The Great Walnut-Tree Overshadowed A Portion Of The Mule Stables That
Formed A Continuation Of The Building, And Faced The Exterior Courtyard,
Which Was Inclosed Upon Two Sides Of The Square, In The Centre Of Which
Was An Arched Entrance To The Inner Court.
This doorway was beneath a
covered gallery, and the ground floor formed a well-protected verandah,
from which a magnificent view was commanded down the great gorge towards
Phyni, overlooking the lower mountain tops to a sea horizon beyond the
peninsula of Akrotiri and the salt lake of Limasol.
The covered gallery above this verandah was supported by stone pillars
with exceedingly rude capitals, upon which long beams of the native
pines, laid horizontally, supported the joists and floors. It was a dull
and dirty abode, and at first sight I was disappointed. The angle of the
mountain in which the monastery stood was formed by a ravine which
intercepted the principal gorge at almost a right angle, thus a path
which continued at the same level from the courtyard to the other side
of the ravine, represented the letter V laid horizontally. From the
walnut-tree across the broad base of the letter would be about a hundred
yards, to a series of cultivated terraces upon an equal level.
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. The
priests or monks had filthy habits; it would have been impossible for
civilised people to have existed in this accumulation of impurities,
therefore we at once set to work. I had a spade and pickaxe, and we
borrowed some other tools from the monks, among which were strong
grubbers (which combined the hoe and the pick). There were a number of
people belonging to the monastery, including some young embryo priests,
that we might accept as deacons; these I set to work with the pickaxe at
one shilling a day wages. The boys who were being educated for the
Church I employed in removing all the loose stones which choked the
surface of the ground, and subsequently in sweeping and scraping the
courtyard. I gave them sixpence a day if they worked from early morning,
or threepence if they came at noon after their lessons. There was a
shepherd's family, upon the hill about 250 feet above the monastery, of
seven handsome children, two boys of nineteen and seventeen, and five
girls. These were hard at work, even to a pretty little child of four
years old, who carried her stones, and swept with a little broom with
all her heart (this was little Athena). Of course they were all paid in
the evening with bright new threepenny pieces which they had never seen
before. Even the priests worked after a few days, when the spirit of
industry and new shillings moved them, and in the history of the
monastery there could never have been such a stirring picture and such a
dust as we made in cleansing and alterations. Nearly a month was
occupied in this necessary work, by which time the place was entirely
changed. I had made a good road as an approach from the spring, with a
covered drain, dignified by the name of an "aqueduct," which led the
water when required to a little garden that I had constructed close to
the tent, where a nondescript slope had become a receptacle for filth. I
had cut this down from the road, and mixed the earth with the
accumulated dirt and manure, which I levelled off in successive layers,
so that the stream led from the spring would irrigate my beds in
succession. This garden was carefully fenced against the intrusion of
goats and donkeys, to say nothing of pigs, and it was already sown with
tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, barmia, and beet-root. The priests had a
grand bed of onions upon a terrace, which was usually occupied by the
pigs, goats, and donkeys, as they had been too lazy to arrange a fence.
The docks in the monastery gardens were at least six feet high; I had
these cut and collected to thatch the sides of a peculiar shed (in which
I am writing at this moment), which was a great comfort and formed a
very original retreat, combining a seat in an amphitheatre with a modern
summer-house.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 92 of 140
Words from 93392 to 94394
of 143016
