idle-path through a gorge in a range of hills from
which all the soil seems to have been washed with most of the small
stones, and where, with much precaution, your beast goes picking his way
as if in a laborious, slow-paced minuet. The convent stands in an
opening of the hills, on a little bit of comparatively plain land,-a
half-finished battlemented square pile, offering defence against a
slight attack; but the monks said that the Turks always found the road
so bad that they never came to attack them during any of the island
wars, though Hagia Triada was twice pillaged. The comparative poverty
of Hagios Joannes may have had something to do with its exemption, but
the road would defend it from my encroachments forever; and, in fact,
visitors only pass it on the way to the grottoes and convent of
Katholikon, which lie near the opening of the gorge, where it becomes a
wild glen, and approaches the sea. The path, descending, led us to the
Cave of the Bear, where we had arranged to lunch, and the bounties of
Canea, spread on the ground in the mouth of the cave, went to repair the
wear and tear of body and temper caused by the badness of the road. The
cave derives its name from a mass of stalactite which has a traceable
resemblance to a bear, but it had no further interest than being our
lunching-place. Here the road became so bad that even a donkey could not
follow it, and we clambered down on foot by zigzag and rock stair to the
mouth of the Cave of St. John. Caves _per se_ have no kind of attraction
to me. Stalactite and stalagmite are pretty much the same: so, half the
way in, I made excuse of the fatigue of some of the ladies, and,
determining to go no farther, proved my gallantry by stopping to keep
them company, thus abandoning my Hadjiship, which can only be claimed
when the inner chamber is attained. If, then, the reader would know
more, he must consult the guide-book, when there is one; and meanwhile
let me assure him, on the authority of Pashley, that the cave is four
hundred and seventy feet deep, and, on that of my more persevering
fellow-visitors, that at the bottom is a chamber, very fine and imposing
by torchlight, where is a couch of natural formation on which died the
saint, leaving his name with his bones and the odor of his sanctity. The
story is that this St. John--neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist, but
a hermit of Crete--centuries ago made his abode here, and lived many
years without seeing the face