in 

 the midst of them. 



Chariess is the only town in the peninsula ; situated nearly in the 

 centre of it, on the side of a natural amphitheatre, clothed with the 

 richest verdure, and cultivated in a manner to render it highly 

 picturesque. The meadows are so luxuriant as to be cut thrice in a 

 year, owing to the richness of the soil, the complete shelter they 

 enjoy, and the judicious manner in which the water is distributed by 

 irrigation. The vineyards and filberd gardens are also dressed with 

 uncommon care. Excepting the houses where the Aga and the 

 council of deputies reside, it contains only a few shops which furnish 

 the monasteries with cloth, shoes, watches, wooden clocks, and other 

 articles ; and the few luxuries allowed to the monks of the Holy 

 mountain, such as coffee, sugar, tobacco, snuff, and cordials. Every 

 Saturday a bazar or market is held here, to which the hermits repair 

 in order to sell what they have manufactured in their solitary huts. 

 Knit stockings, pictures of saints, a few simple oils and essences 



* In a few places only of the Turkish dominions are the Greeks allowed the use of bells ; 

 the common mode of notifying the hour of prayer is by striking on a board. This 

 custom is of ancient date; it was observed in the Christian monasteries before the time 

 of Mahomet II,, who at first adopted it from the Christians of Syria and Arabia. The 

 practice of calling people to prayers from the top of the Minaret was afterwards sub- 

 stituted. — Beckmann. H. of I. 3. 



