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LIBRARIES OF MONASTERIES.

house at Cairo. The standing custom is coffee and a pipe; but frequently, especially among the Greeks, I was first handed honey or a very sweet preserve. And it is the custom with the natives of the East, and those acquainted with their manners, that before the coffee and the pipe no subject of importance, or that for which the visit is especially made, becomes the topic of conversation. Business is thus rendered to a certain extent agreeable; one is no longer an entire stranger when sitting with pipe in mouth and cup inhand.

ments.

Upon asking at length to see the manuscripts, they told me that they possessed none at all, but that I should find many good ones upon Mount Sinai. Their own library contained printed books only, which were entirely at my service. I then requested the cupboard full of books standing opposite to me to be opened. A full half-hour may have elapsed before the key could be found, and the operation of opening accomplished. The libraries in these monasteries are mere ornaThey occupy the place that ladies' what-nots do with us. I took several volumes out, and found nothing but manuscripts. Perfectly astonished at my discovery, I mentioned it to them; but with still greater astonishment they heard me and inspected them. Manuscripts! manuscripts! they re-iterated, and seemed to entertain some doubt of it. An ancient manuscript was to them a perfect novelty, for they seemed to be acquainted with such things only by repute; and no sooner had they heard of their riches in manuscripts, than they began to dream of their inestimable value. After examining this bookcase, I inspected another in the chapel of the monastery, which proved to be still more productive.

I returned again to this monastery, and a study was in the most friendly way provided for me. The results of these studies I shall elsewhere show. But my discoveries in this library were my first joyful proofs of the incorrectness of the dissuasions made at home against my journey, founded upon the supposition that nothing new was to be discovered, after the exploration of so many who had preceded me. A man of widely celebrated name, and whose pursuits were the same as my own, had visited this monastery twenty years ago, and reports thus baldly upon it: "It contains no manuscripts of any literary interest!"

THE PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA AND HIS
WALLED-UP LIBRARY.

I was informed by many persons of a treasury of manuscripts that had reached Cairo from Antioch, about twenty years ago. It

PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA.

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consisted of an entire library conveyed to Cairo as seeurity, and was in the immediate possession of the patriarch. No person conversant with such matters had seen these manuscripts, and therefore the stories about them were exaggerated into romance. The incredible addition was soon made, that this library was walled-up. The Austrian consul-general endeavoured, in the kindest manner, to obtain for me an elucidation of the mystery. To effect this he thought the best plan would be to make a direct application to the patriarch, with whom he was personally acquainted. We therefore rode, one Sunday, in company with a native Greek to Old Cairo, where the patriarch resides when absent from Alexandria.

After the preliminaries of reception by an aged female domestic, who hospitably entertained us with coffee and pipes, the patriarch himself appeared in his home costume, which was sufficiently distinguished to indicate his high rank. Pope Gregory XVI. was more simply clad when he admitted me to a private audience. The patriarch, who is now in his ninety-first year, has great dignity in his appearance, his long white beard, which falls down upon his breast, becomes him very well; his stature is above the ordinary height. We exchanged a few friendly words, in the course of which I told him, that the chief ecclesiastic of my own country was, like him, a wonder also in his reverend appearance; for he equally resisted the attacks of extreme old age by the indestructible bearing of a cheerful temperament.

We rapidly approached the object of our visit. The consulgeneral told him, that I was a profound Hellenist, although I had never been in Greece. The patriarch then called for a printed Greek book in folio, I think it was a volume of Chrysostomus, and he requested me to read in it. I presumed he wished to hear how we un-Grecians pronounce Greek, and I read him a couple of lines according to our Leipsic pronunciation. To my great mortification, I did not succeed in this examination; I may fairly record it as a failure. The patriarch upon this experiment was of opinion, that I had scarcely yet learnt the alphabet. We intermingled a little mirth in our hasty explanations, but the mishap was not to be rerepaired. I conversed also in Greek with him; but the least mistake in the Romaic pronunciation, or even a false accent I had latterly become accustomed to pronounce the Greek according to its quantity he urged harshly in confirmation of his opinion. It would seem that the patriarch had the delicate ear of a Parisian lady. It was now, indeed, difficult to make him comprehend, that my studies of manuscripts could be of any consequence. My Codex Ephrämi Syri rescriptus sounded like a pleasant fable. Upon hearing of it, he retorted with how could I read manuscript, when I could not even read a printed text?

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The consul began to lose his temper, and told him, he might wholly rely upon him, and that our great object was only to obtain the privilege of the sight of his concealed library. Upon wishing to know why we so eagerly sought to see it, we informed him, that my object was to inspect the ancient codices of the original text of the New Testament, in order to derive a text from their combination, which might approach as closely as possible to what was written by the Apostles. But he added, we have all that we require — we have the Evangelists, we have the Apostles, what can we desire more? * The idea of criticism seems to have struck his ears for

the first time in his ninety-first year. He became thoughtful and distrustful upon our explanations. At last he availed himself of the circumstance that the library was walled-up, and could be entered only at a great outlay; whereupon we mentioned that we were willing to bear all the charges. Nevertheless he seemed only apparantly to concur, and we very speedily withdrew.

That I did not kiss his hand as my two companions did, may possibly have given him an unfavourable impression of me. Upon this occasion, as upon many others, when I have observed this mark of respect paid by ecclesiastics to their superiors, I remembered the dignified words of the patriarch of Constantinople, who said to a young clergyman, who wished to kiss his hand, "We require preachers, not actors." The want, however, seems to have become reversed; and even on the banks of the Tiber I heard no echo of this noble sentiment.

From the patriarch we went to Solyman Pasha. Solyman Pasha is a Frenchman by birth, and has obtained great distinction in Egypt by the organisation of Mehemet Ali's army. How much this is appreciated by the Viceroy is proved by the princely rank to which he has elevated him. It is true, indeed, that he is all the Gospel the poorer; he has sold himself to the Koran, and doubtlessly he has purchased therewith for his conscience many an hour of bitter remorse. When with him I had nothing to do with old Palimpsests, nor even with Greek. The instant he was apprised that I was from Saxony, an opportune inquiry suggested itself to him. Do you know, said he to me, the two daughters of an apothecary living at Mnot indeed so lucky as to have such agreeable acquaintances at MBut Solyman Pasha now related to me in pleasant detail, that he had been in Saxony under Napoleon, and being billeted in the house of an apothecary at M- —, had had some trifling and innocent adventures there. This may not, indeed, be called an old love affair, but it certainly belongs to the unfading forget-me-not of ancient affection. Here

* Τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ τὸν ἀπόστολον.

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I was

WALLED-UP LIBRARY.

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is a man of French blood, and a soldier, who, after living thirty years in the full practice of Oriental customs, thinks still with hearty affection of two apothecary's daughters on the Elbe, to whom he dedicated, before the battle of Leipsic, his transitory gallantries. I met with another Frenchman in Cairo, who had been in Saxony with Napoleon as regimental surgeon. His weak side was, as all his friends knew, to speak about Saxony whenever an opportunity presented, and he was delighted when we met one evening in the garden of Clot Bey, beneath the shade of the pomegranates, where with impunity he could give animated expression to all his sympathies for Saxony.

During our trip back to Cairo, my companion told me of the excavation, some few years back, of the rubbish of the ramparts at Cairo, and of the discovery therein of an ancient Greek church, the walls of which contained a kind of Palimpsest. There were paintings, namely, upon it, which had been executed one over the other, accompanied with Greek inscriptions. The Austrian consul-general had gathered thus much from it, that the original pictures were representations of passages in the lives of Saints, coloured over and obliterated, and replaced by others of a similar character. He was deprived of the opportunity of further examination; for upon his return from a short excursion to Cairo, he found that all the remains had been destroyed. In explanation of this Palimpsest we must recur to the period and the course of the Iconoclastic fury, which, judging hence, must also have raged at Alexandria.

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But to revert to the walled-up library of the patriarch induced several Greeks of distinction to attach themselves to our interests; nevertheless we were still unsuccessful, for as an opponent, we had to combat with a narrow-minded dogmatism, which saw in my critical labours upon the sacred text, some undefined danger threaten the status quo of the faith of the Greek church.

At last I found a powerful auxiliary in a German physician, a man whose name had been already very long dear to me. He made his professional intercourse, as family physician to the procurator of the patriarch, available for my object, and upon him some influence was gained by the representation that, upon my return to Europe, I should make an unfavourable report respecting this unapproachable walled-up patriarchal library. The procurator promised that he would have this library opened for me; but I was not present personally when this took place, and the number of manuscripts that I had the opportunity of examining from it was very small, whereas the remaining contents of the library consisted ostensibly of many thousand printed books. I strongly suspected that I was not ingenuously dealt with, yet those few manuscripts have yielded most

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welcome results.*

THE PYRAMIDS.

I occupied a whole day in this investigation in the house of the learned secretary of the procurator.

This secretary had very recently married; he had a very youthful wife. Her share in my visit consisted in nothing more than handing me pipe after pipe, which she lighted herself, and cup after cup of coffee; and at our meal she waited upon both of us, without partaking with us of the repast. German wives will scarcely envy the condition of the wife of this secretary.

THE PYRAMIDS.

On the 16th of April, I visited the pyramids. I have become rich in never to be forgotten hours. At the distance of a day's journey the enraptured eye beholds the queen of all the pyramids : an hour spent upon its summit glitters with its reminiscences throughout the entire length of our earthly years.

It was before sunrise that I traversed with my Ali the rubbish and ruins of the Babylon of the Nile. Upon both banks we already found the market in full activity: at Gizeh there were heaped at our feet large piles of beans, millet, and lentils. We rode through a delightful country, planted with palm trees and acacias. Many cornfields were ripe for the sickle, others stood widely extended, high and luxuriant. We easily forded the canal; it was almost empty. And now, instead of smiling verdure, we had speedily beneath our feet nothing but the barren sand of the Desert. We thus rode cheerfully onward to the objects of our attraction. And now hastened from all sides towards us, what seemed from their familiarity friends and acquaintances; and yet we had never seen them before. They were the Bedouins of the neighbourhood, a people of robust stature, burnt deep brown by the sun, and with a vivid fire glittering in their dark eyes. Although I had strongly impressed upon my dragoman not to burden me with more than a couple of these intrusive guides to the pyramids, yet we were totally unable to discard any that came, and they all wandered on with us.

During a journey of four hours' duration the pyramids gained nothing in imposing effect: they almost appeared to familiarise themselves into objects of common occurrence. But, upon ascending the rocky base, the most considerable portion of which lies buried in the sand, and we stood at the foot of the greatest among them, this

* I have published elsewhere the particulars. Consult the Wiener Jahrbücher, 1845. vol. ii.

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