This Might Have Been Made A Lovely Station, As No Less Than Three
Springs Of Water Issued From The Mountain Side In Various Positions:
The
first already mentioned; the second on the further side of the letter V,
beneath another splendid walnut-tree; and the third upon the same level
beyond, which fell into a trough beneath a large trellis, upon which
some vines were trained to produce a shade.
The terraces formed an angular amphitheatre, the outer courtyard of the
monastery being the highest level, looking down upon tree-tops of planes
and pines throughout the dark gorge to Phyni. The gardens appeared much
neglected; they were overcrowded with fruit-trees, including filberts,
mulberry, pears, apples, figs, walnuts, plums; the only grape-vine was
represented upon the trellis; the position was too high for apricots.
An Englishman's first idea is improvement, and I believe that upon
entering heaven itself he would suggest some alteration. This was not
heaven, but, as a monastery, it was the first step, and a very high one
for this world, being 4340 feet above the sea. We began by cleaning, and
I should have liked to have engaged Hercules, at the maximum of
agricultural wages, to have cleaned the long line of mule stables, a
dignified employment for which the hero-god was famous; the Augean were
a joke to them. Piles of manure and filth of every description concealed
the pavement of the capacious outer yard of the monastery. The narrow
path by which we had arrived from the spring was a mere dung-heap, from
which the noxious weeds called docks, of Brobdignagian proportions,
issued in such dense masses that an agricultural meeting of British
farmers would have been completely hidden by their great enemy.
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