The Island of San Lazzaro 
THE COW HOUSE 
IN THE GRAPE ARBOR 
However, our interest lay rather 
in another subject. From the gon¬ 
dola we had caught glimpses of 
the outer gardens and were im¬ 
patient to explore them. Strange 
to say, though there are many 
visitors in the season, few see the 
gardens. The friars modestly 
assume that tourists are interested 
in their island only through the 
poet Byron’s having spent a year 
there -to study the language, they 
say, though they confess he was 
more successful as a poet than as a 
student of Armenian. They point 
out certain rooms where he worked 
and studied, the chapel, the library 
with its collection of rare manu¬ 
scripts, the 
cloisters, and 
perhaps the 
great wains- 
cotted refec¬ 
tory where the 
friars dine in 
a row along 
the walls be¬ 
hind the ta¬ 
bles. Before 
sitting down 
together, grace 
is said in com¬ 
mon; the pres- 
i d e n t recites 
some prayer, 
two of the 
scholars recite 
6 inches-—u 
fac/np &o/raacc 
efe)3s 
Jntoy^rbor*. 
The Fountain Arbor 
THE ISLAND IN SILHOUETTE 
From a sketch by the author 
a psalm, the Lord’s prayer is re¬ 
peated and the meal dispatched 
in silence. Meanwhile one of the 
novices appears in the pulpit and 
reads first a lesson from the Bible 
and then a selection from some 
other book. The meal finished, 
the president rings a bell, the 
reader retires to dine, the com¬ 
munity rises, they give thanks and 
pass out to the garden. 
To the gardens then we asked 
to be taken. Ushered back along 
tbe cloisters and through a small 
iron-grilled doorway, we emerged 
under a pomegranate tree with 
ripe fruit flaming through the 
leaves, in a part of the gardens 
near the en¬ 
trance harbor. 
We were left 
to wander at 
will past 
peach and 
olive trees, 
grape vines 
and oleanders. 
Before us, at 
the end of 
the long path, 
was a brick- 
walled ter¬ 
race, bastion¬ 
like, project¬ 
ing out into 
the lagoon. It 
was then in a 
1 3 ° 
