or a capital
dinner,--soup, a boiled chicken, mutton stewed with artichokes and
beans, new honey, and rice prepared with milk, sugar, and spices, with a
dessert of figs and grapes. The wine of the convent had a bitter taste,
from an herb steeped in it, which was preferable to the pitch of Greek
wines, but still not a desirable addition. One of the monks, who had a
small property close by the convent, brought us a bottle of wine of his
own production, which was one of the best I have ever tasted in the
East, and to my mind better than that of Cyprus. With coffee and
cigarettes we stretched ourselves on the sofas before the windows,
through which the east wind blew the odors extorted from the fragrant
herbs and flowers by the overpowering sun. No other sound than the hum
of the bees darting past with unwearying haste, and the chirping of a
few birds amongst the olives, disturbed the air, and the monks left us
to dream or doze as we pleased. The charm of the place was complete, and
it would not have been a penance to make the convent a summer's abode.
The fleas were a drawback, surely; but nowhere in Crete can one get away
from that plague, and at Hagia Triada they were less offensive, as I
learned by later experience, than in many other convents, and even in
most private houses.

When, the sun cooling his fires, we ordered our steeds out, and prepared
to return, the whole _personnel_ of the convent came to assist, with the
inhabitants of a little village adjoining, which finds protection and
Christian charity from the convent. The monks, excepting two or three,
seemed of an ignorant and boorish quality, but hard-working and
kind-hearted. Here, evidently, a certain kind of bliss was in ignorance,
and the most learned were not wise enough to be accused of much folly.
The Hegoumenos, in bidding us good by, begged us warmly to come again
and stay long,--a month at least. All joined in the kindly wish; and we
rode back through the lengthening olive shadows, which never had fitter
accompaniment than in the peace and content which the convent promised
us, and I am sure not vainly. Not that I am a believer in the peace that
does not come of fighting,--the retreat before battle,--or think that
quiet and laziness are one. Content is a piggish virtue and one which no
earnest soul can abide in, and unsleeping ambition is the only Jacob's
ladder; but when my reader is tired of struggling, and must repose, I am
sure that he (or she, ev