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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 699 of 870
Words from 190151 to 190408
of 236498
