This Was A Very Peculiar Village, As The Broad Flat Roofs Of The Houses
Formed Terraces; Upon These You Could At Once Walk From The Steep
Hill-Slope, Into Which The Houses Were Inserted By Scarping Out A Level
Space For A Foundation.
The effect was remarkable, as the house-roofs,
in lines, seemed like flights of steps upon the mountain side.
We halted
at the first decent-looking dwelling and rested beneath the shade of an
apricot-tree within a small courtyard. The people at once assembled, and
the owner of the house brought us black wine and raki of his own make;
the latter he was now engaged in distilling, and some pigs were
revelling in the refuse that had been thrown in a heap below the window
of the store. This man was proud of his wine, as it was tolerably free
from the taste of tar; the jars, having been more than fifty years in
constant use, had lost the objectionable flavour. We were thirsty and
hot, therefore the wine was not disagreeable, and we lunched beneath the
apricot.
After an hour's rest the real up-hill work commenced. We crossed a broad
channel of running water beneath groves of green trees, and entered a
path on the opposite side of the village; this skirted a deep and
precipitous gorge, through which the river flowed from the high and dark
ravine that cleft the mountain from the ssummit to the bottom. A
water-mill was at work below us on the right; and always ascending along
the side of the ravine, with the rushing sound of the stream below, we
arrived after half a mile at the base of the apparently impossible
route. Right and left, right and left, went the short and sharp zigzags,
the path covered with rolling stones and loose rocks, which clattered
under the feet of the tired mules and rolled down the steep inclines.
The sound of the stream below became fainter, and the narrow angle of
the deep cleft grew darker, as we ascended. We looked down upon the
rounded tops of various trees, including the rich verdure of planes,
which skirted the banks of the hidden stream, and we entered upon pines
rising from an under-growth of beautiful evergreens, including the
fragrant tremithia, the light green foliage of the arbutus, with its
bright red bark contrasting strongly with the dark shade of the dense
and bushy ilex. The mastic was there, and as we increased our altitude
the Pinus laricio and Pinus maritima varied the woods by their tall
spars, beneath which a perfect garden of flowers almost covered the
surface of the earth; these included the white and purple cistus, dog-
roses, honeysuckle, and several varieties unknown to me. Among the
ornamental dwarfs were a quantity of the Sumach, which is an article of
export from Cyprus for the use of the tanner and dyer.
The view became very beautiful as we ascended, until at length, after a
couple of miles of the steepest zigzags, we turned a corner of the rocks
and looked down the great depth at our right, below the path, upon the
long white thread of a waterfall, which for some hundred feet of a
severe incline, broken by occasional plunges, issues from the rocky
cleft, and forms the river in the ravine below. "There is the monastery
of Trooditissa!" exclaimed our guide. About 200 feet above our level,
snugly nested among splendid walnut-trees in the dark angle of the
mountains, were the grey and brown gables, half concealed by the rich
foliage of plane-trees, walnuts, mulberry, and other varieties.
About half a mile from this point of view the mules scrambled up one of
the worst portions of the route, and we arrived at a clear and cold
spring issuing suddenly from the rocks through a stone spout, protected
by an arch of masonry: this was received in a rude wooden trough formed
from the trunk of a hollowed pine, and overflowed across the path to
water some terraced gardens immediately below. A walnut and a fig-tree
intermingled their branches above the arch, and formed an agreeable
shade to shelter weary travellers, who might sit by the welcome spring
after toiling up the rough mountain side. About eighty yards beyond, by
a level path, we reached the widest-spreading walnut-tree that I have
ever seen; the new foliage was soft and uninjured by the wind, producing
a dense shade over an area sufficient for numerous tents. This
magnificent specimen of vegetation grew upon the edge of an abrupt
descent, perpendicular to a series of gardens, all terraced out to a
depth of about 150 feet, to the bottom of a narrow gorge; thus one-half
of the branches overhung the steep, while the other half shaded a
portion of the monastery courtyard.
We halted and dismounted beneath this grand old tree, where the
picturesque but not clean old monk, with some of his ecclesiastics, were
ready to meet us with a courteous welcome.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MONASTERY OF TROODITISSA.
The monastery of Trooditissa had no architectural pretensions; it looked
like a family of English barns that had been crossed with a Swiss
chalet. The roofs of six separate buildings of considerable dimensions
were arranged to form a quadrangle, which included the chapel, a long
building at right angles with the quadrangle, which had an upper balcony
beneath the roof, so as to form a covered protection to a similar
arrangement below, and an indescribable building which was used by the
monks as their store for winter provisions. The staircases were outside,
as in Switzerland, and entered upon the open-air landings or balconies;
these were obscure galleries, from which doors led to each separate
apartment, occupied by the monks and fleas. The obscurity may appear
strange, as the balconies were on the outside, but the eaves of the roof
at an angle of about 48 degrees projected some feet as a protection from
the winter's snow, and occasioned a darkness added to the gloom of
blueish grey gneiss which formed the walls and the deep brownish red of
the tiled roof.
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