132 
DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
desert, the exterior wall of the monastery is con- 
structed with a little wicket, instead of a gate, 
which is never opened without extreme precau- 
tion. In the upper part of the exterior wall, a 
platform is constructed, with loop-holes and small 
masked bastions. Within the exterior enclosure 
is a small garden, in which the monks cultivate 
some esculent plants, with a few dates and olives. 
The libraries of these monasteries contain few va- 
luable manuscripts ; consisting chiefly of ascetic 
treatises in the Arabic, Syriac, and Coptic lan- 
guages. The frightful solitudes of Nitria have in 
every age been the chosen retreats of monastic 
seclusion. The dreary aspect of the desert, and 
its silent solitude, fostered a misanthropic turn of 
mind. The sweetest attributes of humanity, and 
the play of the kind affections, were resigned for 
a morose austerity, which soon degenerated into a 
sullen and ferocious gloom. In dreary excavated 
cells, of so small a size that they were scarcely 
capable of containing the human body, they lived 
immured from society, and subjected themselves 
to the most dreadful penances. Having acquired 
a slight tincture of Christianity, in the first cen- 
turies after its promulgation, they did not re- 
nounce their ascetic practices, but exhibited the 
first examples of the spirit of monachism. In the 
fourth century, the desert of Nitria swarmed with 
recluse penitents, and received a new appellation 
