The Tomahawk., 1916-01-27
JEWELLERS IN THE DESERT

and liturgies. They repaired the dam
age and put up Arabic inscriptions,
and built round their temples impreg-
nable fortress walls with drawbridges
at 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 ruin 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 nail on which to
fix the candle. The communion cup
was swathed in the Oldest vestments
of the monastery. In cupboard In
one church they showed me the num-
mics of sixteen patriarchs, unwrapped
| one 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 il
his turn. Here also in one of the
churches is the mummy of the primi-
tive hermit Macarius, once a candy
seller in Alexandria. The church,
perhaps, took the idea of embalmins
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 calligraphy 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
look to God in their prayers-at least
the egg is to remind them.
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 pile Of bread
| and a stoup Of water. When Bedouin
beggars ring the monastery bell he
lowers them bread and water in a
basket. They showed me the illumi-
| mated books of thousand years old,
and the scrivener's cell where, among
many quilts, monk still copies the
scriptures day by day. They showed
me one chapel, the floor of which was
covered with chilies drying, the long
room where every night all the monks
gather about the abbot to read the
gospel and discuss it's meanings, and
the massive doors, two feet thick, of
| wood and iron, meant to resist the
Arab.
The monks were most kind, simple
and loving. 1t was an amusing spec
tacle at lunch. l lunched; everyone
| else waited on me. An Abyssinian
boy washed my hands, two monks
shelled eggs all the time and filled
| my plate, two others stripped cucum-
bers for me, another kept helping me
to hot milk soup in which slabs of
sugar were dissolving. The abbot
stood above me with a feather brush,
| waving the flies off. At one time there
| were dozen shelled eggs in my soup
and five pared cucumbers beside me.
lunched and slept q little Then
! my horse was brought out and rode
back to the village on the other side
of the salt marshes. There an en-
terprising British company is produc-
ing thousands of tons of caustic soda
| annually. The old hermits chose this
spot in the desert because of the
death-dealing odors which intensified
| their denial of the world, but in anoth-
er era comes another point of view.
Still, as the abbot said-there are va.
rious ways Of seeking God.
|
| This is wide world; but, neverthe-