τοκμακ, a hammer, in Turkish.
The latter are called in Romaic σημανδρος, a word derived from σημασοκτουμαι, to gather together.
According to Johannes Comnenus, who visited Mount Athos in 1701, and whose works are quoted in Montfaucon, 'Paleographia Græca,' page 452, St. Laura was founded by Nicephorus Phocas, and restored by Neagulus, Waywode of Bessarabia. The buildings consist of a thick and lofty wall of stone, which encompasses an irregular space of ground of between three and four acres in extent; there is only one entrance, a crooked passage defended by three separate iron doors; the front of the building on the side of the entrance extends about five hundred feet. There is no attempt at external architecture, but only this plain wall; the few windows which look out from it belong to rooms which are built of wood and project over the top of the wall, being supported upon strong beams like brackets. At the south-west corner of the building there is a large square tower, which formerly contained a printing-press: but this press was destroyed by the Turkish soldiers during the late Greek revolution; and at the same time they carried off certain old cannons, which stood upon the battlements, but which were more for show than use, for the monks had never once ventured to fire them off during the long period they had been there; and my question, as to when they were brought there originally, was answered by the universal and regular answer of the Levant, "τι εξεβζο—Qui sa?—who knows?" The interior of the monastery consists of several small courts and two large open spaces surrounded with buildings, which have open galleries of wood or stone before them, by means of which entrance is gained into the various apartments, which now afford lodging for one hundred and twenty monks, and there is room for many more. These two large courts are built without any regularity, but their architecture is exceedingly curious, and in its style closely resembles the buildings erected in Constantinople between the fifth and the twelfth century: a sort of Byzantine, of which St. Marc's in Venice is the finest specimen in Europe. It bears some affinity to the Lombardic or Romanesque, only it is more Oriental in its style; the chapel of the ancient palace of Palermo is more in the style of the buildings on Mount Athos than anything else in Christendom that I remember; but the ceilings of that chapel are regularly arabesque, whereas those on Mount Athos are flat with painted beams, like the Italian basilicas, excepting where they are arched or domed; and in those cases there is little or no mosaic, but only coarse paintings in fresco representing saints in the conventional Greek style of superlative ugliness.
In the centre of each of these two large courts stands a church of moderate size, each of which has a porch with thin marble columns before the door; the interior walls of the porches are covered with paintings of saints and also of the Last Judgment, which, indeed, is constantly seen in the porch of every church. In these pictures, which are often of immense size, the artists evidently took much more pains to represent the uncouthness of the devils than the beauty of the angels, who, in all these ancient frescos, are a very hard-favoured set. The chief devil is very big; he is the hero of the scene, and is always marvellously hideous, with a great mouth and long teeth, with which he is usually gnawing two or three sinners, who, to judge from the expression of his face, must be very nauseous articles of food. He stands up to his middle in a red pool which is intended for fire, and wherein numerous little sinners are disporting themselves like fish in all sorts of attitudes, but without looking at all alarmed or unhappy. On one side of the picture an angel is weighing a few in a pair of scales, and others are capering about in company with some smaller devils, who evidently lead a merry life of it. The souls of the blessed are seated in a row on a long hard bench very high up in the picture; these are all old men with beards; some are covered with hair, others richly clothed, anchorites and princes being the only persons elevated to the bench. They have good stout glories round their heads, which in rich churches are gilt, and in the poorer ones are painted yellow, and look like large straw hats. These personages are severe and grim of countenance, and look by no means comfortable or at home; they each hold a large book, and give you the idea that except for the honour of the thing they would be much happier in company with the wicked little sinners and merry imps in the crimson lake below. This picture of the Last Judgment is as much conventional as the portraits of the saints; it is almost always the same, and a correct representation of a part of it is to be seen in the last print of the rare volume of the Monte Santo di Dio, which contains the three earliest engravings known: it would almost appear that the print must have been copied from one of these ancient Greek frescos. It is difficult to conceive how any one, even in the dark ages, can have been simple enough to look upon these quaint and absurd paintings with feelings of religious awe; but some of the monks of the Holy Mountain do so even now, and were evidently scandalized when they saw me smile. This is, however, only one of the numberless instances in which, owing to the differences of education and circumstances, men look upon the same thing with awe or pity, with ridicule or veneration.[15]
The interior of the principal church in this monastery is interesting from the number of early Greek pictures which it contains, and which are hung on the walls of the apsis behind the altar. They are almost all in silver frames, and are painted on wood; most of them are small, being not more than one or two feet square; the back-ground of all of them is gilt; and in many of them this back-ground is formed of plates of silver or gold. One small painting is ascribed to St. Luke, and several have the frames set with jewels, and are of great antiquity. In front of the altar, and suspended from the two columns nearest to the ικονοsτασις—the screen which, like the veil of the temple, conceals the holy of holies from the gaze of the profane—are two pictures larger than the rest: the one represents our Saviour, the other the Blessed Virgin. Except the faces they are entirely covered over with plates of silver-gilt; and the whole of both pictures, as well as their frames, is richly ornamented with a kind of coarse golden filigree, set with large turquoises, agates, and cornelians. These very curious productions of early art were presented to the monastery by the Emperor Andronicus Paleologus, whose portrait, with that of his Empress, is represented on the silver frame.
The floor of this church, and of the one which stands in the centre of the other court, is paved with rich coloured marbles. The relics are preserved in that division of the church which is behind the altar; their number and value is much less than formerly, as during the revolution, when the Holy Mountain was under the rule of Aboulabout Pasha, he squeezed all he could out of the monks of this and all the other monasteries. However, as no Turk is a match for a Greek, they managed to preserve a great deal of ancient church plate, some of which dates as far back as the days of the Roman emperors, for few of the Christian successors of Constantine failed to offer some little bribe to the saints in order to obtain pardon for the desperate manner in which they passed their lives. Some of these pieces of plate are well worthy the attention of antiquarians, being probably the most ancient specimens of art in goldsmith's work now extant; and as they have remained in the several monasteries ever since the piety of their donors first sent them there, their authenticity cannot be questioned, besides which many of them are extremely magnificent and beautiful.
The most valuable reliquary of St. Laura is a kind of triptic, about eighteen inches high, of pure gold, a present from the Emperor Nicephorus, the founder of the abbey. The front represents a pair of folding-doors, each set with a double row of diamonds (the most ancient specimens of this stone that I have seen), emeralds, pearls, and rubies as large as sixpences. When the doors are opened a large piece of the holy cross, splendidly set with jewels, is displayed in the centre, and the inside of the two doors and the whole surface of the reliquary are covered with engraved figures of the saints stuck full of precious stones. This beautiful shrine is of Byzantine workmanship, and, in its way, is a superb work of art.
The refectory of the monastery is a large square building, but the dining-room which it contains is in the form of a cross, about one hundred feet in length each way; the walls are decorated with fresco pictures of the saints, who vie with each other in the hard-favoured aspect of their bearded faces; they are tall and meagre full-length figures as large as life, each having his name inscribed on the picture. Their chief interest is in their accurate representation of the clerical costume. The dining-tables, twenty-four in number, are so many solid blocks of masonry, with heavy slabs of marble on the top; they are nearly semicircular in shape, with the flat side away from the wall; a wide marble bench runs round the circular part of them in this form. A row of these tables extend down each side of the hall, and at the upper end in a semicircular recess is a high table for the superior, who only dines here on great occasions. The refectory being square on the outside, the intermediate spaces between the arms of the cross are occupied by the bakehouse, and the wine, oil, and spirit cellars; for although the monks eat no meat, they drink famously; and the good St. Basil having flourished long before the age of Paracelsus, inserted nothing in his rules against the use of ardent spirits, whereof the monks imbibe a considerable quantity, chiefly bad arrack; but it does not seem to do them any harm, and I never heard of their overstepping the bounds of sobriety. Besides the two churches in the great courts, which are shaded by ancient cypresses, there are twenty smaller chapels, distributed over different parts of the monastery, in which prayers are said on certain days. The monks are now in a more flourishing condition than they have been for some years; and as they trust to the continuance of peace and order in the dominions of the Sultan, they are beginning to repair the injuries they suffered during the revolution, and there is altogether an air of improvement and opulence throughout the establishment.