The appearance of our escort did not please the monk, and we feared that
he would not admit us into the monastery; but at length he let down a
thin cord, to which I attached a letter of introduction which I had
brought from Corfu; and after some delay a much larger rope was seen
descending with a hook at the end to which a strong net was attached. On
its reaching the rock on which we stood the net was spread open: my two
servants sat down upon it; and the four corners being attached to the
hook, a signal was made, and they began slowly ascending into the air,
twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle-jack.
The rope was old and mended, and the height from the ground to the door
above was, we afterwards learned, 37 fathoms, or 222 feet. When they
reached the top I saw two stout monks reach their arms out of the door
and pull in the two servants by main force, as there was no contrivance
like a turning-crane for bringing them nearer to the landing-place. The
whole process appeared so dangerous, that I determined to go up by
climbing a series of ladders which were suspended by large wooden pegs
on the face of the precipice, and which reached the top of the rock in
another direction, round a corner to the right. The lowest ladder was
approached by a pathway leading to a rickety wooden platform which
overhung a deep gorge. From this point the ladders hung perpendicularly
upon the bare rock, and I climbed up three or four of them very soon;
but coming to one, the lower end of which had swung away from the top of
the one below, I had some difficulty in stretching across from the one
to the other; and here unluckily I looked down, and found that I had
turned a sort of angle in the precipice, and that I was not over the
rocky platform where I had left the horses, but that the precipice went
sheer down to so tremendous a depth, that my head turned when I surveyed
the distant valley over which I was hanging in the air like a fly on a
wall. The monks in the monastery saw me hesitate, and called out to me
to take courage and hold on; and, making an effort, I overcame my
dizziness, and clambered up to a small iron door, through which I crept
into a court of the monastery, where I was welcomed by the monks and the
two servants who had been hauled up by the rope. The rest of my party
were not admitted; but they bivouacked at the foot of the rocks in a
sheltered place, and were perfectly contented with the coffee and