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MOUNT ATHOS. 



and to places where there are few mules to be procured, we left the 

 greatest part of our baggage to be sent across the Isthmus to the 

 convent of Xeropotamo, there to wait our arrival ; the Hegoumenos 

 previously requesting us to seal each parcel with our own seals. The 

 road from Iveron to Philotheo, presents a succession of very 

 picturesque scenery ; particularly the ruined convent of Mylo- 

 Potamos, now a kellia or farm-house belonging to Iveron ; it is 

 placed in a little green valley near the sea ; a clear glittering stream 

 winds its course through it ; and the mountains around are covered 

 with overhanging woods up to their summits. The convent of 

 Philotheo is small, but the church more rich and splendid than the 

 rest of the edifice leads us to expect. We passed the night there, 

 and in the morning took a catalogue of their manuscripts. Little is 

 worthy of notice amongst them, excepting a beautiful copy of the 

 Gospels and one of the Acts, Epistles, and Revelations ; the rest 

 are ecclesiastical. We rode next to the monastery of Caracalla, 

 which is about four miles distant. Amongst the manuscripts, we 

 found a treatise in small characters, accented and contracted ; the 

 commentary surrounding the text is in beautiful uncial letters ; these 

 are in general supposed to be older in date than the characters 

 formed by the connected mode of writing ; but in this instance, they 

 must have been subsequent to them. A miscellaneous compilation 

 containing part of Demosthenes, of Justin translated into Greek, of 

 the Hecuba of Euripides, and the first book of Euclid, and some 

 verses are the only classical fragments. The verses are from Hesiod 

 and from the Batrachomyomachia of Homer. On the next day we 

 went in the boat of the convent to Santa Laura ; and were four 

 hours on the passage, having the lofty snow-clad summits of Athos 

 continually in our view, appearing to rise perpendicularly from the 

 waves. At this grand convent there are about two hundred caloyers 

 within the walls ; they calculate their annual expences at thirty 

 thousand piastres, in addition to forty thousand piastres interest, 

 for money borrowed and funded. The noise and confusion we 

 observed within the place, reminded us more of an inn than of a 



