and one more than seventy-five years, not one of them had eaten a particle of animal food; and yet I never saw more healthy-looking men. Hardier men I have seen, for they are indolent in their habits, take but little exercise, and in most cases show a strong disposition to corpulency; but I had some little opportunity of testing their ability to endure fatigue, and though the superior soon walked himself out of breath, the monk who guided us up the mountain, and who was more than sixty years old, when we descended, after a hard day's labour, seemed less tired than either Paul or myself. I am aware that climate may make a difference; but, from my own observation and experience, I am perfectly satisfied that even in our climate, invalids and persons of sedentary habits, and, indeed, all except labouring men, would be much benefited by a total abstinence from animal food. I have travelled for a week at a time, night and day, not under the mild sky of the East, but in the rough climate of Russia, and found myself perfectly able to endure the fatigue upon bread and milk diet; and I have been told that the Tartars who ride post from Constantinople to Bagdad, in an incredibly short time, never sleeping, except on horseback, during the whole of their immense journey, rigidly abstain from any thing more solid and nutritious than eggs.

The night of my return from the top of Sinai, I was awake when the bell tolled for midnight prayers, and, wrapping myself in my Arab cloak, took a small lamp in my hand, and, groping my way

along the passage, descended to the chapel, where the monks were all assembled. I leaned behind a protecting pillar and watched their proceedings; and it was an event of no common interest, thus, at the dead hour of night, to be an unobserved witness of their sincerity, and earnest though erroneous devotion. There was not one among them who did not believe he was doing God good service, and that his works would find acceptance at the throne of Grace, and obtain for him that blessed immortality which we are all seeking.

CHAPTER XVI.

Diet of the Monks.-Advantages of Abstinence.-Scruples overcome. A mysterious Brother.-The Convent Burial-place.Strange Charnel-houses.-Death in a Mask.-Familiarity breeds Contempt.-A Man of two Centuries.-Doubts and Fears.Parting Gifts.-The Farewell.

THE next day was Sunday, and early in the morning the superior sent for me to come down and take my meal with the holy brotherhood. The monks were all at the table, and it was the first time I had had so good an opportunity of seeing them together. They were about thirty in number, mostly old men with long white beards, all Greeks, and some with faces as noble as Grecian chisel ever traced. There was not a beard at table less than eight inches long; and my own,

though it would have been rather distingué at home, blushed more than its natural red at its comparative insignificance. The table was a long naked board, the vessels were all of metal, and before each man were a wooden spoon, and a drinking-cup in the form of a porringer. It was Lent, the season of forty or fifty days' fasting, during which even fish, eggs, and oil are prohibited. A large basin of boiled beans was set before each of the monks; and besides this there were black olives, beans in water, salad, vinegar, salt, dates, and bread. My companions had never been pampered with luxuries, and ate their bread and beans with as keen a relish as if they were feasting on turtle and venison, and drank their water as freely as though it was Tokay or Burgundy. The meal was eaten in silence, all appearing of opinion that they came simply to eat; and the only unusual ciroumstance I remarked, was the civility of my immediate neighbours in pushing the tempting viands before me. It was curious to see how they found the way to their mouths through such a wilderness of beard, and the spoon disappearing in a huge red opening, leaving the handle projecting from a bush of hair. The room in which we ate was perhaps sixty feet long, having at one end a chapel and altar, and a reading-desk close by, in which, during the whole of the meal, a monk was reading aloud from the lives of the saints. After dinner the monks all rose, and wiping their mouths, walked in a body to the foot of the altar, and two of them commenced burning incense. One of my

SCRUPLES OVERCOME.

293

neighbours took me by the hand, and led me up with them. There they kneeled, prayed, and chanted, and went through a long routine of ceremonies, in which, so far as it was practicable, they carried me with them. They could not get me up and down as fast as they moved themselves, but they flung the incense at me as hard as at the worthiest of them all. I supposed this to be a sort of grace after meat, and that there it would end; but, to my surprise and great regret, I found that this was merely preparatory to the administration of the sacrament. It was the second time I had been placed in the same situation; and a second time, and even more earnestly than before, I wished for that state of heart which, according to the notions of its solemnity in which I had been brought up, would have permitted me to join in the sacred rite. I refused the consecrated bread, and the monk, after pausing some moments, apparently in astonishment, passed on to the next. After he had completed the circle, the superior crossed and brought him back again to me; I could not wound the feelings of the good old man, and ate the consecrated bread, and drank the wine. May God forgive me if I did wrong; but, though rigid censors may condemn, I cannot believe that I incurred the sin of "the unworthy partaker" by yielding to the benevolent importunity of the kind old priest. After this we walked out on the terrace, under the shade of some venerable grapevines, and sitting down along the wall, took coffee..

The reading-desk was brought out, and the same monk continued reading for more than two hours.

I had noticed that monk before; for he was the same who had conducted me through the church, had visited me in my room, and I had seen him in his cell. He was not more than thirty-five, and his face was as perfect as art could make it; and the sunbeams occasionally glancing through the thick foliage of the vines, and lighting up his pale and chiselled features and long black beard, made him one of those perfect figures for a sketch which I had often dreamed of, but had never seen. His face was thin, pale, and emaciated; the excitement of reading gave it a hectic flush, and he looked like a man who, almost before the spring-time of life was over, had drained the cup of bitterness to its dregs. If I am not deceived, he had not always led so peaceful and innocent a life, and could unfold a tale of stirring incident, of wild and high excitement, and perhaps of crime. He was from the Island of Tenos, but spoke Italian, and I had talked with him of the islands of Greece, and the ports in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, with many of which he seemed familiar; and then he spoke of the snares and temptations of the world, and his freedom from them in the convent, and, above all, of the perils to which men are exposed by the wiles and witcheries of the sex; and I could not but imagine that some beautiful Grecian girl, not less false than fair, had driven him to the wilderness. One of the other monks told me that it was about the time when the last of the pirates were swept