Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/229

Rh our beards met, crossed bayonets, and then retreated; and I could not help feeling that nature had done well in giving us this outwork as a defence against a very ancient, but rather disagreeable custom.

The Archimandrite Nikandros—who received us with this patriarchal salute—is a man who seems worthy of a less obscure position than he now occupies. He was educated by the celebrated Kairy, a priest, who had the boldness to attack the corruptions of the Greek Church, and who was rewarded, like all premature reformers, with a prison, in which he ended his days. Nikandros, though he has escaped the fate of his master, has, however, suffered much persecution from the Greek clergy; he kept a school at Scio, but gave it up because the Archbishop interfered with the teaching, and wished to exclude all the classical authors and to substitute the Fathers.

The monastery of Zambika, where Nikandros lives, is a lonely place where an anchorite might have dwelt; and the simplicity of his way of life is in perfect keeping with this secluded spot. The classical purity of his Greek forms a striking- contrast with the patois of the peasants round him : he has a small library of ancient authors, with which he appeared to be well acquainted. The monastery where Nikandros dwells, though now only tenanted by one monk—its Hegumenos, or prior—is a large building, serving, like the temple among the ancient Greeks, as a place of gathering, or panegyris, for the surrounding district.