DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4996#0096
78 APPEARANCE OF THE INTERIOR.
usual quiet; one may almost hear a pin drop : now and then a gust
of wind sweeps over the bleak perpendicular precipices, which seem
threatening to bury it, and furiously rattles an old casement or two ;
then all is still again. An old irregular wall, patched in different
ages, with here and there a tower, fences in and looks down upon
the entire maze of buildings : within are courts, and corridors, and
galleries, connected by blind passages, and flights of steps, mostly
invisible from above. Every now and then a dark-robed figure will
suddenly peep out, like a mouse, from one hole then burrow into
another, and disappear. But for this, one would never suspect the
little busy world hidden beneath,—the snug storehouses of corn,
wine, and wood; the monastic makers of bread, distillers of raid,
tailors, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and cook, all busy, like ants, under-
ground ; the only genteel sinecurist being the Librarian, for if the
body is but poorly provided for within these holy walls, the mind
is starved outright. The church is wedged incomprehensibly into
this labyrinth, presenting, as viewed from above, only a sharp gabled
roof, well leaded, with a cross at the top ; and by its side rises a
minaret, erected at a period when the monks were compelled to
admit a mosque for Mussulman pilgrims. Such is the interior of the
convent, viewed from above ; and I was poring over its singular ap-
pearance, when Pietro joined me, and offered his services as cicerone.
I was curious first to go round the wall, and, following my compa-
nion, dived boldly into blind dark passages, half-choked with dust,
sometimes ascending into daylight, and then plunging down again, till
we had made the entire circuit; we sometimes diverged by a branch-
stair into out-of-the-way nooks and chambers, with rude pallets and
grated windows, the abodes of former recluses, of which the con-
vent, in its palmy state, numbered some four hundred, there being
now but one-twentieth of that number. These cells looked as
though they had never been entered during the centuries that had
elapsed since their last tenants were carried to the charnel, and in-
spired such a feeling of dreary oppressive melancholy, that we gladly
hastened into the living regions below.
Here all, though antiquated, was neat and clean ; small beds of
usual quiet; one may almost hear a pin drop : now and then a gust
of wind sweeps over the bleak perpendicular precipices, which seem
threatening to bury it, and furiously rattles an old casement or two ;
then all is still again. An old irregular wall, patched in different
ages, with here and there a tower, fences in and looks down upon
the entire maze of buildings : within are courts, and corridors, and
galleries, connected by blind passages, and flights of steps, mostly
invisible from above. Every now and then a dark-robed figure will
suddenly peep out, like a mouse, from one hole then burrow into
another, and disappear. But for this, one would never suspect the
little busy world hidden beneath,—the snug storehouses of corn,
wine, and wood; the monastic makers of bread, distillers of raid,
tailors, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and cook, all busy, like ants, under-
ground ; the only genteel sinecurist being the Librarian, for if the
body is but poorly provided for within these holy walls, the mind
is starved outright. The church is wedged incomprehensibly into
this labyrinth, presenting, as viewed from above, only a sharp gabled
roof, well leaded, with a cross at the top ; and by its side rises a
minaret, erected at a period when the monks were compelled to
admit a mosque for Mussulman pilgrims. Such is the interior of the
convent, viewed from above ; and I was poring over its singular ap-
pearance, when Pietro joined me, and offered his services as cicerone.
I was curious first to go round the wall, and, following my compa-
nion, dived boldly into blind dark passages, half-choked with dust,
sometimes ascending into daylight, and then plunging down again, till
we had made the entire circuit; we sometimes diverged by a branch-
stair into out-of-the-way nooks and chambers, with rude pallets and
grated windows, the abodes of former recluses, of which the con-
vent, in its palmy state, numbered some four hundred, there being
now but one-twentieth of that number. These cells looked as
though they had never been entered during the centuries that had
elapsed since their last tenants were carried to the charnel, and in-
spired such a feeling of dreary oppressive melancholy, that we gladly
hastened into the living regions below.
Here all, though antiquated, was neat and clean ; small beds of