A´thos

(now Hagion Oros or Monte Santo , that is, Holy Mountain), a mountain 6700 feet high, terminating the most eastern of the three peninsulas of Macedonia that jut in parallel directions into the Archipelago. The name, however, is frequently applied to the whole peninsula, which is about 30 miles long by 5 broad. It is covered with forests, and plantations of olive, vine, and other fruit-trees. Both the surface and coast-line are irregular. The Persian fleet under Mard on i us was wrecked here in 493 B.C. , and to avoid a similar calamity Xerxes caused a canal, of which traces may yet be seen, to be cut through the isthmus that joins the peninsula to the mainland. On the peninsula there are situated about twenty monasteries and a multitude of hermitages, which contain from 6000 to 8000 monks and hermits of the order of St. Basil. The libraries of the monasteries are rich in literary treasures and manuscripts. Every nation belonging to the Greek Church has here one or more monasteries of its own, which are annually visited by pilgrims. After having pa ed in the fifteenth century from the sovereignty of the Greek Emperors of Byzantium to that of the Sultans, it fell again into the hands of the Greeks, who occupied it in Nov., 1912. Each of the twenty monasteries is a little republic in itself, and until 1912 they used to pay an annual tribute of nearly £4000 to the Turks, and were governed by a synod of twenty monastic deputies and four presidents meeting weekly. They are now ruled either by abbots chosen for life, or by a board of overseers elected for a certain number of years. The revenue of the community is derived from 299 pilgrims, and from a considerable trade in amulets, rosaries, crucifixes, images, and wooden furniture.