208 



MOUNT ATHOS. 



We lodged in an apartment which had been occupied by an exiled 

 archbishop ; the windows command a view of almost every object 

 that a painter could wish to combine in a landscape ; bold craggy 

 rocks, which in some parts beetle over the sea, and in others, afford 

 little nooks where the caloyers enjoy the shade and breeze ; the 

 winding shore, with hanging groves of orange and other fruit trees, 

 broken by wild glens running up the country ; and the monastery of 

 Pantocratoras, with its walls, domes, and turrets embosomed in wood, 

 closing the scene. 



Stavroniketa is a small convent of the fourth class, containing 

 about forty monks. Its gardens are in most excellent order. A 

 long aqueduct, which must have cost a very considerable sum, supplies 

 them plentifully with water ; and by means of this they can irrigate 

 every spot with such nice precision, as to make their crops almost 

 independent of rain. In the church of this convent we saw a very 

 ancient portrait in Mosaic of the Patron Saint Nicholas ; it had been 

 much injured, the monks told us, by the rage of the barbarians ; a 

 name, I supposed, which they gave to the Turks ; but on inquiry, I 

 found they meant the partizans of their own Emperor in the eighth 

 century, who attempted to abolish the use of images in the Greek 

 churches. We examined the library of the convent, and took a 

 catalogue of the manuscripts, which are wholly ecclesiastical. We 

 then went in the boat of the convent to Iveron, a large monastery of 

 the first class, built, as Leo Allatius informs us, in honorem Deiparce. 

 It contains about two hundred caloyers within its walls. Besides the 

 pilgrims we found amongst the guests another exiled Patriarch of 

 Constantinople, two archbishops, and some bishops, his brother 

 exiles. The expences of this convent, including contributions to the 

 Porte and borrowed money, are calculated at 6000/. or 7000/. 

 sterling, per annum. The day after our arrival, we dined with the 

 Ex-Patriarch Gregorio, who has been two years in exile here. The 

 hour of dinner was nine o'clock in the morning ; we found his table 

 furnished in a style quite ex-conventual, with lamb, sausages, hams, 

 and French wines. His dispensing power seems to remain although 



