This Was An Oblong, Of Fifteen Feet By Twelve, Erected
Within Three Feet Of The Tent Beneath The Walnut-Tree Upon The Extreme
Verge Of The Abrupt Incline.
I laid a foundation of stones, which I
covered with pounded earth and water, to produce a level with
The tent.
I then placed horizontally a beam of wood, secured from slipping with
stakes driven to the heads into the bank upon the edge of the incline.
Upon this a row of large stones was cemented together with mud to form a
margin level with the floor, from which the abrupt inclination at once
leapt to the lower terraces and the deep gorge, continuing for upwards
of 4000 feet to the sea; this was visible beyond the inferior mountain
tops.
There was nothing pretty in the arrangement of this "rachkooba," as it
would be called in Africa; it was a simple square of upright poles,
connected with canes secured across, thatched inside with ferns, and
upon the outside with docks, fastened down with the peeled willow-like
shoots of mulberry-trees. The mulberry-trees for silkworms are always
pollarded annually, and they throw out shoots about seven or nine feet
in length every season; the wood is exceedingly tough, and the bark of
these wands when stripped is serviceable for tying plants or securing
fences in lieu of cord. For lack of silkworms the monastery
mulberry-trees had several seasons of growth, and the shoots were
serviceable for our work. The ceiling of our opera-box was cloth, with a
curtain of about three feet suspended along the front, which broke the
morning sun as it topped the high ridge of the mountain on the other
side of the gorge, about a thousand feet above us. The shed was carpeted
with mats and furnished roughly with a table and chairs; hat-pegs were
suspended around, made from the red-barked wood of the arbutus, simply
cut so that by inverting the branch with the stem attached to a cord,
the twigs, cut at proper lengths, would form convenient hooks.
From this cool hermitage we looked down upon the dense foliage of
rounded mulberry-tops and the fruit-trees of the gardens within the
gorge, while exactly in our front, a hundred yards across the deep
ravine, was the rocky steep of the mountain side, densely clothed with
ilex and arbutus, until the still higher altitudes banished all
underwood, and the upper ranges of Troodos exhibited a surface of barren
rocks clothed with tall pines and cypress, 2000 feet above us.
By the time we had completed our permanent camp a certain degree of
improvement had taken place in the people, as well as in the actual
cleanliness of the locality. Everybody washed his, or her, face and
hands. The customs of the monks had so far reformed that the immediate
neighbourhood was no longer offensive. When strangers with mules arrived
the road was immediately swept, and upon Saturday evenings a general
embellishment took place in honour of the approaching Sunday. The young
clergy were remarkably good and active; they worked in my little garden
at a shilling a day, went on errands to Platraes and the camp at
Troodos, and made themselves generally useful for a most moderate
consideration. I can strongly recommend all young curates who are
waiting in vain for livings to come and work upon the holy soil of
Trooditissa at one shilling per diem; and should they (as curates
frequently are) be poor in this world's goods, but nevertheless strong
in amorous propensities, and accordingly desirous of matrimony, they
will find a refuge within the walls of this monastery from all the
temptations of the outer world, far from garden-parties, balls, picnics,
church-decorations assisted by young ladies, and all those snares of the
Evil One; and the wholesome diet of the monks, including a course of
soaked broad-beans and barley bread, with repeated fastings upon
innumerable saints' days, will affect them sensibly, both morally and
physically; under this discipline they will come to the conclusion that
a wife and large family upon an income of 500 pounds a year in England
would not confer the same happiness as one shilling a day with the
pickaxe, broad-beans and independence, at Trooditissa, which is true
"muscular Christianity."
It was extraordinary to see the result of a life-long diet of beans and
barley-bread in the persons of the monks, who very seldom indulged in
flesh. The actual head of the monastery was a handsome man of seventy,
perfectly erect in figure, as though fresh from military drill, and as
strong and active as most men of fifty. The younger priests were all
good-looking, active, healthy men, who thought nothing of a morning's
walk over the fatiguing rocky paths to Troodos and back (twelve miles),
to be refreshed on their return by an afternoon's work in their gardens.
The head of the Church was an especial friend of ours, and was a dear
old fellow of about seventy, with a handsome face, a pair of greasy
brass spectacles bound with some substance to retain them that was long
since past recognition, and swelled feet that prevented him from walking
beyond the precincts of the monastery, which he had never quitted for
twelve years. The feet looked uncommonly like the gout, but I can hardly
believe in the co-existence of that complaint with dry beans and
barley-bread, although the truth must be confessed, that the monks are
fond of commanderia, or any other production of the vineyard. There was
one exceedingly disagreeable monk with whom we held a most remote
acquaintance, and whose name I willingly conceal; he has been seen upon
several occasions to sit down upon an imaginary chair, the real article
of furniture being eighteen inches distant, and the stunning effect of
arriving suddenly in a sitting posture upon the hard stone of the
courtyard disabled him from rising; and even when assisted his legs were
evidently affected by the shock.
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