The most valuable reliquary of St. Laura is a kind of triptic, about eighteen inches high, of pure gold, a present from the Emperor Nicephorus, the founder of the abbey. The front represents a pair of folding-doors, each set with a double row of diamonds (the most ancient specimens of this stone that I have seen), emeralds, pearls, and rubies as large as sixpences. When the doors are opened a large piece of the holy cross, splendidly set with jewels, is displayed in the centre, and the inside of the two doors and the whole surface of the reliquary are covered with engraved figures of the saints stuck full of precious stones. This beautiful shrine is of Byzantine workmanship, and, in its way, is a superb work of art.
The refectory of the monastery is a large square building, but the dining-room which it contains is in the form of a cross, about one hundred feet in length each way; the walls are decorated with fresco pictures of the saints, who vie with each other in the hard-favoured aspect of their bearded faces; they are tall and meagre full-length figures as large as life, each having his name inscribed on the picture. Their chief interest is in their accurate representation of the clerical costume. The dining-tables, twenty-four in number, are so many solid blocks of masonry, with heavy slabs of marble on the top; they are nearly semicircular in shape, with the flat side away from the wall; a wide marble bench runs round the circular part of them in this form. A row of these tables extend down each side of the hall, and at the upper end in a semicircular recess is a high table for the superior, who only dines here on great occasions. The refectory being square on the outside, the intermediate spaces between the arms of the cross are occupied by the bakehouse, and the wine, oil, and spirit cellars; for although the monks eat no meat, they drink famously; and the good St. Basil having flourished long before the age of Paracelsus, inserted nothing in his rules against the use of ardent spirits, whereof the monks imbibe a considerable quantity, chiefly bad arrack; but it does not seem to do them any harm, and I never heard of their overstepping the bounds of sobriety. Besides the two churches in the great courts, which are shaded by ancient cypresses, there are twenty smaller chapels, distributed over different parts of the monastery, in which prayers are said on certain days. The monks are now in a more flourishing condition than they have been for some years; and as they trust to the continuance of peace and order in the dominions of the Sultan, they are beginning to repair the injuries they suffered during the revolution, and there is altogether an air of improvement and opulence throughout the establishment.