"You are the first pilgrim who ever came from your country to Solovetsk," says Feofan, smiling. "One man came before you in a steamship; he was an engineer--one Anderson; you know him, maybe? No! He was a good man--he minded his engines well; but he could not live on fish and quass--he asked for beef and beer; and when we told him we had none to give him, he went away. No other English ever came." He passes on to talk of the Holy Sepulchre and the Russian convent near the Jaffa Gate. "You are welcome to Solovetsk," he says at parting; "see what you wish to see, go where you wish to go, and come to me when you like." Nothing could be sweeter than his voice, nothing softer than his smile, as he spake these words; and seeing the twinkle in his eye, as we stand near the English shell, I also smile and add: "On the mantel-piece of my writing-room in London there lies just such another shell, a trifle thinner in the girth." "Yes?" he asks, a little curious--for a monk. "My shell has the Russian mark; it was fired from Sebastopol, and picked up by a friend of my own in his trench before the Russian lines." Feofan laughs, so far as an Archimandrite ever laughs--in the eyes and about the mouth. From this hour his house and household are at my disposal--his boat, his carriage, and his driver; every thing is done to make my residence in the convent pleasant; and every night my host is good enough to receive from his officers a full report of what I have seen and what I have said during the day! Three hundred monks of all classes reside on the Holy Isle. The chief is, of course, the Archimandrite; next to him come forty monks, who are also popes; then come seventy or eighty monks who wear the hood and have taken the final vows; after these orders come the postulants, acolytes, singers, servants. Lodgers, scholars, and hired laymen fall into a second class.