220 



MOUNT ATHOS. 



tour of the peninsula was so nearly finished. * During our stay at 

 Chiliantari, we made an excursion to the convent of Sphigmenou, 

 about three miles off, containing thirty caloyers. Its manuscripts 

 are all theological, among them are about twenty copies of the 

 sacred writings of the New Testament. We returned to Chiliantari 

 by a road that took us to another monastery called St. Basil ; which 

 had been long in ruins, but is now inhabited by six poor caloyers. Its 

 proximity to the sea would at all times render it an easy prey to 

 pirates, but its present poverty and misery are such as to invite 

 neither pilgrims to enrich it nor banditti to plunder it. It is not 

 classed among the twenty monasteries which compose the religious 

 republic of Mount Athos. 



We had now made a complete investigation of all the libraries 

 in the monasteries of this peninsula, and taken catalogues of all the 

 manuscripts they contain ; each of which we had ourselves indi- 

 vidually examined. The state in which we found these tattered and 

 mouldy volumes, [cum blattis ei tineis pugnantes,) often without 

 beginnings or endings, rendered the task very tedious ; and our 

 patience was put to a very severe trial by not once discovering an 

 unedited fragment of any classical author. But the reflection that 

 we were employed on an object which had long been a desideratum in 

 the theological and literary world, enabled us to struggle against the 

 difficulties we met, and to overcome the prejudices, the jealousy, 

 and the ignorance which often tempted the librarians of the different 

 convents to thwart our views ; and we endeavoured to complete our 

 work as accurately as our means and abilities would admit. 



When the learned Greeks fled from Constantinople in 1453, they 

 took with them to western Europe their most valuable manuscripts ; 

 those which they left, were probably secreted in the monasteries. 

 The libraries, in the islands of the sea of Marmora, and of Mount 



* See a beautiful passage of Nicephorus, where he is speaking of the trees, the 

 groves, the herbs, and scenery of Athos. (L. 14. 449.) 



