CHAPTER II.

Departure from Trebizond.-Greek Bishop.-Timidity of the Clergy.— Monastery of St. Mary.-Monasteries in Turkey.-Their State.-Decline of Monasticism.-Character of the Monks.-Religious Retreats. -Mountain Scenery.-Parting from the Bishop.-Local Associations. -The Ancient Population.- Remnants of Christianity.-Mussulman Descendants from Christians.-Languages.-Natural Bridge.-Mountain Passage.-Company at a Khan.-Gumush Khaneh.-Its Christians.-Posting.-Routes.-Change of Route.

I LEFT Trebizond on the 12th of May, and reached Jevizlik, a small hamlet on the road, in six hours. On the way we overtook a Greek Bishop, mounted on a slow-paced horse, and preceded by a servant carrying his silver-headed staff. His white beard and venerable appearance attracted my attention, and I entered into conversation with him. From my dress he seemed at a loss to determine who I was, and answered my salutation with evident shyness. When I told him that I was a Christian, he began to speak more freely, and at length run on with all the garrulity of age. He had supposed that I might be a Mussulman, and hence the timidity of his first greeting. I have often witnessed the same among the clergy of the interior, and have as often been grieved by it as a sign and token of their state of bondage. True, they are generally ignorant, and so far as personal qualities are concerned, one can seldom find much pleasure in their society. But who can forget that they are the representatives of Christianity, and that they are what

they are for their religion's sake? Who can avoid a feeling of indignation and sorrow when he sees their servile and cringing demeanor-of indignation at the tyranny which has reduced them to such a condition, and sorrow at the low estate of Christ's holy Church in the land of its captivity? Alas! when shall the day of its rising and shining return?

I soon proposed to leave the aged Bishop, because he rode too slow for us. But he demurred, and said that he would exert himself a little for the sake of our company. I soon found that he was the Superior of St. Mary, a monastery a few miles south of Jevizlik. He had been absent some time in Russia and was just returning. I afterwards learned that he was returning from exile, having been banished by the late Patriarch, and now restored by his suc

cessor.

St. Mary's is only one of three monasteries in this vicinity, and I remember having heard of another near Trebizond. St. Mary's has fifteen monks; a year or two before, it had about forty; another, called Hedrilez, has twelve ; and a third, called Khavan, has, I believe, none. All these monasteries are immediately subject to the Patriarch at Constantinople, and of course independent of the Archbishop of Trebizond. The same rule, so far as I have observed, holds with regard to all the monasteries, Greek, Syrian, or Armenian, in the Empire. They are independent of the Bishop of the Diocese, excepting when he himself is resident in one of them, and in this case he is the Superior. The number of monasteries in the Empire is greatly diminished in late centuries, and seems to be still diminishing. The causes have been war, famine, civil oppression, the increasing poverty and decreasing population of the Christians. There is also much less zeal than formerly for the monastic life. There are fewer disposed to enter it, and the people are less disposed to sustain them in it. This arises chiefly from the

decline of learning and piety. The monasteries are no longer the chief seats of knowledge, and the fame of their sanctity has departed. The people are alienated by the idle and sometimes by the wicked lives of the monks. But this picture is not universally, I am inclined to believe not generally, true. Some of the monasteries are in better repute both for piety and learning, though none of them are distinguished in the latter particular. The monks are often simple-minded and innocent men, but almost always narrow in their views, their thoughts and their feelings, grasping no wide range even of theological knowledge, and profoundly ignorant of the world. They say their prayers, till their grounds, eat, drink, and sleep. A few of the monasteries have a great reputation for sanctity, not from the character of their inmates, but from the possession of some relic which makes them places of vast resort. These and a few others are rich. Some of them have valuable endowments of lands, which are looked upon as the patrimony of the Church, and a considerable portion of the revenues of the Patriarchs come from them. Thus the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople receives from the monasteries of Wallachia alone, the sum of 1,500,000 piastres, or about £15,000, annually.

There seem to have been in former times favorite localities, chosen either from the nature of the country, on account of the abundance of a neighboring population, or for some religious association, where monasteries were erected in great number and where the lonely ascetic built his retired cell. Such is the country south of Trebizond. Abounding in the gifts of nature, covered with the wildest and sublimest scenery, presenting here and there lofty heights interspersed with fruitful vallies, it was once the abode of hundreds of those who had retired from the world to seek in contemplation and prayer, and secret toil, a nearer access to God. The traveller still descries here and there, besides the distant

monasteries whose place alone is visible, marked by some towering height, solitary chapels perched on rugged points of rock and looking like the retreats of world-forsaking hermits. We noticed three of this description during our first day's ride, and the Bishop pointed out to us a mountain-peak covered with snow, behind which, he said, was the monastery of St. Mary. The others lay, one to the north, and the other to the southwest from Jevizlik.

Turning short to the right when we reached this hamlet, we entered the valley of the Yer Keupru (Earth Bridge). There are two roads, one leading to the left over the barren heights of Kara Kaban, the other to the right through the valley, one the summer, the other the winter road. As the mountains were not yet open, we chose the latter, which soon led us amidst scenes of great natural beauty. The forest trees were putting on their new dress, and the rays of the sun darting through their thick foliage revealed to the eye their fresh and lively green. Sometimes the lofty overtopping mountains could be descried through the openings in the woods, and at others we plunged into cool and shaded thickets, enlivened by the music of numberless rills gushing from the mountain side.

us.

Our venerable friend, the Bishop, parted from us at Jevizlik, where our roads separated. I felt for a moment an emotion of sadness as I thought of the different ways before Ere nightfall he would be reposing in the quiet of his monastery; while I was just starting upon a long and tedious journey, little knowing the things that should befall me, or whether I should ever return. Basil, my Greek servant and the only companion of my journey, begged the good man to remember us in his prayers. He promised to do so, and commenced his kind offices by giving us his benediction as we parted.

We spent the night at the little village of Campanos, or perhaps it was only a cluster of Khans, for we arrived too

late and left too early to survey the place. More than arises from the beauty of Nature's scenery is the interest which this region excites in the traveller's mind from its association with the famous retreat of Xenophon, and the romantic dukes of the Comneni driven from the imperial throne of Constantinople, and founding a new monarchy on the farther shores of the Euxine. Hardly less is the interest which one feels in it as an ancient home of the Greeks. After enjoying all the day the thought of winding through the same vallies by which the leader of the Ten Thousand conducted his gallant band,' I could not but inquire within myself, as we sat down upon our carpets at night before a roaring fire in a smoke-blackened khan, whether the two or three rough fellows who were preparing our coffee or waiting to partake of it, were veritable descendants of the Greeks of former days. My interest in them was a little dampened by our guide's coming in and announcing that one of the children who had been employed to lead about the horses, according to the eastern custom after a journey, had run away with the bridle. I told his father, who was one of the men present, of his misdemeanor, and saw with surprise the coolness with which he received the information of his youthful son's delinquency. He thought it strange, very strange, that the boy should carry away the bridle, but really he did not believe that we could find him if we should hunt for him.

It was some consolation for the loss of the bridle to know that the thief and the thief's father were Mussulmans, for though dishonesty does not look well in any one, it always grieves me most to see it in a Christian. It is a common saying among the Persians, that it is right, lauda

The identity of the route with that of the Ten Thousand was first suggested to me some years ago by James Brant, Esq., H. B. M. Consul at Erzroum, who well said, that as the army of Xenophon passed in winter, it could only be by this road, which is the only one by which Trapezus (Trebizond) is accessible at that season.