The Project Gutenberg  e-book gives, like Google books,  public access to old books. In the rapidly growing collection of old books there is an anonymous Dutch book  called `Bezoek aan den berg Athos, de Aarde en haar Volken` (translated: visit to the Athos mountain, the earth and its peoples). It was published in 1873. The book is nice to read (for the Dutch) and has got some interesting pictures.

The three patriachs; painting in Lavra trapeza.

The book starts with a description of Thessaloniki (then under de Turkish rule). `The harbor lonely, the quay empty, the fertile land undeveloped and everywhere dirty stinking pools and marshes, from which pestilent vapors  ascend.  The truth of the Greek proverb:  “there where the Turk’s feet move, the earth withers“, is proved again`.

Suddenly I had a deja -vu. I had the impression that I had read it before, that I recognized the pictures. Of course, it’s a translation of M.A. Proust´s contribution to the magazine Le tour du monde, nouveau journal des voyages (Trip around the world, new travel journal)!  I have introduced Proust in blog 1063.

The higoumenos of Iveron.

I contacted the people behind  the Project Gutenberg, to tell them that this anonymous work has finally found it´s author, after 137 years.

Esfigmenou.

You can find the e-book here.

Bas Kamps