View PDF version of this page

A LAND OF LINGERING FAITHS 281 put off my departure, and to go back again to the magical voices of the wilderness. But common sense prevailed, and my longing remained a longing only. Mrs. Orford, I think, sympathised a little with my feelings. She had never been herself to the monastery, the ascent being difficult ; but it had always stimulated her fancy; and my last dinner, and my last evening, she beguiled with stories, which I wished I had known before, of the customs and superstitions that colour the life of the islanders. Most of these have by this time escaped my mind ; but I remember her telling me that the coin for Charon's ferry is still religiously placed between the lips of the dead ; and that a priest is buried with a lighted lamp on his breast—just such a lamp as our excavators find in the ancient tombs. I remember her telling me also that the two saints of the island are St. George—our own St. George—and St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. It is still told of St. Helena that, going from Jerusalem to Constantinople, she stopped in Cyprus, which she had heard was suffering from an unexampled drought. Many of the people had been forced to quit the country ; more still were there, in a state of lamentable privation. St. Helena came, laden with alms and pity ; and no sooner had she set her foot on the soil than rain began to fall, which presently formed a river. It was called the Queen's Biver, and it still flows to-day. As for St. George, the memory of him is just as

View PDF version of this page