These monastic establishments, as a general rule, were occupied later on
by the Benedictines, who ousted the Basileans and were supplanted, in
their turn, by popular orders of later days like the Theatines. Those
that are conveniently situated have now been turned into post offices,
municipalities, and other public buildings--such has been the common
procedure. But many of them, like this of Patir, are too decayed and
remote from the life of man. Fiore, who wrote in 1691, counts up 94
dilapidated Basilean monasteries in Calabria out of a former total of
about two hundred; Patir and thirteen others he mentions as having, in
his day, their old rites still subsisting. Batiffol has recently gone
into the subject with his usual thoroughness.

Nothing is uglier than a modern ruin, and the place would assuredly not
be worth the three hours' ride from Rossano were it not for the church,
which has been repaired, and for the wondrous view to be obtained from
its site. The journey, too, is charming, both by the ordinary track that
descends from Rossano and skirts the foot of the hills through olives
and pebbly stream-beds, ascending, finally, across an odorous tangle of
cistus, rosemary and myrtle to the platform on which the convent
stands--or by the alternative and longer route which I took on the
homeward way, and which follows the old water conduit built by the monks
into a forest of enormous chestnuts, oaks, hollies and Calabrian pines,
emerging out of an ocean of glittering bracken.

I was pursued into the church of Patir by a bevy of country wenches who
frequented this region for purposes of haymaking. There is a miraculous
crucifix in this sanctuary, hidden behind a veil which, with infinite
ceremony, these females withdrew for my edification. There it was, sure
enough; but what, I wondered, would happen from the presence of these