" 7

EGYPTIAN IN THE NIZAM DRESS " 49

INTERIOR OF AN ABYSSINIAN LIBRARY " 97

MENDICANT DERVISH " 139

PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE,
JERUSALEM " 165

THE MONASTERY OF ST. BARLAAM " 235

TATAR, OR GOVERNMENT MESSENGER " 237

TURKISH COMMON SOLDIER " 251

THE N.W. VIEW OF THE PROMONTORY OF MOUNT ATHOS _To face Part IV., p._ 327

GREEK SAILOR _To face p._ 351

THE MONASTERY OF SIMOPETRA " 426

CIRCASSIAN LADY " 429

TURKISH LADY IN THE YASHMAK OR VEIL " 434

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

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 ti