CHAPTER XXVII.
The Monastery of Russico—Its Courteous Abbot—The Monastery of Xeropotamo—Its History—High Character of its Abbot—Excursion to the Monasteries of St. Nicholas and St. Dionisius—Interesting Relics—Magnificent Shrine—The Library—The Monastery of St. Paul—Respect shown by the Monks—Beautiful MS.—Extraordinary Liberality and Kindness of the Abbot and Monks—A valuable Acquisition at little Cost—The Monastery of Simopetra—Purchase of MS.—The Monk of Xeropotamo—His Ideas about Women—Excursion to Cariez—The Monastery of Coutloumoussi—The Russian Book-Stealer—History of the Monastery—Its reputed Destruction by the Pope of Rome—The Aga of Cariez—Interview in a Kiosk—The She Cat of Mount Athos.
From Xenophou I went on to
RUSSICO,
where also they were repairing the injuries which different parts of the edifice had sustained during the late Greek war. The agoumenos of this monastery was a remarkably gentlemanlike and accomplished man; he spoke several languages and ruled over a hundred and thirty monks. They had, however, amongst them all only nine MSS., and those were of no interest. The agoumenos told me that the monastery formerly possessed a MS. of Homer on vellum, which he sold to two English gentlemen some years ago, who were immediately afterwards plundered by pirates, and the MS. thrown into the sea. As I never heard of any Englishman having been at Mount Athos since the days of Dr. Clarke and Dr. Carlysle, I could not make out who these gentlemen were: probably they were Frenchmen, or Europeans of some other nation. However, the idea of the pirates gave me a horrid qualm; and I thought how dreadful it would be if they threw my Alexius Comnenus into the sea; it made me feel quite uncomfortable. This monastery was built by the Empress Catherine the First, of Russia—or, to speak more correctly, repaired by her—for it was originally founded by Saint Lazarus Knezes, of Servia, and the church dedicated to St. Panteleemon the Martyr. A ride of an hour brought me to
XEROPOTAMO,
where I was received with so much hospitality and kindness that I determined to make it my headquarters while I visited the other monasteries, which from this place could readily be approached by sea. I was fortunate in procuring a boat with two men—a sort of naval lay brethren,—who agreed to row me about wherever I liked, and bring me back to Xeropotamo for fifty piastres, and this they would do whenever I chose, as they were not very particular about time, an article upon which they evidently set small value.
This monastery was founded by the Emperor Romanus about the year 920; it was rebuilt by Andronicus the Second in 1320; in the sixteenth century it was thrown down by an earthquake, and was again repaired by the Sultan Selim the First, or at least during his reign—that is, about 1515. It was in a ruinous condition in the year 1701; it was again repaired, and in the Greek revolution it was again dismantled; at the time of my visit they were actively employed in restoring it. Alexander, Waywode of Wallachia, was a great benefactor to this and other monasteries of Athos, which owe much to the piety of the different Christian princes of the Danubian states of the Turkish empire.
The library over the porch of the church, which is large and handsome, contains one thousand printed books and between thirty and forty manuscripts in bad condition. I saw none of consequence: that is to say, nothing except the usual volumes of divinity of the twelfth century. In the church is preserved a large piece of the holy cross richly set with valuable jewels. The agoumenos of Xeropotamo, a man with a dark-grey beard, about sixty years of age, struck me as a fine specimen of what an abbot of an ascetic monastery ought to be; simple and kind, yet clever enough, and learned in the divinity of his church, he set an example to the monks under his rule of devotion and rectitude of conduct; he was not slothful, or haughty, or grasping, and seemed to have a truly religious and cheerful mind. He was looked up to and beloved by the whole community; and with his dignified manner and appearance, his long grey hair, and dark flowing robes, he gave me the idea of what the saints and holy men of old must have been in the early days of Christianity, when they walked entirely in the faith, and—if required to do so—willingly gave themselves up as martyrs to the cause: when in all their actions they were influenced solely by the dictates of their religion. Would that such times would come again! But where every one sets up a new religion for himself, and when people laugh at and ridicule those things which their ignorance prevents them from appreciating, how can we hope for this?
Early in the morning I started from my comfortable couch, and ran scrambling down the hill, over the rolling-stones in the dry bed of the torrent on which the monastery of the "dry river" (ξηροποταμου—courou chesmé in Turkish) is built. We got into the boat: our carpets, some oranges, and various little stores for a day's journey, which the good monks had supplied us with, being brought down by sundry good-natured lubberly κατακυμενοι—religions youths—who were delighted at having something to do, and were as pleased as children at having a good heavy praying-carpet to carry, or a basket of oranges, or a cushion from the monastery. They all waited on the shore to see us off, and away we went along the coast. As the sun got up it became oppressively hot, and the first monastery we came abreast of was that of Simopetra, which is perched on the top of a perpendicular rock, five or six hundred feet high at least, if not twice as much. This rather daunted me: and as we thought perhaps to-morrow would not be so hot, I put off climbing up the precipice for the present, and rowed gently on in the calm sea till we came before the monastery of