I should have been sorry to have missed the service.

Through a number of winding passages, up flights of narrow steps, and by terrace-ledges cut from the rock, over which I passed, and overhanging the river-side, I came to a vault-like chapel with low Saracenic arches and quaint old, dark recesses, and a dim shadowy air of mystery.

Round the candle-lighted altar, standing out brightly from amidst the darkness, knelt in every posture some seventy monks; and ever and anon the dreary nasal chanting ceased, and a strain of real music burst from out the hidden choir, rising and dying fitfully.

The whole scene was beautiful enough; but,--what a pity there should be a "but" in everything,--when you came to look on the scene in the light of a service, the charm passed away.

There were plenty of performers but no audience; the congregation consisted of four peasant-women, two men, and a child in arms.