I Was
Informed That The Gate Has Remained Walled Up Since The Year 1709, But
That If An Archbishop Were To Come, It Must Be Again Opened To Admit
Him, And That All The Bedouin Sheiks Then Have A Right To Enter Within
The Walls.
Besides the convent at Cairo, which contains a prior and about fifty
monks, Mount Sinai has establishments and landed property in many other
parts of the east, especially in the Archipelago, and at Candia:
It has
also a small church at Calcutta, and another at Surat.
The discipline of these monks, with regard to food and prayer, is very
severe. They are obliged to attend mass twice in the day and twice in
the night. The rule is that they shall taste no flesh whatever all the
year round; and in their great fast they not only abstain from butter,
and every kind of animal food and fish, but also from oil, and live four
days in the week on bread and boiled vegetables, of which one small dish
is all their dinner. They obtain their vegetables from a pleasant garden
adjoining the building, into which there is a subterraneous passage; the
soil is stony, but in this climate, wherever water is in plenty, the
very rocks will produce vegetation. The fruit is of the finest quality;
oranges, lemons, almonds, mulberries, apricots, peaches, pears, apples,
olives, Nebek trees, and a few cypresses overshade the beds in which
melons, beans, lettuces, onions, cucumbers, and all sorts of
[p.550] culinary and sweet-scented herbs are sown. The garden, however,
is very seldom visited by the monks, except by the few whose business it
is to keep it in order; for although surrounded by high walls, it is not
inaccessible to the Bedouins, who for the three last years have been the
sole gatherers of the fruits, leaving the vegetables only for the monks,
who have thus been obliged to repurchase their own fruit from the
pilferers, or to buy it in other parts of the peninsula.
The excellent air of the convent, and the simple fare of the
inhabitants, render diseases rare. Many of the monks are very old men,
in the full possession of their mental and bodily faculties. They have
all taken to some profession, a mode of rendering themselves independent
of Egypt, which was practised here even when the three hundred private
chambers were occupied, which are now empty, though still ready for the
accommodation of pious settlers. Among the twenty-three monks who now
remain, there is a cook, a distiller, a baker, a shoemaker, a tailor, a
carpenter, a smith, a mason, a gardener, a maker of candles, &c. &c.
each of these has his work-shop, in the worn-out and rusty utensils of
which are still to be seen the traces of the former riches and industry
of the establishment. The rooms in which the provisions are kept are
vaulted and built of granite with great solidity; each kind of provision
has its purveyor. The bake-house and distillery are still kept up upon a
large scale. The best bread is of the finest quality; but a second and
third sort is made for the Bedouins who are fed by the convent. In the
distillery they make brandy from dates, which is the only solace these
recluses enjoy, and in this they are permitted to indulge even during
the fasts.
Most of the monks are natives of the Greek islands; in general they do
not remain more than four or five years, when they return to their own
country, proud of having been sufferers among
[p.551] Bedouins; some, however, have been here forty years. A few of
them only understood Arabic; but none of them write or read it. Being of
the lower orders of society, and educated only in convents, they are
extremely ignorant. Few of them read even the modern Greek fluently,
excepting in their prayer-books, and I found but one who had any notion
of the ancient Greek. They have a good library, but it is always shut
up; it contains about fifteen hundred Greek volumes, and seven hundred
Arabic manuscripts; the latter, which I examined volume after volume,
consist entirely of books of prayer, copies of the Gospels, lives of
saints, liturgies, &c.; a thick folio volume of the works of Lokman,
edited, according to the Arab tradition, by Hormus, the ancient king of
Egypt, was the only one worth attention. Its title in Arabic is
[Arabic]. The prior would not permit it to be taken away, but he made me
a present of a fine copy of the Aldine Odyssey and an equally fine one
of the Anthology. In the room anciently the residence of the Archbishop,
which is very elegantly paved with marble, and extremely well furnished,
though at present unoccupied, is preserved a beautiful ancient
manuscript of the Gospels in Greek, which I was told, was given to the
convent by “an emperor called Theodosius.” It is written in letters of
gold upon vellum, and ornamented with portraits of the Apostles.
Notwithstanding the ignorance of these monks, they are fond of seeing
strangers in their wilderness; and I met with a more cordial reception
among them than I did in the convents of Libanus, which are in
possession of all the luxuries of life. The monks of Sinai are even
generous; three years ago they furnished a Servian adventurer, who
styled himself a Knes, and pretended to be well known to the Russian
government, with sixty dollars, to pay his
[p.552] journey back to Alexandria, on his informing them of his
destitute circumstances.
At present the convent is seldom visited; a few Greeks from Cairo and
Suez, and the inhabitants of Tor who repair here every summer, and
encamp with their families in the garden, are the only persons who
venture to undertake the journey through the desert. So late as the last
century regular caravans of pilgrims used to come here from Cairo as
well as from Jerusalem; a document preserved by the monks states the
arrival in one day of eight hundred Armenians from Jerusalem; and at
another time of five hundred Copts from Cairo.
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