At the distance of one hour from hence stands the monastery of
DOCHEIROU.
It is the first to the west of those upon the south-west shore of the peninsula. It is a monastery of great size, with ample room for a hundred monks, although inhabited by only twenty. It was built in the reign of Nicephorus Botoniates, and was last repaired in the year 1578 by Alexander, Waywode of Moldavia. I was very well lodged in this convent, and the fleas were singularly few. The library contained two thousand five hundred volumes, of which one hundred and fifty were vellum MSS. I omitted to note the number of MSS. on paper, but amongst them I found a part of Sophocles and a fine folio of Suidas's Lexicon. Among the vellum MSS. there was a folio in the Bulgarian language, and various works of the fathers. I found also three loose leaves of an Evangelistarium in uncial letters of the ninth century, which had been cut out of some ancient volume, for which I hunted in the dust in vain. The monks gave me these three leaves on my asking for them, for even a few pages of such a manuscript as this are not to be despised.
From Docheirou it is only a distance of half an hour to
XENOPHOU,
which stands upon the sea shore. Here they were building a church in the centre of the great court, which, when it is finished, will be the largest on Mount Athos. Three Greek bishops were living here in exile. I did not learn what the holy prelates had done, but their misdeeds had been found out by the Patriarch, and he had sent them here to rusticate. This monastery is of a moderate size; its founder was St. Xenophou, regarding whose history or the period at which he lived I am unable to give any information, as nobody knew anything about him on the spot, and I cannot find him in any catalogue of saints which I possess. The monastery was repaired in the year 1545 by Danzulas Bornicus and Badulus, who were brothers, and Banus (the Ban) Barbulus, all three nobles of Hungary, and was afterwards beautified by Matthæus, Waywode of Bessarabia.
The library consists of fifteen hundred printed books, nineteen MSS. on paper, eleven on vellum, and three rolls on parchment, containing liturgies for particular days. Of the MSS. on vellum there were three which merit a description. One was a fine 4to. of part of the works of St. Chrysostom, of great antiquity, but not in uncial letters. Another was a 4to. of the four Gospels bound in faded red velvet with silver clasps. This book they affirmed to be a royal present to the monastery; it was of the eleventh or twelfth century, and was peculiar from the text being accompanied by a voluminous commentary on the margin and several pages of calendars, prefaces, &c., at the beginning. The headings of the Gospels were written in large plain letters of gold. In the libraries of forty Greek monasteries I have only met with one other copy of the Gospels with a commentary. The third manuscript was an immense quarto Evangelistarium sixteen inches square, bound in faded green or blue velvet, and said to be in the autograph of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. The text throughout on each page was written in the form of a cross. Two of the pages are in purple ink powdered with gold, and these, there is every reason to suppose, are in the handwriting of the imperial scribe himself; for the Byzantine sovereigns affected to write only in purple, as their deeds and a magnificent MS. in another monastic library, of which I have not given an account in these pages, can testify: the titles of this superb volume are written in gold, covering the whole page. Altogether, although not in uncial letters, it was among the finest Greek MSS. that I had ever seen—perhaps, next to the uncial MSS., the finest to be met with anywhere.
I asked the monks whether they were inclined to part with these three books, and offered to purchase them and the parchment rolls. There was a little consultation among them, and then they desired to be shown those which I particularly coveted. Then there was another consultation, and they asked me which I set the greatest value on. So I said the rolls, on which the three rolls were unrolled, and looked at, and examined, and peeped at by the three monks who put themselves forward in the business, with more pains and curiosity than had probably been ever wasted upon them before. At last they said it was impossible, the rolls were too precious to be parted with, but if I liked to give a good price I should have the rest; upon which I took up the St. Chrysostom, the least valuable of the three, and while I examined it, saw from the corner of my eye the three monks nudging each other and making signs. So I said, "Well, now what will you take for your two books, this and the big one?" They asked five thousand piastres; whereupon, with a look of indignant scorn, I laid down the St. Chrysostom and got up to go away; but after a good deal more talk we retired to the divan, or drawing-room as it may be called, of the monastery, where I conversed with the three exiled bishops. In course of time I was called out into another room to have a cup of coffee. There were my friends the three monks, the managing committee, and under the divan, imperfectly concealed, were the corners of the three splendid MSS. I knew that now all depended on my own tact whether my still famished saddle-bags were to have a meal or not that day, the danger lying between offering too much or too little. If you offer too much, a Greek, a Jew, or an Armenian immediately thinks that the desired object must be invaluable, that it must have some magical properties, like the lamp of Aladdin, which will bring wealth upon its possessor if he can but find out its secret; and he will either ask you a sum absurdly large, or will refuse to sell it at any price, but will lock it up and become nervous about it, and examine it over and over again privately to see what can be the cause of a Frank's offering so much for a thing apparently so utterly useless. On the other hand, too little must not be offered, for it would be an indignity to suppose that persons of consideration would condescend to sell things of trifling value—it wounds their aristocratic feelings, they are above such meannesses. By St. Xenophou, how we did talk! for five mortal hours it went on, I pretending to go away several times, but being always called back by one or other of the learned committee. I drank coffee and sherbet and they drank arraghi; but in the end I got the great book of Alexius Comnenus for the value of twenty-two pounds, and the curious Gospels, which I had treated with the most cool disdain all along, was finally thrown into the bargain; and out I walked with a big book under each arm, bearing with perfect resignation the smiles and scoffs of the three brethren, who could scarcely contain their laughter at the way they had done the silly traveller. Then did the saddlebags begin to assume a more comely and satisfactory form.
After a stirrup cup of hot coffee, perfumed with the incense of the church, the monks bid me a joyous adieu; I responded as joyously: in short every one was charmed, except the mule, who evidently was more surprised than pleased at the increased weight which he had to carry.