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A more enlarged account of the Monasteries of the Levant would, I think, be interesting for many reasons if the task was undertaken by some one much more competent than myself to do justice to so curious a subject. In these monasteries resided the early fathers of the Church, and within the precincts of their time-hallowed walls were composed those writings which have since been looked up to as the rules of Christian life: from thence also were promulgated the doctrines of the Heresiarchs, which, in the early ages of the Church, were the causes of so much dissension and confusion, rancour and persecution, in the disastrous days of the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

The monasteries of the East are besides particularly interesting to the lovers of the picturesque, from the beautiful situations in which they are almost invariably placed. The monastery of Megaspelion, on the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, is built in the mouth of an enormous cave. The monasteries of Meteora, and some of those on Mount Athos, are remarkable for their positions on the tops of inaccessible rocks; many of the convents in Syria, the islands of Cyprus, Candia, the Archipelago, and the Prince's Islands in the Sea of Marmora, are unrivalled for the beauty of the positions in which they stand; many others in Bulgaria, Asia Minor, Sinope, and other places on the shores of the Black Sea, are most curious monuments of ancient and romantic times. There is one on the road to Persia, about one day's journey inland from Trebizond, which is built half way up the side of a perpendicular precipice; it is ensconced in several fissures of the rock, and various little gardens adjoining the buildings display the industry of the monks; these are laid out on shelves or terraces wherever the nature of the spot affords a ledge of sufficient width to support the soil; the different parts of the monastery are approached by stairs and flights of steps cut in the face of the precipice, leading from one cranny to another; the whole has the appearance of a bas-relief stuck against a wall; this monastery partakes of the nature of a large swallow's nest. But it is for their architecture that the monasteries of the Levant are more particularly deserving of study; for, after the remains of the private houses of the Romans at Pompeii, they are the most ancient specimens extant of domestic architecture. The refectories, kitchens, and the cells of the monks exceed in point of antiquity anything of the kind in Europe. The monastery of St. Katherine at Mount Sinai has hardly been altered since the sixth century, and still contains ornaments presented to it by the Emperor Justinian. The White Monastery and the monastery at Old Cairo, both in Egypt, are still more ancient. The monastery of Kuzzul Vank, near the sources of the Euphrates, is, I believe, as old as the fifth century. The greater number in all the countries where the Greek faith prevails, were built before the year 1000. Most monasteries possess crosses, candlesticks, and reliquaries, many of splendid workmanship, and of the era of the foundation of the buildings which contain them, while their mosaics and fresco paintings display the state of the arts from the most early periods.

It has struck me as remarkable that the architecture of the churches in these most ancient monasteries is hardly ever fine; they are usually small, being calculated only for the monks, and not for the reception of any other congregation. The Greek churches, even those which are not monastic, are far inferior both in size and interest to the Latin basilicas of Rome. With the single exception of the church (now mosque) of St. Sophia, there is no Byzantine church of any magnitude. The student of ecclesiastical antiquities need not extend his architectural researches beyond the shores of Italy: there is nothing in the East so curious as the church of St. Clemente at Rome, which contains all the original fittings of the choir. The churches of St. Ambrogio at Milan, of Sta. Maria Trastevere at Rome, the first church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; the church of St. Agnese near Rome, the first in which galleries were built over the side aisles for the accommodation of women, who, neither in the Eastern nor Western churches, ever mixed with the men for many centuries; all these and several others in Italy afford more instruction than those of the East—they are larger, more magnificent, and in every respect superior to the ecclesiastical buildings of the Levant. But the poverty of the Eastern church, and its early subjection to Mahometan rulers, while it has kept down the size and splendour of the churches, has at the same time been the means of preserving the monastic establishments in all the rude originality of their ancient forms. In ordinary situations these buildings are of the same character: they resemble small villages, built mostly without much regard to any symmetrical plan, around a church which is constructed in the form of a Greek cross; the roof is covered either with one or five domes; all these buildings are surrounded by a high, strong wall, built as a fortification to protect the brotherhood within, not without reason, even in the present day. I have been quietly dining in a monastery, when shouts have been heard, and shots have been fired against the stout bulwarks of the outer walls, which, thanks to their protection, had but little effect in delaying the transit of the morsel between my fingers into the ready gulf provided by nature for its reception. The monks of the Greek Church have diminished in number and wealth of late years, their monasteries are no longer the schools of learning which they used to be; few can read the Hellenic or ancient Greek; and the following anecdote will suffice to show the estimation in which a conventual library has not unusually been held. A Russian, or I do not know whether he was not a French traveller, in the pursuit, as I was, of ancient literary treasures, found himself in a great monastery in Bulgaria to the north of the town of Cavalla; he had heard that the books preserved in this remote building were remarkable for their antiquity, and for the subjects on which they treated. His dismay and disappointment may be imagined when he was assured by the agoumenos or superior of the monastery, that it contained no library whatever, that they had nothing but the liturgies and church books, and no palaia pragmata or antiquities at all. The poor man had bumped upon a pack-saddle over villainous roads for many days for no other object, and the library of which he was in search had vanished as the visions of a dream. The agoumenos begged his guest to enter with the monks into the choir, where the almost continual church service was going on, and there he saw the double row of long-bearded holy fathers, shouting away at the chorus of κυριε ελεισον, χριστε ελεισον (pronounced Kyre eleizon, Christe eleizon), which occurs almost every minute, in the ritual of the Greek Church. Each of the monks was standing, to save his bare legs from the damp of the marble floor, upon a great folio volume, which had been removed from the conventual library and applied to purposes of practical utility in the way which I have described. The traveller on examining these ponderous tomes found them to be of the greatest value; one was in uncial letters, and others were full of illuminations of the earliest date; all these he was allowed to carry away in exchange for some footstools or hassocks, which he presented in their stead to the old monks; they were comfortably covered with ketché or felt, and were in many respects more convenient to the inhabitants of the monastery than the manuscripts had been, for many of their antique bindings were ornamented with bosses and nail heads, which inconvenienced the toes of the unsophisticated congregation who stood upon them without shoes for so many hours in the day. I must add that the lower halves of the manuscripts were imperfect, from the damp of the floor of the church having corroded and eat away their vellum leaves, and also that, as the story is not my own, I cannot vouch for the truth of it, though, whether it is true or not, it elucidates the present state of the literary attainments of the Oriental monks. Ignorance and superstition walk hand in hand, and the monks of the Eastern churches seem to retain in these days all the love for the marvellous which distinguished their Western brethren in the middle ages. Miraculous pictures abound, as well as holy springs and wells. Relics still perform wonderful cures. I will only as an illustration to this statement mention one of the standing objects of veneration which may be witnessed any day in the vicinity of the castle of the Seven Towers, outside of the walls of Constantinople: there a rich monastery stands in a lovely grove of trees, under whose shade numerous parties of merry Greeks often pass the day, dividing their time between drinking, dancing, and devotion.

The unfortunate Emperor Constantine Paleologus rode out of the city alone to reconnoitre the outposts of the Turkish army, which was encamped in the immediate vicinity. In passing through a wood he found an old man seated by the side of a spring cooking some fish on a gridiron for his dinner; the emperor dismounted from his white horse and entered into conversation with the other; the old man looked up at the stranger in silence, when the emperor inquired whether he had heard anything of the movements of the Turkish forces—"Yes," said he, "they have this moment entered the city of Constantinople." "I would believe what you say," replied the emperor, "if the fish which you are broiling would jump off the gridiron into the spring." This, to his amazement, the fish immediately did, and, on his turning round, the figure of the old man had disappeared. The emperor mounted his horse and rode towards the gate of Silivria, where he was encountered by a band of the enemy and slain, after a brave resistance, by the hand of an Arab or a Negro.

The broiled fishes still swim about in the water of the spring, the sides of which have been lined with white marble, in which are certain recesses where they can retire when they do not wish to receive company. The only way of turning the attention of these holy fish to the respectful presence of their adorers is accomplished by throwing something glittering into the water, such as a handful of gold or silver coin; gold is the best, copper produces no effect; he that sees one fish is lucky, he that sees two or three goes home a happy man; but the custom of throwing coins into the spring has become, from its constant practice, very troublesome to the good monks, who kindly depute one of their community to rake out the money six or seven times a day with a scraper at the end of a long pole. The emperor of Russia has sent presents to the shrine of Baloukli, so called from the Turkish word Balouk, a fish. Some wicked heretics have said that these fishes are common perch: either they or the monks must be mistaken, but of whatever kind they are, they are looked upon with reverence by the Greeks, and have been continually held in the highest honour from the time of the siege of Constantinople to the present day.

I have hitherto noticed those monasteries only which are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but those of the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Syria resemble them in almost every particular. As it has never been the custom of the Oriental Christians to bury the dead within the precincts of the church, they none of them contain sepulchral monuments. The bodies of the Byzantine emperors were enclosed in sarcophagi of precious marbles, which were usually deposited in chapels erected for the purpose—a custom which has been imitated by the sultans of Turkey. Of all these magnificent sarcophagi and chapels or mausoleums where the remains of the imperial families were deposited, only one remains intact; every one but this has been violated, destroyed, or carried away; the ashes of the Cæsars have been scattered to the winds. This is now known by the name of the chapel of St. Nazario e Celso, at Ravenna: it was built by Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius; she died at Rome in 440, but her body was removed to Ravenna and deposited in a sarcophagus in this chapel; in the same place are two other sarcophagi, one containing the remains of Constantius, the second husband of Galla Placidia, and the other holding the body of her son Valentinian III. These tombs have never been disturbed, and are the only ones which remain intact of the entire line of the Cæsars, either of the Eastern or Western empires.

The tombstones or monuments of the Armenians deserve to be mentioned on account of their singularity. They are usually oblong pieces of marble lying flat upon the ground; on these are sculptured representations of the implements of the trade at which the deceased had worked during his lifetime; some display the manner in which the Armenian met his death. In the Petit Champ des Morts at Pera I counted, I think, five tombstones with bas-reliefs of men whose heads had been cut off. In Armenia the traveller is often startled by the appearance of a gigantic stone figure of a ram, far away from any present habitation: this is the tomb of some ancient possessor of flocks and herds whose house and village have disappeared, and nothing but his tomb remains to mark the site which once was the abode of men.