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Aided by my Greek tutor, I had contrived earlier in the summer to address a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, head of the Orthodox Church, to whom I was personally known. Couched in the phraseology of centuries, myself remaining his "Most Divine All-Holiness' faithful child in Christ," it was despatched, for fear of the inquisitorial Turkish post office, by diplomatic bag. The answer had preceded me, by the same means, to our Legation in Athens. It ran as follows:

"Basil, by the grace of God Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch.

"To the Most Honourable Mr. Robert Byron, the grace and peace of God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

"Having gladly issued, we transmit to your Honour enclosed herewith, our Patriarchal letter of introduction to the Synod of the Holy Mountain, for which you asked in your letter of the 20th ultimo.

"We pray for you all success in your scientific research, and all good fortune from God, from whom also may your years be of the fullest, healthy and joyful.

"1927, July 26.

[Signed]

"Of Constantinople.

"Ardent suppliant of God."

Save for the last phrase, written in the Patriarch's own shaky hand, and the two logogriphs in facsimile, the letter was type written in Greek. Of the same character was that addressed to the Synod.

"Basil, by the grace of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch.

"Most holy Epistatai and Antiprosopoi of the Synod of the Holy Mountain, beloved children in the Lord of our Mediocrity, may the grace and peace of God be to your Holiness. "He who formerly visited your holy place, the learned Englishman Mr. Robert Byron, anxious there to pursue his researches in Byzantine art, comes thither for this purpose, intending particularly to photograph the frescoes of the leading churches. "We, therefore, gladly urge, through this our Patriarchal letter of introduction to your Holiness, that by your prompt solicitude there be afforded him everywhere a courteous reception and treatment, and simultaneously every facility for the photographing of the said frescoes, and generally throughout his scientific researches there. "May also God's grace and his immense mercy be with your Holiness. "1927, July 26. [Signed] "Of Constantinople. "Ardent suppliant of God."

The soul of possibly the most insignificant participant in the British Commonwealth of Nations drank deep of these eulogies. Further, a cloud was lifted. For the Patriarch had sponsored the practical object of the expedition, to which another member of the party was devoting time and money on my assurance of its feasibility. A more forcible recommendation to the secretive and independent monks than this, from the very pivot of Christendom, human insistence could not have obtained. A second letter was furnished by the Greek Foreign Office; and a third, to vouch for my companions, by the Metropolitan of Athens. Such a packet, surely, must substantiate our worth with every shade of monastic opinion.

To scraps of paper were added more material comforts: cans of an effective flea-deterrent; five dozen quarter-plate films of six pictures each for landscape; the works of Elinor Glyn in the Tauchnitz edition; and a small phrase-book, externally resembling a Bible, to bridge the gaps in my knowledge of the language. Saturday afternoon came. The suit-case, the kit-bag, the saddlebags, the syphon-box, and the despatch-case were thrust through a window of the Prague express. And we steamed from the Larissa station at half-past six, my cabin-mate being an obese Greek who had brought his dinner in a bag and had already impregnated the entire coach with the fumes of resin-tainted wine. I was glad, therefore, to seek refuge in that of an American named Marten, whom I had been unsuccessfully trying to disabuse of a belief in the infallibility of Periclean art during a short acquaintance of three days.

After dinner—a parody of a meal—the obese Greek, whose liquor had now transformed the atmosphere of the compartment into that of a public operating-theatre, hoisted his rotund form into that lower berth which had cost me a quarter of an hour's rhetoric on the previous day to reserve for myself. I produced my ticket; the usurper was impelled up the carpet steps to a higher; and the attendant, tripping over the saddle-bags in the struggle to change the linen, became so enveloped in the sheets as to resemble a new-risen Lazarus. I slept, thereafter, with increased zest.

Dawn broke over the marshes and downlands of Macedonia, dotted here and there with the red-roofed boxes of refugee villages. Salonica was reached at eight o'clock. The London train was moving out. Marten and I spurred a two-horse cab to the harbour-front, where there stood, waving from the steps of the Mediterranean Palace Hotel, three figures. The long-planned rendezvous held good. Behold, bobbing on a surf of greeting, the party.

Foremost, like some mythical denizen of the seas twisted back in satisfaction upon the prow of an ancient galleon, was David, body akimbo, visage benign—a David of the font, and not to be confused with the pseudonym of a companion on a former adventure; on one side Reinecker, sparse and sallow, stifling a flow of eternal depreciation; on the other, Mark, in plus fours, a waft of artificial heather in an arid land. In company with Marten, struck dumb by the babble of union, we sank to breakfast, while the concierge enquired our fathers' Christian names, and the porter, recognising me from last year, poured his blessings on "Mr. Robert."

Eggs materialised in metal pans. As we ate, Marten studied the party; and, summoning a similar detachment, I followed his cue. First sat Reinecker, separate from us in some degree: hardly English, intellectual, and student of art in that aspect; financially independent; and emanating from a large house of his own in Kensington filled with rare and austerely disposed Oriental potteries. In absolute contrast was David, one of life's familiar pillars from the days of battle at a public school; smoking in the bathing-place, drinking beer among the aspidistras of the adjacent pub; bawling at small boys in boats through a megaphone; rearranging a rather jejune collection of Egyptian figurines in a corner cupboard; and later at Oxford: studious and anthropological, buried in books, or snorting through the town in a motor that looked as if it had been made to transport a Boer family up country; sober always, even in insobriety; now, on the threshold of archaeological distinction, unearthing clay fragments at Kish and Constantinople; or at home, flying the walls of the Heythrop country like a sedate heron; cenotaph of competence; monolith of equanimity. Third was Mark, another of school's mercies: of a frivolous nature, tempered with purpose; proud of Scotland, lover of the moors and all things Scottish; naturalist by descent, artist by choice; solitary by temperament; yet beacon-light of parties; careful of appearance; practising economy without stinginess; and, but for a visit to Spitzbergen and a month in the château of a French marquise, where there were caterpillars in the salad, untravelled. To him, after four days in the Orient express, the Near East came as a surprise.

Breakfast over, Mark and I proceeded to St. Sophia, the finest of the town's churches, to see the eighth-century mosaic of the chocolate-robed Virgin unattended in her vault of dull glowing gold. But we were not alone. For a vast concourse had gathered in homage to those who had fallen in the wars that Greece fought between 1912 and 1922. A service was in progress, and we were ushered, unwitting, to a railed and carpeted enclosure. There we remained for an hour in a poultice of humanity, while the Metropolitan, crowned and enthroned, led the service, and a civilian dignitary spoke interminable commemoration.

Salonica, despised of soldiers, is as curious a town as Europe can show. Achieving immortality with St. Paul, the outstanding event in its subsequent history was the immigration of an enormous band of Jews, driven from Spain with the Moriscoes at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to the ruin of that country's industries. And still the Jewish women, their red pig-tails knotted in and out of coloured ribbons, trail their full green skirts up the steps of trams and buses; still they utter imprecations which sound to the modern Spaniard as Shakespeare's jauntier passages to us: "Marry come up, sir conductor, thinkee this be a rightful recompense from two drachmas? 'D's teeth, 'd's wounds, sirrah! am I a pullet for the plucking?" etc. Still every variety of Hebrew jostles in the modern streets, from the Whitechapel vendor, with his bowler hat ingeniously shaped to accentuate the nasal curve, to the Elizabethan rabbi, fur-hatted, and gowned in a purple caftan surmounted by a high fur collar. Since the recovery of the town by the Greeks in 1912, it has regained something of that commercial importance which blazed the fame of its fair throughout the mediaeval world. At the time of our visit preparations were being made to revive this institution. The municipality was engaged in raising the harbour-front. And, needless to say, the work reached the portico of the hotel simultaneously with ourselves. An unceasing train of carts jangled beneath our windows, crashes, oaths, and the ring of shovels intermingling. A strong wind was blowing. And throughout the hotel every vacant inch was coated with desiccated refuse. Mark, snoozing at midday through the noise of a stage battle, wished himself in the Highlands.

There arrived in the afternoon a resident acquaintance to visit us. It was to him, last year, that I had been indebted for my single venture into Salonica society. Though in no way connected with the Far East, he had lately engineered himself into the post of Japanese Consul; and, as he drove us out to inspect the British war-cemetery, the Rising Sun floated over the motor like a pennant at a tourney. Later we attended a dinner-party on the roof of the hotel, where a Tzigane band, passionately conducted by an ancient Russian, was playing jazz.

"Are there," I asked in a fevered impetus of conversation, "still many Jews here?"

"Yes," was the reply, "there's me—also Count Morpourgo across the table."

The evening, thus happily inaugurated, progressed upon the safer topic of American motors. Till at length a junction was effected between our table and that of the Governor of Macedonia, Monsieur Bouboulis. His Excellency was accompanied by two ladies: his sister-in-law, Madame Kotzias, who, having spent her most impressionable years at a girls' school near Woking, detested Britain to the point of inarticulacy; and an Alexandrine lady on whose fingers diamonds proportionate to her figure, were balancing like pigeons' eggs. The latter and I took the floor, or, rather, the plumbing, hoisting one another alternately from the gullies and ravines with which the roof was drained. At midnight we removed to the country, where we trotted over tiles; and then still farther inland; for the Governor made a habit of never retiring till 6 a.m. Next day we drank tea with Madame Kotzias at the Residency, where George I had been staying when he was murdered. This year, we learnt, she was divorced.

Roused early next day by the din of road-mending, I went creeping amid the tattered booths of the refugee town up the hill in search of antiques. It was here that I had noted, skew-eyed on a plush couch, a small painting of the Virgin, with jewels set in her celestial lights, that has since, after reproduction in The Burlington Magazine, passed into the possession of a curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum at a profit of 566.6 per cent. For the moment there seemed little to be found. Set about by an incoherent Levantine who announced his name as Haig, I penetrated in vain the kitchen of the Turk and the back-bedroom of the Armenian. Later in the morning, however, David, under the same guidance, purchased with infinite secrecy and at great cost a platter of almost prehistoric majolica, together with what appeared to comprise the only entire pieces of Byzantine pottery in existence. Having unearthed numerous fragments of this ware in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, David purposes to become its sole authority. Hence a paean of triumph on his return to the hotel. Meanwhile, after having the greater part of my hair removed, I on my side had acquired a pair of sandals, a store of cigarettes, and a tin-opener. After lunch, and a comatose afternoon, we announced the moment of departure.

Then followed uproar with the concierge.

"Do you know," said he to David, incensed at the pile of newspapered crocks that had been dumped in the hall, "that I have known your antique agent for two years, and that he is a swindler?"

"Do you know," replied David to him, "that I have known you for two days, and dislike you intensely?"

"Thank you."

Eventually the luggage was piled formidably upon a hand-cart, and the last stage of a protracted journey was in train. Overhead the sky was black, the ships at the road's edge dancing up and down in a chill wind, and large drops of water deliberately and impertinently falling on our panamas. Far down the quay the famous White Tower stood out, the colour of its name against an inky firmament; while over it, from the sullen horizon of water to the raisin-coloured inland peaks, glittered the arch of a rainbow. Ultimately all was safe on board. And at half-past seven, in a stormy glow that cast searchlights of miraculous colour on the encircling hills and the now enormous town surmounted by its castle, we sailed out of the harbour, seated on smutty coils of ropes in the stern of the Nausica.

The steward, anxious for the comfort of his only first-class passengers, enumerated the intended dinner, imitating the wing-movements of a chicken in explanation of the word [Greek characters]. He also pointed with pride to a peregrine falcon which he had shot in Cephalonia and which now stood, wings outspread, upon a lichen-covered loglet, the glory of the central table.

And so, after a year's plan and counter-plan, the last hours were reached. That we were still on earth was recalled by the sudden stoppage of the Nausica's engines, leaving us in mid-sea for an hour at the mercy of the fortunately inactive elements. Over a last bottle of beer we said good-bye to this last tossing straw of our world. We slept. Till, when barely light, there appeared, framed in the cold circle of the porthole, the dark outline of a long finger of land, twisted by imperceptibly darker shadows into deep ravines and curving bays. At its end, cut in terraced silhouette against the frigid gleams of the lower sky, reared a vast steeple from the livid grey sea. As the sun, risen a fiery ball above the rim of the world, warmed the cold light, silhouette gave place to hazy pink. Here and there twinkled the white blur of a monastery down at the water's edge or perched up among the woods. The Holy Mountain! And ourselves the pilgrims.

As the Nausica drew in, the peak disappeared behind the towering semi-circle of a small bay. At its inmost point, dwarfed almost to invisibility by the tree-covered surroundings, stood a few buildings. This was the port of Daphni. Two boats appeared, in one of which was a Greek police officer, who demanded our passports. He made some hint that these must precede us to Caryes, the capital of the Mountain, while we waited here below. But the letter from the Foreign Office silenced him. His whole obtrusion was an innovation, the price of the Greek Government's having ratified the autonomy of the community and its constitution, the oldest in Europe. Finally, with a wrench which was, to me who knew, more vivid than to the others, we descended the gangway with our possessions and rowed to land. Last year a welcome had awaited us in the person of Father Boniface, deputed keeper of the port by his monastery of Xeropotamou, to which it belongs. Now, however, he had been recalled.

Having disposed of the policeman, it remained to transport ourselves immediately to Caryes, the village-metropolis, situated two and a half hours' ride away over the other side of the ridge: that ridge, forty miles long, which is the northernmost of the three fingers that jut like a mutilated hand from the north-east angle of the Grecian coastline. For it was there that we must present the Government of the Mountain with our letters of recommendation, to receive in return another, without which no monastery could admit us to its hospitality. Tethered beneath a tree we espied two mules, of which their owner, an Albanian in a plate-shaped straw hat, informed us that we could only have one. It transpired, after infinite argument, that there was, in fact, no actual obstacle to our having both. They were led to the miniature wooden warehouse at the end of the jetty, and loaded.

Mark and I went on ahead; he hunter of the minutiae of creation, pouncing upon strange butterflies, leaf insects, and dung-flies; I, gazing at the olive-leaves glinting like sheaves of silver spear-heads against the blue of the sea beneath. The sun shone powerfully as the large white cobbles of which all the Athonite paths are made wound up through the olive-groves and woods of maples and Spanish chestnuts; over shady bridges spanning non-existent rivers; past stray shrines and marble basins catching ice-cold mountain streams for the delectation of the traveller; one and all emblazoned with a cross or the legend of a saint. After three-quarters of an hour's climb we halted, panting, at the pillared entrance of Xeropotamou, a large monastery to which as yet we possessed no right of entry. But the porter, a twinkling old monk, produced, in answer to our request for water, ouzo in addition.

"Ah! delicious!" I said. "Much better than at Salonica."

"Tchah! the ouzo of Salonica is lemonade."

Reluctantly we continued; and, reaching the top of the ridge, 3,000 feet up, amid pines and firs, caught our first view of Caryes on a gardened plateau beneath, with the sea in the distance. As we entered the narrow streets half an hour later, an air of activity, almost gaiety, seemed to prevail. Shops were open; tiny restaurants crowded with black figures, gowned and bearded, munching at wooden tables. In the streets, multi-coloured blankets, fruit and vegetables, saddle-cloths and saddle-bags, were focusing knots of haggling monks arrayed in every variety of surtout, from the ragged garment of the stage beggar to the soigné silken gowns of stately old men, owners of authority in their monasteries or the capital. It was market day. And the town presented a far different appearance from its ordinary. Formerly, scarcely the sun itself might shine, as we found ourselves within the twisting, vine-hung thoroughfares, where no wheel had ever bowled, and here and there a sombre trailing figure turned wide eyes to the clatter of hoofs. Even now no women gossiped, no children played, nor animals disported. Only perhaps a cat stole by, or far off, a hen, muffled in shamed seclusion, heralded an egg.

The luggage was unloosed upon the floor of the single inn, where several parties of monks, in from the country, sat at their midday meal. While Mark and Reinecker inspected the stew-pans of the kitchen, containing meat unappetising enough to gladden a militant vegetarian, David and I walked next door to make the acquaintance of the civil governor, Monsieur Lelis, to whom General Phrantzes had given me a letter. We found a small, kindly man, an official of the Foreign Office, who three months ago had been diverted from a special mission to Paris to fill this lonely post. He seemed to enjoy conversation, and we discoursed upon the health of the outside world, the fate of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the waning dominion of the Charleston. For the first month, he told us, he had enjoyed his stay here. Thenceforth the lack of rational converse had affected his nerves. He had lately taken a trip to the summit, which he had failed to reach, owing to a buzzing in the ears and a bleeding at the nose, due to the height. He then invented for our apprehension, a legend of wholly imaginary precipices, representing the last 7,000 feet as a dangerous glissade on which one false step meant death. As it is impossible to roll a yard without being hooked up on the jagged, vertical strata, his tale left me unmoved.

We returned to lunch, which was helped, after all, by yet one more bottle of beer. And then lay down to sleep, spreading our overcoats upon a balcony festooned with orange-trumpeted creepers and overlooking a panorama of olives and cypresses. The sea was visible below, and in the distance the summit, remote grey white above the highest point of the ridge, twirling and casting loose every vagrant cloud in an elsewhere cloudless sky. As we dozed, a cat, bearing in its mouth a mangled entrail with a tenderness eloquent of a determination to save it for another time, trailed over our feet with a malformed kitten at her heels. At four we rose, extracted some letters from the post office, where the star and crescent of the Ottoman Empire still blazoned every pigeon-hole, and betook ourselves to the police station. Primarily mystified by the double surnames of Mark and David, the officer almost collapsed under the strain of discovering our professions. I informed him that we had none. This is my usual policy, as often it is inadvisable to admit the wielding of a pen. The occasion reminded me of an incident at Smyrna, when for half an hour I blocked a ship-load of impatient passengers by refusing, as there, of all places, was necessary, to divulge my share in the world's work. The calm of the Turk rivalling my own, matters were brought to a complete impasse. A solution was only found by an exasperated Frenchman's rushing forward and exclaiming in a voice of loathing and contempt, "Rentier? Vous êtes rentier?" To which I admitted that my parents enjoyed an exiguous income sufficient to keep the wolf from the door and a servant to open it.

A similar situation threatened to arise at present.

"We have no professions," I said, "but write down what you like."

"What?"

"Although we have no professions, you can, if you wish, invent some."

"Electricians, painters, taxi-drivers, soldiers, bank clerks, clergymen, café-keepers, archaeologists—" I suggested.

"Are you all archaeologists?"

"ALL."

And he wrote:

"Archaeologist.

"Archaeologist.

"Archaeologist.

"Archaeologist."

With a straightening of ties we approached the Synod house. The moment for me, who was responsible to David for the success of a prospective publication, was one of crisis. The seat of government was contained in a broad-eaved house of two stories, washed raspberry colour, and set, amid beds of hollyhocks and harpaliums, between two courtyards. These were connected by a mews-entrance passage that ran underneath it. Mounting a flight of wooden stairs, I handed our letters to a member of the Synod guard, who was attired in the old national dress of white tights and pleated linen kilt, embroidered jacket, flowing linen sleeves, and a red cap adorned with the silver eagles of the Orthodox Church and the letters A.O., for [Greek characters] which means Holy Mountain. After a short interval, we were ushered into an oblong room. Opposite the door, against a wall pierced by three windows, sat the black-gowned secretary at his desk. And near him, on a brown wooden throne, the Protepistates, the elected head of the entire community, who this year was Father Daniel of Iviron, dignified, silent, and bespectacled. Broad Turkish divans ran round the walls. The majority of the Synod, which, containing a representative from each of the ruling monasteries, numbers twenty, was absent, the places of some being marked by piles of letters. Coffee and Turkish delight were handed us as we sat, myself maintaining a desultory conversation with a monk whom I remembered, but could not name. At length, fired with an inspiration, I enquired if they had seen the portfolio of Professor Millet. No, they complained, though for months at a time he had enjoyed their hospitality, no copy had reached them. He was waiting, I suggested, till the whole series was completed.

"I will fetch it."

"We will go together," said Daniel the Protepistates, rising. Taking his silver-topped wand in his hand, and followed by a tiny Rip van Winkle of the Synod Guard, he led the way. As we processed through the streets, monks squatting at their wares sprang to their feet. Returning with the heavy tome, we handed it round, while the secretary produced the synodical letter which he had inscribed on paper printed with the eagles of the Byzantine emperors. I humbly begged that our desire to photograph the frescoes, seconded by his All-Holiness the Patriarch, might be mentioned for the persuasion of the individual monasteries. It was, he said, already. The four members of the Epistasia, the executive committee of the parliament, drew from inner wallets the four quarters of the seal of the community, struck anew in 1912, when, after 482 years' Mahommedan suzerainty, the Mountain had returned once more to the Christian governance. The secretary joined the pieces to a stem, stamped the letter, powdered the impression with gold, and folded the whole in an envelope, which he handed us. With bows and varied thanks, we filed out.

The Albanian muleteer, according to instructions, was waiting outside, and had been waiting, moreover, for an hour. In the teeth of his imprecations, we proceeded again to the Governor. And he also, with that palsied deliberation which characterises the clerical operations of the Levant, wrote us a circular letter. Meanwhile the muleteer was shouting outside: the luggage was loaded. Pausing yet again to buy two gaily striped saddle-bags in which to convey the syphon and numerous loose books, we at last descended from the town by a path leading in the direction of the sea. Five minutes brought us to an old balconied house which was surrounded by a fenced garden, and approached beneath a spreading mallow-tree covered with the flowers of its familiar field counter-part.

This was the Lavra konak; the Lavra being a monastery, and a konak signifying, in Athonite parlance, the residence of a monastery's representative on the governing body. In this case it was Father Evlogios, who had shown me much kindness last year. I had written to him from Athens announcing our arrival, for which he had prepared both the Governor and the Synod, besides despatching the two mules to meet us at Daphni. Ouzo, coffee, cold water, and glyco—that inestimable preserve of cherry, grape, or orange, too rare to deserve the appellation jam—were handed on a tray, to the confusion of the others, who were unacquainted with the attendant ritual. But our host's congratulations on my acquisition of Greek were shattered by the irruption of the muleteer, whose patience was now beyond control. Regretfully we departed, promising to meet again. Mounting each a mule, we rode for two hours downhill among the trees and shrubs. Above us the summit, free of the clouds that had encircled it, stood into the sky, a pinnacle of naked fiery rock deepening from rosy gold to red-hot purple as the evening drew on. Eventually the monastery of Iviron appeared beneath us at the edge of the sea, backing its balconied faces of yellow and chocolate against the wooded cleft down which we came.

As we arrived, darkness fell suddenly. In the confusion of unloading, the muleteer inadvertently handed David seventy-five drachmas too much change, which the excess of his charges enabled us to keep without scruple. I, meanwhile, had been called inside by the advent of a white-bearded epitropos in rustling silken crêpe and tall cylindrical hat—worn at every appearance in public by every monk above his knotted, uncut hair—to whom I made conversation on a window-settee. The room in which we found ourselves, lit by a hanging lamp in the centre, was hung with weird, cracked portraits of foreign royalties, mostly the later Russians, but including, besides one in peruke and tricorn, the Kaiser and Edward VII. At length, in the middle of a story about an English aeroplane that had landed during the war on the park-like strip of grass between the monastery and the sea, dinner was announced. The food was good, and the wine, the guestmaster warned us, would go to our heads if we drank too much. Mark made signs to him that it had already gone to mine: with the result that, for the rest of the evening, my glass was only partially filled. Retiring to our bedroom, we settled ourselves with pillows and sheets upon two iron bedsteads and a range of spacious divans. The day had been tiring. Conscious all over, of a strangeness, we fell into our first sleep on the Holy Mountain, to the twittering of frogs and the flutters of singed and drunken moths.