Search Results: over the mountains to meteora by robert curzon

Abridged from "Visits to Monasteries in the Levant", first published in 1849. Soft cover, 18 cm, 92 pp. // "On its reaching the rock on which we stood the net was spread open; my two servants sat down upon it; and the four corners being attached to the hook, a signal was made, and they began slowly ascending into the air, twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle-jack. The rope was old and mended, and, the height from the ground to the door above was, we afterwards learned, 222 feet. When they reached the top I saw two stout monks reach their arms out of, the door and pull in the two servants by main force, as there was no contrivance like a turning-crane for bringing them nearer to the landing-place. The whole process appeared so dangerous, that I determined to go up by climbing a series of ladders which were suspended by large wooden pegs on the face of the precipice... The lowest ladder was approached by a pathway leading to a rickety wooden platform which overhung a deep… Read More