Evening star., 1935-03-10
NO WOMAN'S LAND.
1000 YEARS OLD.
Holy Community on Mount
AthoS Bars Even Female
Animals.
BY RICHARD HALLIBURTON.

By RICHARD HALLIBURTON.
Author Of THE Royal Road to Romance"
Etc.
There exists today in Southeastern
Europe little country, washed by the
Aegean Sea, so fantastically different
from all other countries in the world
that in writing about it am aware
I shall be straining the credulity of
my readers to the utmost, So let me
assure you at the outset that every
word of this story is strictly true, and
can be authenticated.
This country is almost thousand
years old, and has government which
has functioned uninterruptedly over
q longer span of time than any other
government on earth. But in all this
time it has never introduced single
new idea in politics, education or
science. The 1000 people who inhabit
1t occupy the same venerable buildings,
read the same parchment books, wear
the same style of clothes, lead the
same kind of lives, to the minutest
detail, as their country's founders in
the tenth century. In the midst OF
progress and evolution it has remained
a medieval world, frozen but still liv-
ing, and preserved for our inspection
today.
When we examine it we find, to
49,. o.top;ebv,,npf tbot aUorv iOhQhit-
ant is a male-has always been
male since the beginning.
Border Guarded.
No child has ever been born within
this country's boundaries. Baby boys
may have been brought here and have
grown up here, but never a baby girl.
This country is located entirely on
q narrow peninsula. At the point
where the peninsula joins the main
land the inhabitants have placed
special police whose sole duty is to
keep wolves and women from crossing
the frontier.
Not only are all females of the
human race vigorously barred-fe-
males of any other sort are barred as
well. There are large f1ocks of ROSTERS
in the country, but not one single hen
plenty of rams but no ewes-herds
of steers and bulls but not cow can
be found. There are thousands and
thousands of cats-al tom; innumer-
able dogs, all male. Only female birds
and female insects have been able
to fly or crawl-to the states great
annoyance-across the border
All the 1000 inhabitants wear long
black boards and long black robes.
Hair-cutting is not allowed. Instead,
hair is gathered into big knot at
the back of the neck and secured with
hairpins. Badness is unknown.
Drink without Song.
The people drink quantities of liquor,
but singing is strictly prohibited.
The capital is called Karyes, which
when translated into English, gives it
the lovely and mellifuous name of
Nuts.
And that's not the half Of it, but
I don't dare go on for fear you will
think your correspondent is suffering
from insanity.
This community is the holy COM
munity of Mount Athos. On maps
it is included in Greek territory, but
actually it is as independent as the
moon. Passports are required for
every visitor, including Greek, and
special permission from the state
department necessary, as In Russia,
to receive a visa.
And just exactly where is this
strange country?
East of Salonika the map Of Greece
shows three long, narrow mountainous
peninsulas extending like three in
furiated sausages into the Aegean Sea.
OF these AthoS is the easternmost-30
miles long and wide. Rising above
the point is an abrupt and spectacu-
lar peak 5000 feet high, of pure white
marble. The crown Is treeleSs so that
the peak seems to have perpetual
diadem of snow. Between the peak
and the isthmus is range of the
widest, steepest mountains imaginable.
1000 Years Old.
And on the rugged sea slopes and
shores Of this peninsula, placed
or miles apart, are 20 lonely and
isolated communities. Each is in
closed within a huge medieval stone
building, walled and battlemented,
and built around court. These COM
munities are monasteries. Several of
them were founded between the years
900 and 1000. Several more in the
1100s. One, the baby Of the family,
and so young that it's still treated like
q freshman. was already 100 years old
when the Pilgrims came to America.
The monasteries are giants in size
The largest measures nearly one-third
of a mile around its walls. Another
is 10 stories high. Fortress, castle,
college, church, all in one, they were
all built in beauty and in grandeur
by the outpourings of riches from the
emperorS of old Byzantium.
1t Is in these vast religious refugees
that the entirely masculine population
Of Athos lives :. 1000 monks. And
1t has been their abbots who have
passed laws forbidding any creature
of the female sex from profaning the
holiness Of this long-bearded heaven.
The origin, endurance and con-
sistency of this regime is one of the
marvels Of history.
Riches of Byzantium.
Byzantium-now Istanbul-in the
year 900 was the most zealously Chris
tian city ever known. The Eastern
Orthodox Church dominated it COM
pletely. But for numbers of citizens
in this excessively religious metropolis,
Byzantium was not half pious enough.
These fanatics, protected and sup
ported by the state, retreated to the
wild and ninhabited-and dramati-
cally beautiful-peninsula of Athos.
Here, as monks, they turned their zeal
into the construction of monasteries
which for splendor and size had never
been seen before.
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