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Show i Strange Homes of Alonks. J On ihe shores of Thessaly, in the northern part of Greece, is a group of remarkable rock-built monasteries, mon-asteries, offering strange testimony to the freak-ishness freak-ishness of man and nature. From a mountain chain not. far from the shore vast masses of rocks are thrust forward into a sandy plain, which l'ise in huge, isolated columns hundreds of feet high. Some are like gigantic tusks, some like sugcr loaves, and some like vast stalagmites, but all consisting of iron gray or red h brown conglomerate gneiss, and geen stone, says the Detroit Tribune. On the summit of these rock- pinnacles, hundreds hun-dreds of feet from earth, are the monasteries of Meteora (Air). At one time there were twenty-four twenty-four of them, hut in 1S12 travelers found only ten occupied, and now only four are -inhabited, and ihese by very small bands "of monks. It' is thought ihey were built about 13 70. . On our way to visit these curious relics of medieval me-dieval limes, we passed for miles through the rich plain of Thessaly, renowed of old for its horse-breeding horse-breeding pastures; past the very place where Apollo once tended the flocks of King Admetus, and through Pharsalia, where armies met in terrible coutlict to decide the destinies of the world, writes a contributor to Everywhere. For over an hour before be-fore reaching our destination we could see those detached piles of rock, looking as though some Titan had hewn away the intervening ledge with even strokes and left these spires to testify to his strenglh and skill. The most peculiar of the monasteries is called the Metamorho? of Transfiguration, and to this place admittance can onlv he gained by a most uncommon method. A walk of half an hour through a glade of mountain oaks brougiit us to a great, mass of. rock, 1.820 feet high, which is crowned by the buildings of this monastery. .Above us towered tow-ered the sheer height, and in a niche far up the side nestled a tower culminating in a wooden shed from which a rope was suspended. Xo signs of any means oC''ascent were apparent, appar-ent, unless we could "shin' the rope, which, was I quite out of ihe question, and the holy fathers appeared ap-peared quite indifferet to our presence. We shouted and fired guns to no purpose; and it was not until some time had passed that, a venerable face protruded pro-truded from the aerial loft and communications were interchanged. iSoon a series of rude ladders, attached end to end like the links of a chain, and whose lower end had hitherto been looped up by a lope from alopt. was let. dowu so-that it fitted on to ihe. top of another an-other ladder reared against, the rock from tl ground. This Avas evidently intended for our means of ascent. But what nerves it would require to creep up over those swaying rungs! The ladders were only loosely strung together, and it could be easily seen that every movement of the climber would cause them to wabble frightfully, now flapping againgst ihe perpendicular wall and now swaying outward with a sickening uncertainty as to results. Xevertheless. if we were to reach that 'high and holy citarhd. it was evident that we must climb. Consequently three of ihe bravest of our party vs- saved the task, while we, more fearful ones, stood j with cramped necks, watching their perilous jour-new jour-new skyward. The ladders swayed out and in against ihe rock just as we thought they would, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was not a monk of his particular variety, and that 1 did not have curiosity enough to undertake an investigation investiga-tion of them bv ibis perilous route. But our daring dar-ing comrades had cool heads, ami finally we saw the last of them vanish in ihe hole in the wall of one of the monastery buildings. |