The next morning, at an early hour, mules were waiting in the court to carry me across the hills to the harbour below the monastery of Xeropotamo, where the Greek brig was lying which was to convey me and my treasures from these peaceful shores. Emptying out my girdle, I calculated how much, or rather how little money would suffice to pay the expenses of my voyage to the Asiatic castle of the Dardanelles, feeling assured that from thence I could get credit for a passage in the magnificent steamer _The Stamboul_, which ran between Smyrna and Constantinople. With the reservation of this sum, I gave the agoumenos all my remaining gold, and in return he provided me with an old wooden chest, in which I stowed away several goodly folios; for the saddle-bags, although distended to their utmost limits, did not suffice to carry all the great manuscripts and ponderous volumes that were now added to my store. Turning out the corn from the nosebags of the mules, I put one or two smaller books in each; and, after all, an extra mule was sent for to convey the surplus tomes over the rough and craggy ridge which we were to pass in our journey to the other sea. Although the stories of the agoumenos were too windy and too long, I was sorry to part from him, and I took an affectionate leave also of Pater Joasaph and the two cats. Unfortunately, in the hurry of departure, I left on the divan the MS. of Justin, which I had been trying to decipher, and forgot it when I came away. It was a small thick octavo, on charta bombycina, and was probably kicked into the nearest corner as soon as I evacuated the monastery.
Our ride was a very rough one. We had first to ascend the hill, in some places through deep ravines, and in others through most glorious forests of gigantic trees, mostly planes, with a thick underwood of those aromatic flowering evergreens which so beautifully clothe the hills of Greece and this part of Turkey.
When we had crossed the upper ridge of rock, leaving the peak of Athos towering to the sky on our left, we had to descend the dry bed of a torrent so full of great stones and fallen rocks, that it appeared impossible for anything but a goat to travel on such a road. I got off my mule, and began jumping from one rock to another on the edge of the precipice; but the sun was so powerful, that in a short time I was completely exhausted; and on looking at the mules, I saw that one after another they jumped down so unerringly over chasms and broken rocks, alighting so precisely in the exact place where there was standing-room for their feet, that, after a little consideration, I remounted my mule; and keeping my seat, without holding the bridle, we hopped and skipped from rock to rock down this extraordinary track, until in due time we arrived safely at the sea-shore, close to the mouth of the little river of Xeropotamo. My manuscripts and myself were soon embarked, and with a favouring breeze we stood out into the Gulf of Monte Santo, and had leisure to survey the scenery of this superb peninsula as we glided round the lofty marble rocks and noble forests which formed the background to the strange and picturesque Byzantine monasteries with every one of which we had become acquainted.