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.