which he offered to me, saying, "_Prekrasnie_" (Beautiful). Without
waiting for thanks, he climbed a second flight of steps and suddenly
disappeared from view. I followed, and found myself in front of a narrow
aperture in a rude wall, which had been built up under an overhanging
mass of rocks. A lamp was twinkling within, and presently several
persons crawled out, crossing themselves and muttering prayers.

"What is this?" asked a person who had just arrived.

"The cave of Alexander Svirski," was the answer.

Alexander of the Svir--a river flowing from the Onega Lake into
Ladoga--was a hermit who lived for twenty years on the Holy Island,
inhabiting the hole before us through the long, dark, terrible winters,
in a solitude broken only when the monks of Valaam came over the ice to
replenish his stock of provisions. Verily, the hermits of the Thebaïd
were Sybarites, compared to this man! There are still two or three
hermits who have charge of outlying chapels on the islands, and live
wholly secluded from their brethren. They wear dresses covered with
crosses and other symbols, and are considered as dead to the world. The
ceremony which consecrates them for this service is that for the burial
of the dead.

I managed, with some difficulty, to creep into Alexander Svirski's den.
I saw nothing, however, but the old, smoky, and sacred picture before
which the lamp burned. The rocky roof was so low that I could not stand
upright, and all the walls I could find were the bodies of pilgrims who
had squeezed in before me. A confused whisper surrounded me in the
darkness, and the air was intolerably close. I therefore made my escape
and mounted to the chapel, on the highest part of the island. A little