provisions which we lowered down to them.

My servants, in high glee at having been hoisted up safe and sound, were
busy in arranging my baggage in the room which had been allotted to us,
and in making it comfortable: one went to get ready some warm water for
a bath, or at any rate for a good splash in the largest tub that could
be found; the other made me a snug corner on the divan, and covered it
with a piece of silk, and spread my carpet before it; he put my books in
a little heap, got ready the things for tea, and hung my arms and cloak,
and everything he could lay his hands on, upon the pegs projecting from
the wall under the shelf which was fixed all round the room. My European
clothes were soon pitched into the most ignominious corner of the divan,
and I speedily arrayed myself in the long, loose robes of Egypt, so much
more comfortable and easy than the tight cases in which we cramp up our
limbs. In short, I forthwith made myself at home, and took a stroll
among the courts and gardens of the monastery while dinner or supper,
whichever it might be called, was getting ready. I soon stumbled upon
the Agoumenos (the lord abbot) of this aerial monastery, and we prowled
about together, peeping into rooms, visiting the church, and poking
about until it began to get dark; and then I asked him to dinner in his
own room; but he could eat no meat, so I ate the more myself, and he
made up for it by other savoury messes, cooked partly by my servants and
partly by the monks. He was an oldish man. He did not dislike sherry,
though he preferred rosoglio, of which I always carried a few bottles
with me in my monastic excursions.

The abbot and I, and another holy father, fraternised, and slapped each
other on the back, and had another glass or two, or rather cup, for
coffee-cups of thin, old porcelain, called fingians, served us for
wine-glasses. Then we had some tea, and they filled up their cups with
sugar, and ate seaman's biscuits, and little cakes from Yanina, and
rahatlokoom, and jelly of dried-grape juice, till it was time to go to
bed; when the two venerable monks gave me their blessing and stumbled
out of the room; and in a marvellously short space of time I was sound
asleep.

_November 9th._--The monastery of Barlaam stands on the summit of an
isolated rock, on a flat or nearly flat space of perhaps an acre and a
half, of which about one-half is occupied by the church and a smaller
chapel, the refectory, the kitche