The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-01-22
pWELLERs lN ne pEsERT

and built round their temples lmpreg'
nable fortress walls with drawbridges
at a height of forty feet. They with
stood sieges and persisted to this day.
The abbot showed me round the
monastery. The buildings were all a
patchwork of ruins and repairs and
changes. The frescoes had been white
washed out in nearly every part. The
old stained glass, broken and shape
less, was mortared in with new glass.
And yet there was a real odor of
antiquity in the place. The patterns
in the ikons were but dust patterns,
and the face of the Virgin crumbled
away as the abbot took the picture
down to show me. In a niche here
and there left by accident were the
original frescoes in wonderful purple
and crimson, pictures of the saints,
their faces and bodies all of that I'M
earthly and mystical shape and color
to which the early Christians loved
to attribute citizenship of heaven.
The lectern had a nail on which to
fix the candle. The communion cup
was swathed in the oldest vestments
of the monastery. In a cupboard in
one church they showed me the num-
mics of sixteen ~patriarchs, unwrapped
n a little and showed me his dry,
brown flesh. The seventeenth patri-
arch of the Coptic church is ninety
four years of age, and will be en-
balmed and put with these others in
hic firm unrn a1qn in ono nf tho
churches is the mummy of the print
tive hermit Macarius, once a candy
seller in Alexandria. The church,
perhaps, took the idea of embalming
the saints from the Egyptians, and
the fresco from the ~hieroglyph. The
books from which the service is read
are all copied books, beautiful spe-
cimens of c~alligraphy spattered on ev-
cry page in a hundred places with
new and ancient spots of candle
grease. From the vault of one of the
churches hang seven old dusty ostrich
eggs. A monk explained to me that
as the ostrich looks to it's egg as the
most precious thing in life, SO they
look to God in their prayers-at least
the Z is 10 REMIND tnem.
Bread and Books.
We went into the fortress church,
the only entrance to which is at a
height of forty feet by a bridge from
the outer rampant. They showed me
how the bridge could be drawn in and
the monks be safe from assault OF
arms. Upon the ramparts a novice
had his duty beside a pile Of bread
and a stoup of water. When Bedoui1
beggars ring the monastery bell he
lowers them bread and water in q
basket. They showed me the illumi
mated books of a thousand years old
and the scrivener's cell where, among
many quilts. a monk still copies the
scriptures day by day, They showed
me one chapel, the floor of which was
covered with chilies drying, the Ions
room where every night all the monk!
gather about the abbot to read the
gospel and discuss its meanings. anC
the massive doors, two feet thick. o
wood and iron.
The monks were most kind. simpl,
and loving. 1t was an amusing spec
tacle at lunch. lunched; everyon,
else waited or me. An AbyssiniaI
boy washed my hands, two monks
shelled eggs all the time and fllet
my plate, two others stripped cucum
beers for me, another kept helping N,
to hot milk soup in which slabs o
sugar were d%issolving. The abbo
stood above me with a feather brush
waving the flies of. At one time Their,
were a dozen shelled eggs in my SOU
and five pared c%ucumbers beside me
lunched and slept a little. Thel
my horse was brought out and | rod
back to the village on the other sid
of the salt marshes.