MOUNT ATHOS. 



215 



character of his literature and polished manners, that we severely felt 

 the loss we sustained by his absence. On our forwarding a note to 

 him at Chariess for the key of the room, where the manuscripts were 

 deposited, he sent it to us, with a polite answer, expressive of his 

 regret at his being prevented from waiting on us. We found in the 

 library nineteen copies of the Gospels in ancient character and in 

 good preservation ; three of the Acts and the Epistles, and a number 

 of ecclesiastical writings. 



Having descended the steep rock of Simopetra, we rowed for two 

 hours in the fishing boat of the monastery to Xeropotamo. Here we 

 found the spring much advanced ; the roses in the garden were full- 

 blown. The situation of this convent is very pleasing to the eye, the 

 ground gradually rises to it in a gentle swell from the sea, and is 

 covered with flowering shrubs, olive trees, and thickets. It com- 

 mands a view of both the gulfs of Monte Santo and Cassandra, stud- 

 ded with islands. There are seventy caloyers within the walls, and the 

 convent is classed among those of the third size. The buildings are 

 in good preservation, and the great court contains a number of ancient 

 busts and bas-reliefs on the walls, which were sent hither by a Prince 

 of W allachia. The church is new, and not inelegant in its construc- 

 tion ; but the Greeks have covered it within and without with tasteless 

 representations of the martyrdom of saints, and the visions of the Apo- 

 calypse. In the library we found a manuscript of Genesis in Hebrew, 

 one very ancient of the Gospels in Greek ; many more recent ; some 

 selections, probably by a schoolmaster of the convent, from classical 

 authors, and many theological treatises. At the port is a broken slab 

 of Parian marble, with an inscription containing a decree of the 

 senate and people of Iasus in Asia Minor, bestowing privileges on 

 some individual who had been a benefactor to them. 



There now remained eight convents on the peninsula, which we 

 had not yet examined, and five of them so small, that they could not 

 protect us against the pirates, who, we were informed, were in some 

 boats at anchor in the little bay of Gregorio, if they should meditate 

 attacks upon us. But as we had already executed so large a portion 



