CHAPTER I

ATHOS AND THE WAY THITHER

MUCH of the difficulty and not a little of the romance of a pilgrimage to Athos has vanished with the coming of steam. It is steam today that brings you to Salonica, whether you travel by land or by water, and steam that carries you down the long bay with the low, treeless shore of the Chalcidice on your left and snow-crowned Olympus on your right, until at length, as you turn eastward into the open sea, the Holy Mountain rises upon your view—a high ridge running out into the sea for thirty wooded miles to culminate at length in a single perfect peak rising straight from the water—Mount Athos.

The voyage may have been more poetical not so many years ago before steamers were at your service, but a short experience of Aegean sailing-boats and Aegean weather¹ is apt to reconcile you

¹ Pilgrims to Athos should bear in mind that the climate of Athos is more northern than that of Greece and that spring