"MINE OWN FAMILIAR FRIEND." OLD friend, kind friend, is the night far spent? There comes the thrill of a sweet content The forest rests in a waste of snow, In its wintry slumber deep; But when spring awakes and violets blow, Old friend, there were many false, fair things Bright smiles, that cover a love grown cold, The tinsel purchased with honest gold- SORREL BLOSSOMS. IN hope I climbed the grassy stair, Green hill in sunlight glancing; A thousand grasses blossomed fair, The breezes set them dancing; Each seemed a happy soul to be, Rejoicing with the summer: I smiled to think they danced for me, And every glad new-comer. But, ah! a rapture greater still, It was the self-same grassy hill, It seemed that gems had dropped in showers, 'Twas but a crowd of sorrel flowers Through which the sun was shining. But one thing, one, through shadow and shine, Each little flower with ruby wings Is true to the very end; Of all good gifts that ever were mine The best is a faithful friend: You saw the snares that I could not see, And watched me early and late; My soul was dumb, but your hand, for me, Knocked hard at the golden gate. Moved to a rhythmic measure; I danced, I sang, I could not choose I felt as if I ne'er could lose The Omnipotent hath reft me of my throne, And plunged me in the abyss of hell, and he Shall give my home to man! That pains me most, That Adam wrought of earth in heaven shall be A throned power, find grace with God, while I Endure hell's torment ! Would these hands were free For one brief winter hour, then with my host- Of hell, on all sides round a sea of flame, From The Scottish Review. Around [of Patmos], with the general character of its scenery, still more deeply enters into the fig. THE island of Patmos occupies an im- ures of the vision itself... The view from portant position in the sacred geography the topmost peak, or, indeed, from any lofty of Christendom, but, unlike the other holy elevation in the island, unfolds an unusual places, it is very seldom visited by stran- sweep, such as well became the "Apocalypse," gers. There is no regular communication the "unveiling" of the future to the eyes of the solitary seer. by steamboat. It was "a great and high The inhabitants, even mountain," whence he could see things to amid their poverty, do not turn the sacome. Above, there was always the broad credness of the spot into a source of profit heaven of a Grecian sky; sometimes bright, by organizing pilgrimages, and inviting with its "white cloud," sometimes torn with the outside world to enrich them by pay-"lightenings and thunderings," and darkened ing for temporary hospitality, and for me- by "great hail," or cheered with "a rainbow morials of the journey.* The descrip- like unto an emerald." Over the high tops of tions which have been published have Icaria, Samos, and Naxos, rise the mountains been very few. Yet the place is natu- of Asia Minor; amongst which would lie, to rally of profound interest. The land- the north, the circle of the Seven Churches to scape, in any case, is that which was be- which his addresses were to be sent. him stood the mountains and islands of the fore the eyes of John. There remains, Archipelago-"every mountain and island moreover, the farther question whether, shall be moved out of their places;" "every during the revelation of the Apocalypse, island fled away, and the mountains were not he was conscious of surrounding objects found." At his feet lay Patmos itself, like a in such a sense that this landscape was huge serpent, its rocks contorted into the most as it were the proscenium on which the fantastic and grotesque forms, which may well figures of the vision appeared. The late have suggested the "beasts" with many heads Dean Stanley, in a beautiful passage in and monstrous figures, the "huge dragon" the appendix to his "Sermons in the struggling for victory, -a connection as obviEast," seems to incline to such an ous as that which has often been recognized idea: between the strange shapes on the Assyrian monuments and the prophetic symbols in the visions of Ezekiel and Daniel. When he stood "on the sand of the sea," the sandy beach at the foot of the hill, he would see these strange shapes "arise out of the sea" which rolled before him. When he looked around, above, or below, "the sea" would always occupy the foremost place. He saw "the things that are in the heavens and in the earth and in the sea." The angel was "not to hurt the earth or the sea," nor "to blow on the earth or on the sea." "A great mountain," like that of the volcanic Thera, "as it were burning with fire," was "to be cast into the sea." The angel was to stand with "his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth;""the vial was to be poured out upon the sea;" the voices of heaven were like the sound of the waves beating upon the shore, as "the sound of many waters;" "the mill-stone was cast into the sea;""the sea was to give up the dead which were in it;" and the time would come when this wall of his imprison. ment which girdled round the desolate island, should have ceased; "there shall be no more sea"... We understand the Apocalypse better for having seen Patmos. The "Revelation" is of the same nature as the prophetic visions and lyrical psalms of the Old Testament, where the mountains, valleys, trees, storms, earthquakes, of Palestine occupy the foreground of the picture, of which the horizon extends to the unseen world and the remote future. . . The view from the summit No such thing as a photograph can be obtained, nor are there even religious pictures for sale. The principal authority seems to be the "Descrip tion de l'Ile de Patmos et de l'Ile de Samos," par V. Guérin (Paris, Auguste Durand, 1856). The description given in the present paper was written almost entirely at Patmos, and before the author had had the advantage of reading M. Guérin's exceedingly valuable work. It is fuller in some respects, especially as concerning the churches, than that work, but poorer in others, especially on antiquarian and historical points. It is published as it was written, but some footnotes have been added, citing with acknowledgment several valuable statements from the French author. In some few particulars, though none of importance, the present writer differs from M. Guérin, owing, no doubt, in some cases, to changes which have occurred since 1855, and, in others, to one or other having misunderstood or been misinformed. Sermons in the East, pp. 229-231. The passage cited was evidently written away from the spot, and somewhat carelessiy; for instance, the dean had evidently entirely forgotten the respective positions of Asia Minor and Naxos with regard to Patmos. On the other hand, we get such a view as that expressed by Renan. Writing upon this very point, he says, speaking of the apostles in general and of the beloved disciple in particular: Men so heated as these sour and fanatical descendants of the antient prophets of Israël, carried their own imagination about with them wherever they went; and this imagination was so uniformly imprisoned within the sphere of the antient Hebrew poetry, that the nature which surrounded them had for them no existence. Patmos is like all the other islands in the Archipelago, —an azure sea, limpid atmosphere, serene sky, great rocks with jagged edges, slightly covered here and there by a scanty coating of verdure. The general appearance of the island itself is bare and barren, but the shapes and tints of the rocks, and the living blue of the sea, specked with white birds and contrasted with the reddish color of the boulders, form a wonderful picture. The myriads of isles and islets, of the most varied forms, which rise from the waves like pyramids or shields, and dance an eternal chorus round the horizon, seem to be a fairy world belonging to a cycle of sea-gods and Oceanides leading a bright life of love, of youth, and of sadness, in sea-green grottoes, upon shores without mystery, by turns smiling or terrible, sunny or dark. But such ideas as Calypso and the Sirens, the Tritons and the Nereides, the dangerous charms of the sea, with its caresses at once so sensuous and so deadly, all those refined feelings which have found inimitable expression in the Odyssey, -all such things entirely escaped the imagination of this gloomy visionary. Two or three particular features, such as the prominence given to the idea of the sea, and the image of "a great mountain burning in the midst of the sea," which he seems to have borrowed from Thera,† are the only things which have any local color. Out of a little island formed to be the scene of the lovely romance of "Daphnis and Chloe," or of pastorals such as were conceived by Theocritus or Moschus, he has made a black volcano, bursting with ashes and fire. And yet, he cannot have avoided sometimes feeling a sense of the peaceful silence of the nights on these waters, when nothing is heard but the occasional cry of a seagull, or the dull blowing of a porpoise. For days together he was in face of Mount Mycale, without thinking once of the victory of the Hellenes over the Persians, the most glorious which has ever been gained, next after Marathon and Thermopyla. Placed thus in the very midst of the greatest Greek creations, at a few leagues from Samos, from Cos, from Miletus, and from Ephesus, he dreamt about other things than the colossal genius of Pythagoras, of Hippocrates, of Thales or of Heraclitus; for him the glorious memories of Greece had no existence. The poem of Patmos ought to have been some "Hero and Leander," or an idyll in the manner of Longus, celebrating the gambols of beautiful children upon the threshold of love. But the dark enthusiast, cast by accident upon these Ionian shores, never got out of the circle of his Biblical recollections. Nature for him was the living chariot of Ezechiel, the monstrous cherub, the unnatural bull of Nineveh, an outrageous zoology which sets sculpture and painting at defiance. That curious defect which, to the eyes of Orientals, seems to change the forms of nature, the defect which causes all the figured representations that come from their hands to seem fantastic and lifeless, was at its climax in him. The disease which he bore in his bowels colored everything to his sight. He saw with the eyes of Ezechiel or of the author of the Book of Daniel; or rather, he saw nothing but himself, his own passions, hopes, and hatreds. A vague and dry mythol ogy, already Cabbalistic and Gnostic, and all based upon the conversion of abstract ideas into Divine beings, has put him outside the range of the plastic conditions of art. No one has ever shut himself out more entirely from his surroundings; no one has ever more openly renounced the sensible world, in order to substitute for the harmony of the reality, the contradictory chimæra of a new earth and a new heaven.* As a matter of fact, the island of Patmos belongs to that class of Greek land. scape which is strongly suggestive of the north-west coast of Scotland. A very fair idea of its general appearance would be formed from some of the wildest and most barren coasts of the islands, allowing only for the living sapphire of the sea, the luminous transparency of the atmosphere, and the fact that the rocks are brown This characteristic outburst is said to have been written by M. Renan without ever having enjoyed the advantage of being in the island in question. He himself says that after struggling for a whole day, the state of the wind prevented his entering the port. This does not, of course, necessarily imply that he did not succeed on some other occasion; but the present writer was informed on the spot that he never had been there, and the same assurance was given to Vannutelli. spent upon public works or even private enterprise, but the taxation would be, at least, not less, and they would fall under the law of universal military service, and annual calling out of the reserve, from which they are now exempt. Moreover, the ecclesiastical legislation of Greece would be only too likely to hamper the beneficent activity of the monastery, which may be called their mainstay. rather than grey. It is extremely pictur- | lose - cantabit vacuus coram latrone viaesque, from its wild forms, but it is one of tor. Were they reunited to their own those places which, like the island of people, more money might perhaps be Bute, afford the best views to those who are upon them rather than to those who see them from outside. To a passer by, it presents no features so striking as the heights of Samos, which tower in view of it. But to him who has landed in it, and explores its hills and glens, it affords extraordinarily beautiful pictures, both in its own wild, though limited landscapes, and in the vast and enchanting prospect which it offers on every side. In form, it is so irregular, that it seems simply a group of stony hills, linked together by sandy isthmuses, and separated by deep bays, while other hills, still unjoined, rise from the sea in the form of islets around its shores. The predominant feature of the island is sterility. The masses of rock and stones are thinly sprinkled with small tufts of brownish herbage. The cultivated land is confined to the bays and a few glens, and, except in the north, is only a small fraction of the surface. Trees, and even bushes, such as pomegranate or prickly-pear, are rare, and hardly to be found except in the scanty gardens. Such as it is, the surface of the country is streaked with stone walls, dividing the different properties. The inhabitants, about three thousand in number, are poor. The corn which they produce does not suffice for their own consumption; and the burden of £200, which, with another £100 made up by the monastery, they are obliged to pay yearly to the Porte, lies heavy on them. It may be questioned, however, whether, in their present condition, they would be much improved in circumstances by being added to the free Greek isles, which they can see in fair weather from their shores. The Turkish government leaves them very much alone, partly owing to stipulations made when this and other islands were exchanged for Euboia, partly also, perhaps, because they have little to M. Guérin says that the three largest trees which he observed were in a small gien called Troas, in the north-west. ↑ They also make a little very good sweet wine; they fish for sponges, and the women have a considerable industry in knitting socks. The natives are all Christians, and 'Ellenes by race and language. The latter they speak with fair correctness. Of the precepts of religion they seem to be most scrupulously observant.* The island only contains some half-dozen Mohammedans, who are among the officials sent by the government. The governor himself is a Christian. The island is distinguished by the enormous number of its churches. These are counted by hundreds. It is hardly possible to find any spot from which several are not to be seen at once. Indeed, in the less inhabited parts the mind receives the impression that there are more churches than houses. They stand together in couples and triplets, and in groups almost like hamlets. All of them are small. The larger have domes, but the great majority are merely small, oblong, vaulted apartments, with a small apse at the end, and incapable of accommodating more than twenty or thirty persous with comfort. Only very few of them are in ruins. They are mostly kept in thorough repair, and with great care and cleanliness. In the majority, mass is only said on the titular feast, but others are served either at regular intervals or constantly, and the popular piety mani. fests itself, especially on Sunday, by the burning of lamps and incense in almost all, while fresh decorations of flowers are placed upon the pictures. These churches of Patmos present some local peculiarities. The arrangement of the eikonostasion, or image-screen, which • M. Guérin observes that, as far as his temporary residence afforded him an opportunity of observing, the public morality is very good, and marriage held in the highest esteem and respect. shuts off the sanctuary from the body of the church, is somewhat peculiar. It is always of wood, and generally slight, whereas, elsewhere, it is often of stone or marble, and the upper part is here, in some cases, left very open, almost like a Western chancel screen. Elsewhere it has usually three doors, viz.: the holy doors leading directly to the altar, and others on the north and south, leading to the prothesis, or credence, and the diakonikon, or vestry, respectively; here there is no door to the diakonikon. The three divisions are never here, as often else where, separated by walls pierced with doors, behind the screen. Elsewhere, the doors in the eikonostasion are very often closed by painted shutters; here by veils. In ordinary cases, the picture of Christ, which occupies the panel of the eikonostasion to the south of the holy doors, has next to it a picture of the Baptist, and that of the Blessed Virgin, on the north side, has next to it the picture of the patron saint, or of the subject of the titular feast; here there are rarely more than three pictures on the main line, viz., those of Christ and his mother, and that of the patron, in the place usually occupied by that of the Baptist. The standard candlesticks before the screen, which are generally of wood, are often of an interesting Byzantine, if not classical, design, resting on four feet and consisting of four thin, clustered shafts, intertwined in the middle. places and objects of interest. On the summit of its central hill rises the great monastery, with the white houses of the town clustered under the shelter of its fortress like walls, and presenting the main object which strikes the eye on approaching the island, the whole group quaintly flanked by a row of four large windmills on the east and another isolated windmill on the west. To this division belongs, in the bay of Tragos itself, an extremely curious isolated rock, united by a narrow strip of sand to the coast at its north-west corner. This great rock, which was split by lightning about twelve years ago, and thus suffered great alteration in shape, bears many traces of the hand of man which are stated to be of classical times, and strongly resemble similar marks, of a very early period to be seen elsewhere in Greece. Towards the sea, regular flights of steps have been formed, going up to the summit, where there is a deep cutting, opening towards the land, but ending, in the midst of the rock, in a well or cistern now nearly filled up. The peculiar cuttings among which the steps ascend have the appearance of places prepared for the fixing of votive offerings or tablets. The most probable explanation seems to be that here was some ancient pagan shrine, perhaps of the sea-sprung Aphrodite, as there are at the base some ruins of a small church of the Blessed Virgin under the title of Phylattoméne, "the Protected." There is said to have formerly been an hermitage on this rock. From the shore at this point a valley runs inland, which imperfectly divides the southern portion of this group of hills from the northern, where stands the monastery. In the bottom and sides of this valley there is a certain amount of cultiva tion and a few houses. The chief feature The southernmost division of the island of Patmos consists of an uninhabited and singularly barren group of hills, of which the highest point (789 ft.) is called Mount Prasson. From the south point of this group, there runs into the sea one of those curious masses of jagged rocks with which the waters immediately around the shores of the island are often broken, and which in this case bears a remarkable resem-in the southern half-district is Mount St. blance to the Needles of the Isle of Wight. This southern division of the island is almost cut off from the rest by the deep bays of Port Stauros on the west, and of Tragos on the east. They are separated by a low, sandy isthmus, in the midst of which, on an incidental hillock, stands the Church of the Holy Cross (Stauros) There is here a little cultivated ground, and two or three cottages. In the bay of Tragos lies the uninhabited island of Tragónesos, in somewhat the same way as, upon a much larger scale, the Holy Island lies in the Bay of Lamlash. The division of the island which next follows is that which contains most of the Elias, the highest hill in the island (874 ft.) which rises on the western side. It is the highest point of a group of hills which ascend abruptly from the waters of Port Stauros.* On the summit of the highest peak is a group of buildings, comprising a small court, a terrace, a few chambers, and the Church of St. Elias. This church The south-western extremity, called Mount Kynops, and which is almost as high as Mount St. Elias, with superstitious dread as Kynops, a magician who is stated by the legend to have opposed st. John. is said by M. Guérin to contain a cave still viewed the former dwelling of Próchorus for the existence of a temple of Zeus in the M. Guérin cites the legendary work of pseudoisland. It may possibly have been on this height, as |