banks of the Nile numerous huts, built by these solitary dwellers, of
branches held together by clay, were scattered at a little distance from
each other, so that the inhabitants could live alone, and yet help one
another in case of need. Churches, each surmounted by a cross, stood
here and there amongst the huts, and the monks flocked to them at each
festival to celebrate the services or to partake of the Communion. There
were also, here and there on the banks of the river, monasteries, where
the cenobites lived in separate cells, and only met together that they
might the better enjoy their solitude.

Both hermits and cenobites led abstemious lives, taking no food till
after sunset, and eating nothing but bread with a little salt and
hyssop. Some retired into the desert, and led a still more strange life
in some cave or tomb.

All lived in temperance and chastity; they wore a hair shirt and a hood,
slept on the bare ground after long watching, prayed, sang psalms, and,
in short, spent their days in works of penitence. As an atonement
for original sin, they refused their body not only all pleasures and
satisfactions, but even that care and attention which in this age are
deemed indispensable. They believed that the diseases of our members
purify our souls, and the flesh could put on no adornment more glorious
than wounds and ulcers. Thus, they thought they fulfilled the words of
the prophet, "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."

Amongst the inhabitants of the holy Thebaid, there were some who
passed their days in asceticism and contemplation; others gained their
livelihood by plaiting palm fibre, or by working at harvest-time for
the neighbouring farmers. The Gentiles wrongly suspected some of them
of living by brigandage, and allying themselves to the nomadic Arabs