Next morning, January 31st, I ascended to the principal monastery of Meteora. After a tiring walk of half an hour, winding among the crags of this strange place, we came to the foot of the rock on which it is perched, and found that the ladder commonly used, which is made in joints five or six feet long, had been drawn up. We called to the papades who were aloft to let down the rope and net. After some hallooing, down it came, a circular net with the meshes round the circumference gathered on a hook. Michael and myself, with my drawing materials, got in and were drawn up by a windlass. To swing in mid-air trusting to a rope not so thick as my wrist and 124 feet long (I measured it) is anything but pleasant. I shall not forget my sensations as I looked out through the meshes of the net as we were spinning round in the ascent. There was a horrible void below--sheer precipices on each side, and then the slipping of the rope as it crossed on the windlass. Once up, we were pulled in at the entrance, the hook drawn out, and we were set at liberty. The company that received us were some wretched papades, as ignorant as possible. They could tell me next to nothing about their monastery, except that on the occasion of an invasion of the Turks, a bey of Trikhala, one Joseph Ducas, had retired hither and established it and seventeen others. The buildings of ten of them still exist, but only two or three are still inhabited. The church here is a very good one, and there is a chapel of Constantine. The view is magnificent. I gave a dollar to the young priest who took me round, desiring him to use it for any purpose of the church; but I found, from what my peasant guide told me when we had got down, that the scamp had pocketed it for his own use, for that the chief papa had asked him as we were about to leave, if the stranger would not leave some parahs for the church. It was a lovely day, and beneath me, from the village, passed a procession of a bridegroom going to a neighbouring village to fetch his bride. His mother was on one side of his horse, another relative on the other; before him a male relation carried a flag, and behind came all his friends and family in their best dresses with guns on their shoulders, making a gallant show. It was a pretty sight. We left Kalabaki by Meteora, and reached Trikhala about sunset. The solitude of the town and the vastness of the cemeteries gave one the creeps; and hearing that the plague was in the town at that moment, I mounted again, and rode four hours further to a khan and slept there. Next day we rode to Phersala (twelve hours); but the plague being there also, we proceeded a further four hours to a khan under Thaumaco (sixteen hours' riding). From Meteora to Phersala is one uninterrupted plain which I thought would never end. I saw many villages, but much misery--especially in Trikhala and Phersala.