THE PATRIARCH EPHEME. 
635 
the feelings of a hospitable man and a Christian father. It being 
Friday, he was obliged to allow me to dine alone. But he gave 
orders to the steward of his household, who was also a monk, to 
make me a suitable repast, and to do its honours. He certainly 
obeyed both directions, for I had an excellent dinner; and 
though he did not partake of the flesh, he made pretty free with 
the spirit, shewing his companionable powers were not at all 
churlish. Another of the brotherhood, too, who brought in the 
desert, volunteered a psalm ; the words of which, he told me, 
were his own, but the music English. Of course I accepted as gra¬ 
ciously as it was offered; and when sung, it turned out to be our 
national air of “ God save the King,” but most wofully mutilated 
in its long journey. However, the good-humoured benevolence 
of the smiling monk, who evidently only sought to amuse me, 
sweetened his notes; and I enjoyed the simple, and often very 
sensible remarks of both brothers, during a conversation which 
occasionally referred to subjects of my late travels. Afterwards 
I went through the three churches. The first, or great church, 
is within the walls of the monastery, and dedicated to the Virgin 
Mary ; the second, about half a mile to the south, is inscribed 
to a female saint they called Kayi-Ann, and assured me she was 
a Briton born! I did not readily give my faith to this beatifi¬ 
cation. The third church is distant from the last about two 
miles to the north-west, and is dedicated to Saint Ripsima. Her 
skull, together with the arm of St. Gregory, is kept in a silver 
case, and preserved amongst the most sacred relics of Eitch- 
mai-adzen. The spear-head of Calvary, still more eminently 
revered than these relics, is brought out with them, to be held 
forth to the people in cases of any great public calamity. From a 
circumstance of this kind, I again missed the sight of the spear; 
4 m 2 
