SerW.GtU dtl/. 7\ i/Jiayn/sZcrt.w Pnnr/d A/ C--Hu.2lman&k\ MONASTERY OP MEGASPELIA . Lornlotu -Tui .by Zcngnuui ,He&?, Or»u> XC° NARRATIVE JOURNEY THE MORE A. Sir WILLIAM GELL, M.A. F.R.S. F.S.A. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1823. London : Trinted by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New- Street- Square. TO HARRIET, LADY DRUMMOND, OF LOGIE ALMOND, WHOSE MUNIFICENCE HAS PROTECTED HIM IN SUCCESS AND ADVERSITY, THIS NARRATIVE, THE RESULT OF A JOURNEY PERFORMED DURING A PERIOD OF HEALTH AND PROSPERITY, IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED, BY HER OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. A 3 PREFACE. A work of the species now offered to the public is usually preceded by a Preface, ex- planatory of the motives which have at length induced the modest Author, contrary to his own judgment, to accede to the wishes and entreaties of his friends, and to submit to the eye of criti- cism what was originally written solely for his own private amusement. Distant, however, as I am at present from my friends, I should have been at a loss to find an excuse for writing, though I have a faint recol- lection that a lady once said to me, " I wish you could give us any thing but your dull maps and measures," had not the events, which are at this moment occurring in the Turkish empire, recalled the attention of the public to that part of the world, and thus rendered an apology less necessary, for the following pages. — Objects of classical re- VI PREFACE. search have been, till the present moment, so much more interesting than the manners and peculiarities of the modern possessors of the Grecian soil, that the common occurrences of a journey in the Morea, and the necessary inter- course with the natives, have usually been passed over in silence ; nor would they now be worthy of attention, had not the premature attempt to establish an independent Greek confederacy excited in the minds of the English and Germans an enthusiasm as strong, and more pure, than that manifested by the Greeks themselves. Those who venture to predict the successful result of revolutions have not unfrequently the mortification of finding their dreams vanish in an instant before some unforeseen circumstance, which had never entered into their calculation. In England, where almost the whole population has been accustomed to the idea of independence and rational freedom, the infringement of those privileges might, perhaps, produce an union of sentiment, which, even in these days, it might be difficult to withstand ; and those who have never witnessed the effects of habit, on persons edu- cated in a state of political slavery, are apt to PREFACE. Vll be too certain that their own feelings are echoed by the sentiments of such victims as those who are now engaged in the struggle. They are un- aware of the incalculable difficulty of finding a respectable chief; of the impossibility of per- suading others to obey him, if found ; and of the improbability that any sort of public virtue should exist among the oppressed. The various exaggerated reports which have appeared in the public journals, with the ridi- culous statements of the force, wisdom, and union of the imaginary confederacy, confirmed the impression in my mind, that very little had yet been laid before the public, which could assist in forming a just opinion of the state of Greece, and of the Morea in particular, from which so much seems at this moment to be expected by many in England. I, therefore, assisted by my notes of much more recent visits, put together this narrative of a journey, per- formed some years ago, which is consequently merely capable of affording amusement for the moment, but at the same time may serve to give an idea of the present state of a society, where few changes have taken place, and Vlll PREFACE. certainly not many improvements, as I am able to affirm from my renewed visits, and a connection of more than twenty years with the country. The real motive of my own acquaintance with Greece was the acquirement of a geographical know- ledge of the country, which being foreign to the intention of this narrative, is purposely withheld ; while such of my notices as relate to the in- habitants themselves are set before the reader. Of course the materials must be scanty, as they consist only of the details which might occur to the observation of all travellers ; and the only means by which I might hope to possess any ad- vantage over some of the other tourists, may be a facility of conversing in the language of the natives, which is generally only acquired after the tour is nearly finished. If, however, the personal accounts of many travellers be compared, the little which may have fallen within the observation of one may be added to the remarks of the other, and the result of the whole may be somewhat nearer the truth than the florid accounts which have lately been offered to the world, in the unanswered, and seemingly unsuspected, chronicles of the Greek PREFACE. IX revolution. It is with the hope of contributing to this stock, that the otherwise unimportant events of a journey through the Morea are now communicated to those who amuse themselves by speculations on the effects which the manners, education, and customs of a people are likely to produce on the ultimate success or failure of an enterprise, like that of the emancipation of the Greeks by their own exertions. NARRATIVE OF A TOUR THROUGH THE MOREA. Xhe occurrences which most affect the personal feelings of a traveller during a sea-voyage are generally such as excite the least interest in others, it being a matter of very little importance to those who read, either for information or amusement, to know whether the wind was fair or foul in any particular month of the year. It may be*more useful to those voyagers who wish to escape the terrors of a northern winter, to know that they cannot quit England too early in the autumn, as the westerly winds prevail to such a degree in the Channel, that fleets are often de- tained six weeks before the weather will allow them to proceed j a delay which has actually B % QUARANTINE. happened to myself; although the voyage with which I begin this narrative, in ] 804, was not so unfortunate in its outset, yet our first resting place, Gibraltar, afforded us neither welcome or repose, for the yellow fever, prevailing in the garrison, prevented us from landing ; and at an- chor we experienced a gale from the south-west, which forced some of the convoy on shore into the hands of the Spaniards. At Malta, too, con- demned to a quarantine of thirty days, we were not permitted to land, though we had not had any communication with the dreaded source of infection. The laws of quarantine have never been regu- lated either by expedience or necessity, but ge- nerally depend on ancient superstitions, upheld by interest or jealousy. By the ridiculous ex- tension of the days of probation to the number of forty, and even to a longer term, those are benefitted, who, having foreign articles on sale, are enabled to keep up the price till the arrival of a fresh supply, while the pretended fear of plague, where it is known not to exist, affords the most specious pretext for the annoyance of British commerce. The ultimate loss falls on the purchaser, who, of course, must pay the extra expenses added to the prime cost of the goods ; but remote consequences form no part of the speculations of the inhabitants of the 20 QUARANTINE. 3 shores of the Mediterranean, who live on the bounty of nature only from day to day, and trust to good fortune the care of providing for the morrow. The injustice and absurdity of the present quarantine-system occasion its inefficacy, as the exceptions are arbitrary. It was objected to the English, that the plague had been introduced at Malta by the laxity of quaran- tine-discipline ; but it has also infected the kingdom of Naples, where the rules are so strictly observed ; for no human prudence can prevent smuggling, which seems to have occasioned the misfortune in both cases. In the present state of things, the English colonies follow the custom of their neighbours ; and it would be vain to hope for amendment, as an attempt at improvement would bring down upon the enlightened party the indignation of all the doctors of the Sanita, whose fees are often regulated by the length of the quarantine, and who would make no scruple of prohibiting all communication with the offend- ing state. The degraded state of medicine, and the little estimation in which a physician is held in the south of Europe, afford no expectation from that quarter, so that things may remain as they are ; though one of our own writers on the subject has doubted, which of the two evils is the greater, the plague, or the means resorted to b 2 4< STROPHADES. for the prevention of it. The yellow fever seems to require far more efficacious precautions. I cannot forget the kind exertions of Sir Alexander Ball, who, on this occasion, procured me a passage to the Morea in a schooner, com- manded by Lieutenant Spencer, who conducted me thither in safety, with the circumstance of a momentary alarm from the danger of striking on the rocks of the Strophades, which we very nar- rowly escaped. These are two very inconsiderable islands ; on one of which is a Greek monastery. They are celebrated for a breed of pigeons, esteemed great delicacies at the tables of the rich in the Ionian islands. From the Stro- phades or Strophadia, we steered for the port of Navarino, which is pointed out from the sea by the ruined fortress of old Navarino, seated upon a lofty rock at its northern extremity. Entering on the south, a curious conic moun- tain, called Pilaf or Pilaw Tepe, rises in a line with the modern fortress; a circumstance to be noted, as the other entrance to the north has not sufficient water to admit any thing larger than boats. The mountain of Agio Nicolo or St. Nicolas, on the terra-firma, * lies immediately on the right of the passage. The port of Nava- rino, certainly one of the finest in the world, is formed by a deej indenture in the Morea, shut in by a long island, anciently called Sphacteria, NAVARINO. famous for the defeat and capture of the Spar- tans, in the Peloponnesian war, and yet exhibit- ing the vestiges of walls, which may have served as their last refuge. This island has been separated into three or four parts by the violence of the waves, so that boats might pass from the open sea into the port, in calm weather, by means of the channel so formed. On one of the portions is the tomb of a Turkish Saint, or Santon ; and near the centre of the port is another very small island, or rock. On the right, we passed the fortress of Nabarino, or Navarino, called by the Greeks Neocastro, or the New Fort, and proceeded to anchor under the island of Sphacteria, or Sphagia, in very deep water ; where we found Sheramet Bey, the second Admiral, or Capitan Bey, of the Turkish navy, with three ships under his command. We had scarcely anchored, when, instead of waiting for the ceremony of a visit from our commander, he immediately with great good humour came on board our little vessel. He was of course re- ceived with the honours due to his rank ; but a large Newfoundland dog was not easily pacified, after seeing the long robes, and furred pelisse of our visitor. He spoke, through his interpreter, very highly of the English, and expressed his sense of the services which had then recently been rendered by them to his nation. He of- b 3 XAVAR1NO. fered every assistance we might stand in need of; and only retired when he observed we were going to dinner, complimenting our captain, by saying, that the weather was such, that nothing but an English ship could have outlived the gale. He added, that he had observed us at sea, from the height of the old fortress, and that the English called that sailing, which he called coming under-water. In fact, the waves had beat over our schooner, in a way neither plea- sant to us, nor the sailors ; who, in such small vessels, are continually subject to this disadvan- tage, which must prove injurious to the strongest constitutions. We had scarcely finished our din- ner, when we were visited by a Greek, named Anastasio Paschalopoulo, or Pasqualigo, and his janissary. This person acted as English agent at Arcadia, a considerable town on the coast, north of Navarino. He was dressed in a long tunic of cotton and silk, studded with flowers, and varied in stripes : over this, he wore a long- robe of brown cloth, with a deep fur cape and front. On his feet he had a large pair of red morocco boots ; and, instead of a turban, he w r ore a hat, with his hair tied in a long queue behind. In his hand he carried a long cane, with a metal head, as a mark of dignity. He seemed about thirty-five years of age ; but might probably be younger, as there is often no judging from ap- XAVAR1NO. pearances in tlie south. His dark eyes were full of fire and intelligence ; and his mustaches, curled upwards, added life to a countenance of no common description. He gave our com- mander information of a French privateer, which was lurking in the neighbourhood ; and his Turk, Mustapha, seemed much pleased with the idea, that it was possible to come in so small a vessel from a place so distant as England. He ex- amined the guns, astonished at their magnitude; and, observing that they had locks, which he had never before seen applied to cannon, he ex- claimed, " x«»7a MODON. of physic as he could learn by occasionally con- sulting an Italian translation of Buchan's Do- mestic Medicine, and the works of Brown ; whose ingenious system, though long since neglected in his native country, still continues in vogue in Turkey, in Italy, and other countries, where so strong a prejudice exists against im- provement, that almost all would rather die than learn. Anastasio contrived to administer consolation to every one as he passed ; prescribing to a blear- eyed Turk a little fasting spittle ; to a jaun- diced man, powdered crab's eyes in water ; and to a person with the remains of an ague, a lemonade, when the sun was in Aries, every day at sun-rise. Anastasio seemed perfectly aware of the innocence and inefficacy of his remedies ; and when asked how he would answer the complaints of his patients when he had next occasion to revisit Modon, he said nothing could be more easy than to account for the failure of success ; for he should chide the Turk for not having had frequent recourse to what he knew would, to a Mussulman, be a most revolting operation ; the jaundice would probably get well in the course of the winter ; and if the ague did not cure itself, the fault would be laid to the want of due attention to the sun's place, which it was MODON. 47 impossible for the patient, or even the physician, to learn. In an open space within the walls is a tree, under which the people sit and smoke. We returned to the Greek village, and were thence seduced by Anastasio to the orange-garden of an old and respectable Turk, with a venerable white beard, who received us in a very pretty kiosk, or summer-house, commanding a view of the sea and the islands. The ceiling was coloured with blue, and ornamented with gilt stars. We again went through the ceremony of drinking coffee, which is generally presented in very small cups of Dresden china, held in another of silver, to prevent the fingers from suffering by the heat. We also smoked, as is usual on such occasions, through long pipes of jessamine or cherry wood, with mouth-pieces of amber. The pipe is lighted by one of the attendants, who sometimes does, and sometimes does not, wipe the amber when he presents it. It should, however, be added, that there is no occasion to put the pipe into the mouth, as the bore is of such a size, that applying it to the lips answers the purpose. The Turks imagine that amber is incapable of conveying any species of infection ; and, with regard to the plague, they may be correct. The etiquette of a Turk- ish visit requires that a stranger should always 48 MODON. take the pipe, which he may either use or not at his pleasure ; but the length of the pipe, and sometimes its flexibility, render necessary some dexterity in the mode of trifling with it, as it may easily upset and empty its burning contents on the carpet, impressing on the Turks the idea that the stranger has not received a good edu- cation. Sometimes a small plate of metal is used as a safeguard against such accidents. The coffee, which is very strong, is sometimes presented without sugar, always without milk, and very hot. It is difficult to say what is to be done by those who cannot drink it in that state, to save appearances ; this being considered as so essentially necessary on a visit, that it is some- times thought right not to enter on any subject of conversation till coffee has been drank ; the great Turk contenting himself with pronouncing a welcome on the entrance of the stranger. We desired permission to walk in the garden of our venerable friend, whose oranges and lemons looked invitingly and in profusion over the ex- terior wall ; but it had not a single path in which it was possible to walk, nor had it even been intended as a place of recreation, though decor- ated with the pretty kiosk, where the old aga came to sit every afternoon. Some of the Turks have, however, pretty and well-kept flower gar- dens ; and I have seen one at Rhodes, belonging MODON. 49 to a rich proprietor, which vied with the romantic splendor of the Alhambra of Granada. We slept at the house of Anastasio's friend, and in the morning walked with a guide to a place distant about two miles, in a north-easterly direction, where we were told the ruins of the Palaio Methone, or ancient Methone, were to be discovered. The walk lay along the plain among gardens and olive-grounds, extending over the site of the city. The place is marked only by mounds of earth, which point out in a very unsatisfactory manner the spot were the city is supposed to have existed. The ground under the olives is ploughed ; a circumstance sufficient to account for the absence of every vestige of antiquity. The fields are strewed with broken tiles and pottery. A little ruined church, placed on a mount overlooking a dell, watered by a meandering brook, is possibly on the site of a temple, and contained an ancient pillar of white marble, now thrown down. There is nothing worthy of observation on the spot, which is, however, pretty and sequestered. On returning to Modon, we found our walk had produced no other impression on the minds of our friends, than that we were mad to have taken so much trouble for so little purpose. Soon after, the son of our grey-bearded friend of the kiosk came to return our visit on the part of E 50 MODON. his father. He seemed a very amiable personage, and offered us every civility, of which, however, we did not stand in need. This young man not having been employed in any postof consequence, had not yet arrived at the honours of the beard, in which his father gloried : but all Turks wear mustaches ; and our new acquaintance, though a gentleman of the country, and at home, was armed with a splendid sabre and pistols, which had he been in high office he would not have worn on such an occasion. He took leave after a short conversation, leaving us a prey to the importunities of our host, who had formed a plot for the advancement of his own credit, at the expense of another display of our red coats. We had been told that one of the Austrian Archdukes was passing through Greece at this time, and that he was now at Modon, giving out that he had quitted Vienna on account of some disagreement with the Imperial family, travelling incognito, that he might not be impor- tuned to return. We treated this story as a romance at the moment, and as it did not concern us, thought no more about it, till we were assured by our present host, that this Archduke John was positively at Modon, in the house of the Austrian agent, and that it would be right for us, and useful to him, if we would go to pay our respects to him. We only laughed the more 14 MODON. 51 at this ; and as the Archduke had nothing to do with His Britannic Majesty, Anastasio seemed rather inclined in the end to agree with us, in setting the stranger down as an impostor. While this conversation was taking place, the deluded consul and His Imperial Highness walked by chance in a garden not far from our window, and we had a full view of a tall dark man, dress- ed in dirty pantaloons, made of striped English fustian and half-boots. We shocked our host by a burst of laughter on the occasion, and by a declaration, that we positively would not submit to the inconvenience of visiting his fustian highness. It was fortunate that we had caught a glimpse of this personage, or we should have probably been persuaded to have paid him a visit; for only a few months elapsed before we heard of an unpleasant accident which happened quite unexpectedly to His Imperial Highness, who very naturally had laid his plot in so retired a corner of the world, in the full conviction of the utter impossibility of detection ; for how could the Archduke John be recognized at Modon ? Unluckily after he had resided for some time at the house of the consul, who, flattering himself that his fortune was made, always treated him magnificent- ly, and, as much as he was able, in a style suitable to the dignity of the Imperial family. A Polish e 2 5 C 2 MODON. nobleman, Prince Sapieha, by mere chance landed at Modon, in his way to Athens. As lie was well acquainted with the Austrian family, he flew to the house the moment he heard that the Archduke was there. He entered hastily the room where the consul and his guest were at din- ner, eagerly enquiring for his friend the Archduke. The consul, rather distressed at the arrival of a person whom he doubted not was dispatched by the court to reclaim the wandering Prince, and hoping that the messenger was not personally acquainted with his Imperial guest, thought it better to hesitate, and gave no answer, till Prince Sapieha demanded with more eagerness to be shewn into the chamber of the Archduke. During this time the knight of the pantaloons said not a word j and the consul was at length induced to confess, that His Imperial Highness was one of the present company. Of course the Prince needed no further explanation, but turning round short, left the room, and quitted Modon, to pursue his voyage, not without having had the charity to advise the owner of the house where he lodged to inform the Austrian agent that he was ruining himself for an impostor. The adventurer was not, however, completely routed by what might have proved for him the unfortunate visit of the Prince, for he succeeded in persuading the consul, (who was not only MODON. 53 alarmed at what had happened, but began to expostulate,) that he knew Sapieha very well, but was so disgusted at the impertinence of his abrupt entrance during dinner, instead of sending in due form to know when his company would be agreeable, that he could not condescend to acknowledge him. The poor consul continued for some time in this state of delusion ; and it was not till he had nearly ruined himself by his zeal for the Archduke, that he discovered the cheat. The impostor had provided himself with a certain number of crosses, the badges of a real or pre- tended order, which he distributed among such of the natives as were inclined to pay best the pretended fees of their imaginary installations at Vienna. After more feats of the same kind in different parts of the Levant, he was, however, arrested or driven away by the interposition of the Austrian internuncio at the Porte. Anastasio gloried in the want of discernment in a brother-consul, though he might have been deluded himself in the same manner ; for he could have no means of judging whether any man of tolerable ad- dress was an archduke or not. Had he met as Prince of Wales with the English priest who introduced a Neapolitan painter in the Moreaas an English General, lie would, doubtless, have been among the foremost to obey their illustrious e 3 54 NAVARINO. commands, notwithstanding the great natural sagacity with which he was endowed. In coun- tries where no one is well informed, but where all are possessed of a natural grace and courtesy of manner, where also the affectation does not exist which would distinguish the upstart from the man of fashion, wealth, or the appearance of of it, is the real difference between the upper and lower orders, and it would require no ordi- nary degree of discernment in a Greek to detect the wiles of an ingenious Italian impostor. On the hill west of the Greek village, we found a gun, which burst during the siege of Modon in the last Russian war ; a period when the military tactics of the Muscovite and Ottoman empires were more upon a par than they would be at the present moment, for several of these wretched fortresses were enabled to hold out against both foreign and domestic enemies. The cannon may yet remain in the same position, — a proof of the inability of the Turks to remove it; for the iron would of course be useful if they knew how to employ it. We returned to Navarino on the horses which had brought us to Modon. Our Turkish guides continuing their attentive and quiet behaviour, having been instructed by Anastasio to treat us with the highest respect, we took up our quarters again with the archon Conomopoli, by N AVAR I NO. 55 whom we were received with great kindness. He appeared to be at that moment the only person of either religion at Navarino, who en- joyed any share of comfort or reputation. His affluence arose from mercantile concerns, which his undisputed occupation of the magnificent port favoured. We found it in vain to offer any re- muneration for the hospitalities we had received at his house ; nor did he request our assistance to procure him any privileges for the oppression of his neighbours, with which we were on other occasions perpetually pestered. It is probable that in the present convulsion he has fallen a sacrifice to one party or the other, as possessed of riches, or suspected of tempo- rizing. The garrison of the fort might be for- midable, if provisioned, by becoming the refuge of all the Turks in the vicinity. The senate of Modon is said to have made war upon that of Corone under the new government ; yet the former cannot well consist of more than thirty paupers. If there be a senate at Navarino, I should imagine that Conomopoli will, if alive, be very much in the case of the valet of a certain German prince, who enjoyed in his own person the lucrative employments of Judge, Admiral, Prefect of the Palace, Prelate, and Master of the Horse, of his master's vast dominions ; for I doubt if there be even one other Greek able to e 4 56 NAVARINO. read in the place. The last account, it is true, says, the garrison of Navarino, after having sur- rendered, has been massacred by the Greeks ; but these must form part of an army collected from distant towns, for no such population exists at Navarino. As we were now to commence our travels through the interior of the country, it became necessary to procure a person who was able to undertake for us all the bustle, and fight for us all the battles which are the constant attendants of a tour through Greece. We were very fortu- nate in having met with Mustapha, who only attended Anastasio on great occasions, and who was delighted to enter into our service for the sum of five Venetian sequins per month. As my companion had not been in the country be- fore, we thought a dragoman, or interpreter, ne- cessary at the commencement of our tour, or at least that he might be useful in ordering every thing we stood in need of, and assisting us in our communications with the natives. It lias often occurred to me, however, to have found an interpreter of the greatest use in the East, not by his direct employment as a translator, but if he was clever and understood the genius of the natives, by committing to him the task of amus- ing them with wonderful stories, pretending to cure them of their diseases, and inventing plau- NAVARINO. 57 sible excuses for the apparently silly employment of the strangers, while they pursued their re- searches unmolested by the idle part of the population. "** It has happened to me more than once that by the employment of a person of considerable fluency of speech, and talent of invention, I have been enabled to excavate in spite of the Greeks, while he has detained the natives at a distance, by pretended skill in magic or medicine. I have, however, on more than one occasion, very incon- veniently found myself compelled to undertake the cure of a patient, in consequence of the ex- travagant accounts which the interpreter had found it convenient to give of my medical skill. On other occasions, I have found myself directly accused of having made an immense fortune, on rinding by magic an enormous treasure concealed in a sculptured block ; and I shall not easily forget how I was scouted in a literary society at Paris, for having broken not only marbles but statues at Ilhamnus, where by chance I never went. The fact was that my friend Mr. Gandy found at Rhamnus a mutilated draped statue and a co- lossal head, which he has since presented to the British Museum. The head is without doubt the scarcely distinguishable remnant of that histo- rical statue of Nemesis, which Phidias sculptured 58 NAVARINO. for Rhamnus after the battle of Marathon, and is pierced for the reception of bronze ornaments. It is also of the finest grained Parian marble. )!f5r. Gandy had employed himself in making a drawing of the statue, and having no intention of removing so mutilated a fragment, yet anxious for its preservation, reburied it together with two ancient marble inscribed chairs : having finished his excavations and dismissed his la- bourers, he found the whole the next day dug up again, and broken in pieces ; he immediately resolved to convey away the fragments of the statue, which he has since adjusted and presented to the British Museum ; and while these interest- ing remains are preserved in that institution, we may be allowed to wish the French critics every amusement in their imaginary triumph over English barbarism, and the real mutilators equal joy in the treasure they found concealed in their substance. The interpreter, however, whom we hired for our excursion in the Morea, was not one whose talent for the marvellous was likely to establish the reputation of himself or his em- ployers for detecting hidden treasures in mill- stones, being selected by Anastasio as a friend of his, a Zantiote by birth, and one of the phy- sicians of the village of Philiatra, at which Mus- tapha also lived. Doctor Zane was accordingly NAVARINO TO GAUGAGLIANO. 50 sent for, and he arrived at Conomopoli's to take us under his protection. He was about thirty- five years of age, rather corpulent, most dread- fully dirty, unshaven, quite blind on one side, and not very clear-sighted on the other. He spoke very bad Greek and worse Italian, and of course knew nothing of his profession, or he would not have been so ready to quit it for so uncertain an employment as ours. He was however the best person we could find at the moment, and he was really very honest as long as he remained in our service. We set out on hired horses, having mounted in our train an English and a Spanish servant, our Tergiman-doctor, and Mustapha, with at- tendants on foot, who conducted four horses charged with our baggage. As it had been agreed with Anastasio, we proceeded on the road toward Tripolitza, the capital of the Morea, taking a direction due north toward Arcadia, knowing there was little to be seen even in the most flourishing times in this part of the Pelo- ponnesus. Our first journey was to Gargag- liano, a village entirely Greek, where we were to be introduced to a priest, who was the richest man in the country. Nothing can equal the impracticability of a Greek road over a district of pointed limestone-rocks perpetually appearing at the surface, except that across the succeeding 60 NAVARINO TO GARGAGLIANO. valley or plain, when it has been well soaked by the autumnal rains ; and the short herbage be- ginning to spring up in the winter renders it necessary for the traveller to attend to his own involuntary agitations, while the luggage-horse, after a thousand slips, and as many recoveries, almost invariably puts a stop to further progress for a short time, by receiving a desperate fall after a slide of several feet and a succession of unavailing struggles. The ingenuity of the Greeks has contrived a shoe particularly adapted to this sort of exercise, being an oval of iron, slightly turned up both before and behind, and the effects are really sur- prizing. The camels, which the nations of the East seem to have so much pleasure in employ- ing, are totally unserviceable in a wet season, as they seem destitute of the strength of muscle which should keep the legs together : their hinder feet slip away from each other in soft ground, and the poor animals fall with their bellies on the earth, while the joints of the thighs are dislocated if the burden be considerable. Owing to this, I never remember to have seen camels used in European Greece to the south of Larissa and the plains of Thessaly, and there only in the summer. My horse, which I had brought from the Morea, was so alarmed at these strange animals, that, being on the other NAVARINO TO GARGAGL1ANO. 61 side of the river, he plunged into the Peneus, bridled and saddled, and swam over to me on the opposite shore. A valley in Greece is seldom without its ac- companiment of torrent or rivulet, with sufficient remains of a bridge to give the traveller a certain intimation that such an accommodation is neces- sary, and to prepare him for plunging in the mire. Should it chance that the stranger be a believer in wise sayings and old notions, so as to have hired mules for his journey under the conviction that mules never fall, it is in these ditches that his grandmother's grammar will fail him ; and if it be in the summer he will be asto- nished at the luxurious turn of these animals, who find an irresistible pleasure in lying down in the middle of every stream in spite of the blows of their drivers, and the kicks of their riders. The track runs along the eastern shore of the port for some time, after which it descends into an alluvial plain, leaving the little villages of Petrachorio and Leuka on the left, and Gephyrae and Lisaki on little knolls on the right. The country-house and cypress of a certain Osman Aga are soon after seen on the right, between which and the village of Haslan Aga is a pretty wooded valley watered by the river Romanus, which is crossed by a bridge. These residences 62 NAVARINO TO GARGAGLIANO. generally consist in a tower, overlooking the humble dwellings of the peasants, who cultivate the soil, which form a quadrangle inclosing the house. The territory was at that time cultivated with lupins, and had just produced a crop of Indian corn in the plains. The aspect of the country was however neither fertile nor inviting, and much of it was neglected. In the next dell into which we descended, we passed the Brus- somavo by a bridge, and were delighted by a grove or thicket of arbutus, which formed a beautiful shrubbery on each side of our path. We ascended from hence by a steep and difficult track to a summit which at length afforded a fine view of the sea and Prote ; and after a long and uninteresting journey arrived at Gargagliano in the evening of the last day of January, with- out having met a single individual on the road. Gargagliano is a very large Greek village, probably built under the Venetians, the name being evidently Italian. It is placed on a high flat, with a very steep descent toward the sea and the lower country on the coast, which terminates in a promontory opposite to the island of Prote : this is overlooked, though at some dis- tance from the village. Prote is, at present, only remarkable for the number of oxen which it maintains, and for a port, where small vessels frequently take shelter. GARGAGLIANO. 63 Gargagliano is distinguished by the number of cypresses with which it is ornamented, as well as by the numerous pigs which haunt the streets in droves, (the sure symptom of a Christian population in the East,) as the inhabitants, where they are permitted, always live in the closest intimacy with these odious animals, to maintain their privilege ; and some of the towns of the Greek islands present one continued mass of quaking filth, produced by this disgusting dis- play of what the natives imagine to be Chris- tianity, because they are certain it is contrary to Islamism. At Seriphus the streets were in this condition during the whole summer, and the people had the impudence to complain of bad air. We were lodged, by the care of Mustapha, who was welcomed by several of the females oi the place, at the house of an old grey-bearded Greek, the chief man of the place, and a person, as we were informed, of such extraordinary sagacity and judgment, that nothing was under- taken by the Pasha of the Morea without his approbation. This personage was named An- drinopoli, and was entitled the Protosingolo of Gargagliano. The house was said to be of great antiquity ; but on enquiry we found that sixty or seventy years was considered very ancient in this country, where the habitations are usually built 61 GARGAGLIANO. of wood and plaster, and only last a few years. After waiting a very long time, a misfortune to which hungry travellers must submit in Greece, at the houses of the rich, we sate down to table with this most extraordinary sage, of whose won- derful learning and talents we had heard so much. He began to talk of the writers of ancient Greece, and we listened with profound attention, till, when the accustomed string of laudatory epithets had ceased, we asked in our turn some questions, the answers to which proved that he did not even understand the Greek Testament tolerably, and which we soon after made him confess. He spoke the Italian of the Ionian islands. During the repast, he convinced us that he was far below his countrymen in intellect and acquirements ; and we were at a loss to guess by what means he became possessed of so much reputed influence with the Pacha, till we dis- covered that he had, as a priest, the secret of managing the Greeks of the district ; a circum- stance which made it necessary to flatter him. Though he was so great a man, however, in his own country, he did not scruple to ask us in secret to procure for him the protection of the English government ; an undertaking which we declined, and which he dared not mention in public, least it might come to the ears of his friend the Pacha. This communication was GARGAGLIANO. 65 made to us with a great deal of ceremony and mystery, for an old woman, who passed for a relation, was sent to summon us to the private chamber of the papas, where chairs were placed on purpose, and the door carefully shut before a word was uttered. It is not difficult to explain the motives which make the protection of a foreign power so de- sirable to the natives of this country on certain occasions. The Greeks are considered as a conquered nation ; yet the Turkish government, to avoid the eternal reproach of oppression, appoints a certain number of the richer Greeks, or archons, to collect the revenue of the country, which consists in a certain number of purses. These officers have the title of Cogia Bashi ; and by their interposition, the Turkish governors of provinces are spared the trouble, and ought not to suffer the obloquy, otherwise attendant on their situations. When the demand, however, from the Porte equals 20 purses, it is usual for these archons, after much abuse of the tyran- nical Turks, to insist upon the raising of 25 or 30, dividing the overplus among themselves, according to their private influence or agree- ment ; sometimes of course giving the governor a bribe to wink at their proceedings. This accounts for a saying common among the Greeks, that the country labours under three curses, F 66 GARGAGLIANO. the priests, the cogia bashis, and the Turks ; always placing the plagues in this order. If this observation be as correct as it is frequent, a revolution such as that now undertaken will do but little toward ameliorating the condition of this devoted country. This is, however, only one out of the many methods of extortion practised against the lower orders, and ingeniously charged to the Turks. When these archons become rich, they gradually attempt a more extended system of spoliation, till their wealth becomes a temptation to the Vaivode, or his patron at Constantinople, while their arrogance provokes his resentment ; and the numerous petitions from the sufferers afford a ready and even a just pretence for punishment. When the measure of his crimes is completed, witnesses of various delinquencies are not wanting among the jealous Greeks who have been plundered, and the offen- der is often cut off in a way which, to a stranger, seems very arbitrary, but which is seldom un- merited. On this account, the protection of a foreign power is much courted by those who have thus acquired large possessions, as they are then secure in the enjoyment of them. They are, however, incapacitated by such protections from holding the office of cogia bashi j so that only the rich desire them, as the opportunity for further extortion in the name of the Turks GARGAGLIANO. 6j ceases with t\\e patent of protection. These protections were formerly bought from the ministers of foreign powers, who obtained, as complimentary presents from the Sultan, the manumission of a certain number of his Grecian slaves. The effect was, that these baratts, as they are termed, were no longer considered in the light of subjects by the Turks, but their property was forfeited if their adopted nation declared war against the Porte, and they were liable to the same penalties as those of the natural subjects of the offending power. In later times, however, the Turks have only placed the persons of foreigners in confinement, having learnt by experience that at the peace they were always compelled to the repayment not only of what was plundered, but what had never existed. Sequestration began to be considered the surest method of making a fortune, as no account being taken of the spoil, the sufferers claimed restitu- tion to any amount, on the return of peace. I am acquainted with several persons who, having been poor, have become rich by such an event ; and the Turks are now so well aware of the trick, that they seal up every thing with the most scrupulous care, as I am enabled to state by my own experience, having found the most minute articles safe at the end of several years of detention. f % 68 GARGAGLIANO. The abuse of the indulgence on the part of several foreign ministers, has occasioned the Turks to use more circumspection at present in the granting this privilege of protection, and it will probably in a short time be discontinued. The great improbability of war between England and Turkey, as well as the high estimation in which our country was held, till the wretched attacks upon Constantinople and Egypt taught the Turks to entertain a different opinion both of our friendship and courage, rendered the English protection a great object to the most affluent of the Greeks. Several of these particulars were afterwards communicated to me by a Greek of Calavrita named Delli Georgio, or the mad George, who was himself a cogia bashi, and had given up an English protection which he once enjoyed, to obtain the employment under which he ac- quired the insecure possession of extorted riches, as he himself confessed them to be. He in- formed me at the same time, that his splendid new house was erected entirely at the expense of the district, laughing at the fools who ac- cepted of foreign protection, when they might, as Greek magistrates, have every thing their own way, by plundering the public and bribing the Turks. At the same time he pulled from a heap of papers in a cupboard his English patent GARGAGLIANO. 69 to prove the truth of his assertions ; spit upon it, called King "Georgio" a " Porco," and cried out in all the Italian he knew, " Viva il Sultaun Selim !" It happened that at the same moment he espied the Greek servant who took care of my horses eating flesh-meat; " Oh, oh," said he, ** you are become a Frank, where is your patent ? the others eat meat because some are English, and others are Turks, which is the same thing, and they believe there is no crime in it ; every one according to the religion of his father ; but, you are a Greek, you know or believe it to be wrong, therefore you must be a scoundrel as well as an apostate." The Greek was abashed, and left the supper on this rebuke ; and Delli George made no scruple of telling me, that if they were not kept to their old superstitions, there would be great danger of their breaking through every other restraint ; and there would be an end both to the power of the priests, the cogia bashis, and Sultan Selim himself. I do not know how far the imaginations of the advocates for what is called the emancipation of the Greeks may carry them ; but, should it happen that my friend Delli George should find it convenient for the moment to massacre his Turkish neighbours, which I believe he has lately done, is it to such a patriot they look for the establishment of laws and constitutions? f 3 70 GARGAGLIANO. Can it accord with the policy of such a person to sit quiet while Doctor Clod and Co. expound the principles of equal justice, and the rights of individuals; and will he not rather be the first to get rid of such troublesome helpmates ? I fear the case of George is that of every other cogia bashi, as his epithet of Delli only distinguishes him from the rest of his class, as boldly confess- ing the truths which the others conceal. Those who might be exceptions of course must exist ; But what good fortune could leave them alive and possessed of the power to be useful after the decimations on decimations which, under any circumstances, must take place in Turkey ? Though not aware, while engaged in the con- ference with the papas, of the full extent of these circumstances, we nevertheless saw enough to induce us to decline any engagement to assist the Proto-singolo, who doubtless had good rea- sons for his request ; reasons which were whis- pered in our ears by such of his supposed friends as heard of it, for no Greek ever speaks well of any person not present. We afterwards heard of our old papas having been taken by banditti, whom, if he had not actually encouraged, he Would not assist in suppressing till he had suf- fered from them himself, being let down by them into a dry well, and fed on bread and water for several days, till his ransom was paid. GARGAGLIANO. 71 That the reader may not be in pain for the consequences of such disclosures as might seem an ungrateful return for a night's lodging, how- ever interested the motives might have been, it is sufficient to say that Delli George is now be- yond the reach of revenge, enjoying, if he has been able to defend himself, the plenitude of power, and the fruits of the massacre of Cala- vrita; and the old Proto-singolo has long since resided in Zante, to which place he had trans- mitted a large portion of his property, having fled from the Morea in consequence of some impertinent enquiries made by the Pasha into some of his proceedings. The swine with which the village of Gargag- liano so much abounds, though not absolutely wild, have longer legs, and backs well arched and fringed with long bristles, presenting the appearance of the boars on antique gems. In the forests of the Morea, particularly near Cape Papa, I have observed them in large droves, feeding on acorns, and running with a celerity quite incredible to those who have only seen our domestic pigs. Mill-stones are cut from a rock near this place, but I heard of no other produc- tion for sale. The cypresses, and the situation on the flat summit of a ridge of precipices overlooking the sea, give Gargagliano an air of prosperity and f 4 72 GARGAGLIANO TO PHILIATRA. consequence from without, which the interior is ill calculated to maintain, and which the defal- cation of a single house like that of the Proto- singolo must have materially injured, though in all probability his reign had been followed by another conducted on similar principles to a corresponding conclusion. We quitted Gargagliano at seven in the morn- ing of the first of February, descending to the lower country on the coast, and leaving the path to Prote and the landing-place on the left. On the right we observed several caves, and one called Barytospelia, once producing, as the name imports, nitre for the manufacture of gunpowder. Having passed an open grove of Velania oaks, and a plain spotted with shrubs, we descended to the river Longobardo, which we passed over a bridge of two arches. On the descent was a pretty fountain with a Turkish inscription and other eastern decorations added by the Turk who had erected it, and had conveyed the water for the use of travellers; but the pious zeal of some Greeks had just deprived it of its orna- ments, and destroyed the watercourse, by way of rendering a service to the cause of religion. The country had here and there small patches of cultivation, producing grain and lupins ; and after passing another river, called Agia Kyriaki, the hills receded from the coast, and we saw, GARGAGLIANO TO PHILIATRA. ^S over the tops of the nearest, the peaked summit of the lofty Mount Mallia, or Mali, which may be considered as the centre from which all the other hills of the south-western point of the Morea proceed. Three hours' ride from Gargagliano brought us to the village of Philiatra, after passing through a very rich tract of vineyards and olive- grounds, and under a large oak with the ruins of a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicolo. The number of trees, and particularly of cypresses, formed so marked a feature in this spot, that we were not aware of the houses before we were on the point of entering the place. Philiatra is a large and straggling village, situ- ated in a plain, forming a cape between the mountains and the sea. The habitations are so interspersed with trees and vineyards, that scarcely any two are distinguishable together, and the site was then only to be recognized from a distance by a group of cypresses, one of which, of great height, is visible from a considerable extent both of sea and land. Philiatra may properly be styled a Greek village, though a few Turks, and among others our Janissary Mustapha, had acquired property there. These Turks, as we were informed, held their lands upon a very uncertain tenure, for by the strict letter of the law, they are not permitted either to buy or in- 74 PHILIATRA. herit land from the Greeks, a regulation intended to prevent injustice, and probably one ©f the articles of the capitulation between the Turks and Venetians on the cession of the Morea. By a law also of their own, a Turk is not allowed to buy land at any place where there is no mosque, yet a mosque cannot be erected with- out a special license from the Mufti, and a very considerable expense. In such circumstances, these Turks being in some degree dependant on the good will of their neighbours, become very good citizens, equally removed, by their condition, from the rapaciousness of tyrants, and the mean- ness of slaves. Mustapha seemed to be a great favourite at Philiatra, his acquaintances running out to meet him on his return, and greeting him with every sort of welcome, and loading him with kind ex- pressions. We were conducted to, and left in the large ruinous house of a Turk, which had once belonged to a Zantiote doctor, and was therefore selected as having three chairs and a table. Here our dinner was prepared. In the mean time our dragoman doctor and our Janis- sary Mustapha went to their own houses to settle their affairs previous to their future journey, and some of the people brought coins and in- taglios to sell, which they had picked up in the fields near the place. It was at this moment PHILIATRA. 7«5 that I was enabled to purchase, for a trifle, the three-sided antique jasper, which is already known to the curious, by having been engraved in the work upon Sculpture of the Society of Dilettanti. It is quite singular, on reflecting upon the opportunities which I have seen lost, of purchas- ing medals or gems, how small is the sum which generally decides the purchase or rejection of the most precious remains of antiquity in these countries. I recollect at Corinth the losing for ever a green stone formed like a seal, on all sides of which was cut a stag-hunt, for which I would willingly have given five pounds, and this for the difference of a shilling or two above a dollar. I had moreover been so over cautious, that for fear of exciting the suspicion of its value in the mind of the peasant who brought it, I had not even ventured to look at the bottom, where might have been something of first-rate beauty. It was in vain I sent to recall the owner, who I imagined would be waiting below to renew the negociation, but who was gone for ever. This impolitic avarice I have often heard lamented by travellers when too late. There is scarcely any antique, except the common sort of Roman Abundance with a cornucopia, which is not worth purchasing. 76 PHILIATRA TO ARCADIA. We remained at Philiatra only a few hours. It contains nothing worthy of observation ; and the lanes which serve as streets are during the winter rendered impassable, except on horseback, by the frequent recurrence of deep and muddy sloughs. A church or two in decent repair exist in the village j and several years after, I saw from a ship at sea the slender minaret of a newly- erected mosque, possibly the consequence of the very journey which we were making in the Morea. It is now in all probability, with the other buildings of Philiatra, reduced to a heap of ruins, as the village, being totally devoid of the means of defence, must have been sacked alternately by Christian and Turk. The Mai- niote pirates, attracted by the flourishing state of its olives and vines, have nevertheless made vain attempts to plunder Philiatra, for the inha- bitants, headed by the few resident Turks, have always repulsed them with loss. After dinner we again pursued our journey toward the city of Arcadia, the ancient Cypa- rissia, the residence of our friend Anastasio, and the capital of the district. The river of Philiatra, a rapid mountain- current in a deep ravine, is passed by a lofty bridge near the villages of Kanaloupon and Kalazoni, the inhabitants of which cultivate the red and sandy soil of the plain which here expands on each side. A ARCADIA. 77 mountain on the right is called Geran ion; and we were told of a plain with an impregnable for- tress upon a conical hill on Mount Mali, where there had been a great battle between the Turks and Venetians, and which may probably again become the scene of contention, as it has always been the refuge of banditti. On the right we saw the village of Balaclava, a name reminding us of the Tartars of the Cri- mea, which we could account for in this place in no other way than by supposing it a colony of Armenians, who might at some period have settled at the next village of Armeniou. We crossed by a bridge a river called from its branches Duopotamo, and passed through a country well covered with olives, and capable of any species of cultivation. This sort of scenery continued till the mountains again ap- proached. On the right, near a fountain called Rondfiki, and on a rocky summit attached to their most western point, the towers of the castle of Arcadia were discovered above the trees. The situation is so commanding and pic- turesque, that we could not but imagine we were approaching a magnificent city, none of the houses being visible. After a short ascent, however, and passing two ruined chapels situated on projecting points of the mountain, the wretched cluster of habitations which form the 78 ARCADIA. town, broke at once upon the sight, and de- stroyed the illusion, though the prospect was more beautiful than ever. We arrived at the first houses in the evening, and were welcomed by Anastasio himself, who had preceded us to provide for our accommodation. Anastasio's own house at Arcadia, where we were lodged, is about one mile from the sea, and was considered to be one of the best Greek buildings in the town. On one side of it was a flower-garden about SO feet square, on the other it overhung the street, and on the third was a court entered by a large gate. The lower story opening toward this court was, as usual, a maga- zine or place for lumber, and the upper was reached by climbing a ladder, for a staircase it could scarcely be called, to an open gallery propped upon tottering posts, and covered like all the other buildings of the country with pan- tiles. The floor of this gallery, like the steps, consisted in thin planks of birchwood, so decayed by time, and originally so ill constructed, that it resembled a grating through which every thing below was visible, and on which it was almost frightful to walk. The first room opening upon this gallery was the kitchen, the next a bed-room, and at the end, on the right, was a small room with windows toward the sea on three sides, under which were ARCADIA. 79 sofas about a foot high, covered with flowered cotton. This was a summer-apartment, and projected from the rest of the house for the sake of catching the breeze. On the left was an- other room, with windows also looking to the sea, the upper row of which were smaller, and filled witli coloured glass, the lower grated with small wooden bars, much in the manner represented in the engraving of Arcadia; and the gallery enjoyed very much the same prospect of the castle and the plain. The design was taken from the window of a Turkish house very near that which we occupied, and had this sort of gallery, which had once been prettily painted in various colours, in the fore-ground. The projecting eaves were decorated with a species oi' fringe, which often produces the happiest effect, though only consisting of a plank cut into fantastic leaves, flowers, or net-work, and co- loured red, green, or yellow, according to the taste of the owner. The Turks sit so much in these galleries that they often become the chief places for reception, and that which is here re- presented may serve as a specimen of this spe- cies of apartment in all the countries from the shores of the Adriatic to India. The past is possibly the only sense in which we can now speak of Arcadia, where in all probability the 80 ARCADIA. havoc of the revolution has left few specimens of Turkish domestic architecture. While we remained in our friend's house at Arcadia, the son of a rich Turk, an inhabitant of that part of the Morea called Lalla from its capital, was sent to call Anastasio, whose medical assistance was required in the family. Anastasio had on a former occasion succeeded by good for- tune in relieving the complaints of some of the the Lalliotes, whose favour he had thus secured, and who had sent him home loaded with presents. Neither the youth nor the physician, however, seemed in this case very anxious to set out ; and the Lalliote, who was the son of a person of some consideration in his own country, having never before been in the company of Franks, took great delight in seeing and visiting us, which he did in the evening after dinner, being parti- cularly delighted with our magic lantern. He seemed much pleased when the family left the room after one of our exhibitions, by learning that rings, pictures, and wax candles, did not make part of the religion of the English, after which he made ridiculous faces and gesticu- lations at a box of relics which was hung against the wall, and which certainly presented great temptations for the display of his humour. This box was formed much like the shelves of a book- case, but the top. was finished with a pediment. ARCADIA. 81 The chief object was a painted crucifix, but it contained besides, every species of votive offering, from gems of some value down to locks of hair and bits of old lace. The most precious article, however, of the whole collection, was a Christ in profile, which, as the Greeks are forbidden the worship of images, though strenuous adorers of pictures, was cut as thin as pasteboard, and coloured on both sides, the want of a natural portion of substance satisfying its worshippers that it was no piece of sculpture, but a mere painting. To us it seemed both ; but Anastasio assured us it performed miracles, and consigned it again to a white napkin, and its place on the shelf. We had requested that, contrary to the usual custom of the country, the Signora Pasqualigo, who was a native of Zante, and an ex-subject of the Ex-Ionian republic, might be permitted to live with us, and be excused the serving up of the dinner, which we found to be her province ; but we soon discovered that we had done her no service. She was very courteous, though quite unused to society, and very richly attired, but unable either to eat or converse, having been employed over the fire ever since six o'clock in the morning, as we learned from our servants, in the assistance of three other women who were sent for on the occasion. Our dinner 8£ ARCADIA. was so plentiful, that we at length began to count the dishes as they were brought in, three or four at a time. After w r e had eaten as much as we thought requisite, of about six-and-twenty of them, we found ourselves compelled to eat more as a compliment to our hostess, and again for the honour of the house. We w r ere thus obliged to enter into an agreement to eat by turns a little of every dish, and we thought this would have succeeded, till we were at last overcome by a regular course of Khalva, a preparation of honey, flour of almonds, and oil, sent up in every state ; one dish resembling boiled leather in ap- pearance, another white hair, and a third sponge biscuits ; in short, such a variety of form and con- sistence, that we found it impossible to proceed either for the honour of the house or respect to the hostess. We accordingly took the first opportunity, after offending the lady by declar- ing our fixed resolution to eat no more, to de- sire our janissary, who was evidently distressed at our want of appetite, and so well known to the family, to say how disagreeable it was to us to occasion so much trouble, and by his me- diation we got off the next day without more dinner than would have served about four moderate people. The janissary, however, as- sured us that this was the custom of the house, 8 AHCADTA. 83 and that every body who came into it was treated in the same sumptuous manner, from which we concluded that the arrival of guests was not a common occurrence at Arcadia. Anastasio himself was persuaded with great difficulty that it was not owing to dislike of the cookery that we were unable to eat of every thing which was set before us ; and he constantly apologized in Italian, repeating, " casa piccola ma cuore grande," a small house but a great heart ; and that he was always ready, " a sparger il sango per la Sua Maesta Brettanica e la glo- riosa nazione Inglese." It was not to be expected that we could escape becoming a sacrifice to the grandeur of our friend Anastasio in his own house, and at the city where he was the English agent. We were accordingly taken to visit the Vaivode, and our praises and imaginary dignities were repeated to him, with the addition of the high favour with which the Capitan Bey at Navarino had ho- noured us. The Vaivode, whatever he might really be, appeared to us a good sort of middle- aged person, and was kind enough to call a number of persons into the room and charge them with the care of procuring horses for our journey, making them answerable for our safety, and lending us saddles himself. He treated us, as usual, with pipes and coffee, and in a short c 2 84 ARCADIA. time we took leave. His house was in a better state than the habitations of the governors of Navarino and Modon ; but if the district over which he ruled was oppressed, it was done with so little judgment, that he had evidently reaped small profit from his speculation. A Vaivode is, indeed, mostly a person of higher rank than the disdar or governor of a castle, and in general the Turks consider the magistracy and the learned professions, as superior in dignity to the military. It would be wrong to pass over in silence the kindness of our friend Anastasio, whose atten- tions were unremitting and apparently disin- terested. We made his lady a present of a gown of Lyons silk, which he procured for us at a proper price in the town, and certainly suffered us to offer, more as a convincing proof to her of the generosity of the English, than in consider- ation of its value. I have always found him, on other occasions, ready to perform any act of kindness, and it was to his ingenuity and know- ledge of the country that I was afterwards indebted for the recovery of the Olympian bronze, which the workmen whom I employed only in the hope of finding inscriptions, had sold to a brazier because they thought it not worth bringing to me. It records in very ancient cha- racters, a treaty between the people oi' Elis and Heraea, which lias been made public under the ARCADIA. 85 title of the Elean inscription, and by the over- strained sagacity of overlearned philologists, has been attributed to an obscure and dependant village at a distance, instead of the city of Hcra?a, only a few miles higher up the Al- pheus than the Elean territory. To Anastasio I was also indebted for a treasure of the best medals of Elis, which, though then very rare, now adorn the cabinets of the curious in London ; these he j)rocured for me at the price of their weight in silver. To him the English nation in general is indebted for a never- failing attention to its interests, which forms, in fact, the occupation and glory of his existence. It is to be lamented that so efficient and so zealous a servant of the public, should have been com- pelled, by the neglect of his just claims, to throw himself upon the protection of another power. After the fatal Duckworth expedition to the Dardanelles had exposed England to the con- tempt and derision of its enemies in the East, it was not to be supposed that the enthusiasm of Anastasio would escape without punishment. He was seized by the French agents and the Turks, (at whose hands he very probably de- served it,) and well thumped with sticks and clubs ; his house was sacked, his relics dispersed or burnt, and he would probably have been o 3 SO ARCADIA. killed, had he not found means to escape into the friendly country of the Lalliotes, where, to the honour of those chiefs, they concealed him, defended him, and gave him both money and clothes, till the difficulties of his situation were at an end. It was in vain that he peti- tioned for indemnification from the English government ; nobody would attend to the paper of an agent from a place with a romantic name, which sounded like a forgery ; nobody knew any thing about the business ; and I was obliged to go myself to solicit the protection of Russia, which was eagerly granted to his acknowledged usefulness and talent, and with which he is not likely to receive further insults, without hope of redress ; but by which his activity and intel- lect are thus lost to the English, whenever the interests of the two nations should happen to clash, an event, with regard to Turkey, by no means impossible. The blame of this injustice is perhaps not to be attributed to any one in particular ; for it is one of the consequences of our excellent form of internal government, that the minor concerns of distant foreign connections are neglected in proportion to the pressure of business at home, until circumstances arise which call for renewed attention, when past negligence is ill counter- ARCADIA. 87 balanced by a great increase of expenditure in the acquisition of new and generally inexpe- rienced partizans. In other respects, it is a most fatal error to permit unpunished the slightest insult from the people or government of weak or barbarous states. The evil would spread rapid- ly, and if it were known abroad how little inter- est the ill treatment of an individual would excite at home, one might find it difficult to name the place where an Englishman could walk the streets in safety. I remember many years ago to have joined in the outcry against an agent who caused the children of Athens to be flogged for running after his English horse, surprised at what was to them a new and un- heard of species of mutilation, and singing in sport a sort of couplet of which the general sound may be represented by Perisotero Gaiddrbs Apo enas Kolbbos. and which may be translated Better a donkey to bestride Than on a bobtail horse to ride. Every body, and particularly the French, ex- claimed against this, what they termed, un- manly exertion of power ; but the agent, who was a native, knew the people he had to deal a 1< 88 AKCADIA. with : from a small affront a greater would have arisen, even from the Buonapartists themselves ; for jokes and caricatures, which lead to nothing in England, are not safely tolerated among people unaccustomed to them. What may have been the fate of Anastasio, with his Anglo-Russian protections, I know not, during the present convulsion. The Greeks would persecute him for one, and the Turks for the other ; while his Lalliote friends, among whom he would always have met with kindness and hospitality, seem to have been swept from the Morea by the successive attacks of each. We found one of the ruined churches, south of the town, a convenient spot for taking angles for a map of the country, being on a lofty spot, whence all the coast could be seen as far as Zante and Cephallonia. It seemed that some of the inhabitants thought it also an agreeable situation, and we were there unwilling witnesses of a quarrel between a young Turk and a Greek, of the same age. We were first alarmed by the high tone of their voices, and as they became more irritated, they came to that sort of handling which might almost be called blows. The Turk was armed, and more than once drew his pistol, not very pleasantly for the bye-standers, as it seemed certain that it must be fired in the course of the scuffle, either by chance or on purpose. ARCADIA. 89 The Greek seemed little afraid of the weapon, and stood up stoutly to his enemy, who seemed also afraid to fire, till some of their friends came up and separated them, though they broke loose several times, and advanced towards each other in menacing attitudes. I took particular notice that one of the arguments used to the Turk, was the certainty of being exiled if he used his pistol. As neither of their turbans fell off, they were probably soon afterwards appeased. The cause of their quarrel we could not learn. We remained at Arcadia only to make pre- parations for further progress, having concluded which to our satisfaction, we hired several Greeks with their mules for our journey. No words can describe the tumult and uproar with which the court of Anastasio's house re- sounded on the morning of our departure ; it was what the Italians not unaptly term " Una vera Babilonia." Anastasio had two horses to convey him to Lalla as the great physician, and and we had no fewer than ten to carry our party and luggage. Though our guides had beset the house at the earliest dawn of day, and the place resembled a barrack taken by storm ; though every thing had been adjusted twenty times ; and though Anas- tasio had as often insisted on no further change, the change as constantly took place, and a further 90 ARCADIA. dispute ensued who should carry the "milords," and who each article of baggage. Sometimes the whole seemed calmed by Anastasio's pro- testing that the King of England would order all their heads to be cut off; but, on his re- tiring, the danger seeming diminished, our port- manteaus were again rolled in the dust ; and this, as we afterwards found, was to be repeated every morning. At length, at mid-day, when no more time could be spared, Mustapha was charged to settle the business, as he had long been inclined to do, in the fashion of the coun- try j and beginning by a short recapitulation of what they had engaged to do, in consideration of so many piastres from us, he declared that the first person who resisted should be carried before the vaivode. This put an end to a scene of confusion quite common among the Greeks, but rarely to be witnessed elsewhere. We had made the preceding journies with Turkish horses and guides from Navarino, who had each per- formed his task without noise, or giving us any trouble ; but we were now supposed to recom- mence our voyage, on a visit to the capital. Our train was by this time become so numerous, as to occasion a sensation wherever we went in unfrequented districts j and we afterwards heard ourselves described as one great " milord," who ARCADIA. ( J1 went about seeing the world, with immense riches, a janissary, ten horses, and a dragoman. I remember, in my early youth, to have made a very different beginning to a Grecian tour, when my enthusiasm bore a very different proportion to my purse. I was then mounted upon a couple of mattrasses and two portman- teaus, high piled upon a pack-saddle, round which were appended, in fantastic array, um- brellas, swords, guns, books, crockery, and a tea-kettle ; balancing upon which, on the back of a mule, I was glad to find myself on the way to Delphi, attended by a Greek muleteer of Salona, in a slouched cocked hat, which I gave him on the road. The impossibility of obtaining any information on the subject of the internal geography of the country compelled us to commence our journey into the interior of the Morea, without acquiring any previous knowledge of the places we were to visit ; a misfortune, the inconvenience of which I afterwards endeavoured to diminish by the publication of a considerable number of routes. One object, however, the Temple of Apollo, near Phigalia, we knew existed in the mountains, somewhere between the modern town of Arcadia, and the city of Tripolitsa j and we accordingly directed our enquiries to the spot now known by the name of The Columns. 92 ARCADIA TO SIDERO-KASTRO. We took the road to the village of Sidero- Kastro, which we were informed was on the road to an ancient city, now called Paulitza, descending from the town of Arcadia into the plain, and leaving the castle on the right. The plain is very well planted with ancient olive-trees of considerable size, under which grain and pulse are sown. The mountain of Arcadia, retiring on the right, presents a line of villages, which probably appear inviting in proportion to their distances. Among them we noticed Brysse, Belamina, and, higher upon the hill, the monastery of Katchemichada. The road, turning from the shore, runs along the lower branches of the mountain, interrupted by the beds of many torrents, sometimes dry, and sometimes impassable ; but their banks are gene- rally spotted with numberless species of shrubs and flowers, and here and there present the appear- ance of an artificial garden, in which we observed the cistus, not less than six feet in height, and diffusing the rich odour which is sometimes per- ceived on opening an Indian cabinet. The pre- sence of this plant is not, however, always without its inconvenience ; for the gum which it produces, and which the ancients are said to have gathered from the beards of the goats which fed upon it, exudes in such quantities as to cover the clothes of the traveller j and I remember to have con- ARCADIA TO SIDERO-KASTRO- 93 eluded a journey in Portugal, on a coast covered with cistus, and composed of drifting sand, much in the character of one of those wooden pillars which an English country gentleman endeavours to transform into stone, in the front of his house, by painting them with an adhesive mixture, and puffing sand upon them through the nose of a watering-pot, with a pair of bellows. In about an hour and a half we reached the river of Arcadia, which we forded. Lower down on the left, near the sea, is a bridge on the road, by the coast. In two hours we had on our left the hills and the little village of Marmaro, and began to quit the plain of Arcadia, which, by a strange chance, is in Messenia, while we were on the point of entering the Arcadian territory. On the right the valley of the river of Arcadia opens into the plain, formerly called Stenyclerian. The country afforded little worthy of remark, except the quantity of myrtles and arbutus, with which its wild undulations w r ere covered. We passed the village of Kakavo, and not long after, entering a glen so narrow and so bushy as scarcely to leave a passage, we arrived at Sidero-Kastro in the evening, after a ride of about four hours, which might have been agreeable, as the country was delightful, had we not been incommoded by the rain, which 94 SIDERO-KASTRO. began to fall as we entered the hills of Mar- maro. Sidero-Kastro, as it is pronounced, is a name not meaning the " Iron Castle," as the term would seem to imply, but is derived from the patron saint of the place, Saint Isidore, it being a constant practice of the modern Greeks, not only to cut off the first, and often the last letter from a name, but, as a general rule, to reverse the long and short syllables, so as to turn Agios Isidoros into Ayo Sidero. The village is placed in a hollow between the two points of a hill, on one of which are the ruins of a small castle, erected in modern times, and without a trace of antiquity beyond the age of the Greek emperors. We had not much difficulty in procuring a house, the owner removing to that of his next neighbour. The whole furniture of it consisted in a single brass kettle, and two pans of coarse earthenwareT The houses of the village are built of stone. The windows are only closed with shutters, having no glass, and there is not a single ceiling in the place, so that the morning appeared through several minute apertures in the roof, in the way that at first gave the idea of a bright star-light. This place is situated so much above the level of the sea, and in the neighbourhood SIDER6-KASTR0; \)5 of such considerable mountains, that, with the addition of the rain, we found the climate very different from that of Arcadia and the towns on the coast. The houses, however, being of stronger materials, and having hearths, with plenty of fuel, we did not experience much inconvenience from it. Mustapha here superintended the cookery, which was to have been performed by an old woman of the village, but we soon found that he was himself the most expert and the most expeditious cook in the country. We had taken with us a provision of rice : with this, and fowls, which may be found, not only at every house in Greece, but in every uncivilized coun- try, a very palatable dish is easily prepared. Beef certainly cannot be procured on a journey in the mountains, and mutton seldom ; but there is, after all, little hardship in living on fowls stewed after the manner of the Greeks. The difficulties and inconveniences of travelling in Turkey may best be avoided by adopting, as much as possible, the customs of the country, which seem always best suited to its produc- tions, instead of making our own habits the rule by which we are to live every where. A Greek fowl stewed in a brass kettle at Sidero Kastro, may be eaten within two hours after it is killed ; whereas no keeping will take away from 9f) SIDERO-KASTRO. a joint of Greek mountain-goat, cooked in the English style, the fankness of its flavour, or the toughness of its substance. Those who cannot eat fowls just killed, have no other remedy than buying and killing, at the village where they sleep one night, a sufficient quantity of fowls for the next day's consumption. With this pre- caution, it appears to me that there is no sort of difficulty in providing for the table in Greece; indeed, less in general than in the remote parts of Italy. The people of the village assembled at our door, to catch a sight of the strangers, none of them having, in all probability, ever seen a Frank or European dress before. We permitted them to gratify their curiosity till our repast was ready, when Mustapha dispersed them, using the expression, " Sirrahs, dogs, out of the house I" without the smallest ceremony. We here first began to use our own beds, which were extended upon carpets on each side of the fire, having brought with us every thing necessary for our own comfort. We found this sort of nights' lodging commonly our lot in the mountains ; but as we ascended and quitted the shore, we were obliged to content ourselves with only one side of the fire, leaving the other to our attendants. Indeed, more than once it lias happened to me to have found so little room SIDERO-KASTRO TO PAUUTZA. 9J for the whole party, that the horses became part of the society, and I have even been obliged to get up and shorten my horse's halter, to pre- vent his treading upon me as I slept. Sleep, however, can, in that case, only take place at intervals, as the Greeks insist upon keeping the saddles upon the backs of the poor animals all night, causing them to shake themselves, and produce from the brazen stirrups an alarming harmony, like the bells of a team of waggon- horses in London. The castle was reputed, under the Venetians, as we were informed, a fortress of some conse- quence, not, however, from its extent, but its position, on the summit of a peaked hill, insu- lated and difficult of access, through the moun- tainous passes which form its defence on every side. We climbed up the rocks to the ruins, and found it totally destroyed, beyond the means of the inhabitants to repair, as well as destitute of water. The village consisted of thirty-two mean dwellings of rough stone, which might contain a population of about one hundred and fifty souls, possibly among the most indigent in Greece. We were unable to account for the respect with which this place is mentioned in the neighbourhood, as neither the castle nor the inhabitants appear to possess any claim to such consideration. H 98 SIDERO-KASTRO TO PAULITZA. We recommenced our journey at half past eight the next morning, and saw the little village of Repesi on the right of our path ; a moun- tain called Kourto lay on the left. Here and there we found patches of corn. A little rill seemed to have its source in a cave near the road. In an hour and a half the town of Aito was visible On the hill behind Arcadia, on look- ing backwards toward Sidero-Kastro, which lay on the west. The path, which must always be indifferent, was rendered worse by the rain, as we ascended from this valley to a summit, whence we saw the village of Kara Mustapha (Black Mustapha) on the left, and, more distant, the pretty village of Platania, overlooking a valley watered by one of the branches of the river Bouzi (Neda). We descended to this stream, and the ruins of a tower, with other vestiges on its bank, by so rocky and dangerous a track, that it was scarcely possible to admire the beauties of the open grove of oaks which shaded it. Ascending the opposite hill, we found, under the trees, a most abundant and limpid fountain, called Drymae, forming a pretty waterfall, and producing the most luxuriant vegetation around. Near it is a ruined chapel, probably on the site of the temple or altar of the pagan divinity who once presided over the fountain. SIDERO-KASTRO TO PAULITZA. })9 In a few minutes we came to another source, the stream of* which ran in the opposite direction, and accompanied us on our descent toward the north. This fountain has been decorated with some kind of edifice, now ruined, and near it we observed the vestiges of a circular tower under some ancient trees. In a short time we descended into a most beautiful and romantic dell, shaded by tall laurels, or bays, and ever- green oaks, which, even in winter, almost ex- cluded the beams of the sun ; and where, in summer, the additional foliage of the numer- ous planes bordering the brook must render the obscurity still more remarkable. In this glen we found the traces of a wall, which, with the towers we had just passed, probably denoted the boundaries of some ancient or modern divi- sions of territory, and not impossibly the district of Phigaleia, and even of the region of Arcadia itself. We crossed the brook and its adjuncts four times, once at a picturesque mill, and lastly under a roaring cataract, beautifully overhung by bays, above which the gloom was continued and deepened by the knotted trunks and dark shadows of the ilex. The agreeable sensations which the singularity and beauty of this scenery inspired, were neverthe- less considerably counterbalanced by the extreme danger and difficulty which we encountered in h 2 100 SIDEUO-KASTRO TO PAUHTZA. the descent from the height to which we had been insensibly conducted, above the main stream of the glen. We reached the bottom by a zig-zag path of tremendous declivity, some- times obliterated by fallen rocks, and only prac- ticable with the greatest care and precaution. It was here that we found ourselves on the banks of the celebrated Neda, flowing rapidly through one of the most singular chasms in the world, under magnificent precipices, which tower to an astonishing height on each side, and seem to oppose the passage of its waters ; leaving, in fact, no space but that which time and the in- cessant flood have worn between the most pro- minent of their enormous masses. The district of the Nomian mountains did indeed differ essentially in its circumstances from almost all other tracts of pastoral occupation, generally too remote to derive benefit from that civilization which is produced by the in- tercourse with cities and the sight of strangers ; whereas these were not only surrounded by populous cities, at small distances from each other, but contained within their own confined circuit, cities of no inconsiderable extent, and were frequented by the inhabitants of all the surrounding states, on the occasion of the Lycaean games, which took place on one of their summits. They appear also to have been, to a PAULITZA. 101 certain degree, exempt from the horrors of fre- quent war ; partly protected by the sanctity of the region, and partly by the impregnable nature of their fastnesses. Phigaleia, a very considerable city, as may be seen by the circuit of its walls, extended over a rugged and elevated tract. We crossed the Neda near a waterfall, and ascending by a steep path, came immediately to the foundations of what must have been the gate of Phigaleia, after a ride of about four hours and thirty minutes. Another rugged ascent, which in one part consists of a road supported by ancient masonry, conducted us in about ten minutes to the little village of Paulitza, or Paolitza, the present representative of the Ar- cadian city. The representatives of the shep- herds, however, seemed by no means disposed to receive us with ancient Arcadian hospitality ; and insisted upon the impossibility of procuring for us a night's lodging at Paulitza, till Mustapha, whose anger had been rising during the conver- sation, called loudly to one of the Greek mule- teers for a stick, a threat which soon procured, without further exertion, an introduction to one of the best built cottages of the village. No people on earth ever equalled these pea- sants of Greece, in this unwelcoming species of sullen and ill-natured, as well as ineffectual spite, h 3 102 I'AULITZA. Allowing that a Turk may sometimes abuse his power, and, entering a cottage in an arbitrary manner, might also retire without paying, it can never have happened that an European has rested at any house in the country, without leaving the inhabitants the richer for his visit. It is only fear, or interest, which have any effect in opening the doors of an Albanian Greek to a stranger j and the natural disposition of the race is so inclined to a selfish exclusion of all others, that the moment the little island of Hydra had obtained the privileges which have led to rebellion, and will in all probability end in ex- termination, one of the first institutions pro- hibited a Frank from setting his foot on the shore. This law was only at length gradually revoked, not by the improvement which had taken place in the minds and feelings of the people, but by the necessity of enduring foreign- ers, both at home and abroad, during the con- tinuance of that lucrative carrying trade which existed from Odessa to Spain during the war. That these wretched bigots may have no pretence for thinking themselves better than the rest of the world, on the strength of the ancient superi- ority of the Greeks, or their illustrious ancestry, it is only necessary to state, that not one in fifty has the slightest claim to be considered as de- PAULITZA. 103 scencled from the ancient stock of the Greeks ; the whole country being peopled in repeated succession by an Albanian peasantry, indivi- duals of which, at divers times, have, either by force or otherwise, rendered themselves masters of the soil, forsaking their own appellation, and taking up that of Greek, when they have acquired sufficient property to inhabit the cities, where they live undistinguished from the mass of those who have created themselves ancient Greeks in the same manner during the preced- ing generation. I have been informed, while complaining of this inconvenience to persons in the upper ranks of society in Greece, that a traveller who should go unaccompanied by a Mussulman, whose presence the people fear and abominate, would meet with a different reception. It will be seen in the sequel that I was induced to try the experiment, when I met with no change in the manner of reception, but a striking difference in the results ; and was once compelled to remain in the street an hour, in the snow, at a town where the inhabitants were numerous, and independent enough to venture on such incivility. I did not fail to make in- quiries on this subject, when I had afterwards a conversation with the great cogia bashi of Ca- lavrita,the Delli George, who has been mentioned h i 104 PAULIT2A. on another occasion ; and he assured me, that all Greek archon as he was, and cogia bashi in addition, he never went to any of the villages without being compelled to lay his stick on the backs of some of its inhabitants, in order to ob- tain the most common necessaries for his money. When our lodging was at length settled, we walked out in search of the antiquities of the city. The walls alone remain, and were flanked with towers both square and circular. One gate, toward the east, is yet covered by blocks which approach each other like the under side of a staircase, a convenient method, when the largest of these stones does not exceed in length half the width of the gateway. There has been a temple of fine limestone of the Doric order, and we found one inscription. In the church of the Panagia are other vestiges of a small temple ; and it is not easy to imagine what is become of the remaining fragments, considering the impracticability of removing any heavy stone from a place so situated. We saw also an Ionic capital. The walls of the church were daubed with the blackened pictures of Greek saints. A fowl cost us thirty paras at Paulitza, which, as forty make a piastre, and as a piastre was then about equal to fourteen-pence, cannot be called cheap ; so that the owner of the cottage PAULITZA. 105 probably gained as much by the sale of what was requisite for our supper, as by the present we made him for his so unwilling reception. We had intended to proceed, on the following morning, directly to the temple of Apollo Epi- curius, now known by the name of " The Co- lumns," which was to be found about four miles distant, on a mountain anciently called Cotylion; but missing our way, on quitting the ruins, we descended in half an hour to a little village called Graditza. Here is a very copious foun- tain, and a population of about 100 souls in 20 houses : among these, one is possessed by a Turk, as celebrated for his hospitality and kindness to travellers, as the people of Paulitza for their brutality ; but this only came to our knowledge afterwards, when the gentlemen who discovered the Phigalian frieze had explored more carefully the neighbouring country. We now turned to the east, and took the direct road to Tragoge, a village situated on the mountain Cotylion itself, and not far from the temple. In our way over a bare hill, forming part of the hill of Paulitza, we observed a heap of ancient stones, said by the people of the country to have been a reservoir of water for the citadel of Phi- galeia ; being, however, on a lower level, we imagined them the remains of a bath, which once existed near this spot. On the descent to 106 TRAGOGE. the next glen, we crossed two brooks, start- ing out of the ground at a little distance from our route, and arrived at Kato, or Lower Tra- goge, a hamlet consisting of six houses, on the banks of another stream. The road became almost impassable, as we proceeded slowly through many rivulets, which did not seem to have worn away the soil, but to run in shallow streams over the slippery turf, till we arrived at the bridge of the rapid Limax, in the bed of which was a chapel on a rock, shaded by a fine group of those beautiful planes, which seem the natu- ral produce of every river of the Peloponnesus. The place is very picturesque, and immediately under the rock above which the little village of Upper Tragoge is situated. The appearance of this village, with the country-house of a Turk, distinguished by a few cypresses of superior size, seemed to pro- mise a decent resting place ; and as we had already lost some time, and were quite uncertain where our temple was to be found, it was thought advisable to remain there till the next day. We accordingly sent Mustapha with our horses and attendants in advance, to prepare for our reception, while we sketched the precipice which overhangs the river, surmounted by the groves, and crowned by the cypresses and habitations of Apano (Upper) Tragoge. TKAGOGE. 107 Having finished my sketch, observing that it was very near mid-day, while the air was so still as not in any way to ruffle the surface of the water, which by chance lay before me, collected in a little cavity of the rock, I took that oppor- tunity of ascertaining the latitude, and setting a common watch by a double altitude of the sun. The sight of the brass case of the small pocket sextant, which, with other necessary in- struments, I always carried about me, seemed to produce an uncommon sensation among the people, five or six of whom came nearer, and, from a louder whisper than usual, I collected that they had taken the case for a snuff-box of gold, and did not scruple to express the wish to possess it. As they did not appear to be armed, I continued and concluded my observations ; but recollecting that it was not impossible they might, on some other occasion, return in greater numbers, and find us as ill or worse prepared for resistance, I called to the savage who stood nearest, and, setting the instrument on purpose, shewed him through it the house of the aga of Tragoge, seemingly placed among the ruins of the citadel of Paulitza. The man was so alarmed, that it was with difficulty I prevented my sextant from falling out of his hands, and persuaded him to remain while I took out two of the glasses of a little telescope, the increasing 108 TRAGOGE. length of which filled him with dismay, and placing it on a rock, for it was impossible to prevail upon him to touch it, shewed him through it the inverted image of an old woman, who was washing before her door at Lower Tragogc ; the first glimpse was sufficient, and he fled to his companions, crying out that the Franks were devils, and that poor Kokona Anna was dead. We had some difficulty in persuading them that we had only set the old lady on her head by way of joke ; that w T e had taken so much care not to hurt her, that she was unconscious of the fact ; in proof of which they needed only to observe that she was continuing her occupation. We added, by way of precaution, that we never hurt any one who did not come with evil inten- tions ; and they retired, tolerably satisfied, be- hind the ruins of the chapel, either thinking the devil had no power there, or for fear of being set on their heads if they remained in sight. We then toiled up the steep ascent of Tragoge, and arrived at a better house than we had lately been accustomed to inhabit ; but where the wild Albanian Mussulman, who had been left in charge of his master's property, evidently re- garded us with a suspicious eye, as if we might have been robbers, who, in the disguise of Franks, were taking possession of his castle. We slept here without any interruption ; though BASSiE. 109 we did not much relish the appearance of our host, who nevertheless supplied us with fire, and whatever we wanted, in return for our money. A ride which employed about half an hour, brought us, in the morning of the following day, to the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassa?, as it was anciently called. The path lay under the spreading arms of ancient oaks, up an ascent not too rugged to prevent the enjoyment of the sylvan scene, which presented itself in all the reality of an Arcadian forest. In one place we found a little triangular cultivated hollow, watered by a fountain, which may be taken for a source mentioned by Pau- sanias, and is the nearest we discovered to the temple. Proceeding for a few minutes, we arrived at the ruin itself) which is by far the most stately and best preserved of any in the Morea, and placed in the most singular and romantic situation that painting could desire, or poetry imagine. The position is the ridge of a hill, rapidly declining to the east, but not liable to the objection of " bare and bald," which would accompany the most elevated summit ; and as the mountain rises still higher to the north and to the south, the temple may be con- sidered as placed on a species of saddle between the two points. There is just that accom- paniment of old oaks which serves to embellish, 110 BASSJS. without concealing the architecture; and that soli- tude, so rarely found among ancient ruins, where no sort of cottage, or its dirty appurtenances, in- trudes to destroy the repose of the scene. It is not here necessary to enter into a de- tailed account of the temple of Bassse. It is sufficient for those who understand the con- struction of Doric buildings, to say, that it has six columns in each front, and fifteen in each flank ; that they are about three feet seven inches in diameter ; and, with their capitals, friezes, and architraves, rise about twenty-two feet above the upper step. The architraves are about two feet six inches in height ; and, at the period of my visits, remained wherever the columns were standing. It may be necessary to add, that here was found the beautiful frieze now in the Bri- tish Museum ; that the interior presented an open court, having eight Ionic pilasters, with semi-cylindrical fronts on each side, of white marble, which is supposed to have supported that frieze ; and that the cell is imagined, by the party who cleared it out, to have had, at the end opposite the entrance toward the court, a single column, with a curious specimen of the Corinthian capital. The temple itself was built of the most beautiful species of compact limestone, of the finest grain and delicate tint ; and could only have been exceeded in beauty of BASSiE. Ill material by those of white marble. It is ex- pected that the observations made by the exca- vators will, in due time, be laid before the pub- lic. The temple was cleared by Barons Linckh and Haller, and Messrs. Foster and Cockerell were present at the original discovery. -Having already dwelt too long on this subject, I shall conclude by saying, that the site is suffi- ciently elevated to enable the eye to range from the Strophades, and the city of Arcadia, to Mount Vourkano and the Messenian gulph ; while on the east the two highest summits of the Nomian mountains, Tetrauzi and Diophorti (Cerausius and Lycaeus), terminate the view over hills clothed with thick forests of oak. The height to which we had ascended caused a proportional change of temperature ; and the season of the year, it being now the eleventh of February, and a cloudy day, occasioned so great an increase of cold towards evening, that Mustapha set fire to a large hollow tree, near the blaze of which he sat, with a contentment truly Turkish, and smoked his pipe, till, conceiving it prudent to retire before night prevented the possibility of retracing our steps to Tragoge, he summoned us from our researches to our horses, and said we must begone, as his orders were positive from Anastasio to take care of us, and he was answer- able for our safety. He was right in so doing, 112 TRAGOGE. as we arrived at the village only a few minutes before the light disappeared. We are so accus- tomed to the long continued twilight of the north, that a hint from a native is by no means an useless precaution in Greece, particularly in summer ; when, as soon as the sun sets, he who is not at home must be content to find his way to it in the dark. Poor Mustapha never ne- glected to give us the best advice, and to keep us as much as possible out of the way of dan- ger. He was indeed so possessed with the idea, that if any accident happened to us the blame would all fall upon him, that when, many years afterwards, I had rambled one evening with my friends, in the eagerness of research, over the wilds of Asia Minor to the ruins of Patara, without horses, guides, or guards, he was so angry when he discovered us the next morning only hungry, but in safety, notwithstanding the tigers, thieves, and evil spirits, that he vowed never to stir a step further with us, unless we would promise to be more cautious in future. We had left one of our servants, and our dragoman doctor, at our lodging, to take care of our property, and to provide our dinner. The doctor seems to have sallied forth, probably in search of patients ; and the servant found himself obliged to sit upon the baggage with a pistol in his hand, as a measure of precaution TRAGOGE. 113 against a number of wild looking natives who asked him an infinity of questions, which he was neither able to answer nor understand. It is probable, however, that the long residence of the gentlemen who discovered the frieze, in the country, has tended in a great degree to the civilization of its inhabitants ; and indeed, on another visit to the temple from the western side, I met with people at the village of Ampeliona, of whom I could find no reason to complain. On the twelfth of February we again pro- ceeded on our journey after breakfast, which was not finished before nine, as the cold air of the mountains did not dispose us to early rising. We now followed the course of the Limax, here above the springs of Tragoge a mere rivulet. In half an hour some fig-trees pointed out the site of a deserted village, Palaio (old) Tragoge. In another half hour we arrived at a fountain called Tou Kalili Idris, probably from the Turk who constructed it. A ruined chapel showed that there had existed some attraction to the spot previous to Mahometan dominion. After another hour of abominable road through the most beautiful scenery which it is possible to conceive, formed by hill and grove, the fount of Banoura presented itself. On the road we had passed one of those heaps of stones, called by the Greeks Anathemas. A person who has a 114 ANDRUTZENA. quarrel with another collects a pile of stones and curses his unconscious foe as many times as there are stones in the heap. It is the duty of every charitable Christian to add at least one pebble as he passes by, so that the curses in a frequented road become innumerable. A Greek who should travel on one of our English roads, would imagine the whole population at war, and in Italy, where the heaps are larger and generally occupy the whole of the best part of the road he would be disposed to add another curse to fall upon the road-makers themselves. We ob- served on our route many fragments of green and red jasper, rendered more visible by a slight shower. These stones, which possess a hue sufficiently vivid to form pretty ornaments, were found so hard in England as not to be worth the expense of cutting. The same sort of scenery continued till within a short distance of Andrutzena, which we saw from a height, where an extensive view of the vale of the Alpheus presented itself. On the left, upon a lofty peaked summit of the Nemian range, we observed certain ruins which were called Zakouka, on the north side of which is Phanari, a large Turkish town, and on the south, in the forest, the village of Vervitza. Toward the Alpheus lay the village of Kouphopoli, and on a rocky summit called Nerrovitza, the ruins ANDRUTZENA. 115 of Alipherse. The lofty and snowy peaks of Mount Olonos, which we had seen from Arcadia, still towered in the distance above the tops of a magnificent range only less striking by compa- rison. We descended through a village called Sanalia and Upper Andrutzena to the large village or town of the same name, a straggling and extended collection of Greek habitations not de- void of picturesque beauty, produced by the groups of houses intermixed with a number of ever- green oaks, which are the natural tenants of the soil. We lodged at the house of a Greek who had travelled as far as Zante, and was esteemed a person of superior education, as he could speak a few words of Italian. We found him honest in the same degree that he was learned. As we had arrived about mid-day, we had so much time to spare, that we were induced to climb an eminence to the west of the village, in order to obtain another glimpse of the inviting country we had just discovered toward Olympia and the vale of the Alpheus. We were not disappointed in our expectation, for on a point near Kouphopoli we had every thing again in view, with the additional satisfac- tion of being able to compare the effects pro- duced by the different possessors of the soil on either hand. The town of Phanari stands on the north side of the hills, and is inhabited by t 2 116 ANDRUTZENA. Turks; that of Andrutzena is in a similar position, and the population is Greek. A general taste for the sight of trees and verdure of all kinds had produced at Phanari, the groves and clumps of cypresses which adorned the town, and the idleness of the Greeks had left for the embel- lishment of Andrutzena the remains of the natural forest which it was too much trouble to cut down. Two different motives had thus produced for a time similar effects, but the Turkish town was increasing in beauty, while that of the Greeks lost every day some of its ornaments, which served for fuel to its inhabitants. It would be unfair to make any comparison between the mosques of the Mussulman and the chapels of the Christians, as the decoration of the latter might probably be repressed by the fear of the Turks, while the white minarets possess, united with the domes of the religious edifices of the Mahometans, a character remarkably suited to that combination and contrast afforded by the dark spiral forms of the cypresses which sur- round them. There is something very singular in the sensa- tions excited by the situation of this hill of Kouphopoli, on one side of which dwelt a com- munity totally opposite in laws, manners, and religion, to the inhabitants of the other, holding ANDRUTZENA. 117 each other in universal abhorrence and sovereign contempt ; each thoroughly persuaded that no- thing could prosper according to the system of the other, while the sole cause of their dissension was a supposed difference in the articles of faith prescribed by two religions preached to their followers in languages unknown to either, en- joining duties which neither followed nor knew, and which they were by circumstances for ever precluded from the possibility of learning. That this antipathy is not solely caused by the bigotry of the Mahometans I am much inclined to be- lieve. That they regard the Greeks as faithless, more from their entirely and habitually discard- ing every principle of good faith in all the com- mon transactions of life than for their religion, I am certain. The Turks may be a bigotted and possibly a persecuting race, in great cities where fanaticism is kept alive by a succession of Mollahs and Dervishes, whose interest it is to add fuel to the flame, but the Mussulman who resides in a remote part of the country, having no means of adding to his sole articles of faith, which renders him a pure Deist, seems to be totally unacquainted with all the motives of re- ligious persecution. The Lalliotes are, or were, a Mahometan peo- ple exactly in this predicament, having no belief except in one God, regarding in pity, but not i 3 118 ANDRUTZENA. in anger, the Greeks who suffered themselves to be led by a priest, singing in nasal strains to the adoration of a black picture, and so far from hating Christianity for its own sake, that we found several persons named Joannes Mustapha, Demetri Ali, and Ibrahim Georgi, and the same custom prevails in Bardunia. That Mahometans can and will live quietly and respectably in a Christian country, is, however, proved by the numerous settlers of that religion in Poland, where they are much esteemed as good citizens and loyal subjects, are admitted to European honours and titles, and live in society like their neighbours, having nothing which distinguishes them from the Poles, but a compact which exempts them from military service against Mahometans. The Greeks are on the contrary as exclusive in their charities as ever were the Jews, and it appears to me that their idea of Christianity is infinitely more estranged from the precepts of the Gospel than the Koran itself. I cannot help thinking that much might be done toward the removal of the differences which may exist between Turks and Christians on the score of religion, by missions conducted by the least ostentatious of our numerous secta- ries, if such conciliation were desirable ; but woe be to him who should attempt to preach the Gospel in the country where Greeks shall rule ANDRUTZENA. 119 uncontrouled ! Many of them have confessed in my presence that they would compel every one to be of the Greek communion with all its practices if they could, and assuredly no species of Paganism would inspire them with such hatred as a slight difference in the most trivial opinion. The absence of what we are accus- tomed to call superstitious ceremonies certainly creates a peculiar esteem in the minds of many Turks for the English, but the effect on the Greeks is, that Turk or English in matters of religion are synonymous terms. When we had finished our drawings we re- turned to our lodging, where our wise man had procured for us some of the best wine of the country. It would probably be a species of Burgundy if made with care and well kept. On the thirteenth of February, we quitted Andrutzena, taking an easterly course nearly parallel to the Alpheus toward Karitena. The road lay along the northern base of the Nomian mountains, and was consequently less agreeable at this season than its pretty succession of hills and dales, and its delightful shade, must have rendered it in summer. On the right we passed a ruined or at least deserted village of Robea, whence we descended under the dark shade of a grove of ilex to the river of Sourtina, on the banks of which we found fields of Indian corn. i 4 120 KARITENA. Having crossed a bridge, we saw on our left the ruins of what the Greeks call a Palaio Kastro Ellenico, or an ancient Greek fortress, the walls of which climb to the summit of a conical hill. It is now called Labda. In quitting the little plain which we traversed on the south of Labda, we observed the beau- tiful fountain which once supplied the city, and which the ancients most unaccountably seem so often to have left just out of the in closure of their walls, and in the hands of a besieging enemy. A ruined chapel with a spreading Platanus probably mark the site of a Pagan temple, now dedicated to the Panagia or Ma- donna of Sourtina. On the top of an ascent from this place is caught the first view of the castle of Karitena, proudly seated on a rocky summit, in the centre of the most enchanting scenery imaginable. The fore-ground is a height covered with oaks, from which on the right many wooded ridges of the Nomian hills fall in rich succession of forms and tints to the rapid stream of the Alpheus, here seen forcing its way through a deep bed of rocks below. The junc- tion of the Katchicolo (Gortyna) is also seen running from high mountains on the left, and above the fortress of Karitena, the immense mass of Mount Maenalus rises in a variety of majestic peaks, among which that called Salto tes Elatas KAKITENA. 121 is distinguished, black with the firs whence its name is derived. After a delay of twenty minutes, employed in sketching the view, the road descended for more than an hour in steep and dangerous decli- vities to the banks of the Alpheus, which we had scarcely time to admire, before we found our path intercepted by an envious torrent, so beautiful and so copious, that we at first took it for the main stream. After following this branch for a short time, under a thick shade of platanus and ilex, we turned short to the left, over a rock, and were surprized to find that we had passed round the source, which issues from its foot. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this sequestered spot ; and if deep glens, spreading trees, and gushing'waters, constitute the delights of Arcadian scenery, the poets have not sung in vain the praises of this region. On looking southward, up the mountain of Diophorte, we descried the village of Trago- mano, a place in so elevated a situation, that when I afterwards visited it, I found the descent to this fount occupied nearly an hour. Half an hour higher up is the Hippodrome of the Lycaean games, and twenty minutes more would bring a person to the summit of Dioforte, or Mount Lycaeus, who should be disposed to climb into what is perhaps the most interesting among the 122 KARITENA. interesting mountains of the world. Our fount was not without its temple, or at least its sacred inclosure, of which some indications remain. Hence we climbed to another summit, where we found the church of St. Athanasius, and on our next descent passed the leaning minarets of a mosque, which has long ceased to exist, which our guides called Palaio, or old Karitena. The view of the present town and its castle has a fine effect from this spot, but the Alpheus, which flows between the houses and the spec- tator, runs in so deep a glen, and below such tremendous precipices, as to be wholly invisible. At the end of a long descent, we reached the bridge of Karitena, situated at a point where the stream begins to contract, on entering the chasm below the town. The bridge, though a wretched specimen of the art of masonry, is not wanting in picturesque beauty, having a sort of chapel against one of its piers, which would seem to give it a Venetian origin. The river, which is, in fact, the great drain of the plain of Megalopolis, and all the interior of the Morea, is subject to such rapid increase of its waters, that a few minutes are sufficient to render the bridge impassible, and even to carry away the main arch, under which alone it usually precipi- tates itself in a very deep bed, leaving the others dry. KARITENA. 123 From the bridge an ascent of more than twenty minutes brought us to the town in the evening, where we were kindly received and welcomed in the house of the aga, by his agent, to whom he had sent orders from Tripolitza to show us every attention. This mansion seemed the best in the town, and consisted, as usual, of two projecting rooms, connected in the centre by a deep and shady portico formed by a tiled roof, supported on wooden pillars. The room allotted to us was well furnished with sofas, on the three sides under the windows, and we found it tenanted by several cats, favourites of our host, who seemed never to have been thwarted in any thing they wished. They were by no means content with the common civilities of food and coaxing ; and as we would not be wanting in kindness to the family of the good aga, several of them remained in the apartment all night, a confidence which one of them abused by tearing a hole in my curtains, and producing several kittens on my bed. On the morning of the fourteenth, we mounted to the top of the hill to examine the castle, which we took to be of Venetian construction, and without a vestige of higher antiquity, though the name is probably derived from Gortyna, a neighbouring city, and Brenthea was near the spot. It is capable of repair, and would then 124« KARITENA. become a fine castle of the Gothic species in appearance, as well as a place of strength ajgainst small arms, but quite untenable against artillery, being surrounded by higher eminences within range. We passed so much of our day in this excursion, that when at length the sun broke through the clouds, which, by menacing us with rain, had hitherto delayed our determination to proceed, it being then ten o'clock, there was no possibility of performing a nine hours' journey to Tripolitza before night. We, how- ever, mounted our horses at twelve, tfor in truth no one could tell how long we might be on the road, all differing in opinion oin the subject. We began our route by descending to the plain, anciently called Megalopolis, a name which we must be content to use, as neither of the larger towns, Karitena or Leondari, are in it, though near its western and eastern boun- daries. A little river in the road had the Turkish name of Khali-bashi, and a white turret, on a woody eminence beyond the Alpheus, was called Delli Hassan, from its Turkish owner. On our right, the range of Nomian mountains receded, form- ing the boundary of the plain, and presenting, among many picturesque points and recesses, the peaked summit, called Sourias-to Castro, KARITENA. 125 probably the ancient Lycosoura, called by the Arcadiians the most ancient city in their country, or the universe, and exactly in the situation best calculated for security in a barbarous age, but which,, at no period more refined, would have been selected. Our road lay on the foot of the range which forms part of Mount Maenalus, just sufficiently on the height to afford a view of every (object in the plain. On the right lay the village' of Brahimi, next we passed Palaio Souli, and soion after Palaio Paula, and a well, whence, after drinking, we began by degrees to ascend and qurit the plain. After this we perceived traces ut common on the coast, which our guides insisted upon showing us, and called by them the Chiryso Komario, by us Arbutus Andrachne. It was not without feeling a very sensible diflereince of climate that we had arrived at the top of this elevated defile, and at aderveni, where we found no guard, and a khan, or inn, withouit a host. We perceived we had reached the region of pines, and were not far from that of snow, the mountain on which it is collected for the use of the city of Tripolitza lying at no great distance on our left. Here we were accosted by 126 KARITENA. a Greek, who, till he met us, was riding in great haste from Tripolitza, whence he had been dispatched by the hospitable aga of Kari- tena, with orders to assist us in all our neces- sities. He was the only person we had seen on the road, though we had observed many villages as well as single habitations. We passed in this region another derveni, equally deserted, for neither thieves nor thief- takers willingly spend their winters in such in- clement situations, and after another ascent, where the air was still more piercing, we de- scended into a bare valley, more like the scenery in which the muses of Yorkshire might delight to dwell in the neighbourhood of Skipton and Settle, than the haunts of the deities of Maena- lus. Here we crossed the stream of the ancient Helisson, which divided the city of Megalopolis, and saw the wretched villages of Daulia, Davla, and Kallipaki, where, if they were inhabited, the people were already asleep. Here also we saw the ruined forts called Kastraki and Davia, on the top of two peaked rocks. Night was now stealing upon us, and our dragoman, Doctor Zane, tried in vain to per- suade us to remain at a dirty hovel in this valley, where he found an old woman surrounded by cackling hens, which in the south are, perhaps, more characteristic of the delights of female KARITENA. 127 retirement at an advanced age, than even the cats which they sometimes affect in the north. We obliged the doctor to remount his horse in spite of his apprehension of thieves, in a place where he had never been, and secretly resolved, as the darkness increased and his imaginary robbers retreated, to dismiss him, once more to preside over the health of the unfortunate in- habitants of Philiatra, It would indeed have required a strong party to have ventured on the attack of twenty persons, who might have been all armed. By day there was infinitely less danger for a Frank in his proper dress, as the thieves, who always retire to the Ionian islands when hard pressed by the Pasha, imagine that they would neither be received nor forgiven in those pious and moral societies, if they should be known to have molested a foreigner. If it be asked how a traveller can be acquainted with details, which regard the internal government of the robbers of the Morea, I may answer, that I learned them sitting in perfect safety in a draw- ing-room, with many other particulars, from one of the most daring leaders of banditti, through whose hands, as he expressed it himself in the Greek idiom, I had often passed in the course of my rambles on the mountains in search of an- tiquities, and positions for geographical observ- ations, my knowledge of which recesses seemed 128 TRIPOLITZA. to inspire him with that sort of confidence, which he would have felt for one of his own profession. It was nearly two hours before we reached the gates of Tripolitza, after quitting the ugly plain of Davia ; and we could distinguish enough of the scene to be sure we had lost but little worth seeing, in the ascent and descent which we made, for it was all the same kind of bare and rocky hill. Nearly an hour was passed in the plain of Tripolitza itself and the descent to it, than which nothing can be more ugly or uninteresting. We had been nine hours on the road, and though we had sent to prepare a house, and it was known we were coming on that evening, the lateness of the hour and the custom of the country, had induced the Greeks to eat up our dinner, and the Turks to shut up the city for the night. By knocking, bawling, bullying, and swearing, however, we obtained a messenger, who was sent to the aga commanding at the gate, and between threats which we neither could nor wished to put in execution, and per- suasions generally useless without presents, we prevailed upon him to believe that his honour would suffer in the eyes of civilized captains, and his life be in danger from the anger of the Pasha, if he did not open the gate to persons who Mustapha assured him were Hey-dukes, a TRIPOLITZA. 129 name become formidable to the Turks, after their last wars with Austria. Having at length over- come our difficulties and entered the gates, we found our house indeed prepared as far as the agreement for it went ; but even in the capital, the bleakness of the situation and economy in lighting had dispeopled the streets, and consigned the houses to obscurity, at nine in the evening. With some difficulty we at length roused the persons necessary, and got rice and fowls stewed for our supper, after waiting till patience was exhausted, and fatigue had overpowered hunger. The same delay takes place in Italy, where two hours usually intervene between the arrival of a traveller and his dinner, generally at last con- sisting in something which half an hour would have sufficed to cook, and in rice or macaroni, which with all the delay is never half boiled. We were, however, arrived at the capital of the Morea, a satisfaction with which we retired to very decent and well-warmed rooms for the night. In the morning of February 15., long before we were up, the banker and British agent, Giannet- tachi, to whom we had been recommended by Anastasio, came to worship us, as the Greek ex- pression imports, and after having paid due homage to our divinity collectively, to see if our Excellencies were not in want of money, which lie proffered with all the prodigality of friendship. K ISO TRIPOLITZA. A Greek is sure to overact his part, so that smooth, obliging, and amiable as Giannettachi appeared, we could not help foreseeing that he would ask us for some great exertion in his favour, in return for this politeness. He had scarcely, however, quitted the room, when we were visited by a respectable looking old gentleman in a tall furred species of grenadier's cap, whom we soon found to be the wily Gligorasko, the dra- goman of the Morea. On entering the room, he paid, by mistake, a great number of his devotions to the back of my servant's gold-laced livery, who, totally un- conscious of the fact, continued to select from a cupboard the articles he thought useful for our breakfast, and seemed rather alarmed, when, on turning round loaded with his brittle ware, he found at his feet so large, so venerable, and so well-dressed a votary. When the mistake was discovered, Gligorasko repeated his adorations to us, and having met Giannettachi in the street, failed not, in that true spirit of Greek jealousy, which must ever afford the oppressors of Greece the easiest means of putting down rebellion, to divine at one glimpse the motive of his visit, and the next moment to betray him. He immediately asked us whether the Greek had not been to offer us money, and informed us that this civility was by no means a compli- TRIPOLITZA. 131 ment to us, but a sure speculation in the hands of Giannettachi, who would make no less than 15 per cent, on our bills drawn on Constantinople, whither the Pasha was on the point of sending a large remittance. There was a moment when good bills of exchange bore so high a price, (on account of the insecurity of the roads in Mace- donia, which made them preferable to money,) that it is probable great fortunes were made by those who could draw for large sums on Con- stantinople. I have often seen on the roads in Turkey, notwithstanding all the stories of ban- ditti, many mules straggling over the country and grazing in the thickets, loaded with the tribute of a province in silver secured in nets or purses made of rope, through which the money was visible, and easy to be pillaged, while the three or four guards were sleeping under a tree. We told Gligorasko we were very glad if circum- stances rendered us the means of assisting Giannettachi, and that we should accordingly draw for a larger sum than we had intended. We did so, in fact, and it is but doing justice to the character of Giannettachi to state that, having taken from him as much money as would serve for six months, I again placed, on quitting Tripolitza, a large proportion of it under his care, that I might draw for it when necessary. By chance I did not draw for some months on that k 2 132 TRIPOLITZA. fund, and when I did, lie refused the payment, alleging that the rate of exchange was lowered, but that if I would consent to take some hun- dreds of piastres less, I should be paid. As I was at a distance, this negociation went on slowly, and ended by my putting Giannettachi into the hands of the English consul at Patrass, who was obliged to force him to repay me. As this took place under the impression that I was a person in power, and the secretary of the ambassador at Constantinople, it may be easily imagined what little chance a person of less reputed influence would have of obtaining justice from a Greek banker at Tripolitza. This, however, was at the close of my acquaintance with Giannettachi, — it commenced under more agreeable auspices. We told the old Gligorasko that we intended to wait on His Highness the Pasha, a design of which we soon discovered he had some object in preventing the execution, though he agreed to it in our presence with all humility. We afterwards found, that it was the fear of our being charged with some political mission to the Pasha, which induced him to throw those ob- stacles in our way, which only served to increase our desire of seeing the Vizier. He was not only in the pay of the agents of Buonaparte, but was soon after detected and obliged to take TR1POLITZA. 133 refuge in the house of the British consul at Patrass, where we met him again in disgrace, and going into exile, suspected by all, esteemed by none, and probably without having had the foresight necessary for the secure enjoyment of the riches he had amassed by his perfidy. As he contrived to put us off for the first day, and we felt little disposed to sacrifice much time to a residence in so dreary a country, we walked about the town to see what it contained. It is situated in the great plain which formerly con- tained the cities of Tegea and Mantinea, and is, as nearly as possible, a fair representative of the latter in point of extent. The population is or was, by whom or how I know not, es- teemed from twenty to thirty thousand souls ; and ugly as it is, and ill situated on a dead flat, without a single tree of any size, it has the air of a large city when viewed from a distance, being surrounded by a high wall in good repair, perfectly defensible against small arms, which are all that can be easily carried to the spot to be employed against it. The castle or fortress, if such it can be called, seems only a small por- tion of the town taken off in a part where there is a small elevation, and the defences little if at all improved. This is the fortress of which so much has been said, and which has been repre- k 3 134 TRIPOLITZA. sented as a place of so much importance. It is, however, so small and so like the rest of the town, that it might be passed by a traveller without notice. The palace or seraglio of the Pasha occupies an angle on the north- east, and from its extent adds to the dignity of the city, though in itself nothing more than a higher and larger pile of the same shape and character as its neighbours. I should imagine the wall to be about three miles in circuit, which would make it about the size of Athens, which contains ten thousand souls; but Tri- politza is entirely occupied by houses, while the wall of Athens incloses large tracts of neglected ground. The Turks made no sort of objection to our walking on the parapets, taking sketches, or entering the mosques. The latter permission, or rather invitation, seemed given more in con- sequence of the adroitness with which Mustapha insinuated that, though Franks, we should not spit on the carpets, than in consequence of any application on our parts. There was, in fact, nothing to be seen but what was visible from the doors of most of them, where we chanced to go to observe the ancient marbles which many of their porches contain. The bazar afforded little worthy of remark, but it appeared that the shops contained various articles of mer- TRIPOLITZA. 135 chandise from different parts of Europe and Asia, the silks of Lyons and Aleppo, and even the productions of Egypt and Morocco. The streets were narrow and dark, and had generally a deep gutter of stagnant water in the centre. I was resolved to subject myself no longer to the inconvenience of passing three hours every morning in the turbulent occupation of superin- tending the loading of my baggage for a journey. Having found that the horse I had hired was sure-footed and a quick walker, a great advan- tage where a foot's pace is all that can usually be employed, I bought him, as well as that of Mustapha, which his son had brought to him on the journey ; and, hearing that there was a third grey charger in the neighbourhood of our house, belonging to a Delli, or mad dragoon, who wished to sell him, Mustapha was despatched to add him to the stud, for the price of eighty piastres, or something like five pounds. He had been, as they said, a showy animal some years before, and was used only to carry his master through the streets for an hour in the day, with a variety of those caperings and curvets in which the Turks delight. He seemed, therefore, of all others, least calculated to carry the three mat- tresses, two portmanteaus, and other trifles which fell to his lot as the strongest of the three, but to which the poor ex-Delli was forced to submit, k 4 136 T1UPOLITZA. soon discovering the absolute inutility of friskiag under the load. I then hired a Greek, whose name was Demetrios, or Demetri. His office was to take care of the three horses ; and walk on a journey by the luggage with the halter in his hand, to prevent the perpetual accidents which occur from the usual custom of driving on the animals from behind. I was thus liberated from any real difficulty as to horses ; for though I always calculated on hiring one or even two in addition, yet this w T as no longer a matter of ne- cessity, as by walking on foot I became perfectly independent in regard to myself, my luggage, and my servant, circumstances which always facilitated any future agreement for the hire of horses. Thus prepared, we set out to view the ruins of Mantinea, now called Palaiopoli, at a place where we were informed there was excellent duck- shooting in the marsh. This was the last time Delli was destined to the honors of a saddle, as my friend mounted him for the ride. The place was only seven miles distant, and the ride along the plain nearly north. About half-way, a projecting mountain, or rather the foot of one, advances from the left to the road. On it is a Wallachian village, and it is not impossible, that it may have been the spot to which Epaminondas retired, after he received his wound, to view the TRIPOLITZA. 137 end of the conflict. We concluded a wall which had divided the plain in this part was the separ- ation of the Tegean and Mantinean territories. Soon after this we saw, inclining to the right, the single house which now stands within the walls of Mantinea, where we arrived without seeing a single duck, though the plain was sufficiently marshy. We crossed the waters of the Ophis, so called from its many meanders, and singular for the use made of it, as the ditch round the walls of Mantinea. The river runs directly against the base of the curtain, there divides, and, performing the cir- cuit of the exactly circular walls with their 116 towers and 8 gates, is re-united on the opposite side, and after a short course falls into a kata- bathron, or chasm, and disappears. The traces of a bank are yet visible, by which a besieging army raised the waters so high, that not only the city was inundated, but that part of the upper walls, which were raised with unbaked bricks upon the massive stone foundations now remain- ing, fell into the flood. This is, I believe, usually taken for a romance, but the vestiges confirm the history. The lines of the streets are yet in some places visible, as is the theatre near the centre, not less than 213 feet in diameter. There are several pools in the in closure. I have met with travellers who did not see this theatre ; 188 TRll'OLITZA. on which account, I shall add that it is one thou- sand eight hundred feet distant from the farm- house, to the north-west. The radius of the circle which would describe the wall of Mantinea might be two thousand feet in length ; and it would be a curious speculation to investigate the manner in which Epaminondas laid out the plan, — whether by drawing a line through a given number of points at the circumference, or with a stick and a string, as a gardener lays out a parterre. I think there is reason to believe, that Epaminondas laid out his other Arcadian city of Megalopolis on a similar plan, though on a larger scale. The site is a per- fectly dead flat, and the effect produced on these plains, by the streams falling into chasms instead of finding their way through vallies, is, that the mountains rise as abruptly from the flat edge of the marsh, as rocks rise from the surface of the sea. Near the walls is a little monastery on a conic hill called Chrysoule, where the most ancient city is said to have stood. We found the farm- house not only tenanted by peasants, but by large dogs, who though I never saw them bite, certainly approach with all the appearance of hungry wolves. As we were departing, my companion, having delayed in mounting his horse, was the only one of our party who remained within the walls of the city ; and the consequence of a stone awk- TRIPOL1TZA. 139 wardly aimed at one, was an attack from three of these animals at once. He was naturally of a hasty disposition, and not active in person ; the first glimpse we caught of the engagement, dis- covered him in a violent passion, armed with a common English umbrella walking-stick, and swinging it round in fruitless attempts to strike three large mastiffs who just kept out of reach : the yells of the dogs, with the oaths and vain exertions of the original assailant, produced so ludicrous a scene, especially as it was evident that the animals were equal to nothing more than barking, that the people of the house, convulsed with laughter, tried in vain to whistle off their dogs, while the angry whirling of his weapon must soon have exhausted its enraged owner, had not Mustapha, indignant at the laughter of the Greeks, recovered himself and hastened back to the rescue. It seemed a day of misfortune to my companion, for as we rode to an eminence to catch a view of the general plan of the city, he suddenly fell as if dead from his horse ; I was, how- ever, soon relieved from the anxiety occasioned by such an accident, by seeing him start up in perfect health ; and hearing that an extraordinary butterfly for this season having presented itself and settled close to his horse, on a shrub of lentiscus, Mr. F., for a name he must have, totally forgetting his situation, had snatched off his 140 TRIPOL1TZA. hat, and precipitated himself with all his force upon the Emperor of Morocco, who had by this time fluttered away unconscious of the agi- tation he had excited. I observed that after this accident Mustapha became pensive and sad for some time, revolving, probably, in his mind the consequences which might ensue to himself from the undertaking a charge of such high responsibility as that of conducting Milords in safety through the world, one of whom it was evident would make no scruple of risking his life for a butterfly. We returned to Tripolitza in the evening, and saw on the road several water-tortoises, which seemed very inactive and torpid, perhaps from the cold. The next day, finding that the great drago- man, Gligorasko, had not appointed a time for presenting us to the Pasha, we resolved to go without him, and having been invited to the house of the treasurer of His Highness, we went there with Giannettachi while a message was sent to announce our intention. We underwent at the house of this officer the usual ceremonies of coffee and pipes : his saloon of reception was well furnished with cushions of blue cloth and yellow silk lace, and the windows which looked into a sort of garden were glazed with large plates of Bohemian plate-glass. Se- veral of his acquaintance who held offices in the TRIPOLITZA. 141 court were with him, and were not only polite but courtly in their manners. One of them asked us to his house, and two or three attended us to the seraglio, when the intelligence arrived that the Pasha was ready to see us. The walk was short; for in the next street we turned through an arched gateway into a large square court surrounded by long low galleries of wood, which ran in front of corresponding chambers, above a range of what appeared to be stables. In five or six places were horses richly capa- risoned fastened to stakes or pillars of wood, all ready for mounting. In divers places were fires round which sate companies of Albanians. Here and there were groups of Turks in all sorts of coloured dresses, yellow, blue, red, and green ; some were richly embroidered : and as we proceeded, the Tartars with their high cylin- drical caps crowned with yellow cushions passed disdainfully by us, as if in haste to set out with despatches to all parts of the kingdom. On one side of the court was an aga, whose great plea- sure was that of cleaning his own horse, for which purpose he had thrown off his yellow benisse, his pink vest, and all of his turban ex- cept the red skullcap ; and certainly his trouble was well repaid by the brilliant sleekness of his jet black steed, which seemed to answer the care of its owner by presenting the finest skin and glossy coat I ever beheld. I learned that 142 TRIPOLITZA. this passion was not uncommon among the great Turks at Tripolitza; and I saw on other occasions horses of the most perfect beauty both of form and skin, which, contrary to my precon- ceived ideas, were generally black. I cannot help doubting, whether, notwithstanding all that has been said of these horses, they are capable of enduring fatigue like the English breeds or the horses of Calabria, and I suspect that in less than twelve miles all their curvetting would end in symptoms of weakness and fatigue. We passed through another gate into a smaller court, where an avenue of great personages, all in long robes of brilliant colours, mostly with beards, and all with a most imposing serenity of countenance, conducted us to the staircase, which we ascended to the deep and crowded gallery of the vice-regal audience-chamber. Nothing can be more striking than a Turkish palace, where, though every thing bears the appearance of decay, there is an air of grandeur left, which transports an European into the fairy land of the Arabian Nights. Two Bostangis, persons found in all situations, though their name implies attendance on the imperial gardens, conducted us into the presence-chamber, a large saloon exactly like all we had yet seen, but with better windows, and crimson sofas and curtains, where, passing a crowd of long-robed officers who fell back as we advanced, we made our TRIPOLITZA. 143 obeisances in our own fashion, and were invited to sit on the divan near His Highness, who pro- nounced only the words " Well come," in a grave and solemn manner. Giannettachi who entered with us was also welcomed : coffee and pipes were brought in ; the latter longer and with finer amber heads than usual, and the former served in porcelain cups held in others of filligree work, set with precious stones, which we were afraid of examining for fear of being taken for rustics. When this was over, after another welcome, Giannettachi was ordered to come near as interpreter, for though the Pasha spoke Greek perfectly, it was not the etiquette of a court to understand one syllable of it, and a person was despatched in search of the great dragoman, Gligorasko. We could not help re- marking to each other, in English, the unfortu- nate choice we had made in selecting a teles- cope for our new acquaintance; for we observed with horror that His Highness was stone blind on one side, and scarcely saw with the other. The present, however, was made ; and having a red morocco-case, whence being taken, the whole length of its plated tubes was displayed, the effect was so good that the Pasha applied it im- mediately to his best eye, quite regardless of the focus, and pretending to look out of the window with it, pronounced it at once " Pek guzel," quite beautiful. He was sitting with his back 144 TRIPOLITZA. to the windows as usual when we entered, talk- ing to an emir or descendant of Mahomet, as we observed by his green turban. Probably this was a scene got up for our reception, as the Turks, who do nothing, are, like many Europeans, anxious to appear deeply concerned in weighty matters of state. If so it was lost upon us, ex- cept that I took sufficient notice of their two persons, well wrapped in their benisses on account of the cold, to sketch them when I retired. We now proceeded to ask his permission to see the ancient ruins in his kingdom, for so the THIPOLITZA. 145 Morea is called ; and adding that our firhmans would not reach us before our arrival at Athens, requested him to give us his own passport or buy- ruldi. To all this he gave the most favourable answers and promises; and in the mean time Gligorasko, whose duty it was to have attended us to the presentation, arrived agitated and trembling to such a degree, that, if the old Pasha could have seen it, he was more an object of compassion than anger. The dragoman kneeled down, pulled the sleeves of his benisse as low over his hands as possible, and held them as a puppy-dog does his paws when he is taught against his will to sit up, which is considered both in dogs and men the greatest mark of respect and submission. He begged pardon, made excuses, and sweated till the drops fell like tears, so as to have no doubt that the fright was at least half real. The Pasha, however, knew his man, and seemed to pardon his present neglect, telling him that he was very well known to be in the pay of Buonaparte, and that nothing but positive proof was wanting to hang him up like a dog. The fact was exactly so ; for the dragoman was persuaded we were come with some political information to the Pasha, know- ing himself, that of which we were entirely ignorant, the extent of the intrigues then carry- ing on in the country, and thinking very naturally 146 TRIPOLITZA. that if he put us off from clay to day, we should at last be disgusted, and depart without an audience. What he gained from the French party I know not ; but he, soon after detection, lost his lucrative and honourable employment at Tri- politza, and became a dependant on British hospitality. His fright induced him to busy himself in our service as far as getting us the necessary documents quickly, the granting of which he could no longer prevent. We were regaled with sweetmeats, wiped our mouths with embroidered napkins, and our divinities were revered by perfuming with the smoke of incense, in the way practised by the Greeks to the pictures of saints ; after which mark of dis- tinction, we retired through the same throng of courtly slaves in the chamber, to the insolent and rapacious chiboukshis or pipe-lighters, boys on the stairs, who beg in loud tones for money as we passed on to the more stately starvelings in the inner court and the rougher and more boisterous tenants of the outer. All these people were to be appeased with a bakshish, or present, according to custom ; and how easy it was to gratify them, may be imagined from the whole sum expended, which might equal about thirty shillings. But every piastre may be subdivided into forty paras ; and even in the palace of a Pasha a para is worth picking up. The short- lived glories of the Viceroy, and still more pre- TRIPOLITZA. 1 17 carious offices of his court, render the seizing of every means of aggrandizement, however trifling, absolutely necessary to all, from the Vizier him- self to his lowest dependant ; and in the universal scramble poverty will naturally be the lot of the great majority, while stronger talents or more daring pillage may serve to enrich a few of the more fortunate candidates for the property of their neighbours. It is not to be supposed that the Pasha was always surrounded by that number of officers and ministers which we found as- sembled in his chamber. We had a proof that much of the scene was got up to astonish the strangers ; but the horses standing ready caparisoned in the first court, being supposed a necessary appendage to the state of a great man, are probably always in waiting. On the whole, the court of Tripolitza was well worth seeing, and presented as imposing an aspect as the mutability of the government and the instability of the palace permitted. We went from the Pasha to visit the acra of Karitena, who had so hospitably lodged us in his house, and whose kindness had dispatched another servant from Tripolitza to take charge of us. He was well lodged, treated us, as usual, with more coffee, and more pipes, and seemed quite delighted to hear his cat had kittened on the bed, which he was sure would bring us good luck. He had in his company other agas, his l 2 148 TRIPOLITZA. friends, who also invited us to their houses ; and the hour of sunset being proclaimed from the mosque, they all took out their watches and set them at the point corresponding to our 12 and their 24. They had heard of our different division, or rather nomenclature, of time, but were not at all aware of the possibility of using any other beginning of the account than either sunrise or sunset. They seemed struck, how- ever, with the idea, that the watches in our manner of reckoning needed not the daily setting to which theirs were subject ; and though they were well inclined to believe that the thing might have its advantages, they shut up their watches, each in its half dozen cases, replaced them in their little bags, and hid them once more in their breasts, evidently contenting them- selves with the conviction that if ours was the truest way, theirs was the most virtuous. Many nations, who think themselves much wiser than the Turks, still consider it an article of faith to adhere to this inconvenient custom, by which two places varying only the fiftieth part of a second in longitude may easily, by the intervention of a hill, differ half an hour in time. The cooks, who are most interested in the ex- tinction of a custom which bears particularly hard upon the usual hour of dinner, may perhaps in time prevail, where good sense and philosophy have failed. TRIPOLITZA. 14 ( J It must by this time have occurred to the reader, that if the dragoman doctor did not form the ornament of our party, still less did he seem capable of being put to any use, as I was not in want of interpretation, having been in Greece before, and my companion was not in the habit of asking questions. He had hitherto been nothing more than a useless expense and an unseemly burden, and had never appeared active but once, and that at an unhappy moment. The difficulty lay in the means which could be employed for dispatching him to his village without an affront, which he had not merited, and we were reduced the next day to explain to my friend's servant, a Spaniard by birth, the per- plexed situation in which we were placed. He immediately conceived a plan for producing the desired result, and said he would contrive that the doctor should come himself and ask permis- sion to retire. In a short time he returned with the assurance that all was settled, that he had pretended to have overheard a conversation, in which we had complained of the great expense of employing a man of his merit, that he was certain we should not like to retain the doctor much longer, to whom he was sure we should give a handsome present on his departure, and that he had therefore betrayed our conversation, that the dragoman might himself propose to l 3 150 TR1POLITZA. withdraw, which would have a more dignified appearance. The doctor fell readily into the snare, made up a story of a letter received that moment from his dear wife at Philiatra, written in almost illegible characters, stating how a plank in the gallery had given way, (as well indeed it might have done,) in consequence of which her leg and thigh were dangerously torn by the rusty nails, and conjuring him to return with all speed, to save by his medical skill an expiring wife and a helpless family. We scarcely believed it possible that the vanity of appearing to retire voluntarily would be suf- ficient to induce him to act this farce ; but half an hour convinced us that not only he would try, but would have the greatest success in ex- torting compassion from his willing audience. He entered our apartment with a most rueful countenance, and went into so minute a detail of all the particulars of the casualty, the loss of blood, and the laceration of the tendons, that it was almost impossible not to believe it, though we knew the whole to be a fabrication, and though the exact state of the wounds, and the precise circumstances attending the accident, could scarcely have been so accurately related in the letter of a dying female. We of course could not take upon us to oppose so humane an intention as that which he intimated, of returning to the succour of his TRIPOLITZA. 151 afflicted family ; and having his whole month's pay ready, which amounted to twenty sequins, he was in an instant put in possession of it, and went out in an excess of conjugal affection to look for a horse. While he was out, we had time to write a letter to Anastasio, in which we detailed the whole plot, desiring him to condole with the doctor on the misfortunes of his wife, and to congratulate him on the success of the trick which he had played. We knew he would be in good hands with Anastasio, and saw him depart with our letter in his bags after dinner, not with- out satisfaction. His riding dress can scarcely be imagined without a drawing ; but I have seldom seen a more grotesque figure than his, when lie set out for the town of Leondari on that journey. His hat was not unlike that of a capuchin with a slouched brim, but the crown had a broad silk hat-band and large steel-buckle. His hair, which had not been untied for months behind, showed that several attempts had been made to comb it, which had only succeeded in tearing out or breaking off locks which originally belonged to the cue. He wore a large and long robe of cloth, which once had been sky-blue, lined with thickfur, with a broad cape of the same. Under this was a tunic of dark colours to conceal the dirt, also reaching to the ground; beneath this, again, were l 4 152 TRIPOLITZA. other dresses altogether invisible, but forming a prodigious mass of inconvenient appurtenances, which when prepared for a journey were all thrust together, — fur, pelisse, tunic, and all the rest into a tremendous pair of Turkish trowsers, composed of many yards of light-blue cloth, which being sewed together between the legs, as all Turkish trowsers are, in spite of an essay in one of the English newspapers to prove the con- trary, were so much forced upwards by the saddle, that several inches of septennial cloth stockings were visible, between them and a huge pair of Turkish jack-boots which had once been black. It was scarcely possible to take the hasty sketch which is here presented to the reader, ere the son of Esculapius, gigantic in his habiliments, oppressed the back of a small and spirited Turk- ish steed, and was lost for ever to our view. TRIPOLITZA. 153 This species of demi-costume, uniting the beauties of the Frank and Turkish dresses, is particularly affected by the learned physicians of the Morea. Anastasio's was of the same kind, but his hat was more modern, and his person and robes were not, on a journey, thrust into the trowsers, which added so much to the ludicrous appearance of our late dragoman ; be- sides which he was naturally cleaner, an incal- culable blessing to good Christians, in a country where they hold in such sovereign contempt the artificial and oriental vices of perpetual washing and perfuming. Having now dispatched Dr. Andrea Zani on his journey, many minutes did not elapse before a person was announced on the part of the Pasha, being a relation of his, with a secret message. A brisk and gay youth was intro- duced, and seated, with the due offerings of pipe and coffee; presented by Mustapha, he proceeded to unfold his secret, if; indeed, that could be a secret which was brought in public through the bazar, by one of the most dainty Turks in Tripolitza, with an African cloth of gold shawl on his head, put on in the newest taste on one side, with a flower hanging over the other ear. Added to this his benisse was of the finest rose- coloured cloth, under which was a peach-coloured tunic, and he was attended by a chiaoush of 154« TRIPOLITZA. the Pasha, with a large silver-headed cane, known to the whole city. The whole business consisted in nothing more than a request that as soon as it was dark we should proceed to the palace to a private confer- ence with His Highness on matters of import- ance, a request to which we of course acceded. Our young guest had left his slippers, as usual, below the step, which exists in almost all the rooms in the East, and one of his yellow leather short stockings happening to fall off, we observed that the nails of the toes were tinged with a pink dye, as well as those of his fingers, a cus- tom not uncommon in Turkey, and which is only pretty when first done, as it turns yellow like the henna, when it has been applied for some time. The feet of all persons living in European society are so perpetually cramped by the use of tight shoes, that sculptors have been at a loss to know what is the real shape of a foot. It is in Turkey only that a foot exists in its true proportion and beauty, among the peo- ple of condition, who only clothe them when they go out. Nothing is a more common mistake than that the Turks are a dirty people. Some one has said so some centuries ago, when the romances asserted, as a known fact, that the soul of a slain paynim emitted an unsavoury odour j and people TRIPOLITZA. 15.5 have gone on copying and copying that idea, as they do the old stories of Cicisbeo and Cava- liere Servente in Italy, which school-boys and school-girls learn from Guthrie's Geographical Grammar, and continue repeating, writing, pub- lishing, and probably believing, to the present day, riding off in triumphant superiority, be- cause, thank heaven, such things do not exist in our latitudes — or any other but in story-books for children. I shall remark in this place that the Turks, in their own country, are perhaps as cleanly a nation as any on earth ; and that if they may have been observed less decent in foreign cities, they have not had the means or conveniences for continuing so. A ragged Turk is a very rare sight, or even a dirty one, in Greece. The Greeks, though an oppressed, can scarcely be called a dirty people ; and in spite of prejudice, it may be doubted whether the shoes and stock- ings of the North do not conceal more impu- rities than the earth and air create on the exposed legs of the southern peasant, who can- not retire to rest without washing them. Ccetcris paribus, real personal filth and cold seem to me to increase in Europe in a corre- sponding ratio. The highest ranks in all coun- tries will always form exceptions, being nearly alike in all. 156 TRIPOLITZA, The extremes of heat and cold are productive of similar habits in the inhabitants of each region, having recourse to grease instead of water ; a scarce article in both : but even under these circumstances, the filth of the African, anointed with grease in the open air, must be less loathsome than the fish and blubber of the Greenlander, necessarily confined by and cou- pled with the exhalations from the skins of the brute creation. A Mahometan, it has been said, could not exist in the Arctic regions, on account of the fasting during the Ramadan, as long as the sun is above the horizon, which would in an Arctic summer extinguish the race of true believers. This, however, must depend on the season of the year, and being in winter, the Mussulman would keep his vow, whether disposed to do so or not. We made these reflections, and many others, when our gay young friend took leave ; and his finery exciting us in our turn also to have something smart, we sallied forth under the direction of Mustapha, our present conductor, to the bazar, where we purchased for him a fine pair of red cloth trowsers embroidered with black, a pair of red morocco boots, a long green benisse, and a cane with a silver head ; which done, we went directly to the palace of the Vizier. We found his courts in solitude, TRIPOLITZA. 157 his gallery empty, and his audience- chamber dark ; but passing through a small door at the upper end of it, we saw him without his turban, in a smaller chamber, sitting smoking at a com- fortable fire. He had on his head only a red velvet cap. His robes were of the same colour, and his long white beard was finely displayed on his breast. He received us with great courtesy, and spoke without any sort of difficulty in Greek, now we were no longer received in state. It appeared that our advice was to be asked on the occasion of information, just received, of the arrest of a person whose dress was quilted with sequins, and who was known to be carrying on a treasonable correspondence with certain discontented Greeks, under the auspices of the then French government. The man had been arrested in the north of the the Morea ; and some days previous other in- telligence had arrived, which had induced the Pasha to arrest a number of persons, professing to be French physicians, throughout the country. He asked our opinion of the state of the castles at the entrance of the gulf of Lepanto, and whether they could resist a fleet. Having by chance passed a day at one of these, I was enabled to assure him that it was not generally in a state to oppose a resistance 1.58 TRIPOLITZA. for half an hour ; and that I saw no means of making it tenable without more guns, and more suitable ammunition than balls of all sizes, and large pebbles, which I had seen in heaps. He seemed to give some orders on the subject, which we did not understand, to one of his people who was called. We told him we did not think the doctors, whether real or false, could do him much harm ; and having before been told of their detention, we tried to persuade him to release them, or at least examine them ; as, at all events, the innocent must be confounded with the guilty. He replied that it was all true, but that he had himself received an order to detain them, and that they should not be hurt. As to the Greeks, with whom the correspondence was carrying on, he said he had nothing to fear, for he had long had one of them in pay. On the whole, we thought it better to have as little as possible to do with politics, and we took leave in about an hour, returning to our house with a convoy of paper-lanterns, which Mustapha had prepared to do us honor : we afterwards heard that the sham medical gentlemen, after a long confinement, had been released; and I believe that at least one of them has since pub- lished accounts of his observations in different parts of the Morea, which have been read with avidity, though the range of the author's tour 14 TRIPOLITZA. 159 had been necessarily confined to the four walls of the house where he lived. The Turks, who are accused of fatalism, which may perhaps, theoretically, be one of the dogmas of their religion, have, nevertheless, practically, so strong a predilection for phy- sicians, that an apothecary's boy would be sure of a good reception among them. European merchants have, during the long reign of tranquillity in Turkey, previous to the attack on Egypt, frequently established them- selves at Tripolitza with advantage. They seem in time to forget all the characteristics of a Frank dress, except the hat, and often to have preserved with pious care the original specimen with which they left their native land. I pro- cured sketches of two of these gentlemen, walk- 160 TRIPOLITZA. ing down the street, and present them to the reader as descriptive of that class of persons, after a long residence in the cities of the Ottoman empire. We rode on the following morning to the village of Peali, about an hour eastward from Tripolitza. The village was the property of Giannettachi, and is on the site of the ancient Tegea. In a ruined church we found a number of architectural fragments, a broken statue, and a long inscription, seemingly a list of persons who had enjoyed some office, with the names also of their parents. It was built into the wall, was upside down, and most inconveniently situated in other respects, so as to be most dif- ficult to copy. Pausanias, who speaks of the magnificent temple here to Minerva Alea, which he calls the most splendid of the Peloponnesus, must have been mistaken in saying that the Doric was the smaller order. We found at Peali Doric columns of great dimensions, and of white mar- ble ; and one of their capitals, above five feet in diameter, is used as the mouth of a well. It is probable that there is an immense treasure of sculpture in this place ; for the soil being all ploughed, so as to have left no trace of the the walls, must have risen so much as to cover TRIPOLITZA. 1(31 the ruins, before the city of Tripolitza had be- come of sufficient consequence to require the decorations which might occasion the pillage of the marbles. Tegea is one of the cities of Greece which in its present state presents the fewest objects of curiosity to a stranger above ground, but I have no doubt an excavation at Peali would be very productive. As we had now seen every thing in the plain of Tripolitza, we prepared for our journey to the southern coast of the Morea, heartily tired of our residence in a large, dirty, gloomy, ugly city, situated in the most uninviting spot and the worst climate possible, and with no one recom- mendation except to the court of the Pasha. It seems that the Pasha is not in fact supposed to reside here, but is nominated to the city of Nauplia, called by the Italians Napoli di Ro- mania, but being subject in that situation to visits which might be disagreeable, from the Capitan- Pasha and the fleet, and moreover bribed by a certain number of purses from the Greek population, to whom the residence of the Vizier is more central and convenient at Tripolitza, that place is now become the seat of govern- ment. It is sacrificing a great deal to circum- stances to remain, during the winter, in a climate worse on the whole than Yorkshire during that season, while the sun is shining and the violets u 102 TRIP0L1TZA. blooming in the plain of Argos, only a day's journey distant. I have on more than one oc- casion lived for some days at Corinth, suffering from the sleet and wind, to which its position is peculiarly liable, while from the hill above, the sunny citadel of Athens was seen shining bright under the splendor of a cloudless sun. Perhaps no country presents such a contrast of climates in the same extent of territory as Greece. On the day appointed, our passport, or buy- ruldi, was brought by Gligorasko, written on a small piece of Turkish paper shining on one side, and giving us orders for post-horses and even entertainment without remuneration, neither of which we availed ourselves of, as we had been informed that the peculations and extortions it would have occasioned, under pretence of enter- taining us, would be endless. This was not the first time we had experienced the advantages of journeying in a barbarous country. The passports which are issued to the traveller in those regions styled by courtesy the civilised nations of Europe, seem in general only calcu- lated to retard his progress, by transmitting him from one trouble to another ; nor does it appear that there exists any power of granting a free passport in those states which have been con- quered by Buonaparte, while the frequent ar- restations at every custom-house and gate are, TRIPOLITZA. 163 perhaps, of all the revolutionary inventions, the most galling and unpopular legacies which the jealous usurper has left to estrange the affections of nations from their rulers. The effect of these scrutinies upon an English mind is, that he is travelling in a country which is going to be the scene of some dreadful catastrophe. The Turks are too cunning to show they are afraid before the danger is manifest. Some have pretended that the most civilised nations are the most rigorous in these respects ; but by this rule, ac^ quainted as we are with the advanced state of our own country, where as yet we have no pass- ports in use in the interior, to what an unheard- of and incredible state of -prosperity and refine- ment must the states of Parma and Modena be raised in our ideas, when we recollect that the former presents, between doganas and gates, nine of these obstacles in the passage through its little territory ; while the latter, arrived at the ne plus ultra of security, has contrived to arrest the unhappy traveller eleven times in a drive of three hours. In countries where banditti often rove uncon- trouled, and humble dishonesty so easily eludes the vigilance of the police, it would indeed be strange if any one should attempt to carry on a secret plot with a numerous suite, yet such a design seems always suspected ; and one might M 2 1(J4 TRIPOLITZA. be almost tempted to say, any crime is treated ■with more indulgence than travelling in a coach and six. Those who vainly flatter themselves that the destruction of the Turkish barbarism would open to them the road to the investigation of Grecian antiquities, treasures of sculpture, and a new acra of the arts and humanity, may assure themselves that no such effect would be pro- duced. A long reign of anarchy would be suc- ceeded by a fresh and more active tyranny, during which, if Greeks ruled, strangers would be excluded, and the monuments of antiquity, fetching no price, would find their way to the lime-kiln. If Greece fell into the hands of a civilised stranger, there would be droves of pre- fects and commissiaries to watch the travellers operations, to prevent his antiquarian researches under pretence that he is a spy, and to oppose the exportation of works of art from the country, with a long train of dog-in-the-manger selfish- ness, which would put an end to enterprize or discovery. The antiquities, under a change of govern- ment, becoming private property, would soon disappear, as they did in Italy ; and as to the hope of foreigners interfering to save them, such measures only hasten their destruction, as the Greeks are sufficiently active, which the Turks are not, to destroy them, to be rid of visitors and THIPOLITZA. 16\5 the consequent importunities. The newspapers, not long ago, stated that the British ambassador at the Porte had procured an injunction to the Pasha of the Morea, commanding him to spare the temples of Athens, which, taking into consi- deration the means of the parties, would be like sending a mission to the Emperor of China, to beg him to abstain from the sack of Persepolis, Athens not belonging to that pashalic, and he having no means of getting there ; but the same statements find senates where there are no people, and castles which only exist in the air, by way of shewing the valour and virtue of the Greeks. Under no circumstances would the remains of antiquity be likely to last so long, and to be so accessible, as under the Turks ; and there exists a method of consecrating these ruins to the mosque at Mecca, to which I recol- lect that the gymnasium of Ptolemy at Athens w r as thus dedicated, by raising a subscription in order to deliver it from the Greek who had already destroyed the pediment. This is called by a term resembling the word Vakouf, which renders it beyond the power of the Sultan him- self to destroy the edifice so consecrated. On the other hand, it is vain to expect that liberty could all at once spring up in a country like this, peopled by Albanians styled by courtesy Greeks, amongst whom even the vanity of being M O 16() TRIPOLITZA. free, if freedom were acquired, would never prevail against the jealousy which would sacri- fice all to pull down a rival, or the avarice which would recall the oppressor for a purse of gold. It will be time to believe that the nations of the South are capable of a just enjoyment of liberty, when we see a single quiet example of it. Sparta itself exhibited a most terrible and inquisitorial tyranny under another name ; and Athens, whose brightest days were during the reigns of the Pisistratidae and Pericles, was subject to perpetual broils, deifying, exiling, recalling, and execrating, by turns, the objects of such versatile passions. With regard to the people themselves, I have little hesitation in saying they were better even under the Turks than they would be under a government of their own choosing, in their pre- sent state. A foreign force might indeed compel them to be happy for a time, but they must then submit to multiplied taxes and personal con- scription, from which they have hitherto been almost exempt, till they had gained strength to break out again. Before that period, however, luxury would have made so great a progress, that the rich would unite with the strangers, preferring any chains to the convulsion which might break them ; and this is the general course 8 TR1POLITZA. i(>7 of events in the South, where the bounties of nature render the world worth living for even in chains, provided they be splendid. In the North, where nothing less than freedom could render existence supportable, the circle of events may perhaps pass through corresponding phases, though at a slower rate; for those who have once acquired the blessings of liberty under a cloudy sky are more likely to preserve it. It is with great facility that political changes take place in the nations of the South, and the conse- quence is the easy subversion of the existing governments ; but to build up a new and better system is not in the power of a people who act neither on reason or experience, but from pre- sent impulse of feeling. Whether the same reasons, which will ever prevent the nations of the South from remaining independent, will not in time act on those of the North, where long security and luxury may effect by degrees that sort of indifference, which prefers comforts and fashions to any advantages which might arise from the momentary deprivation of them, only time can shew."" Individual inde- pendence, and in time the public liberty, may be attacked in more ways than one. In Turkey they would set about it openly with the purse in their hands. In the North it might be attacked with more security by those in power, if they m 4 lC)S TIUPOLITZA. were ingenious enough to render themselves, at the same time, the models of fashion; for all the world would rather be thought even wicked to a certain extent than vulgar : the fear of that stigma, which operates most powerfully on the most polished state of society, would draw all by degrees into the snare, and the unwary would sell themselves to the gratification of vanity, triumphing all the time in their virtue, because they had received no money. Perhaps the period is fast approaching when the upper ranks of all climates would rather be rid of the troublesome honour of a share in the govern- ment. I should be as sorry to live in the South with a constitution, as in the North without one. There can, at all events, exist little chance of freedom, or what would really be emancipation, for the Greeks. They must fall to the share of the stranger, who is little likely to communicate to them that which he does not himself enjoy. We quitted Tripolitza not much before mid- day, on one of those cold and raw mornings which characterize the situation, and not the latitude, seeming not to affect the thermometer, which was never lower than 52°, in the same degree as the traveller. We were accompanied also by so thick a fog that we had little hope of seeing much of the country in our journey to Leontari. Not far from the gates we passed RIVER ALPHEUS. l6 KALAMATA. the other hand, equally anxious to avoid the honours of drums and hautboys, with which we should have been persecuted whenever we ap- peared, resisted both the visit to the Vaivode and the production of the Pasha's passport, and with such success, that we were permitted to eat our dinners in quiet for that day, though we could see that our host was not quite satisfied. He said, however, he could call on the governor, and explain that we wished to decline all ceremony. He disappeared, but contrived another plot for the following day, when, to avoid the torment of children who might have been troublesome to us while sketching in the neighbourhood, we de- sired to have a man belonging to the Vaivode to accompany us about the town. Here the Archon begged again for our buy- ruldi, as without it, he said, great difficulties would be made, and we should lose time, while its production would ensure us a sakshi or a janissary immediately. This induced us to produce the passport, with which the old wretch tripped off in delighted, and to us incomprehensible haste ; and, in a few minutes, we found at our disposal a Turk, with a red turban, a finely embroidered blue and gold jacket, lined with red, a broad red sash round his waist loaded with pistols and sword, and naked legs with red shoes. KALAMATA. 205 With this gentleman, who certainly made no ceremony in performing for us that part of his duty which consisted in driving away the curious inhabitants, we sallied out and examined the ruined castle, which at no time was of conse- quence, and has nothing but its situation on a pretty rocky knoll to recommend it. We walk- ed afterwards to a short distance from the town, and occupied ourselves in taking sketches of the place. The point of Chy tries on the left, and that of the castle of Corone on the right, ad- vancing to within thirty degrees of each other, are consequently distinctly seen at once, and form a more picturesque termination to the land- scape towards the sea. The castle, situated on a low promontory, was backed by the rock Vene- tico ; and its neighbourhood being further re- moved from the mountains and their snow, enjoys in winter a much finer climate than Ka- lamata. In the near ground, a ruined minareh advanced before the more distant mouth of the Kalamos, while a Turkish cemetery, without the usual accompaniment of cypresses, lay at our feet. We returned, after a short walk, to the town, where we were met by our host, insisting on taking us to visit his brother, whose house, the reverse of ours, which aspired to the height of three or four stories, was situated on one side of a large and open court, and scarcely raised 206 KALAMATA. seven feet above it. Even this visit was not without its meaning, as we found on our arrival at home ; for the lieutenant, and another officer of one of the corvettes, which we afterwards found stationed at Chy tries, or Kitries, the nearest place in the Mainiote territory, was just come to the house, to demand of Zane, as chief of the Cogia Bashis of Kalamata, the necessary supplies for the squadron. It is by no means at all times easy to see through the contingent plots of these people, though, with all their practice, they are so clumsy, or so barefaced, or so overkind, that they never can succeed more than once in a direct imposition. In the present case the Turkish officers, who did not at all seem in the humour to be gulled, talked loudly, while he brought them into our apartment, and shewed us, as a proof of his assertion that there were two English Beys, one of whom lodged in his house by the Pasha's express order, and the other was just come from his brother's. His impudence carried him so far, that he had set up a claim to exemption from all imposts, on the strength of our buyruldi, alleging, that the con- tributions which he might have been called upon to pay were, by the Pasha's order, entirely ab- sorbed in our expenditure. We were on the point of contradicting this, when Mustapha called us aside, and told us it was better for the KALAMATA. 207 present to let Zane go on with his own story; and we saw him, in spite of all the observations of the Turks, that so rich a man, and one with so fine a house, ought to be ashamed to make the public pay for his guests, fairly drive them out of the house by means of our passport. He was not a little elated with his victory, and of course meditated a still better imposition, in which he was not quite so successful. He amused us not a little by vapouring about the talents of the Greeks, and the ignorance of the Turks, and how the former never wanted more than a beginning to drive the Mahometans out of Europe ; till, by chance, happening to look out of the window, we asked whose house that was which appeared in that ruined and un- finished state, and he said it belonged to the family of Benaky. This had, as he informed us, been a rich and powerful family till the period of the last Russian war, when, uniting with that nation against the Turks, their houses were burnt, their patrimony confiscated, and them- selves, as many as could escape, obliged to fly. Nevertheless, an old lady of the name yet lived in this house, and some of the same race yet tenanted the ruined though splendid habitations of other branches of the family at Mistra. We told him we thought a little more was necessary than a beginning in order to driving the Turks from Europe, by means of the Greeks alone, or 208 KALAMATA. even with foreign assistance ; and these ruins of the Benaky palace, with its high tower and long line of decayed buildings, seemed to prove as much ; but he appeared to think the contrary, seeming to attribute the misfortunes of former times to the want of union or good faith among his countrymen ; though he owned he would not, even now, trust his own brother with a para. | I asked him how he thought it would be possible at present to keep the Greeks steady to any pur- pose ? for which he seemed to rely upon the fr priests, and the enthusiasm they would be able to awaken in the cause. When I objected to him the impossibility of the Greeks ever uniting under one chief, with- out which, all their supposed valour might be KALAMATA. 20<) vain, he did not seem to have thought of that. I proposed, for instance, one of the Notara family of Corinth and Triccala, the best educated, and, perhaps, best born of the Morea. He cried, in horror, " God forbid !" and, after much pres- sing, owned he would be among the first to put any Greek to death who aspired to the throne: of course always excepting himself, though he did not say so. He said a foreigner was the only person who could serve the purpose ; and when I ventured to hint, that envy and religion would both conspire against a stranger, he owned that would be the case ; but then, when the Turks were gone, the stranger might also be driven away. He said the Russians might have served the purpose ; but that having de- serted the Greeks at the end of the last war, they were not afterwards to be trusted. The fact is, however, that if they did wrong then, few people are now alive to remember it, and no history exists to record it to another generation. The Greeks would certainly lend themselves to any nation, or to any scheme, that might pro- duce a change : which effected, they would lend themselves over again to produce another ; and end by cutting one another's throats as soon as they had cut those of all the strangers. He owned all this was most probable, but that at least they should be rid of the Turks. I could 210 KALAMATA. not make him understand, that without com- bination or generalization of plan, both pre- sent and future, throughout the country, they could only go from bad to worse, and from ill usage and tyranny to anarchy and slaughter. He seemed to derive great satisfaction from dwelling upon the undisputed fact, that nothing would be more easy than for the whole popula- tion to rise and put to death all the Turks in the town, who could not amount to more than fifty, of which two-thirds must be women and children; but he knew his own people sufficiently, to doubt whether some one or other would not betray his coadjutors for money, if any con- spiracy existed. He seemed rather amused when I told him, that with a purse in my hand I could re-con- quer the town of Kalamata, or any other in Greece, at any time for the Sultan, by withdraw- ing the nine or ten Turkish families for a few days, and giving one of the archons a few piastres to cut the throats of the rest. He owned he should have no objection to getting rid of his rivals, because they also were infamous ; and the conversation ended by his going to get ready to attend us — with a new kalpak, as large as a cauldron, on his head, and a pink benisse, adorned by a deep border of dark fur, thrown over his former dress — to the Benaky KALAMATA. 211 ruins, which my companion expressed a wish to visit. Nearly the whole of this conversation passed within hearing of Mustapha, who seemed to treat the proposed extermination of his whole race with contempt, and only observed, when Zane went out, that he was an old cheat, and a horned hog; such common expressions, that we attached little consequence to them at the moment. It seems that, generally speaking, there is no country in which so great a degree of personal liberty, both of word and action, exists, as one in which an old well-rooted despotism is just strong enough not to employ spies to take in- formations ; for the conversation of the archon Zane, in any of the countries said to have been civilized by the conquests of Buonaparte, would at least have cost him his liberty, if not his life. Great crimes and great injustice may and do undoubtedly prevail under the government of the Sultan, as they did under the sway of the Roman emperors; but these great excesses were and are confined within a small sphere ; and if all of them have been recorded, the worst tyranny of the worst emperor never occasioned half the effusion of blood that one year's repub- licanism cost in the days of Marius and Sylla, when the public virtue no longer existed, which p c 2 212 KALAMATA. would have rendered liberty any thing but a name. It has often been said, that liberty of conscience was no where to be enjoyed in sucn perfection as at Rome and Constantinople, where long and undisputed dominion had at least left no vestiges of persecution. A single ruler certainly gives much less trouble than ten thousand ; and it might admit of a doubt, whether those who nominally enjoy the greatest share of liberty are, in the every-day occurrences of life, half so free as those who are supposed to be the victims of despotism. Whether, for instance, the annual spoliation of a pasha or two, who assuredly de- serve it, is half so great a public nuisance as that sort of pretended liberty which is the boast of Geneva, where every member of the com- munity acts as a jealous spy on his neighbour ; watches him out of the town ; closes the gates upon him if he is a minute too late j prohibits his theatre ; renders his holidays days of sorrow and restriction ; interferes, in some way or other, witli almost every action of his life ; and when at length, worn out with frivolous vexations, he would fly the country, informs the victim of liberty that no horses are allowed on that day. The Greeks have sacked Tripolitza, and perhaps our host Zane may have been the author of the massacre of the whole Turkish popula- tion in cold blood, which had surrendered on KALAMATA. 213 terms. He may also have gratified his ven- geance by beheading the Turks with an equal number of dogs, and changing the heads mutu- ally ; for cruelty is always insatiable, and if it has destroyed its enemies must have other vic- tims. While mercy is unknown to the Greeks, they may change masters, but they can never be free. Zane may be fairly taken as an example of that most corrupt class of men called Archons, or Cogia Bashis, in Greece ; though there may, and must of course, be exceptions. It requires no argument to shew, that the decrees of the senate of Kalamata, conducted by such a man, if he yet exists, and has not, like almost all leaders of revolutions, fallen the first victim, can only tend, at the termination of a more or less sanguinary convulsion, to the rivetting still faster, in some shape or other, the still heavier chains of the unhappy survivors. All reasonable and all right-minded persons would rejoice in the real freedom of the Greeks j but they are not, in their present state, capable of enduring it. Zane now conducted us to the mansion of the Benaky. We found it occupied by an old widow lady of the name ; and there was an air of something more European about the habit- ation than any we had yet seen in Greece, given by the remains of Venetian furniture ; and p 3 214 KALAMATA. every thing bore a greater appearance of anti- quity and solidity than usual. The old gentle- woman received us with civility ; but as she was not in affluent circumstances, seemed rather embarrassed with our visit, till we explained that we did not wish for coffee, but were come to look at the prospect from her turrets j her con- versation however gave us no information, for she seemed to know little of the events which had ruined her family, though quite old enough to remember every thing. I have known more than one of the members of this family who fled to Russia, where, without losing the remembrance of their origin, their children have been educated in the schools of European science, and may, at some future period, become the instruments of the happiness and regeneration of their country. The view from the top of the Benaky tower was much like that from our own windows ; but its terrace had once, in the happier days of the family, been prettily decorated with two kiosks, or summer-houses, which are represented in the accompanying sketch. Below, in the court, are the remains of apart- ments, which the ambition of the Benaky pro- jected during the brightest gleams of Russian success in the former rebellion. At Mistra there is a very considerable portion of the town occupied by the ruined habitations KALAMATA. 215 of the family, which at a distance still contribute much to the imposing effect of the city. The Greeks are said to have been happier as well as more respected before their first alliance with Russia : and it would surely be but just in that power at no time to withdraw its mighty protection, till it has obtained security for their future treatment. What a scene of desolation and desertion, of ruins and of solitude, must Greece present, after the present frightful convulsion shall have again depopulated its towns and destroyed its villages ! A horrible crisis will be produced, in the vain hope of establishing a state of things, which, if it must be understood in order to be obtained, at least to the present generation, must ever remain an unintelligible and unattainable phantom. The circumstances of the existing revolution differ however so essentially from the last, that the serious assistance of any European power would in the present state of tactics certainly drive the Turks from the Morea, and prevent their return. But this is no more than a confes- sion, that it is in the power of any European government to occupy any point it may select in the Ottoman dominions, where the attacks of the Turks alone might be derided, and their armies, if they sent any, might perish by thou- sands before a regular fortification ;. but how p 4- X16 KALAMATA. mucli would tlie existing generation of* Greeks gain, totally unaccustomed as they are to toil or danger, by changing the tyranny of the Turks for the watch-and-ward pleasures of a foreign and well disciplined camp ? At the period of the last war the military talents of the Turks and Russians were too nearly upon a par to permit any very permanent establishment of one power in the territory or' the other. The Turks, however, have long ceased to learn ; while, except the rapid but un- noticed advances of Austria in every species of civilization which preserved her during the last twenty years, no nation has made .such gigantic strides in improvement as the double headed Eagle of the North, particularly in every thing which would prove most fatal to the Turks. Any despotic government, like that of Tur- key, which, in an age like this, ventures to restrict or prohibit any species of foreign im- provement or information, from a too anxious fear of the sophistry which science might oc- casionally introduce with it, must in a certain time reduce its own standard of intellect to a level so much below that of its more enlightened neighbours, that its very existence will ultimately depend on their will. As nothing in this world is stationary, all states must be either in a course of improvement or degradation j and if one na- tion will not learn, it must be content in time to KALAMATA. 217 submit to another that will. Exclusive laws, and exclusive customs, might for a while enable the petty states of the Jews and Lacedaemonians to preserve, in the midst of hard blows and per- petual struggles, the passes of their own moun- tains; but the policy of great conquerors, from the days of Rome to those of Russia, has ever been that of adopting, as much as possible, all that can be turned to account, from whatever source it may spring. The Turks are so circumstanced, that much as the government has wished to in- troduce the tactics of Europe, it has been found impossible, from internal jealousy, to effect the measure. They have been, nevertheless, hither- to preserved, though only by their distant allies, from their nearest enemy. Its geographical posi- tion also favours the existence of Turkey ; — be- cause, as there will always be some boundary to European cultivation of intellect, it may chance to terminate in one region as well as another, and Turkey is in no danger of being surrounded by civilization. The attempt to shut out the increasing intelligence of the age, would, on the contrary, bring speedy ruin upon a state sur- rounded by powerful neighbours, always on the watch for every species of improvement, let the source be never so tarnished, and aware that, in the end, knowledge is power. The Turks have long reposed on the laurels ac- quired by their appearance before Vienna, and are 218 KALAMATA. willing to think themselves yet the terror of Europe. Such glory might indeed avail some- thing, in competition with the still more anti- quated pretensions of the Greeks, who have no hopes of consideration, except from the con- stantly reiterated praises of Phocion and The- mistocles. Should the Turks, however, who, in the vain hope of upholding ancient institutions, have retrograded in every thing, while their neigh- bours have advanced, be ever opposed in arms to the Russians, their case might be compared to that of the glass-blowers of Venice, the Roman coachmakers, and Neapolitan pastry-cooks, who to this day are content to blow green glass full of air bubbles — to build the most awkward car- riages in the world — and to eat in triumph pie- crust like saw-dust, because their great-grand- fathers happened once on a time to produce tolerable specimens of some of these articles, when the rest of the world had not learnt better. The reflections occasioned by the recollection of the sentiments of the archon of Kalamata, of the Benaky ruins, and of the connection of that family with Russia, which occasioned its downfall and exile, lead to the conclusion, that if the Greeks be not assisted, they must eventually either fly or be slain ; while, if they were succoured and had triumphed over the Turks, to the extermination of the enemy, would KALAMATA. 219 succeed the cutting of each other's throats ; neither alternative thus affording any prospect of future tranquillity. On the other hand, it would be a blot on the age in which we live, if some pains were not taken to prevent the Turks from sending a force of fifty or a hundred thou- sand men to sweep the Greeks from the earth, and divide their possessions j for the Greeks are certainly more worthy of compassion than any other nation which ever attempted a premature revolution. More than three generations of slavery and insult, and the impossibility under which the Greeks labour, in the hands of priests, archons, and Turks, of learning what is the difference between right and wrong, render a whole people more excusable in any frantic attempt to arrive at some unknown good, through much positive evil, than those turbulent spirits, who, in countries where a comparison might be made of the means with the proposed results, would bring destruction on their fellows by a mad assertion of worthless rights, for the attain- ment of which the community is too indifferent to make great sacrifices. A political existence and equal rights were certainly lawful objects of Greek ambition ; but it may be asked, whether they were not acquiring them, without bloodshed, by degrees proportioned to their increasing knowledge and means of enjoy- '2 C 2Q KALAMATA. ingthem. Were not the Greeks the real, though concealed, movers of the machine in every city or island where the residence of Europeans or Franks had awakened some sparks of intellect ? Were not even the sentiments of religious ani- mosity much abated, at least on the part of the conquerors ; and were not the Greeks treated with more lenity than they themselves would have shown to any other sect of Christians ? Had they not the free exercise of every religious ceremony, except the odious clanging of bells, an enjoyment unknown to the conquerors, and which was only forfeited by the perversity and spite with which they set them in a jangle at the moment when the Turks were called to prayer ? There can scarcely be any change, excepting to that of a government of their own cogia bashis, which would not be preferable to the yoke of the Turks ; and the Greeks are, there- fore, entitled to that compassion which the poli- tical riders of our times have thought fit to withhold from those who, with very slender prospects of any substitute but anarchy, have in other countries awakened the jealousy of old rotten despotisms, at the moment when the pre- rogative of serious oppression was, by long disuse, just slumbering into extinction. It would be cruel and unjust to condemn the inhabitants of Greece to interminable slavery, KALAMATA. 221 only one degree better than anarchy, merely because they had neither the valour to win, the virtue to maintain, or the education to compre- hend a perfect form of government. It would also be inhuman to suffer the extirpation of the whole nation, by way of preserving an imaginary consistency, where the cases in fact differ so widely. The Greeks, being only slaves by right of conquest, must and will, if treated with cruelty, endeavour from time to time to regain their rights. It is quite natural for them to look to Russia for that protection which it is quite natural for the Russians to grant, and which the united forces of Europe and Asia could not, at least for a time, render ineffectual. From the ruined house of Benaky we walked to several of the manufactories of Kalamata. Among these we particularly remarked the works of the leather-dressers, who produce by no means a contemptible imitation of Morocco, of which the colours are durable, and the grain is not so minute as to render necessary the oper- ation of stamping, in order to give the effect of the real skins of Barbary. From the number of fig-trees which we ob- served in the plain, and the quantity of the fruit which we found suspended in garlands, formed by piercing a certain number with a rush, it would appear that the whole world was supplied 22<2 KALAMATA. with dried figs from Kalamata. They are cer- tainly more luscious, and produce more of that white saccharine powder which ought to en- velope each fig, at Kalamata than elsewhere, not excepting those of Smyrna. There is a manufactury of a sort of silk, of which I know no use but for Moscheto cur- tains, which unites the properties of trans- parency and strength better than perhaps any other substance yet invented for that purpose. Of course, where the trade of the dyer is in such request, the tanners have a great participation in the commerce of the place ; and Greece is remarkable for the spontaneous production of the Velania oak, the cups containing the acorns of which seem as if unnaturally enlarged, and afford a material as serviceable to the leather- dresser as the bark itself. It is remarkable, that all attempts to transport this oak, either by plants or acorns, into England, have, as yet, proved abortive. Sir Joseph Bankes, and Messrs. Lee and Co., had in vain procured quantities of the gland, the germ of which seemed perpetually to have been destroyed, and rendered unproduc- tive, by some insect or other misfortune. Returned at an early hour to the house of our host Zane, my companion amused himself by counting and displaying several Spanish doub- loons, each worth about sixteen dollars, which KALAMATA. 223 he intended to exchange, on some convenient occasion, into Turkish money. I remonstrated against the exposition of these treasures in the house of such a person as Zane, and in the neighbourhood of such a nation as the Mainiotes, particularly at a time when the Greek servants of the house might come in, which, my argu- ments proving ineffectual, two or three of them did shortly after. I am ignorant, however, to this day, whether the display of money, of the existence of which Mr. F. insisted the people must be equally aware, whether they saw it or not, was the cause of the ensuing mischief. The sight of many large pieces of gold like doubloons, to those who had never seen any thing more valuable than Turkish paras and pias- tres, made of a little silver and much copper, could surely not be a matter of perfect indiffer- ence to such spectators as those destined to be- come the senate and people of Kalamata, the al- lies of America, and the brave descendants of the Messenians, who, by-the-bye, they are not aware, were almost always slaves to their neighbours. It being yet an early hour of the evening, my companion said he was going to take a walk, and rejected the precaution of taking Mustapha with him, because he could not speak the lan- guage, a circumstance which only rendered the presence of the Turk more necessary j for even 224 K ALA M ATA. with us, a person who should be found in a Turkish dress, alone, and ignorant of our lan- guage, peeping into a hedge-bottom in the neighbourhood of a country town, in the dusk of the evening, would run some risk of being either detained or insulted : yet our English costume and hats were equally strange to the eyes of the inhabitants of Kalamata. As the evening began to close, Mustapha, who had not observed Mr. F. at his departure, came several times to the apartment where I remained writing, and at length, with an anxious face, asked for his other padrone, an Italian expression which he had learned. I answered, that I ex- pected his return every minute, and told the Turk to stand at the window to observe. He went out several times, and asked the people of the house which way Mr. F. was gone ; but no one knew, as he had taken his measures on purpose to avoid the persecution of company, and had slipped out when no one saw him. Six o'clock passed in expectation, and at length seven approaching, I began to feel* that alarm for the safety of my companion, to which I had not at first given way, from the knowledge I had of his intention of escaping from the pursuit of the household. I now sent Mustapha into the streets, to make all possible inquiries ; and after a time we made out, that a Frank had been seen K ALA MAT A. 225 alone, walking towards the custom-house on the shore; a place to which one could not easily con- ceive any motive for directing the steps of a solitary gentleman, only taking an evening walk, when it was considered that two Greeks had been found dead, supposed to have been murder- ed by the Mainotes on the morning of that very day, and that my friend had particularly interested himself in their story. It was in vain that Mus- tapha tried to gain any tidings in the way to the custom-house ; it was nine before he returned, and the ill-omened path had long been forsaken by all who regarded their lives. It was now resolved that he should go to the Vaivode, to take immediate measures for an active search or pursuit in every direction. Mustapha was scarcely gone, when a Greek arrived on some business of no im- portance, and learning the cause of our present distress, was very naturally mentioning, that a Frank had been arrested by the Mainiotes, at the moment when Zane came in himself, out of breath. He had been told that Mustapha was gone to the Vaivode ; and rinding I had already obtained information as to the direction taken, he asked some hasty questions of the newly-ar- rived Greek, without attending to the answers, and said he would go to the Vaivode himself) and inform him of the discovery, which would luckily prevent further trouble or delay. Q 226 KALAMATA. In all probability a messenger was despatched immediately into Maina, for he followed Mus- tapha to the residence of the Vaivode, whom he found giving the necessary orders forthepursuit of my companion. Zane informed the commandant that there could be no reason for haste or alarm ; for that no difficulties could occur, as it was evident there had only happened a little mistake in the arrest of Mr. F. instead of four pre- tended French physicians, who were suspected of being in the vicinity, and for whose ap- prehension an order had been given some time before. Supposing this to have been really the case, it is not to be imagined, that it could only have happened in a place under the Turkish dominion. There are an infinity of points in which all the southern nations resemble each other ; and in which it is but just to observe, that the Turks are generally at least as wise as their neighbours. They are more so in preventing or punishing high- way robbery. I have known in another country an English gentleman deprived of his liberty, travel- ling with his own English horses and servant, under pretence that he was one of twelve French soldiers broke out of prison ; and other British subjects, of known respectability, arrested on the plea, that they had escaped in a small fishing- boat from Buonaparte at St. Helena, to an island KALAMATA. 227 of the Mediterranean. Wise proceedings, which have, perhaps, no parallel in Turkey ; though it would be excusable in a Turk not to have heard of the existence of the Atlantic Rock. While this was passing at the house of the Vaivode, I had got ready my three horses, ex- pecting the immediate return of Mustapha — a fresh instance of the use of possessing these ani- mals, as we might have been three hours in hiring them ; and while he was at length mounting, with two other Turks, for his ride into the enemy's country, for such it really was, a person arrived from Maina with news that the people of the Cavalier Demetri had by mistake taken a Frank into custody, and begged to be informed whether the said personage was known to the family of Zane. A story which set Mustapha quite at his ease ; as he said, in my ear, it was not likely the Mainiotes should have sent at such an hour ; if they had not repented of their work, or did not intend to release my companion, and he now insisted on Zane sending one of his own people to accompany him. The appearance of all this intrigue seemed to render it probable that the Mainiotes, and pos- sibly the Cavalier Demetri himself, had seized Mr. F., with the intention of carrying him into the mountains, for the sake of a ransom. That Zane knew of it was probable, and either dared q 2 228 KALAMATA. not or would not prevent it ; and it seemed as if the arrival of the first Greek, who gave us the probable account of Mr. F.'s detention, had ren- dered necessary a despatch to the Cavaliere De- metri, to inform him that it was known who were the authors of the mischief, and which way they had taken, as well as that the Vaivode had been apprized of the business, and would probably exert himself in the rescue. All this might pro- bably have been of no avail, at any other moment; but the little squadron of Turkish corvettes then lying at anchor under the windows of the Greek Bey of Maina, in sight of Kalamata, had it in its power to do so much damage at both places, that the risk would have been too great, when there was a witness of the fact ; and the recollection of that, saved Mr. F., who at any other time must have been either ransomed or ill-treated. Mustapha had now been absent nearly two hours ; and I remained in anxious expectation, though the kind-hearted Zane came often into the apartment, and assured me, not only that nothing could prevent the speedy return of my friend, but that the hot water for tea only waited his arrival ; and I really believed myself that there was no doubt of it, if the light in which I now viewed the affair was just, when a little after midnight the trampling of KALAMATA. 229 horses was heard, and the laughing voice of M ustapha, with the cry of eureka, eureka, re- sounded through the court. My companion was welcomed with real satisfaction by all present ; and even old Zane got up a grin, and brought the hot water, as he had promised, thinking he had set every thing right by the addition of milk ; which being always difficult to procure, had really been the cause of our present joy, as the Greek who had been sent in quest of it, had brought the intelligence of the exploit of the Mainiotes. Mustapha said very little, but scowled dreadfully at our host when his back was turned ; and when we were at tea, came to ask us if we were all safe, as if to take a receipt for us before he went to sleep. I now learned from my companion* that having wandered to some distance from the city before he was aware of it, sometimes attracted by mineralogical, and sometimes by botanical objects, he was peering in the hedge-bottom for a daisy or a daffodil after sun-set — a laudable custom, much practised by inquisitive travellers — when looking up with the long-sought flower, which he boasted having yet retained in spite of the thieves, he beheld himself transformed into a real living pentandria, by the intrusion upon his studies of five well- armed Mainiotes, with red skull-caps, bushy hair, q 3 230 KALAMATA. and long white shirts ; whom lie described as placed in a circle around him, and looking at one another with almost as much surprise as he did at them. It w r as impossible not to laugh at this part of the story, or to resist telling him that the first positive information I had received of his detention by the Cavalier Demetri's messenger, was, that a person in a hat, having every appearance of a maniac, had been ob- served in the fields picking up the common stones, and putting them in his pocket ; but that, on a nearer approach, it was evident he must be a real or a sham doctor, like those whose arrest the Pasha had ordered, as he pretended to be collecting purgative plants from the hedge, but evidently knew but very little of his trade, as he at length brought out a wild anemone, which all the world knew was not used in medi- cine. The having produced so common a flower after so long a search, and at such an hour, seems to have been the reason for the robbers staring at each other in mute surprise, when he, at length, looking up, awoke to all the horrors of his situ- ation. The five men told him he must follow them, at least so he understood ; but finding he did not, they began to lead him, on which he sat down on the ground. They then told him he must obey; to which he replied in Italian, he would not. They now raised him up by force, and set him on his feet ; on which he turned KALAMATA. 231 towards the city, and was walking that way, when they again prevented him j and threatening force, he thought it useless to resist, but went in the direction they commanded, always stopping under every pretence, and even continuing to pick flowers and stones, by way of delaying the party as much as possible, and to increase the chances of meeting a party of honest people on the road. It was all, however, in vain ; the vicinity of Maina is not that in which prudent people are to be met walking in the dusk of the evening, or returning to the city : not a soul was visible in the path, though the youth, who had been sent for our milk, had seen them from a distance ; and they walked, as Mr. F. imagined, about an hour to the eastward, before they turned off on the right towards the sea. The darkness, and the number of trees in the plain, scarcely per- mitted him at the time to take much note of the situation of a lone house, surrounded by cypress- trees in abundance, to which he was now con- ducted, but which we afterwards saw by day- light. He was better satisfied even with the apparent solitude of this spot, uncertain as he was with regard to his fate, than if his walk had been prolonged into the mountains, the foot of which was now not far distant. He was unable to conjecture what were their motives or intentions ; for almost ignorant as he q. 4 2S@ KALAMATA. was of their language, he could make out no- thing from their conversation, and they had not treated him with any marked brutality, or even force, except when he had resisted. At the house, which had an upper story, approached by a crazy flight of ladder-like stairs, an old woman, not very prepossessing in her appearance, received the party, and showed no symptoms of surprise at their arrival, nor at their new associate, which made Mr. F. think they were at least much accustomed to this species of exploit ; though he could not ima- gine the object of it, till one of his new ac- quaintances relieved him of his gold watch and seals, by twitching them out of his pocket, and placing them in his own bosom. He described their conduct in the meantime as a sort of good- humoured ferocity, which rendered it still more difficult to ascertain what was their ultimate object; for he soon found himself stripped of his money, keys, ancient medals, cornelians, note-book, and even the precious collection of stones which he had been making, and the cause of all his woe. They examined these last with great attention ; and he heard them exclaim kerratd, and observed their look of contempt before they threw the whole cargo out of the window. The old woman got his pocket- handkerchief, which she eyed with rapture, and KALAMATA. 23d called a thauma, or miracle ; and what is more, she had the address to keep it after all was over, husying herself for the present in most active preparation for a supper. Just before this was ready, one of the Mainiotes, who was on the look-out while the rest kept guard within, re- ported something to the rest, and presently three out of the live descended the stairs well armed. My companion thought, from the haste and the arming, that it was not impossible a rescue might be at hand, though uncertain whether he had yet been missed ; and had already imagined the feats he might be called upon to perform in his own defence with the cooking utensils, and the scalding broth of the old Gorgon of the pocket- handkerchief, when he heard the word gligora> which he knew meant quick ; and stepping to the window, unopposed, saw a person whom he concluded to have been the cause of the parley, quit the house at full speed. The whole party immediately returned, and he thought he ob- served a marked difference in the increased kindness of their behaviour after that event ; which, on comparing times and circumstances, we thought corresponded with the message from Zane, to inform the Mainiotes that the plot was discovered, and the prisoner must be released, as the Vaivode was already interested in the affair. Supper was now loudly called for, and was ac- '234< KALAMATA. cordingly placed upon a low table, which, to his great surprise, was then produced ; and he was invited in a very civil manner to partake of the broth, which he now began to think might be poi- son for him, though he had just before pictured it in his imagination as the means which Heaven had furnished for his defence and escape. The old lady made one of the party, and was placed near him, giving him a kiss as she sate down on the bench j which he returned respectfully, though he thought it might be the seal of his fate. They helped him plentifully on a common plate of the country, to a sort of mess, made of rice, onions, and poultry, which he thought smell ed well ; but dared not to attack till he had well crumbled his bread, and thus gained time sufficient to observe that his neighbours were at least less suspicious than himself^ and were lost for ever in half a minute if the plate contained any thing unwholesome. The guests ate voraciously, and as he recollected, generally with their fingers, using two sops of bread, and piling the rice and onions upon one with the other ; but they gave him an old rusty fork, of which the handle and prongs were of one piece of iron, and treated him also to a large wooden spoon, when they saw him in distress with the liquid. They had three or four bottles of weak acid wine, and insisted on his drinking first — K ALA MAT A. 235 what he concluded was to be his last draught in this world. His eating but little, seemed to distress them, and he found it necessary to suck some more wine out of the wooden bottle, as the rest of the company had done, to satisfy their seeming hospitality ; for they began to be more jocose as the supper drew to a con- clusion, and both the old woman, and the man who sat next him, had frequently pinched him in high good-humour and conviviality, with very hard fingers, in order to show how welcome he was to all they had, in exchange for all that once was his. When supper was over they recommenced a regular examination of his person, and made him put up his legs to admire his cotton stockings, with which they seemed quite delight- ed, having none themselves. They were much pleased with the comparative whiteness of his hands and face ; but nothing seemed to gratify them so much as his waiscoat of striped kersey- mere, this they stroked down, and applauded till they discovered a small silver pocket compass like a watch, carried in an inside pocket, and which they made no hesitation in seizing. Finding it did not tick after listening atten- tively, they asked him what had happened ; and started back in alarm, when he placed it in the middle of the table, and set the needle 236 KALAMATA. at liberty. Observing the effect it had upon them, he again set it in motion without touching it with his iron fork, which only increased their surprise to such a degree, that, as nobody seemed inclined to meddle with what they imagined under some sort of magical influence, he was permitted to put it again into his pocket. They were all in high good-humour, played sundry tricks with each other, and seemed so much de- lighted at his entering very awkwardly into their jokes, and shewing them in return the trick of making the rabbit on the wall, with the shade of the fingers from the lamp, that he ventured to point with his hand toward the town, and repeat the word " Kalamata." He knew enough of the common words to make out, that " to-morrow" was the reply; and being no longer able to keep up his spirits, fell into a melancholy meditation on his fate, which the Greeks mis- took for sleep, and accordingly prepared to gratify by the introduction of several cushions and mattresses from another room, which the old gentlewoman was active in arranging before she left the chamber. They all placed their arms near their beds, showed Mr. F. where he was to sleep, placed one of their own mattresses against the door, for fear he should escape ; and all fell to praying on their knees, as soon as he had laid himself down, not to sleep, but to close his eyes, KALAMATA. 237 in a manner that left him an unsuspected spec- tator of all that passed. The prayers were no sooner over than the Mainiotes retiring to their beds, really fell asleep, and snored so loud, that he would have got up to examine the window, which he knew was not high from the ground, had it not occurred to him that the sleep was too loud to be real, and might be only intended as a trap for him, which, however, was not the case. At one moment he thought if he could get to the lamp unperceived he should have a better chance in darkness, and was actually debating in his own mind whether it was possible to extin- guish it silently, when a louder snort than usual awakened the man next the door; who, starting up in his bed, looked round, and finding all quiet, took another long spell at his prayers on his knees ; and on lying down sunk again into a state of repose as calm and tranquil, and with a con- science as quiet, as if the watch, the money, the medals, the antique and modern stones, and the plants of my poor fellow traveller had been his own natural inheritance. My companion had now seen that however prone his tyrants might be to sleeping they were very easily awakened, and had almost made up his mind to the conviction of the great improba- bility that I should discover his prison for that night j when a voice, which he soon thought he 238 KALAMATA. recognised as that of Mustapha, broke upon his ear, but whicli he was afraid of stirring to ascer- tain, till a loud cry of " O Athanase," from below, awakened at once the five keepers, who, rushing to the window, demanded who was there, and what he wanted. The person was no other than Zane's man, who explained his errand, said the Milord's horse was ready, and he must be sent home immediately ; while Mustapha ascended the stairs, and stalked into the room, to the un- speakable delight of my companion, who em- braced him, as what he really was, his deliverer. Mr. F., considering himself now safe, was not a person to be put off, without trying to recover his watch, a great part of his money, and some of his other valuables ; in which, by means of Mustapha, and the still more respected argu- ments of Zane's man, who, having received his orders, doubtless gave cogent reasons for what he urged, he in a great measure succeeded. The restitution of the remainder, that the affair might have more the appearance of a legal arrest, executed by mistake on the wrong person, was promised in the morning, when the circumstances were to be explained ; and my friend afterwards recovered almost all his pocket collection, by unremitted perseverance, and resolute impor- tunities. We were never able to clear up the matter in KALAMATA. 239 a satisfactory manner : the story of the sham doctors, and the botanising of my companion in the hedge, seeming a plausible excuse. But why should Mainiotes, who do not profess to obey the Turks, have come two or three miles out of their own domain to take up sham doctors, who, if sent to any body, must have been despatched to themselves ? If, as it was afterwards pretended, the Cavalier Demetri had agreed with the Vai- vode to undertake the police of the border, why was the sham doctor to be taken into Maina in- stead of to Kalamata ; and how did Zane possess such influence over the business ? Was the plan for seizing one or botli of us, laid before Zane had seen our Buyruldi, and when it is possible he might think we had none ? And had he sold us to the Mainiotes, that they might keep us as hos- tages, through whom they might influence the conduct of the squadron in a sort of negotiation, then pending between the Bey of Maina and the Turks, concerning the tribute which the fleet was come to collect ? In this case, these Greeks are cunning enough to know, that by the threat of ill-using the subject of a foreign power, they can bring the Turkish government, or its agents, to terms, as the aggrieved nation looks to the Porte for that redress which it is usually unable to obtain from the offending party, but is ashamed of owning ; and the Turks are thus <240 KALAMATA. placed in an awkward predicament, which ex- perience has taught them, if possible, to avoid. From, whatever causes Mr. F.'s misfortune proceeded, it was evident that the people were very little accustomed to respect private pro- perty ; and that old Zane knew more about the business than we could at all comprehend any motive for, as he was all this time making a for- tune in more ways than one by our residence in his house, as will afterwards appear, having already deluded, or, to use his own expression, laughed, the commander of the squadron out of the sum usually paid by himself and his brother. On the following morning Mustapha, whose honour had been severely wounded by the events of the preceding night, kept a sharp watch on every motion of Mr. F., thinking seriously, as he afterwards told me, of giving up his most respon- sible employment of conducting in safety a Milord, who could risk the being taken for four mad sham French doctors so near the mountains of Maina. He got a scribe into the court, who wrote a detailed history of the affair to Anastasio at Arcadia, which he prevented Zane from in- tercepting ; of whom it was evident he had no very good opinion with regard to us, and still less could he relish the sentiments he had openly entertained with regard to the Turks. KALAMATA. 241 In the course of the day we again visited the manufactory of Moscheto curtains, intending to provide ourselves with two sets against the fol- lowing summer, mine having suffered much by the adventure of the aga's cats at Karitena. This gauze, which is composed of silk, is gene- rally striped with red, green, blue, yellow, and white, and the more costly specimens of it are often varied by a stripe of richer material, in- serted here and there, which is not transparent; and sometimes is ornamented with threads of flat gold, an addition more to the price than the beauty of the article. We had in a short time fixed upon the pieces which suited our purpose, and having told Mustapha in the morning our intention, he had taken the pains to inform him- self of their proper value. The sum demanded was, of course, more than five times the worth of the goods, and our dear friend Zane's kind interference, and tone of au- thority to the merchant, and protection to us, seemed only capable of reducing the price to about three times the real value, when Mustapha said he would buy it for us himself. He then asked the dealer if he wished to sell it, and the man replying "Yes," Mustapha took it up under his arm and carried it off to our house, telling the man to come for his money, which he shortly after did. Mustapha, after committing Zane as R c 2¥l KALAMATA. far as he could, then introduced a person who appeared to come in by chance, and was the doganiere of Kalamata, who knew the exact price, as upon that the duty depended ; and he having immediately fixed it at one third of Zane's and one fifth of the merchant's price, Mustapha said he should pay twenty per cent, more than it was worth, because he was charged always to pay more rather than less than the just value for every thing, when to our surprize the man took his money, and not only went away perfectly contented, but applauding Mustapha, with an impudence quite unknown in any other country, exclaiming " Ti gnostico kephale," what a wise head; and " Ti phronimos anthropos," what a cunning man. Zane seemed very little touched, or ashamed of himself, either during this scene or after it ; but Mustapha, who always treated him with every outward mark of respect in his situation as archon and our worthy host, had yet another rod in pickle for him, which even his cheek could not meet without a blush. It may be here worthy of remark, that the total ignorance or disuse of that best of homely proverbs, as applicable to the ordinary transac- tions of life, " honesty is the best policy," is the ruin of commerce, and the scourge of every day and every hour, not in Turkey only, but the KALAMATA. 243 south of Europe in general. A man who gets up in the morning must be a perfect master of the baker's, the grocer's, and the milkman's pro- fessions, before he can venture to pay for his breakfast ; if he wants a pair of shoes, he must know the price of the leather and the workman- ship ; and he must be a perfect connoisseur in French, English, and German cloth, before he ventures to have a new coat. He must, in short, be an adept in every art and trade under the sun, if he expects to come off without being fleeced every time he wants any thing; and the consequence is, not only that he has no time to learn any thing else, but that, in the very best company, when every article has been duly ap- praised, the conversation for want of materials comes to an end. Almost the first sentence a stranger learns in Greece is, " ti time eche," what honour hath it ; for honour and price are the same things in the language, and cheating and joking are synonymous terms, of which no- body dreams of being ashamed. The Turks, who are a graver and more stately people, do not seem so much addicted to cheating, and it is perhaps the only use of the uncontrollable pride of which they are accused. It would easily be imagined, if it had not been already proved in more than one instance, that a whole generation must pass away, and the r 2 244 KALAMATA. state of society be entirely changed, before any thing in the shape of commerce, or any internal traffic beyond the absolute necessities of life, could exist among a people thus educated, if placed by a sudden convulsion all at once under a liberal government. The person who brings home a pair of shoes, and asks under a despotic government twice or thrice their value in payment, at the same time that, after a little altercation, he is contented to take a little more than they are worth, would with his present education, under what is called a liberal system, not only raise his price, but insist upon the payment if a previous agreement had not been made ; nay, would proceed to try the matter in a court of justice, and with such a judge or jury as such a country could produce, would gain his cause. At what period people emerging from des- potism might be brought to understand their true interest in this particular, it is not easy to say; but though it would be highly impolitic to in- terfere in fixing the price of any article on sale, it would be easy to inflict a punishment on those who asked one price and afterwards accepted a smaller sum, which must in a short time put an end to the practice. All sorts of buying and selling cease, however, both in Turkey and in Italy in revolutionary times, and shops are KALAMATA. 245 generally shut up, because the friends of sup- posed liberty are apt to forget to pay for what they take ; so that even the bookseller, who was imagined to have gained a fortune, and was taunted by the police magistrate as the cause of the dissemination of new principles by his " ac- cursed books," might well express his astonish- ment at the presumed emanation of ideas, from a shop which had not sold a single page of letter- press during the whole revolution. A traveller, however, who merely passes through a country, may perhaps have no fair opportunity of judging; but to him it often ap- pears that political liberty is productive of more inconvenience than advantage in countries where the people are not rendered morally good and just, either by force or inclination. The facility with which the bearer of an exorbitant account or charge is resisted and even satisfied at Naples, by no means exists among the fiercer Romans, yet there is not any diminution in the frequency of imposition. The Italian innkeeper, though he often charges too much, is easily persuaded to take less ; but the Swiss not only brings in his tremendous account, but insists with sturdy menaces on the payment of whatever he de- mands. As we go further north, free and re- generated France ought not to pass without an acknowledgment, that it never was my lot to r 3 Qj>(> KALAMATA. meet with a single place, even in any of the meanest inns in the most wretched villages on any of her dull roads from Paris towards Italy, without meet- ing with every species of extortion, for which there is no remedy. At one place I remember to have been so egregiously cheated, that I was induced to go to the magistrate, who seemed very reason- able, and scolded the innkeeper, telling him there were frequent complaints against him, and forcing him to take half the sum named in his bill, which was even then double what it ought to have been. Coming away I learnt that the inn belonged to the magistrate himself the sham host being only his servant j while many persons at the door declared that the same thing, and the same sort of judgment, was repeated almost every day of the week. But to return to the proof of the old proverb, the inns are deserted throughout the Continent, and almost every one travels during the whole night, in spite of ditches, darkness, and ban- ditti, over France, Germany, and Italy ; while in Greece no one buys any thing he can possibly do without, and then not till he has asked his neighbours all round what ought to be the price of it. We had now seen all the wonders of Kala- mata, measured a base on the shore for geogra- phical purposes, and satiated ourselves with the KALAMATA. 247 glories of the Zane palace, which was certainly one of the best places in appearance in the Morea. We therefore ordered Mustapha to be on the watch for news from Maina, and report when he thought it safe for us to visit the bey, who usually resides at Marathon a, on the eastern side of Taygetus, but was then at a castle which he possessed at Kitries, or Chytries, not far from Kalamata. Mustapha having made every enquiry, soon discovered that no opportunity could have been better than that now offered, as was evident from Mr. F.'s release ; and mules were ordered for my companion, as we were told horses could not go. As for myself) I had travelled too much in Greece to be deluded any longer by such stories ; and being well aware that wherever mules can go horses go better, with the ad- ditional advantage of taking the track chosen by their riders, instead of tottering obstinately on the brink of every precipice, I took my own horses with me. I had, however, found my Greek Demetri so idle and so ill-humoured on the perpetual recurrence of the numerous fasts of the Greek church, on some of which even oil is not to be eaten, that I resolved to change him for a Mussulman on the first opportunity after my return from Maina. it 4 248 KALAMATA. On the morning of our departure, some of the leading archons of the town, either from motives of curiosity, or desirous of doing us honour, came to the court of our house, to see us set out for Maina, which to them was a novelty, though the district was scarcely two miles dis- tant. Mustapha seemed very busily employed in putting every thing in order, and at the same time disputing in a loud tone with a Greek, to whom he appeared unwilling to pay what the other demanded. At this time we stood waiting in the gallery with Zane, and observing what passed. One of the archons told the Greek to hold his tongue, for he must be well aware that the city paid for whatever we had, and therefore Mustapha had nothing to do with it. This was just what the Turk wanted, who had withheld part of the payment due on purpose to create a broil and attract as many people as possible, that what he might disclose should become more public. Mustapha replied to the archon, that he knew the Milordi would never consent that the city should pay for them, having given him strict orders to pay every body somewhat more than his due. Having now attracted general notice, Mustapha asked the Greek on what he founded his claim to payment. The Greek replied, that he saw no reason why, having been paid so many KALAMATA. 249 paras for all the other days he had been em- ployed, he was not equally entitled to his yester- day's reward. Mustapha then paid him, and the archons began to look at each other, and to murmur, while the Turk, addressing himself to the Greek, now ordered him to call the trades- men who had served us during our residence in the town, observing that he wished to know if they would pretend to have any more claims on him before his departure. Here the archons again assured him he need not give himself the trouble of seeing them, for that the community would settle all, and had already advanced the money to Zane. Mustapha only repeated his first answer. The Greek, in the mean time, had called all the tradesmen, who came in a body into the court without seeming surprized, as they thought they were called only to take leave. He now pulled out their different bills, which he had ready in separate parts of his dress, as he could not read, and asked the first whether that was his account, whether that was his receipt for straw and barley, and whether he had any further claims? The man replied it was all correct, and asked Mustapha whether he had ever been heard to complain, or how it was possible he could, even if he wished it, make any future demand, when he had given a receipt, and moreover taken the money in the presence 250 KALAMATA. of the archon Zane, who would of course con- tradict any assertion of false claims. Zane now disappeared from the gallery, and Mustapha continued to call the tradesmen one by one, producing their bills, and receiving the same answers. The archons looked wondrous wise at each other ; and Mustapha, calling down the servants of the house, made them all confess in public how much they had received in back- shish, or presents from us, for their trouble. He now beckoned to us to descend, and we all mounted our horses and left the yard, after Mustapha had congratulated the archons and city in general upon the generosity with which, through their dignified chiefj they had advanced large sums for the maintenance of his two Milordi and their suite. We left the archons deluded, or, as they would term it, ridiculed, and looking up at the Zane gallery for its owner, who was no longer to be found. Mustapha's commentary on the whole consisted merely in an observation that he thought he had left Signor Zane a legacy in re- turn for his proposed extermination of the Turks, and a remark on the state to which the Greeks would find themselves reduced if quite aban- doned to the mercy of their own rulers. I sus- pect, however, that Mustapha's revenge was only the partial triumph of a moment ; that Zane KALAMATA. c 251 has long since put in execution his scheme of extermination, and in his turn been exterminated, as I find another name at the head of the ad- dress to the Americans. I have also little doubt that the immediate mischief to Zane, extended only to the division of the sum allotted to our maintenance, on the city. He was, of course, forced to share the plunder with such of the cogia bashis as were present at the disclosure, but the community was never likely to regain any part of all he had raised upon the inhabitants of the place by the help of our buyruldi, under pre- tence of maintaining us by order of the pasha. We were now on our way for the country of the Mainotes or Mainiotes, so redoubted and so terrible to their own countrymen as well as to the Turks. The castle of Kitries or Kytries, pronounced Chytries, was at that moment the residence of the bey ; its towers had long been in sight, and we had caught at the idea that some sort of savage magnificence, or the traces of some rude warlike customs of their ancestors, would repay us for the trouble which we were informed a visit to the country would cost us. It was nearly eleven before we quitted this scene of imposition, resolving never more to re-enter the wide opening portal of the great Zane. The same sort of country, beautifully shaded with every species of fruit-tree which we had 252 KALAMATA. observed on entering Kalamata from the west, extends from the city to the foot of the branches of Mount Taygetus on the east, a distance of about three miles. In about twelve minutes we thought ourselves in the Mainiote or Mainote territory, having crossed a river at that time, and observing two Mainiote towers, as they are called, near the road, about twenty minutes after we had quitted Kalamata ; but we were informed that these possessions were in the district of that city, though the property of the bey of Maina's nephew, who gloried in the title of Cavaliere Demetri, in consequence of an order which he had received, or was supposed to have acquired, in Russia. At a spot where our road turned southward, the other branch, passing through the mountains to Mistra, which has been for- merly noticed, turns off on the left, and passes over a rugged and lawless district, the resort of robbers and fugitives. At the end of the same year, my friend, Dr. Bronsted of Copenhagen, undertook to pass by this route from Mistra to Kalamata. After a long ascent, and passing a cultivated valley which extends on the east side of Taygetus, between the main mass of mountain and the lower range at its foot, he arrived at the village of Pischino or Pischino Chorio. From thence he employed six hours on the road to Kutchuk or Little Maina, MAINA. 253 where it is reasonable to suppose the Turks must have been at some period, to have left a name of their own. From Kutchuk Maina he descended in three hours to Kalamata, and after accom- plishing a very hazardous enterprize, arrived safe in person, but with the loss of his gold watch, his medals, and every thing he had pos- sessed which was worth taking. My friend Anastasio of Arcadia had so much influence in the country, that he nevertheless was enabled, after a time, to recover almost every thing which had been pillaged, by the means of the thieves who had authority among the actual plunderers. The pass to Mistra seems to abound in pictu- resque situations, which would be well deserving a visit at a moment when it could be seen with safety. After a ride of about forty minutes from Ka- lamata, the number of trees and the cultivation diminished, and on crossing a river we found ourselves really in the territory of the modern Eleuthero-Laconians, and under the govern- ment of a Greek bey, named Antonio, called by the Turks, who are well versed in making that appear like choice to which they are forced to submit, Andun or Andunah bey, by way of giving the name and office so oriental a sound that a stranger would not discover the cheat. On the right was seen, at a little distance, the 254 MAINA. house to which my companion had been con- ducted to the singular banquet which had given so much alarm a few nights before. We were here very near the angle of the gulf, formed by the mountains of Maina running in a right angle with the plain of Kalamata, which city, on looking back, we saw in a direct line with Mount Vourkano. The sea was scarcely three hundred yards distant on the right, and the mountain Jenitza, a part of Taygetus, lay close to our road on the left. The soil was cultivated with corn, where tillage was practicable : and we observed many stone in closures of about thirty feet square, intended as a protection to young olive-trees. Here and there were fields of chamomile, and others with rich crops of lupins. On the side of the hill on the left, a village called Kallithea was seen, and near the road a new chapel, which is the more observable as this is a rare occur- rence in any part of Turkey. Soon afterwards, we found on the right a source, the water of which is salt, and reputed medicinal by the Mainiotes, who take it as a cathartic in doses of about one hundred drachms. In about an hour and a half we crossed a deep ravine, the bed of a mountain torrent, affording the first natural defence of the territory, which has not been neglected by the Mainiotes, who have erected walls in the manner of their MAINA. 255 country, to defend the pass between Mount Jenitza and the sea. We observed a circular tower on the left, and a new square tower on the right, which served to show that even at present the means of defence were not entirely neglected. We were assured that this had been the scene of a sanguinary conflict between the Turks and the Mainiotes, wherein the former had been completely routed, and beyond this line had never penetrated into Maina. The place may again become, and certainly will, when the cause of the Greeks shall prove hopeless, a point of some importance in the war ; as, to those who can find no other means of escape, the country of the Mainiotes must seem the last resort and refuge from that overwhelming force of Turks which must put an end to resistance, if the Russians do not find them other employment. It might be probably with no very cordial re- ception that they would be met under such circumstances by their Mainiote allies, on whom they might bring the slavery which has been as yet successfully resisted, when the Turks have attacked the territory with only small bodies of troops. As to the pass itself, it is evident that the Turks, having the sea, might place vessels or gun-boats in such a manner, and so close to the shore, that a people without artillery could not possibly defend the wall, however determined 2.56 MAINA. they might be. A sketch is annexed, as it not only gives an idea of the situation of the pass of Almiro, or the salt source, but of the situation of the village of Sellytza, by no means the highest in the vicinity, but affording an excellent idea of those inconveniences to which people will submit for the sake of calling themselves free, or in other words retaining their old form of slavery in the sterile fastnesses of the moun- tain tops, amidst fears and deprivations, in pre- ference to a new race of tyrants, under whom they might have lived, without being liable to personal service, in the luxury and plenty of the plain below. The only path by which the vil- MAINA. 257 lage of Sellytza is accessible on this side, lies under those towers which are seen among the vineyards below the great precipice, and the whole cultivation being carried on by means of terraces which support the soil, the natives have a fresh wall of defence commanding all below it in every ten yards of the ascent. While I was making a hasty sketch of this position from a point of rock, we were surprised by the appearance of a figure, urging on with kicks and cries a black mule, which made fruit- less exertions to quicken its pace, to correspond with the impatience of its rider. The figure seemed tall and thin, and instead of a head seemed to terminate in a cone of white linen. We gazed with astonishment at the spectre, whenever by turning a point on the coast, the cries and the beating attracted our attention, till after a few minutes concealment in the ravine of the Mainiote fortifications, the horseman quitted the direct path and rode up to the spot where our party was assembled. A real ghost would have scarcely occasioned more astonish- ment than we expressed, when unwinding the folds of a long towel or table-cloth, the cada- verous countenance of old Zane was disclosed, grinning with affected delight, at finding such dear friends after so long an absence, and posi- tively come with the fixed determination of at- 258 MAINA. tending us by way of doing us honour, to the house of the bey of Maina. All our entreaties were of no avail, our angry looks on finding we could not get rid of him by fair words were of no more effect, while our conversation in English, the drift of which he could not have misunder- stood, had no sort of success ; and having re- solved to follow us, he put on his towel again to save his beautiful complexion from the sun, with a composure quite imperturbable, and perfectly inconceivable under such circumstances, to na- tives of a colder atmosphere. We proceeded for about half an hour with this unwelcome ad- dition to our party, across two rivers, one of which produced a considerable number of mul- berry trees, and arrived at a spot called Mylse, or the mills, before Mustapha conld get sufficiently near to tell me, that Zane was come, for fear we should relate his intrigues to the Greek Bey and the commander of the Turkish squadron. This we found to be precisely the case, and resolved that if he watched us too closely, Mustapha should tell the story rather than let him escape. We found Mylse, the mills, turned by a furious stream gushing at once from the foot of the mountain. The natives say that this water not only runs through subterraneous channels from the gulf of Kolokythia, but that the volume in- creases whenever the wind blows strongly from MAINA. 259 the south-east ; a strange sort of fancy which prevails in other parts of Greece, and arises from an idea that all salt-springs must have their origin in the sea. Close to the mills is a spe- cies of tower of defence, for their proprietors ; of which I afterwards took a sketch. Near some old cypresses we found a manufactory of com- mon tiles, and passed under a low overhanging cliff, which projects to the beach so as only just to leave room for the path, after which we saw on the left the village of Medenia. In another half hour we reached a place called Palaio Chora, or the Old City, now reduced to a single church, near which are several wells, and the broken tiles with the name seem to shew that a popu- lation once existed on the spot. There is a fountain where ships sometimes water. The heights of Mount Yenitza begin to descend near this spot, so that the high snowy peaks of Tay- getus become visible. We passed another ne- glected church in a glen, and soon after found a well on a rapid and dangerous descent to a manufactory of tiles at the head of a little bay. In a rock we observed some caves, and a glen which we crossed was prettily watered by a little river, which seemed to rise in Mount Tay- getus. The road, or rather path, now generally lay on the sandy beach of a little bay, separated by a ridge of rocky hill from the succeeding in- s 2 260 MAINA. denture of the coast ; and at the head of each inlet we usually found the larger or smaller rivulet which had created the valley. We found the road was not so much worse than the usual roads over Greek mountains, as to have required any particular precautions in regard to horses. The towers of the castle, or rather castellated mansion of Kitries, now began to assume an imposing appearance as we ad- vanced, well seated on a rocky promontory, overlooking a little dark bay in which ships may anchor, and now at the period of our visit occu- pied by the Turkish squadron. The effect of the architecture is so exactly that produced by many of the castles in Scotland, and at the same time so full of picturesque beauty, that I paused to sketch it in this point of view, where it first assumes an air of importance from the road, though its real situation is afterwards better dis- tinguished from the opposite quarter. Having finished my sketch, I climbed up the hill to the castle, where old Zane had arrived long before, blessing the picturesque towers which had de- tained me, and having doubtless made good use of his time in fabricating a story to his own liking, the best suited to the purpose of turning our Buvruldi from the Pasha into the means of making, or at least of saving money. He must have thought us the most perverse of human MAINA. 261 beings not to be satisfied with his attempts to 1 serve us at the expense of the public ; but his journey to Kitries was by no means useless, as, by going on board the ships, he was enabled to prove to the Seraskier who commanded, that all he had done in resisting the payment of his con- tribution was according to the order he had received from the Pasha to apply every thing to our use ; for which reason he had been obliged sore against his will to attend us on our journey. All this Mustapha learned from the Turks on board ; but we were ignorant at the moment what sort of history he had made up for the Bey, who received us with a smiling countenance, and gave us a room decently fitted up on our arrival, after a ride of three hours and a half, at his castle. We found him a good sort of elderly personage, dressed in a long blue benisse, with an under vest of striped cotton and silk, held together by a red sash. He wore neither a kalpak, like the great Greeks, nor the sort of turban used by the Turks, but one precisely like that which is re- presented on the head of my servant Demetri, in the vignette, and his hair, which was of a flaxen colour and rather bushy, projected below the folds. I should imagine his age about fifty j and there was about him an air of unaffected polite- s 3 262 MAINA. ness and dignity at the same time, which distin- guished him from the generality of Greeks. He only detained us while every thing was pre- paring in our apartment, treating us with coffee and pipes, and inquiring from Mustapha what we were in the habit of eating, that he might order it for us j — a precaution which he told us was necessary at the moment, as it happened to be the great fast of the Greek church, when no meat is killed. Our host was infinitely more polite in permit- ting us to enjoy the retirement of our own apart- ment than any we had yet visited ; either wanting nothing we could give, or being too much occupied with his own affairs, and the payment of the tribute of Maina, for receiving which, the squadron then at Kitries, had been despatched. It appeared that notwithstanding the boasts of freedom the whole business was a compromise, into which the Turks had entered to save them- selves the trouble of an exterminating war, and the Greeks for the sake of having no foreigner in the country. It seems that the Greek Bey is acknowledged by the Turks, under the name of Andun or An- dunah Bey, on condition that he should pay the annual tribute of thirty-five purses to the Porte. These purses contain each five hundred piastres ; so that the whole tribute did not at the time of MAIN A. 263 our visit equal 800/. ; and, at the present moment, when Turkish piastres are so rapidly decreasing in value, can scarcely equal five hundred pounds of our money. This sum, divided among the hundred and seventeen towns and villages of Maina, could not be considered as any great burthen on the community, if it possessed any sort of riches, or any productions convertible into money. We learned, on inquiry, that between the anarchy which prevails in the in- terior, and the certainly not very abundant re- sources of so mountainous a district, even this tribute was raised with so much difficulty, that the Bey, having advanced the sum to the Turks, was obliged to call in their assistance to enable him to obtain the re-payment. We found also, that the Bey, in consequence of this, was considered rather too intimate with the Turks ; but the introduction of a foreign force is the natural termination of all ill-contrived systems of policy ; and the Bey, who helped to subdue his countrymen, had not read enough of history to know that his own real authority must terminate shortly after their entire subjugation. We had a second conference with him, after a dinner which, like that in all Greek houses, took at least four hours in preparing ; though in this case it was more excusable, as all s 4 264 MAINA. the animals which entered into its composition, were to be killed long after our arrival. The Italians vie with the Greeks in this strange dilatory cookery, which seems equally unaccountable in either country, as the delay is excused by the preparation of a soup, which at best is only made of the warm water in which the meat has been boiled, with a small quantity of rice scarcely warmed through, and only ren- dered tolerably palatable by scraped cheese. We were never able to discover a remedy for this serious evil to travellers, who have been out the whole day ; and always found that the more splendid the mansion of the Archon, so much more time was to be passed in disappointing our stomachs. Having asked him several questions relative to his country, we found him very well-informed on the subject. Among other antiquities, he told us there were ruins of a temple of Diana and Bac- chus, at a place called Borlachias ; which may be true or otherwise, as the Bey was, perhaps, not very well aware how a temple was con- structed, but he used the word Naos. He said, that above Cape Matapan, (Taenarus,) was a castle called Kisternes, from the number of cisterns it contains. Near Scardamula, (Carda- myle,) on a mountain called Calathios, is a fine cavern mentioned by Pausanias; and the rock MAINA. 265 called Pephnos, has two tombs (Mnemata), as he informed us, which are called those of the Dios- curi. The southern point or district, near Cape Matapan, is called Kakaboulia ; and the people are reputed greater thieves than the other Mai- niotes. There are, as the Bey says, many anti- quities yet remaining in it, and one ruin of a fine temple. Whether this be true or not is very doubtful. It is much more certain that the natives of Kakaboulia are beyond comparison the most barbarous and piratical of the Mediter- ranean coast ; and that they make no scruple to fit out boats, which, being full of well-armed M ai- niotes, fall upon the defenceless merchant vessels of all nations, and, after plundering, sink the ship and crews, that no one may remain alive to tell who were the perpetrators of the horrid trans- action. The account we received of the antiquities from the Bey, would probably have induced us to continue our researches in Maina, though, as it contained nothing very celebrated in ancient times, it was not probable that any great remains should exist ; not that we conceived any great idea of the pleasures of Kakaboulia, a sort of name which must be derived from evil disposition, but that we imagined, under the protection of Anton i Bey, we should at least be under no alarm for our personal security. W)6 MAINA. On hinting to the Chief the probability that we might request him to give us letters of intro- duction to different persons in the country, we were not a little astonished at his answer, in- forming us, that not only had he at that moment no means of ensuring our safety in any part of the province except where his own relations lived, but that he had so many enemies that it was his duty to recommend it to us to relinquish the intention, as they would make no scruple to injure us by way of creating a dispute between himself and the Pasha. We made but little difficulty in giving up the tour round the foot of Taygetus, when we found it was to be attended with difficulties and risks, and when all Greece was open to us in every other direction. We could not help reflecting on the precarious tenure of our host's dignities, when we retired to our own apartment; for he had put on so unhappy a countenance at the time when, relating the facts, he had offered to do all he could for us, if we were obstinately bent on the Kakabouliote journey, that we could not dispute the truth of his statement. He had moreover invited us to his house atMarathona, if we would come round by sea, so that his sincerity was beyond a doubt. We found that he was in fact only the tempo- rary head of many lawless chieftains, called by MAINA. c 26j the title of Captain, or Katapan. Each of these was the petty tyrant of his own village and mountain, living in a state of perpetual warfare with his neighbours, in the strongest hold and most impracticable part of his own territory. These had never any bond of union, except resistance to the Turks, and when that had been rendered unnecessary by the treaty which stipu- lated the tribute, they fell out as all such societies have done from the commencement of time, among themselves, and ravaged the properties of each other ; thus exposing themselves to the at- tacks of the common enemy, had he been suf- ficiently alert to profit by circumstances. In this manner the Bey was, at the time of our visit, no more than the doubtful head of a species of wild oligarchy, reduced by the jealousy of his nobles to a state of perpetual indecision in foreign concerns, and so nearly powerless in the interior, that the countenance of the Turks was necessary to his existence. It appeared to us one of the most hopeless cases with which we had ever been acquainted; and we could not help observing that the people of the free and independent Maina were in every respect more harassed, worse treated, more indigent, and beyond com- parison more wretched than those of any other district we had traversed. They gain nothing by any of the disputes between the Bey and the 268 MAINA. chiefs ; if the latter prevail, it is by forcing the poor into their service ; while, if the Bey were triumphant, he would neither have the inclina- tion nor the power which a sovereign would possess, of rewarding merit, or opening a path to honourable ambition. Under a hundred captains they are a hundred times more oppressed than they would be under the worst despotism of the Turks ; and if their liberty has only reference to their religion, it may be fairly doubted whether there be not as great a number of ruined churches in Maina as in all the rest of Turkey together. As to ruined houses, no district so much abounds in them, and in none do those which are tenanted bespeak such squalid misery ; a proof that the Greeks have at least as much taste for devastation as their neighbours. While the people suffered the Bey was ill at ease ; and the captains, even if they were inde- pendent, could boast like the ancient Lacede- monians, of little to render life worth preserving. It is only a particular form of liberty, and that won by the virtue of the entire population, which can ever repay the inhabitants of any country for the horrors by which even a transient gleam of freedom is sometimes procured ; for if the soil be not prepared, the plant will not prosper. As to the liberty of the Mainiotes, it is at best such MAINA. 269 as the garrison of a besieged town enjoys with an enemy at the gates and martial law within. If such freedom as poverty and ignorance can enjoy, really makes mankind more happy, it must be in the deserts of Arabia, where each man's tent may be as good as his neighbour's, and not in Maina, where the people toil hard to earn a precarious subsistence, in a hovel on a sterile mountain, while the plain before their eyes is occupied by a lazy and luxurious race, flourish- ing in spite of vice and idleness, and inhabiting dwellings which by comparison are palaces. All this striking opposition of circumstances and contrast of situations, seems but ill-counter- balanced by the very trifling difference which may exist between the hard blows which seem alike inseparable either from Greek freedom or Mahometan servitude. We were told that the road to Scardamula was impracticable even to mules unless their shoes were taken off; but being resolved to see what sort of a country would present itself to the south of the cape of Kytries, we walked to the top of the ridge which bounded the prospect to the south of the castle. After a short ascent, and without any worse path than usual, we reached the summit, whence no- thing very interesting could be discovered to- ward the south, and neither Cardamylae nor any 270 MA IN A. other human habitations were visible. On the north, however, the prospect was more animated, and, on our return, I sketched the castle of the Bey from a lower point, whence Kalamata is dis- covered above the lower angle of our residence. The high tower points out the pass through the mountains to Mistra, and above some cypresses at the Bey's chapel, the village of Sellytza was seen perched in a hollow of the mountain Yanitza, which is here known by the name of Xerro Bouno, or the Dry Mountain. To the left, the range of hills behind Kalamata are seen to descend, with Mount Vourkano to the plain of the Pamisus. Under the castle is a great natural cavern, where cattle are kept. My horses were placed in this cave during our residence at Kitries, and if the Bey has any, his stables are probably in the same. On our return from the little excursion to the hill, we called upon the Bey, whom we found smoking in an apartment where he received com- pany, and were surprised, on telling him where we had been, to find he highly disapproved of our leaving the house, unattended by some of his own people, and that we might have fallen into very bad hands, and have given him a great deal of trouble, though we had not been out of sight of his house, nor beyond the hearing of his domestics. We could not at first believe this story; MAINA. 271 and when we represented that we had not gone without Mustapha armed in the usual man- ner, all the persons present agreed that the Turk only made the matter worse, as the people of the country or the Bey's enemies might have had more pleasure in ill-treating a Turk than any other person, as that would have been the most certain way of creating mischief between the Seraskier and himself. We saw, however, no living creature on the hill, nor were we much inclined to believe in the danger, but we were afterwards told by the Bey's nephew, the Cava- lier Demetri, whom we have mentioned before, that he and his troop had their eyes upon us from a distance, least any harm should happen, to the disgrace of his uncle's house, and discredit of his government. Our ideas of the delights of Maina, and the advantages of a free and in- dependent Greek establishment, had been long- on the decline ; but this unexpected insecurity, under the eye of the Bey him self \ gave the finishing stroke to our Lacedemonian enthusiasm ; and, as we retired to our room, we agreed that we should prefer any despotism, however cruel, to the freedom of the Greeks of Maina. We received a visit from the commandant of the Turkish squadron and his officers. The Bey came to meet them, and treated them with 272 MAINA. pipes and coffee, as if we had been the hosts. Old Zane attended them, with the double motive of preventing us from disclaiming him, and of rendering difficult any explanation of the manner in which he had cheated the Archons of Kala- mata, and had failed in deceiving us. We con- trived, nevertheless, to inform the Bey of the whole at another moment just before the entrance of the old rogue, who began by a string of ex- cuses, which, to do the Bey justice, he cut short by declaring quite incredible, and stating his opinion in plain terms that Zane was a cheat. Our Turks invited us to come on board their ships, and asked the usual questions on the mo- tives of our journey into their country, with the usual demonstrations of surprise, that we did not find it more entertaining and less trouble to look for old ruins in our own country. They spoke Greek perfectly, and expressed great de- light at the whiteness of our linen, and the shin- ing blackness of our shoes ; not that the Greeks wash well, but that we happened to have shirts which were washed in England. The shoes did not procure us quite so much applause when they learnt from Mustapha, that our servants spit upon them every morning, and then rubbed them with a brush, made of hog's bristles, both of which were profanations in the opinion of our MAINA. 273 Mussulman friends, though they did not express half the disapprobation they felt. They evi- dently, by their questions and remarks to Mus- tapha, conceived an idea, and ended by con- firming it, that the English possessed some pecu- liar virtue of spitting a shining liquid for shoes, which would render useless any recourse to Messrs. Day and Martin. We visited their ships, which were as usual very clean, and ex- hibited all the appearance of regularity. It does not appear that they could have made any impression on the Mainiotes, if so disposed j but they might have assisted Andunah Bey, if he had been attacked. Zane of course took care to be present at the interview, and persuaded the Commandant that he was appointed by the Pasha to attend and take care of us. The Bey differed very much from the Greeks in the natural state- liness of his manners, still more than in his dress, and gave us the idea of a respectable country gentleman, rather than of any thing else to which we could compare him. A Bey among the Turks ought, perhaps, strictly to be a person without employment from the Court, and in this may differ very much from a Pasha or Viceroy, whose appointment and existence depends entirely on the Porte. The acceptation of an office seems to be consi- dered as an acknowledgement of the right of the <274< MAINA. Sultan to summon the person so employed to Constantinople ; and as manyparts of the Turkish empire are governed by the natural lords of the soil, these personages refuse the title of Pasha and the honour of the tails, which the Porte en- deavours to force upon them, that they may not be summoned to give an account of their ad- ministrations. Of those whose power equals or exceeds that of many of the Pashas, but without the title, Elez Oglou, on the banks of the Mae- ander, and his greater relation, Kara Osman Oglou, of the city of Magnesia ad Sipylum, are striking examples ; and no countries belonging to the Turks are so well governed as those under their jurisdiction. At Corinth, the person who was the natural governor of the place at the time of our visit, called Nouri Bey, had a finer house than the Pasha, a large harem adjoining, and three or four European carriages ; yet was in no danger of losing either his head or his estate, unless his ambition led him to accept of a higher office, and to pillage his pashalik till the discontented people complained of his conduct at Constanti- nople. It does not appear that these Pashas are punished without reason, merely to seize their treasures, according to the common opinion and appearance ; but the corruption of the Turkish government is so great, that a person who is MA IN A. 27-5 rich yet wishes to be richer is often compelled to give all he has got to obtain a pashalik, which lasting only a year, he is under the ne- cessity of plundering in order to repay himself in that short space of time, with all the increase he can obtain, after having kept up the necessary splendour of his court. All these misfortunes, inseparable from the governments of the East, tend to the ruin and impoverishment of the country, and to the overthrow of its power. An hereditary nobility would be the only safe- guard both of the throne and people, affording the latter a chance of being ruled by those who might have received education, and who were not by poverty reduced to pillage ; while the jealousy which induces any absolute prince to destroy the influence of his nobles, throws him at once, like the Roman emperors with their praetorian guards, into the power of any ambitious military leader, who can win the soldiery for a moment. Nothing but the idea of religious duty to the representative of the Califs could have saved the Sultans from this fate, nor can this in time of great public calamity preserve them, as the emirs, or descendants of the prophet, are without number. The Bey of Maina being what may be styled at the head of the native nobility of his own province, is consequently never summoned to t 2 c ijG MAIN A. Constantinople ; nor, indeed, would he either ven- ture to go if called, or be received by his coun- trymen at his return ; but he is treated, by a sort of tacit consent, as if he were created by the Sultan, who is pleased always to be pleased, having no alternative. Andunah Bey was said to live with more splendor and magnificence at his usual residence of Marathona, or Marathonisi, where his paternal estate was situated, being only come on the present business of the tribute to Kitries, by the desire of Sheramet Bey, the admiral at Navarino. This tribute was usually paid into the hands of a Greek, sent by the Porte to receive it ; and whether it has ever been paid, or the disputes settled, since that period, I have not heard. This circumstance of the accidental visit was often urged to us as an excuse for less sumptuous fare than was usual in the hospitable mansion of the Bey ; where, however, we wanted nothing ; having a large apartment, with a good sofa on three sides, with windows overlooking the sea, and a beautiful view, a fine genial climate, and excellent beds with clean linen. The latter are always found in perfection in good Greek houses ; while damp or dirty sheets are things quite un- known in Turkey, though the method of washing would be the ruin of any article of finer texture. The Greeks, like the Italians before the French MAINA. 277 conquest, carry their linen to the nearest water, and laying it upon a large stone, beat it with clubs till they imagine it clean, which, in the case of an English shirt, puts an end to the cam- bric the second time, and reduces the buttons of waistcoats to atoms in the very commencement of the business. To iron a neck-handkerchief or other piece of fine linen, a large round stone, or, if possible, a cannon shot, is placed in the centre and rolled about by two persons who take hold of the corners, to the great danger of the article so treated, and without improving its ap- pearance in a degree at all proportioned to the labour and risk employed. During our stay at Kitries, a day, which we might call in the month of March, but which the Greeks (resolved not to admit heretical errors,) persisted in calling February, was, I be- lieve, dedicated to the Feast of the Holy Cross, or rather to a fast, during which a good Greek should abstain from the use either of wine or oil. On that morning, while I was dressing, I was surprised by hearing the angry voice of my companion from the gallery which communicated with our room, complaining, in English, that he must change his stockings, as his boots were full of water. At the same moment appeared at my window toward the gallery, a priest with a long beard and flowing locks, who held in his left T 3 278 MAINA. hand a species of bucket, and in the other a ladle ; he was walking with a hasty step till the mo- ment when he espied me, when he turned to the window, and asked me whether I was a Christian (eisthai christianos), Having been in the country before, I was aware that, half undressed as I was, the compliment might be more unplea- sant than salutary, so that I had only just time sufficient to save myself from the ladle of holy water with which he was already preparing to inundate me, by assuring the father that I was an Englishman, which, in his estimation, was equivalent to Turk. In the meantime my fellow-traveller entered, not a little angry at what he took for a very familiar joke of the old priest, who, he assured me, was a very impertinent fellow to take so great a liberty with him, not having, till the custom was explained, any idea of the motive of the priest for bestowing on him this ablution. We were invited not long after to the church, or chapel of the castle. It is, like many others in Maina, without a roo£ which cannot, as usual in Greece, be laid to the malignity of the Turks. An attempt had been made to arrange a little part of the covering over the east and west ends, and there being divisions or niches on each side, in every one of which stood one of the visitors, the whole had more the appearance of an an- MAINA. 279 cient Hypsethral temple than any tiling we had ever seen. Indeed, that species of building in a fine climate must have been most beautiful, and best adapted to the purpose. The Bey himself was present, and seemed very attentive to the nasal reading and singing of an old priest, who seemed to read and sing from a book printed at Venice, what he so little understood, that he verily believed it the production of his own country, where printing never existed, and which, with a notable partiality to the application of the figure of syncope at each end of the words, he probably knew by heart from frequent repetition, with much less trouble than reading would have cost him. Old Zane was there, and spit about, after dreadful notes of preparation, in the places where the rest of the congregation were to kneel. The Bey's nephew, the cavalier Demetrius, came during the ceremony, and made no scruple of saluting the company, and acting very much in other respects as if divine service had not been going on. Even Mustapha came to the door to see that we had not gone into danger, but made a respectful inclination toward the altar as he retired ; for of all the nations with which I have yet become acquainted, only the Turks and the English preserve in their devotions the decency of deportment due to the occasion. Indeed, I have never yet heard a Turk deny any precept of t 4 280 MAINA. Christ, whose divine spirit of prophecy they all acknowledge ; and I am convinced they might with infinitely less difficulty be converted to real Christianity, without any admixture of politics, than the Greeks themselves. Mustapha asked several significant questions afterwards, and started some objections, which, though they might by some be thought interesting from a Mahometan, and though they were easily an- swered and overcome, I dare not repeat, lest the pen of criticism should write at me instead of Mustapha, or lest I should rouse from their comfortable slumbers the old ladies of the Cimmerian provinces on the border, who would always be ready to climb into heaven by the easy method of condemning a traveller as an apostate, because his janissary had no faith in the painted idols and hard-featured black divinities of a Greek chapel. The Cavalier Demetri was a young agreeable- looking person, stout and well made, in face like that of his uncle, and with the same flaxen bushy hair. He was dressed in a white jacket, with full trowsers, like a Levantine sailor, reaching to the knees only. When the service was concluded, by perfuming us with burning incense, to which everyone made a low bow, the whole assembly met on the platform before the chapel. The Cava- lier said he had been to the neighbourhood of MAINA. 281 Kalamata, where his duty called him, to prevent the Mainiotes from committing devastations, or occasioning any disturbances on the border. I represented the atrocious murder of the two Greeks, by the Mainiotes, on the shore of Kalamata, as proofs that he had not been very active. He seemed to think it rather a good joke, and did not attempt an excuse, to palliate his own negligence, or the horrible disposition of his people, who murder and rob friends or foes, under pretence of perpetual war with the Turks. When the priest joined us, he said with a flippant air, he was very anxious to know whether we had churches in England or mosques, and whether it was true, as he had heard, that the English were all atheists, and eat meat on fast- days, besides having no holy pictures, and not believing in the Panagia, or in St. Spiridion. To all this I replied, that we had very fine churches ; that I had heard of, but never met with, an atheist, and believed the term to be a vulgar expression for deist ; that it was true that we eat meat, because we found no prohibition of it in the bible, and did not worship pictures for the contrary reason ; but that, as to the Panagia, we had a proper respect for her, though we were but little acquainted with St. Spiridion. 282 MAINA. This long explanation had nearly exhausted all my Greek, and I was in hopes the old gentle- man would have concluded his inquiries, and suffered me to place the artificial horizon in peace, with which we were going to ascertain the latitude of the place, as it was near mid-day. The Papas, however, would not let me off so easily, but, turning to the rest of the company, observed that the Franks were not content with being wicked, but had falsified the Scriptures to justify themselves in their gluttony. It was im- possible to resist the opportunity of calling back the Agrios Papas, or Wild Priest, as they called him in jest, who was carrying the Greek Testa- ment into the house, and defying the reverend gentleman to produce from his own book any passage in favour of his fasting, or his feasting, his pictures, or his adoration of the Panagia. He was now driven to the Fathers, and the tra- ditions and usages of the primitive Christians ; to which I could only reply — that the pious men who undertook the conversion of the heathens, found the more ignorant among them so attached to the former usages and rites of Paganism, that they judged it better to yield a little, and adopt some of the ancient superstitions, in order to draw together a congregation to hear the gospel, which might otherwise have been impracticable. I added, that in the countries where the Pagan MAINA. 283 rites were the most splendid, there more of them had been engrafted on Christianity ; and that what the first preachers had only tolerated for a time, with the intention of eradicating it alto- gether, had in the end seduced the priests them- selves, who cited established custom for their use of idols, only changing the names of Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, and the Muses, and depriving them of all the grace which might have rendered them admirable. As he had commenced by attacking the En- glish, I thought it but fair to observe to him, that it was pretty clear ours was the best reading of the Scriptures, for Christianity found us barba- rians, and had conducted us to prosperity and happiness ; whereas the gospel found Greece flourishing, and by its perversion, had left it in utter and almost irretrievable ruin ; so that what had been to the rest of the world a blessing, had been in the hands of his predecessors a curse. The bye-standers seemed tolerably satisfied with my exposition of the case, and the priest con- tented himself by assuring them the English were great at sea, and the French by land, and other Franks in other things of this world, but as for religion they were all apistoi, or faithless. In the mean time the sun passed the me- ridian, and my companion drew a line by a shadow north and south, which seemed to please 284 MAINA. them so much, that we told them we would make them a dial, which should always point out when it was mid-day. This quite delighted them, till asking how it was to be performed, we represented the earth's diurnal motion on its own axis, and its annual revolution round the sun. This revolving illustration turned at once the tide of the popular opinion against us ; they all cried out the thing was impossible ; the priest quoted the four corners of the earth out of the Bible; and even old Zane joined, as he walked off with them, in the exclamation that the Scriptures used by the Franks were far, far different from the genuine books of the Greeks. I had nothing left by way of revenge, as they descended the hill, but to finish their pictures, which I here introduce to the reader, together with that of a Greek sailor, who was present at the door of the church. MA IN A. <285 The Turks seem in general less scrupulous in receiving the facts, though they do not always approve of the means used in acquiring that knowledge of the heavenly bodies which is not self-evident. I dined once with an exiled Grand Vizier in the Isle of Rhodes, who, after eating a great deal, was resolved upon a display of his learning; and, after shewing me the book of Turk- ish maps printed at Constantinople, he informed me that the sky was made of looking-glass, 286 MAINA. which would one day break, and put an end to the world. I had the more difficulty in resist- ing this intelligence, as, not being able to carry on the conversation myself in Turkish, I was re- duced to the assistance of my dragoman, who, perhaps, was a partisan of the mirrors himself. When, however, between the motions of the planets, eclipses, and the absence of reflections, I had convinced the old gentleman that there was not so much danger of this chaos of glass and quicksilver as he had imagined, he observed that it was all very well, and he believed it, be- cause the English were very knowing ; but that it was seriously to be apprehended that Britain would fall into the same snare as Persia, which, from having been the greatest of nations, was at length reduced to nothing by an offended Deity, because the Magi had become too wise, and had ventured to pry into the secrets of heaven by the study of astrology. Whether his Highness alluded to the tower of Babel or not, I had no means of learning, before a comb for his flowing and venerable white beard was brought in, with a looking-glass, a fragment, in the Vizier's opinion, of the fallen heaven of some less fortunate island, in which I caught a glimpse of myself acting as preceptor to this enlightened Barmecide, who, like the Pasha of Tripolitza, only saw with one eye. IYIAINA. 287 I was dressed in half a dozen shawls, of fine white muslin, embroidered in every sort of pat- tern, and every species of flower, in the most vivid colours and most brilliant gold. On my head was a sort of turban, forming a wreath of flowers, and hanging down on one side in richly variegated colours and fringes j so that I looked, except from my incongruous black stock, as if I had been dressed up either to perform as a danc- ing hero at the opera, or a Greek archbishop, the only two persons I ever saw in such splendid attire. The burst of laughter with which I was seized entertained the Vizier, who gave me an- other sight of the glass, and then permitted me to be disrobed, as the ceremony was concluded. The reader may naturally expect to be in- formed by what means I had acquired all this superfluous decoration. It had all been imposed upon me by what I was told was the custom of the house ; so that when I began to resist the bearer of these ornaments, at the beginning of the dinner, my interpreter desired me to submit, as it would be thought a want of good-breeding to refuse the proffered honours. I shall conclude this account of the dinner, which, like the tales of all professed story- tellers, being only mentioned incidentally, be- gins at the wrong end, by saying that the Grand Vizier had invited me to eat a kibab, or roast, with 288 MAINA. him. On the day appointed I went, and after each had witnessed the washing of the others' hands, a precaution which, to all nations who dip in the same dish, is of serious necessity, the Vizier, his friend, a Turkish aga, a Turkish mollah, my dragoman, and myself, sate round a sort of tray of silver gilt, nearly four feet in diameter, which was placed on a stool. The Vizier and myself were on the sofa, and the rest of the company on cushions upon the floor. A long embroidered napkin, of a single piece, was spread upon our knees. The Vizier was covered with the same sort of finery as that which was displayed upon myself, and it was merely in- tended to prevent our clothes from being soiled. The rest of the company were left to their fate. The first dish was a sort of china bowl, in which was a good soup, but so full of rice, that the top rose into a cone. We had each a spoon, of the size and shape of a watch-glass, but made of tor- toise-shell, and fastened, not awkwardly, to a handle. We had no plates, but flat cakes of bread, twice the size of a muffin, which were cut horizontally in halves, and the upper portion again separated by two cuts at right angles. Each taking his spoon, I expected a dreadful scene of uncleanliness, and already figured to myself a scramble for the pieces of meat which might be at the bottom, when I found myself MAINA. 289 the only one who took a second spoonful. The Vizier then asked me whether I would have any more, which having refused, our soup vanished ; so that only five very slight indentures were visible upon the rice, without any hazard of one person's portion becoming confounded with that of his neighbour. This continued during the substitution and snatching away of so many dishes, that I soon found one morsel of each was likely to prove a sufficient feast ; and all went on tolerably well, particularly on the part of the Mussulmen, who were fighting, with their usual weapons, against a Frank, who had never before tried to swallow a dinner without knife or fork. The neatness and cleanliness with which they helped themselves to every thing, and conveyed it to their mouths, formed a strong and provok- ing contrast to the awkwardness and total failure of my attempts to imitate them : for I had, from the first, covered my portion of the table with crumbs and slops, for which there was no remedy. I was reduced at length to an apo- logy for my clumsy manner of feeding; but the old Vizier was kind enough to say, so far from being disgusted, he was very much entertained, only regretting that I should find any inconvenience, which he would have ob- viated by a knife and fork, if he had imagined I was not accustomed to the oriental custom, u 290 MAINA. After a countless number of dishes had ap- peared and been swept away, all of them more or less divisible by the hand, the grand kibab itself, which I had been invited to partake oi', ap- peared in the form of a solid and well-roasted leg of mutton, and the Vizier, either out of politeness or mischief, desired me to help my- self. I assured him it was quite out of the question, as I could form no idea of any art by which such a thing could be achieved ; on which he offered his assistance, and helped me so neatly, so well, and so instantaneously, by twist- ing without effort a whole muscle off the flesh upon my cake, that an anatomist might have taken a lesson, while my surprise gave the old Vizier great pleasure. The dinner concluded with a glass of sherbet to each person, when we were all washed over again, in splendid gilt basins and ewers ; and the table having disap- peared, coffee, and the Vizier's comb and glass, were introduced, to close the entertainment. When the priest returned from the chapel, he was, in company with his attendant, regaled with a dinner, of which the principal dainties were dry beans boiled in water. This virtue of abstinence must often be practised by necessity, in so poor a country, and is frequently productive of the ill-temper with which the Greeks are ge- nerally afflicted during the great fast, itself an MATNA. 291 evil of sufficient magnitude. The repast was not very soul-inspiring, but the Papas were not wanting in the usual oriental expressions of satis- faction. I believe Mr. Dodwell has given an account of a dinner, at which we once assisted, with a bishop, at Siphnos, whose train of eccle- siastics surprised us after the repast, by a singular and frequent reiteration of eructations, which, far from being thought improper, were the result of the most finished good-breeding, and in which they contrived to rumble out the praises of their chief i in tones like those of an CEdipe a Colone of a Parisian opera. It seems, as we learned, by asking the meaning of this indecorous custom, that it is considered as a proof and an acknowledgement of the good cheer of the host, as well as of the quantity eaten ; and the fact is, that it prevails from the Turkish shore of the Adri- atic to China ; and, in Hindostan, a sort of grace is said after dinner in the same manner. I am ig- norant whether the practice exists in any remote corner of Italy. The expressions of repletion, though not the accompanying proofs, I remem- ber to have heard of in my own native county. There, the kind host urging his guest to eat, the reply, rendered into intelligible English, was, " By our lady, I have eaten till I am well nigh bursten ; " to which the compassionate landlord u 2 292 MAINA. rejoined, " Nay, I wish we had any thing to burst thee withal." Bad as the priest's dinner was, he was in much better humour after it, and came again to join us in the gallery. He even confessed it was just possible we might know more about the sun's course than he did, but observed, that it would be a bad example, in himself, to give any en- couragement to such novelties. Like pious ladies in our own country, who abjure some fa- vourite and innocent amusement on Sunday, not because they think it wrong, but because they think fit to persuade their servants so. On the whole, I did not think that the Papas seemed at all more contented with his situation than other Greek priests, or that he thought his church at all more flourishing than where it was more immediately exposed to the injuries of Mahometans. Maina scarcely rejoices in that sort of happiness which results from keeping the enemy out ; nor does she boast the virtues which sometimes exist in a savage state, where the pains and pleasures of perpetually combating an enemy, exalt, in some degree, the intellect, and create, at length, a sense of glory and emulation. The Mainiotes in general are, indeed, in every respect far behind the rest of the Greek popu- lation of the Morea, and are sunk, beyond all MA IN A. 293 hope of recovery, in ignorance and prejudice. The Bey, however, seemed both reasonable and respectable; but how many persons the upper class might produce of similar character, we had no opportunity of learning. Our priest observed, that if he were sultan, (a thing not very likely,) he would compel all his subjects to become of the Greek church by force. That this is the general idea of the Greeks, may be learned from their own conversations in every part of the country. There is no hatred so thoroughly implanted in the breast of a Greek as that which he nourishes against the Roman Catholics, and that without the pretence of dreading them, which, from the nurses' stories, and the vulgar ideas of their burning Protestants alive, might be urged in extenuation of j or rather in excuse for, the horror in which they are held by the most ignorant of the people, and the lowest classes amongst the English. A Greek, in general, would rather see his daughter become the wife of a Turk than of a Catholic ; and the ancient declaration, that the nation would rather see the turban of Ma- homet than the Pope's tiara on the altar of Santa Sophia at Constantinople, would obtain, perhaps, more suffrages at this present period than ever. The Catholic inhabitants of Andros were all completely extirpated in one night by u 3 294 MAINA. •their most pious Christian brethren of the sister church ; and the butchery was among the most ter- rible examples of vengeance recorded in history. The Catholics of Tinos were preserved with great difficulty from total extermination, after a similar attempt ; and very few families, at length, re- mained in the Levant to ameliorate the educa- tion of the natives. Some few yet exist at Naxos and Zea ; and the island of Syra, where only, the population consists of a considerable proportion of Roman Catholics, is so different in character from the rest of Greece, that those who want servants, nurses, or any decent per- sons to fill the more confidential situations in their houses, send to that island to procure them. This persecuting spirit might, however, disappear in time, and under more favourable auspices; but so might any other abomination, or the pre- judices of the Turks themselves. At present, Catholics are under the protection of foreigr powers, not through fear of the Turks, for, al , least, the two creeds would be equally obnoxious to them, but dread of the Greeks. If Greece is destined to be delivered from the Turks it ought to be the prayer of every friend o humanity, that she may, at the same moment fall under the domination of some other power In her present condition, and with the presen sentiments of her population, no one would be ; MAINA. C 2Q5 gainer by the reign of terror, which nothing but the immediate interposition of Russia, with a powerful army, could prevent. The free Greeks of Maina would, however, receive more benefit than the rest by any sort of change which might take place, and I know of none which must be so desirable to any Mainiote of common sense, if such exist, as that of being suddenly placed under the dominion of Russia. All Christianity would rejoice if Greece were in- dependent, yet nothing can render the Greeks either a nation, or submissive to any known form of government, but the strong arm of foreign power, which, I am persuaded, the present ge- neration, when taxes, fleets, and conscriptions came to be imposed, would endeavour to shake off) as ten times more offensive to its ideas than even the tyranny of the Turks. If it be considered humane to save the Greeks, and if it be decreed that the Turks are to be slaughtered, or driven out of Europe, blood will flow not less copiously, nor, in the end, will there be any diminution in the prodigality with which human lives would be wasted. The jealousy of other European states would never permit Russia to possess in peace so mighty a prize as European Greece ; the result would be- come very uncertain, while the unhappy Greeks u 4 296 MAINA. would be sacked and pillaged alternately by each of the contending powers. A combination of the troops of all nations, in equal proportions, might, perhaps, quiet the fears of all parties ; but, it is to be observed, that Greece presents so vast a variety of geographical positions, de- fended and separated by so many mountains and gulfs, that there would be great risk, on the slightest dispute, of each setting up for the in- dependence of its own district, and thus bringing weakness, division, and ruin on the whole. The Morea is united only by the isthmus to Attica, Bceotia, Phocis, and Locris ; after which, another isthmus, from Thermopylae to the gulf of Crissa, again separates that district from a third territory, defended by the Maliac and Am- bracian gulfs, and a high range of mountains on the north. Besides these most inviting circum- stances for the formation of separate govern- ments, and which, with their subdivisions, were undoubtedly the cause of so many independent governments in ancient times, the islands, many of which are large and full of ports, offer so many advantages to the settlement of foreigners, that it is impossible to say where the scramble for territory might end, if all Europe were not agreed upon the business. It would be, also, not amiss to calculate the MAIN A. '297 possible result of rousing the whole Mahometan world against the Christian, and forcing every Mussulman to fight for his existence. The consequence might not, perhaps, be, that the Mahometans would make great progress in Europe, but they would retain the greater por- tion of Asia and Africa, after an immense ex- penditure of blood and treasure ; and the revival of ancient animosity would put off to a still greater distance the gradual assimilation of the two religions, which, by means of the increased communication with Franks, not Greeks, was, to all appearance, rapidly taking place. Our Papas made no scruple in pronouncing his predilection for Russian emancipation and occupation, seeming to think that nothing else was wanting to render him the greatest, as he was already the wisest of mankind. I could not help representing to him that the Russians, though nominally of the same church, would, probably, begin their reform, by requiring priests to understand, as well as to read the Bible, in which case he would be in a scrape ; to which he replied, he thought he could read Greek as well as a Russian, at any rate. He ap- peared to be ignorant of what was meant by the Old Testament. If the other priests of Maina have as little learn- ing as this old Papas of Scardamyla, one may safely 298 MAINA. say, that among the many disguises by which Chris- tianity, by courtesy often so called, however dif- ferent from the doctrine of our Saviour, has been disfigured j the form which it has assumed in Greece is that least calculated to teach the duties of this life, or prepare mankind for the next. No other worship is so irremediably over- charged with ceremonies, with feasts, fasts, mid- night assemblies, holy-water, dingy lamps, and black pictures, to the utter exclusion of precept or example. For a Greek to be esteemed a good Christian, he must pass his whole life in learning what prank is next to be played in honour of St. Konon or St. Charilampo ; what he is to eat at such an hour, or drink at another ; and he must be a learned man in the Ellenic tongue, before he has a chance of knowing one word about any of the ordinary duties of life, or can form the slightest idea of the difference between virtue and vice. I would add, that had fate placed the Turks near to any existing form or sect of Christianity, except that of Greece under the present Romaic priesthood, the greater part of the Mahometans, thinking with such in- difference, as they generally do, on the subject of any religion, except that consisting in pure Deism, must long ago have acknowledged the excellence of the Christian doctrine, and all ran- cour must have long subsided. I am acquainted MA IN A. 299 with persons living in habits of familiar intimacy with the Mahometans of Poland, who state that they are equally good citizens, and equally re- spectable with the Christian inhabitants. They in no respect differ from the Catholics, except in an exemption from military service against Ma- hometans, and the ceremony of assuring them there is no pork on the table when they are invited to a dinner. The Turks and the Greeks mutually charge each other with the reproach of atheism ; the Greeks, because they see in the mosques neither pictures nor any other outward sign of what they call religion; and the Turks, from the observation that their enemies have entirely lost sight of the great Deity to follow the Panagia, and the other per- sonages of the martyrology, a misfortune which happens in a greater or less degree to all nations addicted to the worship of saints. The Maho- metan religion has suffered also every species of degradation from the time of the Caliphs to the present day; but as to the ceremonies with which the Santons and Dervishes have loaded it, the better part of the Turks themselves speak of them and their authors with aversion, and of the latter with disgust. There is, however, no Greek who does not believe in, and scrupulously practise every kind of foolery which the Romaic priesthood has 300 MA1NA. thrust upon Christianity ; nor who does not, on all occasions, by his bigotry, do as much mischief to the propagation of true religion, as a roaring ultra does to royalty, or a leveller to rational liberty. If there were no other difficulties to prevent the amelioration of the condition of the Greeks, the existence of the Mainiotes would alone be almost insuperable. The consequences of their present degree of independence shew what the Greeks would be if at all left to them- selves. The Mainiotes are the only people in Europe, or perhaps in Christendom, where ha- bitual piracy, in its worst shape of murder and rapine, is allowed to exist, and is publicly prac- tised; where Christians rush out from their hiding- places upon the peaceful mariners of other na- tions, and after pillaging the vessels, sink them with their crews, in order to leave no trace of the horrible transaction ; where, should the life of a prisoner ever be spared, it is only to inflict upon the unhappy sufferer the painful and igno- minious existence to which the slaves of a brutal and superstitious people are condemned. Mr. Morritt, of Rokeby, had the humanity to deliver an unfortunate Dutchman from the Mainiote oppression during his journey through the coun- try, but how many yet languish in hopeless and interminable slavery no one can say. One thing only is certain, that nothing but the conquest of MAIttA. '301 the country by a foreign power can ever effect their liberation. The situation of Maina, and particularly of the most barbarous tribe of Kaca- bouliotes, near Cape Matapan, stretching far into the Mediterranean, well furnished with ports for the concealment of small craft, and consisting of mountains and headlands, which afford the most extensive prospects over the surrounding sea, enable the Mainiotes to observe every vessel which navigates the Archipelago. Availing themselves of this knowledge, they are enabled to seize the opportunity which is presented by a calm, and to fit out armed boats, so well manned so as to leave no hope of resistance, though they usually prefer the less dangerous method of secret- ing themselves behind one of the numerous rocks of the Archipelago, from which to pounce un- expectedly on the unwary prize. There have been frequent examples of the most horrible mutilations of Greeks, from whom the Mainiotes had demanded a ransom ; and as every Greek hates all other Greeks, when the pirates have been unable to extort money from those who had none to give, being less restrained by any fear of future retaliation, their own nation has more fre- quently suffered by these odious excesses, than the subjects of a foreign power. The dread of the Mainiotes is so universal, and the terror they inspire so profound, that I have known a well- 80£ MAIN A. manned Hydriote ship thrown into a terrible state of confusion, by the mere appearance of a small boat in a suspicious channel between the islands of the Archipelago, though these Hy- driotes are esteemed the best sailors in the Levant, and are pointed out by the newspapers of Ger- many as the regenerators of Greece. These observations, which the state of Main a has occasioned, may be concluded by one of the very few authenticated accounts which we have received from the Morea during the present revolution. After the capture of Tripolitza by Prince Ypsilanti, the Turks, who had yielded by capitulation, were allowed for nearly two days to derive some benefit from the articles ; but a body of fifteen thousand Mainiotes coming up, asserted that they were bound by no treaty, and that they had a right to sack the city, and mur- der the prisoners ; which they accordingly put in execution, with every possible aggravation of cruelty, and every abomination brutality could suggest. A British officer, who had, with that enthusiasm which animates all the nations, but none of the governments of Europe, joined the Greek forces, and either contributed materially to, or entirely caused, the reduction of the city, was induced, from the horrible carnage and the disgusting atrocities he witnessed, to withdraw from a 16 MAIN A. 303 cause, which had for its object the aggrandize- ment of a nation of which he at length discover- ed the real character. The education of the English leads our coun- trymen to the side of the Greeks, whom they imagine the descendants of the heroes of an- tiquity ; but the German journals have, in a great measure, caused the propagation of all the falsehoods with which the world has been lately inundated, with a gullibility quite incredible ; as if at some city in the centre of Germany, watch- ed by a more than Buonapartean police, and situated at a hopeless distance from the sea, or any possible means of receiving information, there existed a subterraneous telegraph, which conveyed the earliest intelligence from Greece. The only circumstances they seem to have for- gotten, are the lighting the Piraean road with gas lamps, the name of the Prima Donna of the opera at Thebes, and the notification of the re- ward offered by the Amphictyons for the dis- covery of the longitude. Of all hard pills to be swallowed, the Bible Society of 'Athens, the Smyrna Gazette, and what one would have thought sufficient to have damned the whole string of fabrications, " the Athenian Society of Philomusae, which was in- stituted by the Vienna Congress in 1815,'* are the most difficult of digestion. 304 MAINA. For this the reader is referred to the 483d page of the Classical Journal, a most valuable work ; the editor of which could not possibly be aware of the string of inventions he was retailing, and to whom I would not willingly be ungrateful for the handsome manner in which he has done me the honor to overrate my own attempts to im- prove the knowledge of Grecian topography, in the very same page. Of the Philomusae Society I was once a mem- ber, and one of the founders of the library ; but retired on rinding that certain Turks, who were said to be of good character, and of studious dis- positions, were excluded merely because they were Mahometans; an exclusion which appeared to me wicked, as tending to encourage their extermination, not improvement ; and ridiculous, as a sort of declaration of war, without either means or pretence, and a forerunner of the un- happy convulsions which have since taken place. To suppose that any Greek archbishop will ever sincerely support a Bible Society, the very first effect of which must be the ruin of his own pre- tensions, would be really too absurd to require a remark, if we had not witnessed the attempts of Protestants, on a visit to Rome, to preach down the Pope himself in his own capital. If a Greek, such as the Logotheti of Athens, has undertaken to be vice president of a Bible Society in that MAINA. 305 city, his office of consul could not protect him from the indignation it would excite, were he sincere in his attempts. But if there had been any foundation for such accounts, the archbishop and the Bible Society, the Smyrna Gazette, the " stereotype editions of Greek classics, widely circulated throughout Greece," and the whole series of Humbugiana, which those who have travelled in Greece read with silent astonish- ment, but which the enlightened public so greed- ily devour, must have long ceased to exist ; and the Bibles, the mathematical lectures, the 30,000 volumes at Chios, the 700 students, and the angels on horseback, must have taken their de- parture to the place which gave them existence, the columns of a German newspaper. There really was a large school on the main land, east of Chios, which, like the German colleges, being the first to rebel, was the first to be extinguished. There was also a school at Scio, where there was every appearance of learning becoming the fashion ; but it was entirely a foreign invention : and though I do not know the fact, I have no doubt that it was exclusive, and that a Turk would not have been permitted to send his son to study there. It became thus, like every thing else in Greek hands, a sort of political seminary, the leading principle of which was the overthrow of the Turks, — a principle perfectly natural to a x 306 MAINA. Greek, but which it really required all the drow- siness of a worn out despotism to tolerate. To these observations I will add, that I was once very enthusiastic in the cause of Greece; that it is only by knowing well the nation, that my opinion is changed ; that all the attempts to excite a crusade in favour of the Greeks have been backed by the most gross misrepresentations of their readiness to learn and improve, and of their present progress. Whoever embarks in their cause will fail, and will end by retiring in dis- gust. It is only Russia that can save them from themselves ; and that must be done by exercising upon them for a whole generation the most de- spotic and coercive measures, and making them happy by force. Having already been disgusted sufficiently with old Zane, and feeling still less disposed to return with him to Kalamata, after the impudent con- tinuation of his impostures in Maina ; we had resolved when we quitted Kitries for Mistra, which we now intended, to lodge at some other house, where we should neither be pestered by the Archon, nor converted into the means of op- pressing the citizens. Old Zane, on hearing that we intended to set out, came immediately to offer his house and his services, but we represented to him in plain terms that we were resolved never again to enter the doors of a person who had so MAINA. 307 impudently made use of us and our passport to rob his neighbour. He made all sorts of'excuses, and among others, one which, as he had not a particle of shame, was an argument not without ingenuity. He said every one of the Archons would have done the same, and would now contrive it in some way or other, if we changed our abode ; whereas we were well aware of his tricks, and could defeat them if a repetition was attempted. As we remained firm in resisting his invita- tion, and he continued his importunities, we were obliged to call in the assistance of Musta- pha, to confirm our sentiments, and the Archon at length retired, though not to be so easily van- quished ; for he went immediately to the Bey, to request his interference. In this he succeeded so far, that the Bey be- came at length his advocate, though he did not at- tempt to palliate his dishonesty. The Bey, when he saw us, observed that the disgrace would be- come so public if we lodged not in the house of Zane, that it was impossible to say how much the punishment would in the end exceed the guilt, and that we might stay there only one night, during which Zane had promised Mus- tapha should be permitted to pay for every thing as he received it for our use, and in public. The Bey concluded by saying, that, he himself re- x c 2 308 MAINA. quested us to return to Zane's house for one night, as there was no knowing where the mis- chief might end, if the Turks were to discover that we had really paid for ourselves at Kala- mata, though they had been cheated out of their supplies. He added, that in some way or other, Zane would contrive to implicate himself in the business, if it were only as mediator ; and that it might ultimately become a disagreeable affair to him. As the Bey had been in every way kind and hospitable to us, and we did not think our- selves sufficiently qualified to act as travelling members of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, in partibus, nor disposed to risk the indis- criminate ruin of friends and foes, we were con- strained to yield to the Bey's reasoning, and agreed to return, for the shortest time possible, to the Archon's habitation. We took leave therefore of our host, who repeated his kind in- vitation to Marathona, to which place he in- tended to return before we had finished our ex- amination of Sparta. He gave us an old man, mounted upon a mule, to escort us to his frontier, which was probably a great honour, being very troublesome, and so slow as to retard our pro- gress considerably. In almost every Greek ex- pedition, on foot, on horseback, or in a boat, this most awkward veneration for hoary locks yet exists, as in the history of ancient Sparta j MA IN A. -309 and the consequences of the fatal prejudice are in every case delay, and in many danger. A Greek boat has always some old, obstinate, and ignorant monster on board, whose only merit consists in being unwilling to learn more than his grandfather knew before him ; and his fears and idleness are among the most provoking im- pediments to the voyage. We retraced our former road to Kalamata, without any accident, halting for a short time at one of the salt sources, to take a sketch of the tower of a Mainiote, which will serve as a speci- men of the usual style of these habitations in Maina. We encountered no one on the road, not even the Cavalier Demetrius and his gang, who were probably on a marauding party on the other side of the mountains ; and we quitted the territory of x 3 310 MAIN A. the free Greeks, or Eleuthero-Lacones, without regret, though we were condemned to lodge at what now seemed to us the Zane palace at Kala- mata. We had scarcely alighted when we gave or- ders for other horses to be ready on the follow- ing day, to convey us to Mistra, by Leondari, an intention in which we were frustrated by our old enemy Zane, who having us now in his own city, contrived to assume the appearance of a most active search for the animals ; which, at a late hour, when he thought we should not send Mustapha out, he assured us would be ready in the morning. When the morning arrived, how- ever, no horses, and no Greeks to quarrel about placing the luggage, were to be seen ; and after waiting till only just sufficient time remained for the journey to Scala, we found on enquiry, that no horses were to be had on that day, as either a fast or a feast, or the wickedness of their owners, prevented them. We were thus compelled to remain till the next day, while Zane triumphed over his enemies in the city, by showing that the story of his cheating us and the government must have been false, as we had again taken up our abode in his house. The farce of the wicked and faithless horsemen and muleteers was again repeated on the ensuing morning, with a positive engagement that our departure should not be MA IN A. 311 deferred j but we could no longer endure the cheat, or lend ourselves to his abominations. I accordingly ordered Mustapha to pack my own luggage as usual, to place my companion's trunks and bed on my horse, and to ride on the third, to overlook the transport of the whole ; myself determined to walk to Scala, rather than submit to become the tool of Zane's future impositions, as he had now no means left of hindering our departure. He no sooner saw our resolution taken, and that we began to enforce its execution, than he produced all the horses and drivers in the course of a few minutes, and we set out once more, for the last time, from the court-yard of the Archon of Kalamata, the senate of which city, while I am writing, is said to be removed to Tripolitza, probably in conjunc- tion with the Mainiotes to assist in that most atrocious massacre of the seven thousand Turks and one thousand Jews, which no other European nation could have perpetrated, but of which there is no doubt. On our arrival at Scala, the Greek who had been so abusive on our former visit, had yielded to the persuasions of his neigh- bours, and was content to receive us with all the appearance of respect with which a Greek treats those he fears. In general, where the po- pulation is entirely Greek, a stranger is ill re- ceived, and finds it difficult to procure a lodging, x 4 312 MAIN A. We returned on the day following to Leondari, passing again over the Stenyclerian plain. The weather being fine, we distinguished more per- fectly the monastery on Mount Vourkano, which I afterwards visited; and the walls of the ancient city of Messene might be perceived in the hollow between the two summits, where was once a gate. There is yet an annual feast on the northern height, probably the fete of Jupiter of Ithome. A picturesque castle, with towers, seen upon a pretty wooded summit on the other side the plain, apparently of Venetian construction, is in such a state of repair, that companies of banditti have not ^infrequently taken possession of it as a place of defence. Nearly in the same direction, but in the plain below, we saw a country-house belonging to a Turk, at a place called Aliture. On another occasion I passed close to that village, when the now celebrated liberator and patriot, then notorious captain of banditti, Kolocotrone, had got into the tower at Aliture with his troop, and was besieged by the whole country, though he escaped for that time unhurt to the concealment of a well. — The particulars may all be related hereafter; for the present it will suffice to say that the Turkish government, aware that the thieves are protected and encouraged by the Greeks, find no remedy so effectual against them as that of calling all the bishops and MAINA. 813 el Jers of the Greek church to Tripolitza, and de- taining them till they had issued anathemas over the whole country, threatening those with ex- communication who supplied the robbers with provisions. When this is once done, the Turks are enabled to pursue their own measures with effect, which before were useless. On a hill at the base of Mount Tetrauzi or Cerausius, is a village called Constantino, a populous place, where we thought it safest to sleep on that night, when Kolocotrone was in the neighbourhood ; we found the inhabitants in considerable alarm, and during the night endeavouring to frighten the enemy by a perpetual discharge of muskets ; for it is not in the least true, that the Greeks were ever disarmed, or indeed that the state of the country, with Kolocotrone perpetually pil- laging, and retiring, would ever permit it. We passed the Khan of Sakona, where we had seen the black musician and the hedge of prickly figs on our former visit, and ascending the pass of Macryplai, perceived we were again quit- ting the genial warmth of the lower country for the sharper air of the mountains, though the sea- son was now considerably advanced. — We arrived at Leondari without seeing any thing worthy of remark, and finding the queer old Aga was gone out of the town to one of his country-houses on 314 MAINA. a coursing expedition, with his band and all his accompaniments, we determined to lodge at a Greek house, the situation of which pleased us, at the entrance of the place, and to which the next morning's sun would have access. — The owner removed for a consideration in money, and left us his house in quiet. The town, though desert- ed and ruinous, presents the most picturesque groups of buildings and trees. When every thing was arranged, we walked up to the ruins of the castle, which has been usually supposed the site of the ancient Belemina or Belmina, but where we observed no vestiges of remote antiquity. The distance also from Sinano or Megalopolis did not seem to correspond. We have already observed, that Cape Matapan terminates the range of Taygetus on the south, and Leondari or Lontare, (the former of which, meaning " a Lion," is the usual way of spelling it, and pronouncing the name among travellers, though perhaps the latter is more frequently used by the Greeks,) forms the northern point of the chain. The castle of Leondari is on one of its lowest rocks, yet sufficiently elevated above the great plain of Megalopolis to command a most extensive and beautiful prospect over a delight- ful and extensive scene. There the variety of arable and pasture land, richly interspersed with MAIN A. 315 villages and the country-houses of Turkish Agas, is encircled by vast forests and open groves of oak, and these are surrounded again by the most picturesque and magnificent mountains, full of natural beauties, and exciting a cloud of classical recollections unrivalled, except in the vicinity of Athens. In front on the west lay mounts Cerausius and Lycaeus, where Jupiter was nursed and Pan was revered. On the summit were human sacrifices said to have been offered at a period beyond the reach of history. There the Lycasan games, the temple of the great goddess, the Archaic Lycosura on its lofty peak, the feast of Lycaon, the flaming valley of the gods and giants, and a thousand other circumstances, rush upon the mind. Below, Megalopolis, founded in vain by Epaminondas to check the power of the Spartans, Philopcemen, the Alpheus, are recalled to the senses or imagination. The hope, almost amounting to certainty, that by looking for any object which once existed, its vestiges would surely be found on some now lonely emi- nence, on some rock, or near that fountain in the forest which induced the founders to settle on that particular spot, the name of Ar- cadia, and its connection with all that history has related or poets have sung, conspire to render the view from the castle of Leondari one of the most interesting and enchanting of the Pelopon- 316 MAINA. nesus. Its extent renders useless any attempt to engrave it in a work of these dimensions. We returned after a prolonged enjoyment of the scene, to our lodging, where the evening chill made us regret the climate of Kalamata and Kytries, and served to recal us to the consider- ation of our present wants, from the abstractions of the plain of Megalopolis. In the morning we turned again to the south- ward, but too much to the east to receive much benefit from the sun, which seemed to have ac- quired but little power in the woods which shade the northern limits of the vast range of Taygetus. Nothing can exceed the beauty and variety of the glens and eminences which alternately pre- sented themselves on our route ; the prettiest val- lies, each watered by its little rivulet, and re- minding us perpetually of the parks and pleasure grounds, which in England are often contrived by art and study, are here produced in endless succession by unaided nature. All the streams flow ultimately into the Alpheus, having first joined the main river of the valley formed by the mountain of Leondari and Mount Chimparou. After a gradual ascent for an hour, and passing the village of Limatero on the left, we reached the highest part or head of the valley whence the currents flow to the Alpheus ; and at this elevation the cold was considerably increased. MAINA. 317 Perhaps this spot was the confine of the La- coriian and Arcadian territories ; at least it seems the natural boundary ; and in Greece the form of the mountain generally decided the extent of the province. There had been a town, either ancient or modern, on the platform or crest, as was proved by the fragments of tiles and pottery on the ground. The mountain of Leondari, almost ceasing on the right, is, after a narrow valley, replaced by another branch of the mass, called Cherasia, the source of many torrents, which accompanied or crossed the track by which we now descended toward Mistra and the Eurotas. Here and there we observed vestiges of the ancient road, and of walls, which had once served to retard the pre- datory excursions of the rival countries. Still de- scending for another hour, in a beautiful forest, we passed the ruins of a church, vineyards, and habitations of a modern village, now no longer inhabited. A church, with vestiges of antiquity near it, might perhaps be taken for the site of an ancient temple ; and after a ride of two hours and twenty minutes from Leondari, we saw some vestiges of antiquity upon a knoll projecting from Mount Cherasia, and near it, on the right, the site of two temples in a field. All this valley is copiously irrigated by rivu- lets, which produce a most delightful shade, 318 MAINA. by encouraging the growth of magnificent platani, some of which we observed from six to seven feet in diameter. Soon after, we passed a beautiful fountain, and a ruined church, the sub- stitute for the temple which once had adorned it ; but these were only the appendages of a city, the walls of which we not long after entered, and which stood upon the sides and base of a pointed and conical hill, called Chelmo or Chelmina. If I had not promised to avoid all antiquarian discussion, I might perhaps be inclined to suggest, that possibly Belmina stood here, and that Chelmina might be the remains of the name. The hill of Chelmo, though not high, is so situ- ated in the centre of the valley, that it is seen both from Sparta and Megalopolis. The fields on quitting these vestiges seemed to assume a new aspect, and to be better cultivated; we found also vineyards ; and descending to the bottom of a valley, between the end of Mount Chimparou on the left, and Xerro Bouno, a name now assumed by the range on the right, we found in a little triangular meadow, watered by a brook, a large green tumulus, probably the bury- ing-place of some one hero, or the common sepulchre of many, probably not difficult to be recognized in the page of history. A road which here turned off on the left to Tripolitza, falls into the valley of Francobrysso, Asea, or MA1NA. 319 Ancmodure, which we had formerly passed in our journey to Leondari. On the side of the Xerro Bouno, or the Dry Mountain, we observed the large village of Longanico, and crossed the river of the same name, at its junction with another stream, near the foundations of a temple. On an ugly ascent from this spot we found a derveni, or guard-house to protect the road ; but as we had not met a single person during the whole journey, we could not help remarking the wretched prospect which the plunder of tra- vellers must hold out to those who were to gain a support from such a precarious source. At the top of this ascent we found a large flat table land, spotted with heaps of stone and stunted wild pear-trees, where we thought we observed the vestiges of a city. Our guides called it Agrapulo Campo, which might be either a cor- ruption from wild pear-trees, or the Acropolis of an ancient city. On the descent from this is the source which might have occasioned the selection of the spot for habitation. It is now known by no distinguishing appellation ; for that of Cephalo- brysso, which it bears, is common to any other natural fountain. Here, however, we found the foundations of a temple and other fragments of white marble, and were soon convinced that it was the real fountain of the Eurotas in the valley MO MAINA. of Sparta, whether it derived or not its original source from the same mountain with the Alpheus, and sunk in the lake below Anemodouri. The city was probably that called Pellane : the water is clear and excellent, and gushes out of the rock in a considerable stream. A khan now in ruins has once existed near the spot, founded by some pious Turk, who probably left no money to support it, or did not foresee that no khangi could be found to remain in it in times of turbu- lence, or the prevalence of banditti. A little below the source, the stream joins a river called Platanata, and then assumes the classic name of Ere or Eurotas. After passing two little villages on the left, Partali and Trupes, we came to a fountain with a shade of poplars, now in early leaf; and on the right, after passing the founda- tions of walls, we observed the ruins of a citadel, rising in terraces that forcibly recalled the town of Characomae, or the Bastions, to our recollec- tions, the ruins of which were to be expected in this district. Here we found another khan, which was at that moment tenanted ; but it being only two o'clock, the evening fine, and the place not offering any particular object of curiosity, while we were impatient to arrive at Sparta, we proceeded on our journey, which we had on that day commenced at nine. On the hill, about a mile on the right, is the large EUROTAS. 821 village of Periboglia, a name implying a wall or peribolus, and from that circumstance now used more than kepos for a garden. Possibly it might originally have some connection with the neighbouring ruins of Characoma. We had not proceeded far, when, on crossing a river, we observed the foundations of a temple on the right, and, in the same direction, the vil- lages of Alevrou and Alitea. The traces of the ancient inhabitants seemed now to multiply, and the country to become at the present day more populous. The river which rolled on our left, now entered among the little hills, which seemed to impede its further passage. On the left we saw the village Chorithitza, and a white house called Lai, a name which had a sort of Lacedae- monian sound. A peasant passed us, and offered for sale a large brass medal of Sparta, with the club of Hercules on the reverse ; but as he had formed too magnificent an idea of his good fortune in finding it, and asked something quite preposterous, we were obliged to relinquish the purchase, and he to postpone sine die the days of his promised affluence. Another great stream from the right adds very much to the volume of the waters of the Ere; and whatever may be the merits of the original Cephalo-brysso in the summer, most certainly it was entitled, at the time we saw it, Y 322 EUIIOTAS. to very little honour as the main support of the Eurotas. The glen was now confined to the breadth of the road and the river. Across the flood we observed, on two conical rocks, the churches of St. Georgios and St, Nicola ; and, not long after, passed a place, where all further pro- gress had been once prohibited by an ancient fortification at a narrow pass, between the rocks and the river. We passed several islands in the Eurotas ; and before the pass opened into a wider valley, we crossed the ruins of two walls, which shewed, that though the Spartans were so loud in the boast, that their city of Lacedaemon was defended without walls, they had taken very good care to render it on every side difficult of access by distant fortifications. In many places we found the road supported by ancient walls of massive blocks ;* and nothing could surpass the beauty of the tall oleanders, called by the Greeks rhododaphne, or rose- laurel, and may possibly be the Laconian roses, which flower twice in the year. We crossed by a bridge another river from the right, and saw a cave with steps cut in the rock, near which we found an inscription, much defaced, but which we may perhaps take notice of here- after. We found other traces of walls of de- fence, and near the river two tumuli, one of stones, and the other apparently natural. Here EUROTAS. 323 we discovered the little village of Papiote, where wc arrived after a ride of seven hours and a half from Leondari. Our curiosity was now raised to its highest stretch, as we were confident, that though an envious range of hills still cut us off from a sight of Lacedaemon, yet that far-famed city must be at a very short distance before us ; and we hesi- tated whether we should take a road on the left, branching to the ruins, or one on the right, which leads to Mistra. On enquiry, however, we found that it would be highly imprudent to proceed to the ruins that evening, as there was no house to lodge us, and the country was not esteemed safe. We afterwards found that the information, as far as related to the house, was incorrect, as there are several villages, and one verv considerable countrv-house, in the imme- diate vicinity of the site of Lacedaemon. We therefore continued our route toward Mistra, striking into the little range of hills, and leaving on our left the Eurotas. In a valley we saw the ruins of an aqueduct of no very remote antiquity, probably that of the Byzantine empe- rors. Mount Taygetus here begins to assume a more imposing aspect, rising in bolder masses to a far greater elevation than the surrounding branches, and then producing a forest of pines, above which the peaks of St. Elias are seen, y 2 324 MISTRA. covered with snow. On passing the hills, Mistra presents itself in all its magnificence, so well displayed on the sides of its lofty rock, that every house is visible, rising in gradation one above the other, to the grey towers of the cita- del on its summit j the city, probably overrated at 20,000 souls, looks more like the capital of a kingdom than of the deserted vales of Laconia. The Benaky houses, on a nearer approach, form the most conspicuous portion of the ruins above ; and the mosques, with the dwellings of the rich Turks, beautifully interspersed with trees, add much by the contrast of their white slender minarets with the dark cypresses, to the pic- turesque effect below. I know of nothing to exceed the first sight of Mistra, though a nearer approach destroys the illusion of magnificence which it has excited. The view on the road is much finer than that which I shall insert from the ruins, being nearer the city, and having the mountain in better perspective ; but the approach of night forbade the delay which a sketch of it would have produced, and we were obliged to listen to the representations of Mustapha, who had informed himself on the subject. We soon crossed a large stream, before which, on the left, were the ruins of a temple, and not long after another river, both rising in Taygetus, and one of them running from Trupa?, a village MISTRA. 3 C 25 not far off on the right, famous for a cypress tree of enormous magnitude. A few minutes more brought us to the lower houses of Mistra ; pass- ing a square enclosure walled on all sides, in which a species of bazar or market-place is erected at the period of the annual fair of Mistra. We found a Greek house, on enquiry, where other travellers had lodged, and had no difficulty in gaining admission; consoling our- selves under the cold occasioned by a situation on the wrong side of a snowy mountain, by the hope of visiting the ruins of Lacedaemon on the following morning. Our host, whose name was Giacopoulo, gave us very little trouble, but left us to ourselves, with- out inflicting upon us those fatiguing visits, which travellers are in general doomed to suffer when tired with a long day's journey. He brought us, after some time, a present of oranges, of which there is a species at Mistra celebrated for their magnitude, but which we found their only merit. The climate, it seems, is not severe enough to kill the orange-trees, but the absence of the sun after an early hour behind the lofty summits of Taygetus, renders the fruit which ought to ripen early,' both spungy and tasteless, while the moisture seems to render the rind dropsical, and instead of the smooth fine skin, which is so often the test of good fruit, the out- y 3 326 MISTRA. side becomes rough and turgid ; the white pulp is an inch thick, and the interior fails entirely. Nothing could exceed the fine appearance of those we saw, but it was merely shew. We were so impatient to visit the ruins, that, in spite of all the remonstrances of our landlord, and of a certain Demetrius Manusachi, whose house was at a short distance, and who either was or wished to be under the English protec- tion, circumstances which he thought gave him a right to prescribe to us, we evaded the visit to the two Vaivodes, for Mistra was then under the sway of two rulers, and escaped into the country. We had but little of the town to pass, and we soon found ourselves in the gardens below it, where Mustapha, whom we had directed to remain to delude Manusachi, joined us. Go where you will in Greece, it is only from the hands of one tyrant to another, who is resolved to make something or other by your visit ; and so we found to our cost ; for we had scarcely got half way to Sparta, when Demetrius overtook us, booted in red morocco, and insisted on con- ducting us to what we saw at a short distance before us. The plain is very well cultivated, and produces, among other trees, a great number of mulberries. We crossed the river from Trupae, and a second, called Magoulia, over a ZVIISTRA. 327 budge near a few houses, and in forty-five mi- nutes reached the remains of an aqueduct, and arrived at the site of Lacedaemon. The plain is very well tilled, and beautifully planted with fruit-trees and cypresses. On our right we left the large country-house of a rich Turk, with a fine grove of cypresses. The Turk sometimes permits strangers to lodge there, but it was not at the moment of our visit esteemed safe. Land is reckoned to produce twelve per cent, in this plain, or not to be worth the purchase, which shews that property is by no means secure. Sparta, or Lacedsemon, must have existed to a late period, as we found walls composed of small stones and mortar, mixed with broken columns, and the fine blocks of its ancient buildings ; and the population has been suffi- ciently numerous to have consumed or carried off the greater part even of the vestiges of its former magnificence. An ancient author had observed, that if Lacedaemon and Athens were both ruined, posterity would scarcely believe that the former had been so powerful, or that the latter could have been the capital of so little a territory; and the fact justifies the assertion ; for while Athens remains the treasury of archi- tecture and the arts, Sparta boasts scarcely any thing that can be cited with certainty, as a remnant of the real city of Lycurgus. The y 4 328 MISTKA. theatre, which we first visited, is partly scooped out of the little hill, which may in aftertimes have formed a sort of ritadel, and partly erected of stone projecting at each side from the emi- nence. If it be very ancient, which I much doubt, it has been restored at a late period ; but it must have been intended for the amusement of a very great population, as the radius of the orchestra is 70 feet, and the diameter of the whole is 418. The scene seems to have been only 28 feet deep, and the seats were divided into three cinctions, of which the breadths ascending were 20 feet for the lowest, 23 feet for the next, and 40 for the highest. Above this was a space only 13 feet wide, and behind that, the last, which might have been a portico, was 32 feet deep. The upper surface of each seat was divided into two portions, of which a sink- ins:, one foot four inches in breadth, received the feet of the person who occupied the seat above, and a space only one foot one inch in width was left for the seat of the person below. About 20 yards to the northward is an opening in a wall, which may have been the entrance to the upper seats: the whole is a strange mix- ture of good and bad workmanship. Stretching to the southward from the theatre is a long wall, not exhibiting the appearance of very remote antiquity, and has at some period served as a MISTRA. 329 defence to that part of Lacedaemon which might be called the citadel, and is connected with the theatre. In this wall, which is about a stadium in length, and may possibly have formed part of one, though we found the pipes of a bath, we observed an inscription, perhaps a dedication of some temple to Apollo, by the em- peror Julian. The marble on which this is cut is white, and is formed for the pediment of a small edifice. There were upon it the marks of a pick-axe, very recently made, as if with the design of effacing the letters, though without effect ; whether this was done by some traveller, whose jealousy found gratification in prevent- ing his successors from copying it, or by some native who wished to appropriate the slab to another use, I could not determine. In either case the failure was equal, for the inscription, which was only a fragment, remained legible, and the marble was still in the wall of which it formed a part. There is scarcely any thing else at all curious on this elevation, except the remains of what I have no doubt was a small temple, or other very ancient edifice, the plan of which might yet be ascertained. It consists at present of two doors, distant about 46 feet six inches from each other. We found a piece of mutilated, but beautiful sculpture, in pure white marble, on the 330 MISTRA. spot. I imagine the doors, the architraves of 'which yet remain, and consist of large single blocks of marble, were the opposite doors of a cell ; and that the columns, or at least the plan of the whole, might be ascertained by excavation. The archi- traves are seven feet eight inches long, two feet deep, and three wide ; the doors are four feet eight inches wide; and on the east side of the edifice there is a flight of steps, or the seats of a theatre, of ancient workmanship, which rise from the doors to the distance of 48 feet. There seems no reason to imagine this a staircase, except that the doors are now filled up almost to the archi- traves, which proves that the pavement is at a very considerable distance below the present soil. It might be a school, and on these steps persons might have been disposed as in a theatre ; at all events, this is almost the only relic of ancient Sparta ; and it appears as if it would afford a variety of curious information, and possibly inscriptions or sculptures, to any one who should undertake the excavation of it, when such a work shall become again feasible. The hill of the theatre, being the highest, has been esteemed the citadel of Sparta; the still higher elevation on the north does not seem certainly to have been included in the city. It would appear, that at some period, the theatre itself has, with its immediate vicinity, served as 13 MISTRA. 331 a species of castle. Considering the northern g.oup of elevations as one hill, Sparta may be considered as having stood upon four insu- lated eminences, lying along the right or western bank of the Eurotas, a river running on the eastern verge of a plain, bounded on that side by a chain of red hills, anciently called Mene- laion, and on the west by the mighty Taygetus, from the foot of which, at Mistra, the theatre is about 4,000 yards distant. Between this main hill and the next, toward the south, a road must always have passed to the Eurotas, which there is separated into two streams, by an island covered with oleanders. The descent from the eminences to the river lies between two ranges of rocks, about 20 feet high, and about 40 yards asunder. This glen has been fortified at some period or other, or very much filled up with buildings which answered the same purpose ; and from the river, which is 380 steps further eastward, I remarked how Lacedgemon was enabled to boast that she had no need of walls, by being situated on a chain of eminences, which would, in those days, have been rendered im- pregnable by the contiguity of the habitations alone, and the long chain of rocks, which at once rendered unnecessary 880 yards of wall, from the hill of the citadel to the southern 332 M1STRA. elevation. There was a bridge over the Eurotas, but of what age I could not determine. I passed the stream without difficulty, in March, on horseback. The river Tchelephina falls in a little above the ruins. While employed in sketching the site of the city, and the range of Taygetus beyond it, I observed several ill-looking people, all bending their steps toward me, and evidently skulking behind the broken ground and bushes, with the design of concealment. As they were yet at a distance, I was enabled to finish my work, remount my horse, and recross the Eurotas toward my companions, whom I had left on the other side of the river, before a detachment of two men appeared from another point, seemingly intending to intercept me. I heard afterwards of escapes from similar ban- ditti from other travellers j and, as a general rule would advise no one ever to go quite alone, even to so short a distance, in suspected places. To give up Sparta, after having come so far to see it, would be ridiculous, particularly as in the worst of times a single companion makes a won- derful difference in point of safety. In my case, I had plenty of help behind the nearest hill, and should not have been alone, but to avoid the company of the archon, Demetrius Manusachi. The place is sometimes to be visited in perfect MISTRA. 333 safety. On a conical point of the first hill, I took a long view of Mistra, Taygetus, and the plain. Hence may be observed the castle, situ- ated on a magnificent and detached rock, on the south side of which, in a tremendous chasm, flows the river Pantalimona. The whole is, by the natives, divided into five parts ; the Kastro, Meso Chorio, Kato Chorio, Tritsella, and Parorea. Below, is observed the plain, covered with wood, yet cultivated ; and the house or villa of the rich Turk before mentioned, with its fine cypresses. The fore-ground consists of fragments of ancient Spartan architecture, of little consequence, mixed up with more modern masonry, but probably antecedent to the foun- dation of Mistra. Behind this spot, and in the little plain between the city and the Eurotas, are the remains of a very small amphitheatre, con- structed in Roman times, when the pride of Sparta had long been humbled. The whole is the most wretched attempt at a public building that I recollect ever to have seen in Greece. The second hill, or eminence, south of the hill of the citadel of Lacedaemon, has, in all probabi- lity, been once decorated with some ancient edi- fice. On the third and fourth are yet visible the remains of buildings, of an early date, the plans of which might yet be made out. At the southern 334 MISTRA. end is the village of Psycheki, and the junction of another river with the Eurotas, perhaps the ancient Tiasus, over which, in the direct road between Lacedaemon and Amyclas, now Sclavo Chorio, is a bridge of ancient stones, without mortar, of a single arch ; which might have been brought into the dispute on the subject of arches, better than almost any other. I thought Lace- daemon might have been about 1645 yards in length, after I had concluded my measurements, from north to south ; and if another insulated hill west of the ruins marks its boundary on that side, about half a mile might have been its breadth. A considerable number of ancient blocks near that eminence, some of which have been cut in modern times, to serve as stones for an oil-mill, seem to shew that the flat, which is almost marshy, between the two ranges, has been once covered with buildings. We returned to Mistra, highly gratified with the sight of the ruins of Lacedaemon ; and though there be little to see except the situation, we were not disappointed, as we had always heard there were scarcely any remains. The next day we thought it no longer advise- able to defer the visit to the Vaivodes of Mistra, of which there were at that moment two in office. We had a long walk up the steep ascent to the MISTItA. 335 castle before we arrived at the residence of the court of Mistra, where we found a large house, with a great many attendants, and were intro- duced to both the Vaivodes in the same chamber, though I am not able to say whether they both reside habitually in the same house. They were both very obliging, and told us we might go and see every thing we pleased, offering a guard, treat- ing us with coffee, pipes, and sweetmeats, and inviting us to visit them again. Out of the win- dows from that elevation we observed a most magnificent prospect over the whole vale of Lacedaemon. We called also on the Bishop, who glories in the titles of Sparta and Amyclae, yet had so little idea of the spot whence he drew his second title, that he affirmed the little village of Mouchla, in the plain of Tripolitza, was the original seat of his bishopric. This sort of ignorance seems quite incredible to an English school-boy, particularly when the ruins of Amyclae are at so little a distance ; but the fact is so. The present name of Amyclae, Sclavo Chorion, has, I have no doubt, been imposed by some equally sagacious prelate, who mistook the place for Helos, and called it the village of slaves. Returning to our lodging, I sketched the nearer view of the castle of Mistra from one of 336 MISTRA. the windows, tormented all the time by Deme- trius Manusachi, who talked to me incessantly about the Franks taking possession of Mistra, driving out the Turks, or putting them all to death, and other plots of the same import ; to which I gave little attention, answering these common-place observations by others of the same nature. The view was one of the most striking I had ever beheld ; and the effect on the spot be- yond conception, when partially illuminated by a brilliant sun, and in other parts shaded by the dark spiry forms of the cypresses, from which again shoot the light and tapering mi- narets. On one occasion Demetrius asked us to dinner, having first dressed up his wife in all her finery, not at all that she might do the honours of the house, but that we might have a glimpse of her splendour. She was a fat and good motherly- looking woman, and we were in hopes we should have had her company to dinner. She had, however, been in all probability employed in the preparation of it ; and on our lamenting that she was not to assist in the eating, we were told that our janissary, Mustapha, would have been shocked at such a circumstance. Mustapha assured them he had often waited upon Anastasio and his wife, at Arcadia, at dinner 5 and appealed MISTRA. 337 to us for confirmation of the fact : but it was all in vain. The Greek was jealous of his middle- aged fat wife, and we saw her no more till we retired ; when she expected, as I imagine, a pre- sent in payment for the dinner ; which we gave to the servant instead of herself, but from whom, of course, she extorted it on our departure. We soon found that the cause of our invitation was a letter from Giannettaki, at Tripolitza, in- forming Manusachi that I was secretary to the ambassador at Constantinople ; and the fatal consequences quickly appeared, in an application to me to apply to his excellency for some sort of unjustifiable patent or privilege, which, though I have now forgotten its drift, I immediately saw I had no business to interfere with, nor he to solicit. We had done all we could to resist his dinner j but not being invited till after breakfast on the same morning, we were told the prepar- ations were already far advanced, and that it would be considered quite shocking to refuse it. On another occasion we made a morning's ex- cursion to Amyclae, or Sclavo-Chorio. Leaving the site of Lacedaemon on the left, we took the road through that part of Mistra called Parorea. We employed an hour and forty minutes in reach- ing the village of Agiani, a pretty spot, orna- mented with many cypresses, the accompani- z 338 MISTRA. ments of a mosque, and fine groves of oranges. In the way we observed a circular altar, in the bushes. Through the village runs a beautiful stream, only known by the name of Cephalo- brysso, or the Source, which we visited, and imagined the site of a temple of Diana. We found there a beautiful fragment of sculpture, representing a stag and hounds ; and in a village near it we found a large marble, sculptured with a well-preserved relievo of the battle of the Amazons. In ten minutes more we came to the Greek village and church of Agiani Cheranio. Not long after, we crossed a river called Tsoka, descending from a village of the same name on Taygetus. In a few minutes we found another Cephalo-brysso, with a mill, and saw on our left the village of Godena. In two hours and twenty- three minutes we arrived at the village of Sclavo- Chorio, a straggling hamlet, like all the others in the plain of Mistra, with houses, towers, and gardens of oranges and cypresses. We visited the ruined churches, and found several inscrip- tions, perhaps more numerous at Amyclse than could have been expected. We thought there had anciently been a citadel on a rock not far distant, projecting from the mountain. We found here, as at Sparta, many fragments of ser- pentine, of a green colour, and also with a purple hue ; and it was evident, from the quantity and MtSTRA. 339 the size, that they had not been brought from a distance, but were the natural production of some spot in the vicinity. We endeavoured to convince, and at length succeeded in per- suading one of the Greeks who attended us, to believe he had heard of a Frank who had broken all the inscriptions at Sclavo-Chorio. It is so easy to do this, that I have no doubt the next stranger who arrived had a detailed account of it. These inquiries were made, in the hope of as- certaining what degree of credit was due to the stories of M. Fourmont, who, when asked to produce the inscriptions he had invented, per- suaded the credulous that he had destroyed every vestige of Amyclas. Our guide said that some lime had been made in a place near the church not long ago. I will here observe, that these subjects were all started upon the spot ; and that, in spite of the boasted destruction of marbles, and cutting down temples like cabbages, we found there, and thereabouts, at least as many inscriptions as are usually found in such places ; and I doubt if an equal number are found in any other part of the Morea. The church contained a portion of an Ionic cornice, the pillar which sustained a table for offerings, a small Ionic capital and two Doric capitals, a granite z 2 340 MISTRA. column, a dog without the head, in marble, and an inscription evidently not broken for the sake of rendering it illegible. No. 1. At a church which we passed on the road, we found another inscription, also broken, as are almost all in Greece ; which I give only to show, that the destruction of the sculpture, not the in- scription, was the aim of the person who broke it, as it is perfectly legible. No. 2. On a column near the church of Sclavo- Chorio, is an inscription of twelve lines, eight of which are even now perfectly legible; and which may be worth inserting, though not of a good Greek sera, as they serve to show the form of letters used in Laconia in the time of the Roman emperors. MISTRA. 341 No. 3. ENrYNAIEINEINEKENnPOE AEEAMENOYTOANAAftMA TO YEfPOE4>IAEETATO YITATPOE AYTHE:TIB:KAAY:EYAAMOY TOYEHAPTIATIKOYAPXIEPEflE TONEEBAETON KAI T&N 0EU2NITPOEON&NAY Ti2N APIETOnOAElTE YTO Y The reader must be content to suffer two or three more inscriptions, either in part or entire, on account of the interest of the subject, and shall then be spared further torment. No. 4. On another Column, among a long string of Names. nANTX2NI050*EATflNTO-5 IAIA XAIP66TH emcAcAiA NIKinnO^AEHSinNO Y 3U2NEI11:ONOYES0M[A No. 6. On a Monument. X6NOYX6 [ P€€TH BIUJ (GAKAKBHZ l_HMePA3 .{ No. 7- At Sparta. ^Whp.q WAAfefTAA T^HEANE z '3 342 M1STRA. No. 8. No. 9. At St. Irene. On a Well at Amyclic. . .OSrAYKQ • • • ATONQEOriPOniOI HAIDHNOS • • IEKNEA^HAIKJAS ANKPATIA2T-I • . : KAIAPETH2ETIEI • • • H2IIAPTA No. 10. No. 11. At Sparta- At Helos. C CUTHC KU3N2TANT€INoY AIOCKOPOC C€BACToY 4>IA6AC To the reader it is necessary to state, that not a century ago, M. Fourmont, a native of France, having travelled in Greece, produced on his re- turn several inscriptions j among which, a cata- logue of the priestesses of Amyclae, of an sera so remote as to exceed the limits of certain his- tory, would have been quite invaluable if it had been possible to believe in its authenticity. The great interest of the acquisition, supposing it real, naturally rendered many eager to defend its claims. Among others, however, Mr. Knight, one of the first who gave much celebrity to the study of palaeography, was convinced of its fal- sity ; and wrote with such success against the forgery, that its defence was relinquished, till a period when M. Raoul Rochette undertook its second introduction, and most of the learned men on the continent adopted his sentiments — to which, in all probability, they yet continue to adhere. The Earl of Aberdeen wrote a short MISTRA. 343 paper on the subject; but English books are generally obtained with difficulty on the conti- nent : and I heard, not long after, that at Berlin a new edition of M. Fourmont* s work was pre- paring, and another at Paris. Mr. Dodwell had, I believe, taken the trouble to read and copy several of Fourmont* s original letters, in which he boasted of having destroyed more temples and cities than Paulus Emilius ; and the world was still more induced to believe the whole account, when M. Raoul Rochette produced the testimony of a Greek physician, who pointed out the very spot where Fourmont' s temple of Onga was yet visible at Amycla?. A few mistakes in Mr. Knight's dissertations, about the use of certain ancient letters, proceeding from the want of documents, for medals were then the chief means of forming an opinion on the subject, were eagerly seized, and placed to the credit of the Fourmont inscriptions. It is in this trium- phant state that the Fourmont inscriptions are at present maintained. Now, among other things, that gentleman had discovered two marbles, of an sera so remote, that human sacrifices were represented, the feet of the victims being already cut off. These broken marbles I saw at Amyclae quite perfect. The human feet, proofs of primaeval barbarism, have long been recognized as the slippers of the z 4f 344 M1STRA. priestess, with her other trinkets and ornaments ; and the Earl of Aberdeen brought both the blocks to London, where every one, who ever saw a Greek inscription, acknowledges that they are of a late period. With regard to the letters, it has been said, that 666 were used in La- conia for H , and that C was the form of the most remote ages, instead of 2, in that country. I can only say, that the reputed marbles of the human sacrifices are one proof that these letters were of modern usage ; that No. 11, in the frag- ments here introduced, shews that € and C were used in the time of the lower empire, as will Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, and 10, which no one would dream of disputing. That, proceeding to inscrip- tions of still greater antiquity, No. 3 yet retains the more ancient E, with the name of Tiberius Claudius ; and still earlier, Nos. 4, 8, and 9, though probably of no very ancient date, have no traces of the modern 6 and C . It is also ex- traordinary, that the wonderful marbles and temple only are wanting and that the rest, with many more, were at the period of our visit to be seen by every body ; though I have no doubt they will by degrees disappear, and their frag- ments alone remain for the next revival of the Fourmont inscriptions. Lastly, and by no means the least important argument against those who could believe that, in a country governed by the jealous Turks, and watched by the still more en- MISTRA. 345 vious Greeks, M. Fourmont really went about tearing down marbles, unobserved and un- punished, destroying with his breath or his pen- knife the huge blocks with which the very least temple is constructed ; it may be well to relate the true history of the resuscitation of that most venerable temple of Onga of Amyclae. Not long after the publication of M. Raoul Rochette's work upon the Fourmont inscriptions, I had been talking, at Naples, with one of their most decided votaries on the subject, and stating that I scarcely believed that Dr. Abramiote, with whom I was well acquainted, had ever been at Amyclae ; still less could I think it probable that he should have sought for antiquities. My anta- gonist cited his book, ridiculing the Comte de Chateaubriand for not having, in his excursion to Amyclae, proceeded a few yards farther, when the temple of Onga Fourmontia would have burst on his astonished sight. I could only express my disbelief, having no proof at hand. A few minutes after, two of my friends, who were just returned from Greece, happened to pay me a visit ; and on mentioning the subject, they informed me they had spent two days at Amyclae with Abramiote's pamphlet in their hands, looking in vain under every bush, and behind every hillock, for his temple. Tired and disgusted with the fruitless attempt, they at length gave up their search, 346 MISTRA. after having traversed the country in every di- rection, and satisfied themselves that the place described had no existence. On their return to Athens, they immediately loaded Abramiote with invectives, wondering how a person of his apparent precision and talent should not be able to give a better direction to the spot than that which had misled them for so long a time. What was their surprise, when they found themselves greeted by a horse-laugh from the whole com- pany, and learned, that Dr. Abramiote, angry at some remarks, or enraged at the vanity, of M. de Chateaubriand, which, by-the-bye, is not less entertaining at Sparta than elsewhere, had invented and written the latest description of Fourmont's temple of Onga, merely as a hoax upon that traveller, — which must have been done with some genius, as it not only gulled my two friends, and lost them two days, but will pro- bably remain a stumbling-block to the learned, the main prop and stay of the Chronicle of Amycla?, and an imaginary disgrace to M. de Chateaubriand, for years to come. Surely that traveller would have most willingly proclaimed the finding of the temple, and adopted as his own all that could result from it: for I re- member, among other objects, which all the world had visited for years, his triumph at his own very original discovery, of what I think he MISTRA. 347 calls the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycena?, which Lord Elgin had excavated, and I had published, and all other travellers had seen, during the latter part of the last century. As I have not heard lately of the further pro- secution of the plan for the re-establishment of this forgery, I hope and trust that the real scholars of the Institute, and the learned associates of Berlin, have succeeded in again averting the disgrace which the patronage of this forgery would bring upon the learning of their respective countries. I shall conclude this account of the inscrip- tions in the neighbourhood of Amyclse, by stating, that there are a great many, and that they exhibit no signs of any extraordinary ill- treatment not common throughout Greece ; that the inscription No. 7> found near the theatre of Sparta, is the only one which has been attacked with a pick-axe, much in the way here repre- sented, and that the letters were very little in- jured by it; added to which, the mischief had been recently done, as the marble, where picked, was perfectly fresh and white at the time of my visit. To the reader, who has a right to be angry at my infraction of the treaty by which I bound myself, to give a narrative free from the mention of antiquities, I have to offer the con- solation which he can derive from the probability that some partizan of the priestesses of Amyclae 348 MISTRA. i will hold me up as an Atheist, or an Ultra, a Radical, or a Jacobite, or whatever he thinks worst, in his next essay on the temple of Onga. In proceeding from Sclavo-Chorio, toward the Eurotas on the east, we passed the villa or tower of a rich Turk, Mahomet Bey, and visited the village of Godena, where we found a church and fountain. We remarked, that though the villages were thickly scattered over the plain, yet few of the inhabitants appeared. We as- cended, not far from the river, an insulated emi- nence, to a church, called Agio Kuriaki, whence there is a beautiful geographical view of the course of the Eurotas toward the sea. On the banks of that river, at no very great distance, Mr. Gropius discovered a circular edifice, almost buried, and very much resembling the treasuries of Mycenae and Orcomenos, which may perhaps serve in future for the temple of Onga, or the tomb of Eurotas and Lacedaemon. Those who have only seen Sparta upon a map, and have imagined a wide vale bounded by two chains of mountains, one running to Cape Matapan and the other toward Cerigo, with a fine view of the sea at a distance, and the sites of Helos and Gythium just perceptible, would be much dis- appointed, on rinding, that a range of hills pro- jects from Taygetus, and entirely cuts off the view at no great distance below Amycla?, leaving MISTRA. 349 only a narrow and tortuous passage for the river. On these hills, the tower of Daphne is visible, one of the villages of Bardunia. The Bardu- niotes are like the Lalliotes, a people who are generally Mahometans, as far as is necessary to enable them to enjoy the privileges of the con- querors j but know, in fact, so little of the prophet, that they are often called by both a Turkish and a Christian name. They are said to be a wild and lawless race ; and to them, though the Mainiotes are on the neighbouring mountain, is generally attributed all the maraud- ing and plundering of the country. Their neighbours, the Zakouniotes, who extend on the east toward Monembasia, have no better reputa- tion ; but I am unable to say whether they de- serve it or not. With regard to the Lalliotes, I think I can safely say, they were the best people of the Morea ; living the most reasonable life, occupied in the chase and country amusements, and hospitable and friendly in their dispositions. They appeared to live without fear in their country-houses ; and when I travelled in their territory, would have passed me from place to place with letters of recommendation, without ex- pense. At one spot, the ancient Psophis, si- tuated in a deep valley among the snowy mountains of Arcadia, the father of the Aga of Mostinitza had erected a khan for the entertain- 350 MISTRA. ment of travellers gratis, at the point where many roads united. At the death of the old man, the son, by a new and absurd law, was compelled to resign all his property beyond a certain amount to the Sultan, and was no longer able to exercise such hospitality ; yet, happening to pass at the moment, and finding from Mus- tapha, who had preceded me, that I had a letter to him from Anastasio, but that I should object to going three miles out of my way to his house at Mostinitza, he remained the whole night at the khan, in a storm of snow, to protect me, after having sent to his own house for provisions, and every thing which horses could carry to entertain me. I saw his house from an opposite mountain, in appearance like a border tower, situated on the top of a little cone, surrounded by the houses of his dependants, and the whole placed at the bottom of a deep species of crater, out of which there was only one exit for the torrents. These people, in short, resembled the most valuable portion of the population of any country in the north. The privations which they endured from the climate in the winter, rendered some degree of prudence necessary j their dispersion in the villages made them hospitable, and their country life, and the chase, gave them strength and courage. They were, in fact, increasing in num- ber and prosperity, when one of the late pashas, MISTRA. 35 1 either for his own pleasure or by order from the Porte, was induced to attack, without notice, some of the towers of the most considerable families; which, after an obstinate resistance, were compelled to submit. The Lalliotes seemed be- fore that time a match for all the Greeks of the Morea. A late report states, that 1,500 of them garrisoned the castle of Patras. Whether the Barduniotes are of the same real character as the Lalliotes I know not ; but the Greeks generally place Mainiotes, Barduniotes, Zakonians, and Lalliotes, much on the same parallel as to plundering and rapine. It requires a long journey, through bad roads and a sus- pected country, to reach the sea near Helos from Mistra; and we relinquished all idea of visiting our friend Andunah Bey from this side of the mountain, as we had seen him on the other. On the hill of Agio Kuriaki we took geographical observations, saw an incription or two, and used our sextants so much, that the curiosity of Demetrius Manusachi was won- derfully excited, to know what they could possibly mean. He was accordingly permitted to take one in his hand, and shewn, to his great surprise, the castle of Mistra, first upon one hill, and then upon another, in a contrary direction. We passed a church dedicated to St. Irene in the way, in which we saw several inscriptions, and a 352 IVIISTRA. statue, which, I believe, one of our party has since saved from neglect or destruction. On our arrival at Mistra, it is hardly to be cre- dited, that the first care of our friend was to visit the Vaivode, and to try to curry favour with him, by giving the information, that we had been drawing the castle, measuring the country, and possessed in a box the means of transporting every thing where we liked by magic, being the most dangerous persons who had ever entered the country. The Vaivode, with a discrimina- tion for which Turks are not celebrated, imme- diately replied, " You are both a traitor and a " fool ; a traitor, because you have followed and " watched the strangers, fawning on them like *' the vilest slave, with the intent to betray " them, after having made them serve your own " purposes ; and you are a fool, not to know, " that the instrument of magic which you de- " scribe, is only a pocket compass, which all the " milords carry to shew them the way." Nothing we had observed, and still less this conduct, served to increase our desire of being eternally visited by Demetrius ; and though we shortened our stay as much as possible, that we might not be troubled with him, he pestered me with letters long afterwards, insisting on my representing his merits to the ambassador. An English gentle- man happening to lodge at the house of the MISTRA. 353 bishop, at the time of our residence at Mistra, and in company with whom we had made one of our excursions ; we passed one of our evenings there, and though we returned early, we re- marked the deathlike silence which prevailed in the streets of the city. The police is, perhaps, better in Turkey by night than by day ; and as the bastinado is indiscriminately inflicted upon those who are caught in the street without a light, robbing is not a very safe manner of gain- ing a fortune. At the same time, it must put every one in the power of his enemy, who has nothing to do, but dash a stone at the lantern, and call the guard to get him punished as if he were guilty. It would be a most fatal regulation at one of our universities, where the breaking of lanterns is not uncommon in a frolic. On the departure of the gentleman from the house of the prelate, a ludicrous misunderstanding took place ; for the bishop having expressed a wish to re- examine some trifle which he had before ob- served, the traveller, intending to make him a present of the article, ordered the trunk which contained it to be opened. The good bishop finding it was already packed, and anxious to pre- vent the trouble which an English servant was taking, cried out " nothing, nothing," pro- nounced in modern Greek tepota, or tepotes, A A 351 MISTRA. fxihTTolx. The honest Englishman, anxious to secure his master's comforts, looked up with an angry countenance, and observed, that the old gentleman ought to be ashamed of himself, as he knew it was used every morning and could not be spared! He had mistaken tepotes for the tea-pot, and already pictured to himself the shining ornament laid up in useless splendour on the shelf of the Bishop of Sparta and Amyclae. On quitting Mistra, we had before us the prospect of a long ride through a deserted country, and affording no object of interest, with scarce any place at which we might rest, and increasing in wildness and cold as we ad- vanced towards Tripolitza. We left Mistra at ten o'clock in the morning, being detained by the usual strife of the trunks, and took the road by which we had arrived at Mistra, till we reached the village of Papiote. Soon after this we quitted the Leondari road, and, turning to the right, entered the glen of the Eurotas, or Ere, two or three miles north of the ruins of Sparta. The banks of the river are romantic ; and the road being only upheld by a wall, was, by necessity, formed by art, and excellent. In the glen we overtook a tall, handsome, wild, well- looking, figure, who might have been taken for a captain of Greek banditti, had he not been too clean to have long followed that employment. 10 EU ROTAS, 355 He entered immediately into conversation with us ; told me he would follow me to the end of the world, — a degree of friendship to which I had no claim ; and, in a very short time, suddenly discharged his musket under the nose of Mus- tapha's horse. The animal, unused to such a compliment, started so violently, that Mustapha's saddle turned round ; and when I looked back, I saw the Turk clinging to the mane, with his red boots and spurs in the air, and his head nearly touching the ground. The horse, in the mean time, pulled all on one side, turned round, and, in spite of the danger, produced a most ridiculous effect, till, getting nearer the parapet, Mustapha was enabled to extricate himself by the help of the Greek. This assistance, though late, probably calmed the rage of Mustapha in some degree ; and one could not have wondered if he had shot the stranger on the spot, as it was by no means clear at first with what motive the piece had been discharged, and Mustapha seemed, though not hurt, in a terrible passion. Seeing us, however, smile, when he recovered his legs, he only exclaimed, Kerrata, and re- mounting his horse, which the Greek held, we proceeded. It seems the place was chosen by the man, as one likely to produce a fine effect among the rocks, in which he certainly suc- a a 2 3.56 VALE OF EUROTAS. ceeded. We now crossed the Eurotas, over a fine bridge of one large arch, easily supported by the natural buttresses of rock, and the shoulders lightened by two smaller arched perforations on each side. The place resembles a thousand others, particularly in Scotland and Wales. Here we turned to the northward, and ascended in an ugly country till half past twelve, when we saw the little village of Butiana on the right. Soon after we arrived at a khan, called Bourlia, near the banks of ariver. We found another khan, called Krebata, at half past two, before which we saw the river Tchelephina. On our right lay a lofty mountain, called Gamako, covered with pines : we observed several tumuli of ancient, or anathemas of modern times, on the way. This was the high road from Lacedsemon to Tegea and Mantinea, two cities peculiarly subject to the incursions of their abominable neighbours ; and, consequently, our path must have been the scene of many of those innumerable conflicts, and that perpetual slaughter, which the vicinity of such a troublesome republic must have brought upon the cities of Arcadia. We ob- served some habitations covered with horse-hair cloths, like those of the Turcomans. On the side of the road we were shown a vein of some mineral substance, which the people called lead ore, but which it did not resemble. We passed VALE OF EUROTAS. 357 a derveni, which must be a useful establishment in so desert a country, and before which our noisy friend, who still accompanied us to the end of the world, and whom Mustapha supposed was a thief who had lost his companions, would have quitted us if he had been afraid. He appeared to know the country well, and told us the name of a high snowy mountain in Zakounia, called Chrysapha. Continuing to ascend, with a cli- mate becoming worse and worse ; we had left Kalamata in a summer of its own, Mistra in spring, and were now approaching to the second winter at Tripolitza. We found in the highest part of our journey large oaks, and the other characteristics of a northern climate. It was half past four o'clock before we entered a nar- row glen, called the Kleisoura, or pass of Arra- coba, where the traces of ancient wheels were visible in the rock. Many vestiges of walls were observable in different parts of our road, evidently constructed for the defence of by far the most easy access to Lacedaamon, and where the whole force of that regal republic must have been frequently employed. This species of defence seems never to have been neglected in the Grecian states, and not less attended to in Sparta than elsewhere, in spite of the boast that the Lacedaemonians had no need of walls. Our Greek quitted us at a road which turned off a a 3 358 VALE OF EUROTAS. on the right to Agian Petro, a town of Zakounia, having reached the end of the world, according to his acceptation of the term, or not having met with sufficient encouragement in his new profession. Mustapha still maintained that he was a thief; and he probably might have been one if he had caught any of the party unarmed and alone. The village was then four hours distant, as he said ; so that he must have been well acquainted with the country to traverse it in the dark. As we descended from this eleva- tion, and the evening began to darken around us, the tomb of a Turk, who had been murdered by robbers, presented itself on the road-side, a hint which almost induced us to halt for the night at a wretched derveni, which we found in the way, at a little past six, more especially as we passed a second tomb before we reached it, the memorial of another sinister accident. Here is the beautiful reputed source, but not the first, of the Alpheus and Eurotas. There is yet another higher fountain upon the mountain Berbena, to the right, near the village of Bourboura. Ber- bena may possibly be a corruption of the ancient word Parthenius ; — the stream is copious and clear. Continuing our journey, the road fre- quently crossed the stream ; the glen became more contracted, and we found the remains of a fortification, soon after which the water disap- VALE OF EUROTAS. 359 peared. At half-past seven, it being now dark, we discovered near the road a light in a cave, which, being the residence for that night of se- veral goatherds, had every appearance of a den of thieves. The glen terminated at eight, in a gorge between two high rocks, and we entered the plain of Tegea, arriving a little before nine at the village of Piali, on the site of the ancient city, and, in part, the property of the archon Giannettaki, the banker and English agent at Tripolitza. We found the best house with some difficulty ; knocked up the people, in spite of the dogs by which they were guarded ; made the best use of the name of Giannettaki, and persuaded the poor people to rise and let us in, as well as to make us a large fire, of which we were in need, for the cold had increased as we proceeded. We contrived to find a supper, and to lodge in tolerable comfort for the night, and returned the next day, in about an hour, to an old ruinous Turkish house in Tripolitza, which the agent had hired for us. The month of March was now drawing to a close, yet the cold of Tripolitza had suffered no diminution ; and we could not help wondering that any pecuniary advantages should tempt the Pasha to fix his court in one of the coldest plains, and the only very ugly spot in his dominions. March is, per- haps, of all the months in the year, that which A A 4 360 VALE OF EUROTAS. is the most disagreeable in mountainous situa- tions ; and in the following year, as I passed the whole of that season in the mountains, I was frequently prevented from proceeding by the drifts of snow, which put an end to my journey, by fairly confining my legs, while the horse floundered away from beneath me. In all that tour, however, I saw no ice, though the snow was in many places so hard, that wolves and dogs walked over it with only a slight impres- sion ; and there is either none, or so little, that when I related, that, in England, lakes and ri- vers were frozen over, so that men and horses could walk upon them, I heard the wife of the village papas, or the papadia, behind me, say- to her neighbours (\J/ E yju,a) " It is a lie," to the great disgust of Mustapha, who contrived to bring her to shame before we left the place. Giannettaki had the civility to ask us to dinner, but none of his family appeared ; and as he had never seen a globe, and seemed pleased with a small one, which I had brought with me, I made him a present of it, though he could not com- prehend why the Americans did not slip off over the Pacific Ocean, or how the Chinese could manage to stick on at all. It was in vain to talk of gravitation ; for he said, if any force existed to hold them in that position, like a magnet, it must hold them so fast that they could not move VALE OF EUROTAS. 3()l at all. 1 cited the flies on the ceiling, but he said they had little claws ; and though I was in- clined to let him off by the assurance that all the Mandarins gloried in the length of their nails, he asked how the horses and oxen ma- naged to hold on ; finally assuring me, that I might teach some time before I should per- suade him that the world was otherwise than flat, with four corners, as it is written. While our creed, moral and physical, was undergoing such scornful treatment on the Christian side, our stomachs, with which, by chance, the eating of pork did not agree, were gaining us great credit with Mustapha, who was in extasies at our resolute refusal to eat a sucking- pig, prepared by Giannettaki for our dinner as a rarity, a determination he was resolved to con- strue into a Mussulman observance, whether we would or no. The climate was, at this time, so exceedingly unpleasant, that scarcely a day elapsed without frost, and the thermometer re- mained almost always some degrees lower than zero. Our old house was by no means in a condition to resist this inconvenience ; and I found myself under the necessity of purchasing a species of tent, or set of bed-curtains of silk, from which I not only found great advantage at that time, but in the summer, when sleeping tinder trees out of doors. Giannettaki had sent 36% VALE OF EUROTAS. a merchant with the silk, and Mustapha had learned what ought to be given for it ; but the man, who came early in the morning, having already made up his mind that the richest of all possible milords ought to be fleeced without mercy, asked something so extravagant, that I thought I had lost my silk and my comfort for ever when I was forced to return it. It was in vain that I represented to Mustapha that I would rather pay more, than forego all the advantages of the silk ; he would not permit me to send again to the shop, only requesting me to be quiet. It had snowed during the whole day, and it now began to grow dark, when the Turk entered with the silk in his hand, demanded the money to pay the fair price, and the silk was ours. He had kept a good look-out upon the Greek, who had formed a just estimate of my impatience to possess the article, and expected to see a messenger sent from our house to recal him, with an increased offer. By the address of Mustapha, who watched the Greek, while he concealed himself behind a corner to observe our door, I was prevented from doing just what he expected ; and the merchant was content, after waiting in the snow from about nine in the morning till five in the evening, to receive the price originally offered. Mustapha made him several compliments on his conduct, and, among other VALE OF EUROTAS. 3()3 tilings, we heard him ask him, in the next room, if he lived on snow, or whether he had a sweet- heart round the corner of the next house. The poor man was really half frozen, and hastened home, probably, with a good profit on his goods, but not with his fortune made, as he had imagin- ed. The total ignorance of that old English proverb, " Honesty is the best policy," is the cause of a thousand such misfortunes every day; and if there existed in the country a single per- son who would adhere to the principle of never asking one price and taking another, he would surely make his fortune. As it is, the people of all the countries where the practice of successful fraud is considered honourable, have to pass an hour in argument, reasoning, cajoling, and threatening, for every article they purchase. We contrived to defer our second visit to the Pasha from day to day, and quitted Tripo- litza without seeing him. He was succeeded either immediately, or not long after, by Veli, the son of Ali Pasha of Janina, who is reported to have been the most amiable of tyrants, not thirsting, as he said himself) for blood, but only for money, of which he was, however, so greedy, that the Greeks sent a petition to Constantinople, to have any other rather than himself for the following year, which was complied with. He mentioned the circumstance frequently, rather 304" VELI PASHA. as a good joke than in violent anger. The de- sire of riches vwas so strongly implanted in Veli Pasha, that he absolutely undertook to read, or cause to be read to him, Pausanias, that he might be enabled, as well as the milords, to judge where statues, or other precious relics of antiquity, might be probably concealed : and he actually visited Athens, as a private person, though not without some degree of pomp, by way of satisfying himself as to what could be the motive of coming so far to see such a place; it appears that he was much struck with the ruins, and the effect of the whole. This would not have been surprising in any European, but is by no means usual with a Turk. The fact is, that all the members of the family seem to have been very much alive to their own interest ; and having learned what might be done by good fortune and perseverance, Veli Pasha was willing to permit any excavation, on condition of sharing in the spoil ; so that, had his government pros- pered, there is no doubt many objects would have been discovered, which are now destined to remain underground, or at least not likely to fall into the hands of those who would value them. I saw a list of statues found by an Eng- lish gentleman, in company with the Pasha, on the eastern coast of Laconia, on the borders of Argolis, which, though highly ludicrous in itself) VEL1 PASHA. 3C)f) from the pompous style in which the several fragments were set forth, was sufficient to show that the field was very productive. This list be- gan in full-mouthed Greek : — one Venus, with- out a head ; one draped Minerva, without head, arms, or feet; one Apollo, wanting one leg, &c. &c. The treasures of Delphi, where the steepness of the ground has, in all probability, covered innumerable statues ; and of Olympia, where the river has covered up the antiquities, like a second Pompeii, are probably inexhaustible ; at either there is a certainty of finding inscriptions and treaties, of every age and every nation of Greece. It does not seem impossible, after the massacre of Tripolitza, and those which will probably succeed it, that so ugly a place, labour- ing under all the disadvantages of situation and climate, may be totally ruined and deserted in the course of the present commotions, and that future Pashas will infinitely prefer the risk of being taken and executed, according to the le- gitimate customs of Turkey, at Nauplia, to that of falling victims to my particular friend Kolo- cotrone, and the other banditti, the glorious heroes of Grecian independence, who have dis- covered the latest and most approved method of uniting the heads of Turks to canine bodies, and those of dogs to the trunks of Mussulmen. My companion, not wishing to encounter the cold of the mountainous districts in the centre 366 veli pasha. of the Morea, resolved to hasten to Argos and the summer of the coast, which he was informed might be reached in a ride of nine hours. As I felt anxious to see the Lakes of Pheneos and Stymphalus in my way, we agreed that I should visit those places, and rejoin him at Argos ; and that, as he was not quite so much at ease in the language, Mustapha should attend him, leav- ing me only my English and Greek servants, for I was not averse from the opportunity which this circumstance would afford, of judging how far the constantly repeated assertion of the Greeks might be true, who declared that tra- velling without a Turk the traveller would meet with the greatest cordiality and the most favour- able reception. In the tour now proposed it was not probable to meet with a single Turk, nor was it likely that I should ever have an occasion more suited to the experiment. My companion, his servant, and Mustapha, with hired horses, took the direct road to Argos, were benighted among the hills, and slept at a miserable khan for that night ; but on the succeeding day the party arrived at Argos, glowing in the full sunshine of spring, and enlivened by breezes, as soft and genial as the poets could celebrate, or a traveller from the mountains desire. I did not quit Tripolitza before half past ten in the morning of the third of April 1805, taking the road which I had before traced to Mantinea. It was full KATABATHllONT. 367 two hours before the river of Palaeopoli, the Oplus of Mantinea, or a branch of it, precipi- tated itself into the Katabathron, to disappear among rocks. Several other rivulets of the plain fall into the same chasm. During this time the day had become every instant more gloomy, and the snow fell in such large flakes, that the view toward Mantinea, which I was anxious to have seen, was entirely obscured. Before one o'clock we saw the village of Kapsa close to our right, across the wide bed of a torrent, having quitted the plain of Mantinea, and ascended among the smaller hills which separate that level from the plain of the Arcadian Orchomenos. Kapsa has only sixty houses and a church. After passing the vestiges of the tower and wall, which once guarded the pass, we quitted the Kalavrita road, turning to the left to the village of Lebidiou, and arrived at three in the afternoon. The snow still continuing, I resolved to remain there for the night, and deliver a letter from Giannet- taki to a Greek peasant, a dependant of his, who was to lodge me in his house. The ther- mometer stood during the greater part of the day at 28°, at least it was so at Tripolitza when I set out, and at Lebidiou on my arrival ; yet no ice was visible, though it snowed almost incessantly. Lebidiou consists of about an hundred houses ; and that of my host, a good sort of sturdy rustic, 368 LEBIDIOU. was one of the best, being a long roof upon low stone walls, with a door in the centre, and a chimney at one end, in which he made so large a fire when he heard I intended to pay for the wood, that we had at one moment every prospect of being under the necessity of seeking another habitation. The horses stood at one end of the cottage, and the servants occupied the right corner of the fire, while the left was allotted to me. The hostess made a mess of fowls, rice, eggs, with a species of butter standing in the middle ; and the husband entertained me with the stories of the country, and an account of the neighbouring mountains, while the storm raged without. To the west of Lebidiou is a lofty mountain covered with pines, which extends to both the plains of Orchomenos and Mantinea ; and on the other side of that range is situated the town of Betena, near the ancient Methy- drion, on a very much higher level, and infi- nitely worse climate. Betena was four hours distant. I passed the night not ill, consider- ing the circumstances ; and the next morning awakened with a fine sunshine, which would have been agreeable had not the cold, produced by the snow of the preceding day, overpowered it. When the horses were saddled, and the lug- gage piled upon Delli by Demetri, the awful moment, for such it really is, of paying arrived. KALPAKI. 369 The host being ordered by Giannettaki to pro-' vide every thing, amused me with the usual for- malities of " Nothing, oli nothing, no expense at all ; we cannot think of charging your Excellency any thing." This being translated into plain English, from Italian or Greek, signifies literally, " We dare not say how much we wish to have ;" and I was reduced to pay something so consi- derable to get rid of my doubts, that my friend conceived from that moment the hope of making his fortune by so lucky an arrival in the country. There is one circumstance yet more to be dreaded than this common-place refusal of making a charge for services performed. Should the un- happy traveller fall in with a stranger in any country who has it to say, I am not like one of those Italians or Greeks who demand unreason- able retribution, he may consider that such a person will make so preposterous a claim as no native would have dared to think of. At last the accounts being settled, the house, the cooking, and the trouble well remunerated, at a quarter past ten I again set out into the wet plain of Orcho- menos, now called Kalpaki, which I reached in an hour, leaving the road to Kalavrita and Patrass to the left. Kalpaki is situated on the south side of an insulated hill, which fills up a pass between a mountain called Russo, and the eastern chain of Mount Artemisius from Mantinea. A lake B B 370 KALPAKr. which has, like most others in this country, no visible outlet, lies on the north of the ruins, and increases or diminishes with the melting of the snow on the hills. The situation of Orchomenos was fine and commanding, running up to the sum- mit of its hill, which was crowned with the castle, whence the walls and towers ran down the sides to the plain, leaving the citadel as the apex of a triangle of about half a mile each way. Just above Kalpaki is the ruin of a Doric temple, of white marble, small but apparently very ancient, either that of Neptune or Venus, and the plan might, I think, be easily recovered, as the plat- form remains. There is a fine fountain below the village, which is only a tower or farm- house and its dependencies. Below Kalpaki are several heaps, probably monuments, on one of which is a lion, in white marble. The gates of the city are visible. The pass between Orcho- menos and Mount Trachis or Artemisius has been defended by a wall. I could not help re- marking the astonishing exactitude of Pausanias, in his description of Greece ; for proceeding toward Pheneos or Phonia, I found a large heap of stones precisely on the spot where that author directs to look for the tumulus of Aristocrates, the king who was stoned to death for sacrilege. I was now in another plain, part of which was a lake and part marshy ground, KALPAKI. S71 and passed some fine fountains, anciently called Teneae, which must be beautiful in summer, be- fore entering upon a sort of causeway, which ran in a direct line across the flat against a magnifi- cent range of snowy mountains, exhibiting no visible opening. That on the right was called Saita, the ancient Sciathus ; and on the left, across the lake, were villages corresponding to the ancient Kaphya, and other places of minor note. The plain is about one mile and a half in breadth ; and at the other side, under the moun- tains, we found more sources which had been fortified, and roads running on the right towards Stymphalus, and on the left to Phonia. The village of Kalpaki is not visible, being hidden by the hill on which several vestiges of the triple walls of Orchomenos are distinguish- able. It was now about half-past two when we began to ascend in a sort of chasm or glen, which seems to have been known to Pausanias, as the passage of the rocks of Caphya. On the right we saw the monastery of the Agia Triada or Holy Trinity. This pass had also been fortified. During the ascent, as our march was slow, my host of Lebidiou, who, allured by my present and payment, had insisted upon guiding us to Phonia, and had been not unintentionally attentive and active, began to insist upon the great regard and bb2 37^ CAPHYA. veneration which he felt for me, the pleasure he should have in passing his life at my feet, and the confidence with which he looked up to me for — what? — a trifling loan of three hundred piastres. I was quite staggered at the sum, and made him repeat it more than once, as it was impossible he could have the least idea of what he was demand- ing. I found, however, that he was in earnest, and when we got to the top of the pass told him I had no objection, if I had money in his patron Giannettaki's hands, to give him an order for the sum, provided the banker would pay it. He was so pressing, and seemed so happy at this unexpected turn of good fortune, that he said he could go no further ; and I wrote a letter on the top of the mountain, on a scrap of paper with my drawing ink, to Giannettaki, with which, and his bakshish or present, he disappeared in an instant, leaving me to my fate. Of course the banker sent a letter to meet me at Argos, saying he would not trust the man with a para, and won- dering at his impudence; but such dreams of wealth pass through the mind of every one in the country who falls in with a stranger. There was no choice of roads ; for the chasm, as we descend- ed the northern side of the mountain, was narrow, andwalled-in by lofty precipices on each side. The elevation and the recent partial thaw, pro- GHIOSA. 373 duced by the heat of the morning sun, added to the cold and the dampness of the situation, and the oaks were covered with long shaggy coats of green moss, in a manner quite uncommon in these latitudes. At half-past four we passed a cave called Ghiosa, after a terrible rocky descent under fine evergreen oaks. From the roof of the cavern hung icicles, the first I had seen in Greece. On the rocks above were pines, and with the oaks in the glen were intermixed birches and other productions of a northern climate. We discovered Phonia, as we descended, bearing due north, situated at the foot of another range of lofty mountains, and at the further extremity of another plain. At a quarter to five we passed a church, under which a beautiful source gushes out from a rock forming a river at once, and soon after we saw the village Ghiosa, near the ancient Carya, and observed a chair cut in a rock near our road. At five we arrived at the bottom of a descent, which in the summer can scarcely have any equal for picturesque beauty, with all that rocks, trees, and headlong torrents can produce. Here our river running to the right was quickly swallowed up in a katabathron or chasm at the foot of Mount Sciathis. At a quarter before six we found ourselves mounted upon that magnificent causeway, formed with immense labour, which Pausanias says was thirty b b 3 371' TRAWOPOTAMO. feet high, and which seemed to have been an- ciently bordered by parapets of stone. The plain was cultivated on the right, and terminated by the immense mass of Zyria, the Cyllene of the ancients, reputed the highest mountain of the Morea. On the left, the mountains anciently called Orexis receded, leaving space for a fine lake, the waters of which, passing by a kata- bathron to Lykourio, there form the source of the river Ladon. On the rocks to the left are very visible the traces of the water-mark men- tioned by Pausanius, as the proof of that elevation] of the waters of the lake which de- stroyed Pheneos, and which extends to a great distance along their bases, and may be worthy of the attention of the naturalist, as there seems no obvious reason why in the course of so many ages the vegetation should not have destroyed every trace of such a circumstance. At half-past six we arrived at the ford of the Aroanius and Olbius, now Tranopotamo, or the Great River, the embankments of which, with the magnificent road we were traversing, formed one of the works attributed to Hercules during his resi- dence at Pheneos. I could not help regretting he had not added a bridge to his other labours, as the work would have been then perfect, and I should not have been in such alarm at the symptoms shewn by Delli of a disposition PHONIA. 375 to plunge with my bed and portmanteau into the angry flood, which astonished him to a de- gree beyond the power of Demetri to tranquil- lize. We nevertheless got safe over the river, and after leaving on the left a monastery near some ancient quarries, we ascended to the village or town of Phonia, where we arrived at seven in the evening. Phonia was originally a kalybea or summer residence, and consisted of huts, and retained that appellation to a late period ; but it is now become a town, reputed to contain a thou- sand houses, and consequently a population of between four and five thousand souls. Large as I found it, and splendid as I thought the place at the close of a long ride and a cold wintry day, it was quite impossible to procure a lodging among the modern Pheneates, and I wandered about from door to door in vain for more than half an hour, finding Demetri quite incapable of assisting me, being in a state of real alarm at the reception which his countrymen gave us. At length darkness, and the fall of something be- tween snow and rain, made it necessary to take more effectual measures. I enquired, therefore, for the protogeros or headborough, whose duty it was to assist strangers, and having found his house, secured an entry by alighting and walking into his chamber, vowing to cut off his head, complain to the Pasha, have the town burned, ii u l< 376 PHONIA. and all the other gentle remedies with which an angry man in the East threatens those who neglect him ; and in the course of I cannot say how r many hours absolutely succeeded in get- ting, for a high price, a fowl and some rice, and persuading the man of the house, who sold wine, to fetch me some in a jug. It was not, however, permitted to eat in quiet, for the whole town were assembled, or at least as many as could get into the room, to see the Frank eat ; and though I assured them that I performed that operation with my mouth in a way very similar to their own, it was all in vain, and I sate against the wall, while the barbarians squatted down in theatrical order or curves, of which my supper and myself formed the centre. I felt so much influenced by my spectators, as to feel induced to eat an enormous quantity of bread, from having heard one of the natives whisper that I ate very little, and the other in reply state that as a reason why my face was so red and white. The wine was exquisite, having the flavor of Burgundy, the pro- duction of vines cut down and covered up in the cold win terof the mountains, yet possessing all the advantages of a hot summer. The people seemed rather pleased that I approved of their liquor, and all in chorus cried out Kalo kalo krassi, good wine. It was evident that, though they admired my knives and forks, they thought the possession PHONIA. 377 of them was wicked, and mixed their delight at the skill, which appeared to them wonderful, shewn in my using them, with the dread of punishment from heaven for that excess of Sardanapalic luxury. So true it is, that the estimate of virtues and vices of inferior consequence depends on places, and not on their intrinsic merits. Thirty years ago an umbrella was a symbol of vice in England, whereas now a man is not thought ill of who carries one constantly in the streets. The spencer or jacket was considered on its first appearance as a dangerous innovation by the old, though it was soon exclusively consigned to the aged. The disuse of hair-powder was for a long time considered as the height of degeneracy. In 1 reland, no man dare even now play on the piano forte, consequently cannot compose harmony ; and no gentleman in our times has ever arrived at that pitch of moral turpitude, which playing on the harp would imply, though it was the in- strument of warriors, and no female of moderate strength has .the force to strike out the full powers of the bass. — The remarks of the multitude rather amused me, as they remained at a decent distance, and I heard their ob- servations on what they were fully persuaded was the most artificial of human beings, while I thought myself suffering from too much sim- plicity of fare > but at length two personages of 378 PHONIA. greater consequence, and dressed in long robes, intruded, and approaching nearer, became so troublesome and importunate, that I was obliged to turn them all out in disgrace, and shut the door. I met the two gentlemen afterwards, in another country, and must say that they appear- ed to entertain no sort of animosity against me for having dispatched them with so little cere- mony ; and think it but fair to state my belief, that the whole of that character for jealousy and revenge, with which the nations of the north are apt to charge their southern neighbours, is undeserved, and that it is precisely the point in which they are by nature superior to us. They are certainly apt to give way at the moment to the effects of passion ; but if we had no more laws to restrain us, or if we had the same chance of impunity, in the infringement of them, it is doubtful whether the commission of crimes would not be infinitely more frequent. The Greeks and Italians certainly are of a disposition much more placable than ourselves. When the company were turned out, I met with no farther difficulty, and passed the night as well as usual. In the morning I resolved to examine the country in the neighbourhood, and the ruins of the old city. The houses of Phonia are prettily inter- spersed with trees, from which I conjecture that the site was formerly a wood. Every PHONIA. 379 house seemed to have its little garden, and the place altogether was rather flourishing for the Morea. — I rode over the hill to the foot of the great mountain, on the north of which is the monastery of St. George, by which passes a mountain-road toward Trikkala Akrata, and the gulf of Lepanto. I found there the same river, or Trano Potamo, and a spot excellently marked by Pausanias as the temple of the Pythian Apollo. There is a road, which must lie through magnificent scenery, to Kalavrita, up the banks of the river. Not a great way off, in that direc- tion, is Nonacris and the Styx, a waterfall near Klouchines, which I never saw, and which is described as falling from a rock very difficult of access, into a sort of hollow, so distant from the base of the precipice that it is nearly or quite impossible to reacji it. — Near Kalavrita is the celebrated monastery of Megaspelia, or the great cave, founded by the monarchs of the Lower Empire, and really occupying the whole of a magnificent cavern. It is so well worth notice, that, doubtful whether I shall ever accompany my reader to the spot in my next tour, I take this opportunity of introducing the view of it. On a very lofty and peaked rock are the remains of a fortress, called by the natives the ancient Phonia, I believe Mr. Dodwell visited it. The Phonia, or Pheneos of history, was evidently 380 MOSHEA. placed upon an insulated hill, south-east of the modern town, where the ruins of the whole cir- cuit of the wall are visible j and where, though I did not find any object of great consequence, I imagine very interesting objects might be disco- vered. — By an observation of the sun, I found that I had advanced only 21 miles toward the north from Tripolitza, in my two days' journeys j and now resolved to return to the coast, to enjoy the return of spring, and rejoin my companion. — I quitted Phonia about ten o'clock, on the fifth of April, and passed between the hills of the ancient and modern towns, into the plain toward the eastward and Mount Zyria. In the plain I had to cross the rivers again, but, being above their junction, had no difficulty in passing through either these or another branch which occurred afterwards. It was nearly forty minutes after my departure from Phonia that the western foot of the lofty Zyria ascended, leaving the plain and lake of Phonia to the right. The way lies through the vil- lage of Moshea, where is a beautiful foun- tain, and rises to a crest of the mountain, about two hours from Phonia. A tumulus probably marks the scene of one of the battles described by Polybius ; and, on the top, I came into the region of pines, not far be- low that of snow. Here the view extended CASTAGNI. 381 over the plain of Phonia on one side, and into the valley of Stymphalus, or Zaracca, on the other ; and the great mass of Zyria appeared on the north in all its majesty. On an elevated spot upon the hill the village of Castagni is ob- servable. The descent exhibited, as usual, the traces of its wall of defence, and at the bottom was a khan called Moura, perhaps built by some Turk called Mourad. — On a rocky hill to the right of the road, are a very considerable number of caves in the limestone, which may have been used as sepulchres ; and in the flattest part of the plain, the road is con- structed much in the same way as the Hercu- lean work at Pheneos, and turns to the right, across a low marshy tract, from the ruins or site of a temple. I have no doubt this work was either called that of Hercules, or an imitation of that of Pheneos. It afforded an excellent road, and confined the lake, to a certain degree, within limits, besides raising the whole level of the marsh, by arresting the deposit washed by rivulets from the mountains. More than half an hour was passed in traversing the plain upon this causeway, which has been a magnificent work, and, like that of Pheneos, was decorated with parapets of hewn stone, and erected with much useless labour and expence. About mid- way is a canal, running rapidly in a direct and 38€ ZARACCA. artificial course. In a valley on the right, I saw a village called Leuca, and on the foot of Zyria, another called Bash. — On the borders of the lake of Stymphalus, now Zaracca, were the evi- dent remains of ancient buildings, at the mouth of the canal ; and soon after, the road began to ascend the foot of the mountains opposite Zy- ria, which form the southern boundary of the lake and valley. The way to the modern vil- lages, Chionia and Zaracca, as well as the ancient Stymphalus, the ruins of which were now visible on a rocky summit between the lake and Zyria, had diverged from that which I fol- lowed, at the head of the causeway. The road having ascended to the top of a precipice, I looked down upon the katabathron, or swallow, which had been the cause of this deviation from the direct line in the valley below. There was a sort of imposing stillness which rendered more terrible the sight of what appeared an unfathom- able abyss, drawing to itself in treacherous silefice, every object which usually floats, till it became insensibly and irrevocably lost in the dark and tremendous gulf below. The water had all the appearance of immense depth, so that, though perfectly transparent, and seen from a consider- able elevation, no signs of the bottom were visi- ble. This was called by the ancients the fountain- head of the river Erasinus, near Argos ; and the ZARACCA. 383 natives of the present day believe that the cones of fir-trees having been thrown in consi- derable numbers into the water here, have really re-appeared at that fountain. The lake is, I believe, very much reduced in extent during the summer ; and, without the interposition of angry deities, it is not impossible that a boat-load of stone, or a large hay-stack, would choke up thd aperture, and ruin the plain for ever, or, at least, for a considerable time. There are many such stories throughout Greece ; but the enemy is usually a shepherd of the mountains, who, irri- tated by the neglect or scorn of the inhabitants of the plain, revenges himself by plunging all his wool and sheep-skins into the katabathron, till the passage is choked, and the plain over- flowed. — Pausanius has a story on the same subject; and, in modern times, an unhappy bather is said to have disappeared at this spot; but numerous flocks of wild fowl, though not Stym- phalian birds, apparently attracted by the floating of every swimming object to a common centre, are seen at no great distance, waiting for their prey. The fish called Kephales are said to abound in the lake, though its waters are so much diminished in the summer. The natives knew nothing of the species of trout called Epistrophes, which are common in the lake of Phonia, and at Lykuria, and which have the 384 ZARACCA. best flavour of any fresh- water fish I ever met with, though they would not sing to Pausanius, in the second century, notwithstanding his assi- duity in waiting for an air on the banks of the river, at the hours when they were accustomed to perform. The pass between the mountain and the lake had also been fortified by two walls. On the other side of the water, near the village of Zaracca, the arches of an aqueduct, erected by Hadrian to convey water to Corinth, are visible. The road is in some places narrow, and exhibits vestiges of ancient foundations. — After a pic- turesque ride along the margin of the lake, the road to Agios Giorgios, the village where I had determined to sleep, ascended a height between two hills on the right, when, after taking a sketch of the lake and mount Zyria, I quitted the val- ley of Stymphalus, and descended into a little hollow, where I found the ruins of a town, which I took for the ancient Alea. From this valley I ascended by a heap of stones, or anathema, in the road : from the top, a hill called Platani, was a marked object on the right. The general aspect of the country now became dreary and uncultivated; but about four in the evening I observed a very large and most singular tumulus of earth, encircled with a wall of huge stones. The mass had been cut into two equal semicircular portions by an excavation, REMARKABLE TUMULUS. 38£ by which other stones were exposed. It was impossible to pass by this mound, without call- ing to mind the remarkable notice which is taken of the tomb of ^Epytus by Pausanias. iEpytus was succeeded by his son Aleus, whose name, as its founder, was connected with that of the city we had just passed. ^Epytus was killed by the bite of a serpent, while hunting in the neighbourhood of Mount Sepia, whicfy was either that now on my left, or that called Platani, in the other direction. Pausanias, having travelled eastward from Pheneos, came to the Three Foun- tains at the confines of Pheneos and Stym- phalus ; not far from this mountain of the Three Fountains was another called Sepia, where iEpy- tus being killed, his body was buried, as his attendants could carry it no further. " This sepulchre," says Pausanias, " I examined very particularly, because Homer mentions it ; it is a mound of earth, not very large, surrounded by a circular wall of stones. Homer admired it only because he had never seen a more magni- ficent monument." Whether Pausanias caused the barrow to be excavated during his examina- tion or not, it is probable that the section was made at a remote period ; and, under any cir- cumstances, this seems one of the most remark- able tumuli I have seen, — my excuse for men- tioning it so particularly. c c 386 GREEK MERCHANT. i The country now became frightfully ugly and dreary. It was about half past four, when I at length caught a distant view of the village of Agios Giorgios, where I intended to sleep, across the plain of the ancient Phlius, to which we had commenced our descent by a steep and zig-zag path, when we met a Greek merchant going to Phonia, who asked us who the deuce we were, and what we could be about, without more at- tendants, and at that time of clay, on the top of the mountain. He let me off tolerably easy, after answering, as well as I could, these inqui- ries, seeing I was a Frank ; but fell with all his fury and sarcasm upon poor Demetri, who was behind with Delli and the luggage, calling him every species of scoundrel and rascal; and for no other reason, that I could find, but that he .was a Greek, yet wore no mustaches, as if he was angry lest his countryman might be imitat- ing a Frank in any thing. I do not quite believe he will be easily brought to belong to the Bible Society ; but I revenged myself as well as I could, by taking the picture of his back, which was the only part, of him,,! could see while he scolded Demetri, who was terrified beyond mea- sure y and that sketch I now present to the reader, under the impression, that though it be with- out features, there is yet something in it expres- sive of the lazy and arrogant character it at- tempts to represent. ABANITZA. 387 Near the bottom of the descent I observed a brook, the banks of which were sustained by ancient walls ; a proof that it was apt to over- flow, as well as of the approach to an ancient city. At a quarter past five I arrived in a plain, with the village of Abanitza on a hill to the left, and near it the vestiges of a citadel ; on the flat were the foundations of walls, under which the road ran for some distance, when it turned to the right, and followed a fine causeway across the plain to the foot of the opposite moun- tain of St. Basili. The city exhibited the traces . .c c 2 388 TITAN08. of temples and other antiquities, which no- thing but the approach of night, and that firm resolution of returning, made by all travellers only to be broken, prevented me from longer examining them. There can be no doubt, that these are the ruins of the city of Phlius, one of the places selected for the 6 e inscriptions of M. Fourmont. In a future tour I went in search of Ti- tanos, a place situated upon a lofty summit, about three miles north of Phlius. That place being mentioned by Pausanius as the scene of a very ancient astronomical and religious esta- blishment, was considered by writers of archaic inscriptions as a good neighbourhood for the invention of inscribed records. The real spot exists upon a peaked mountain above the vil- lages of Paradisos and Alopeki, and commands a most magnificent view of the Acro-corinthus and the Isthmus, the two gulfs, and as far as Athens, and the Sunian promontory. Uncertain whether I shall be able to accompany my reader to that spot, but regarding the Isthmus as an object, at the present moment, of peculiar interest, I have taken the liberty to introduce a view of the whole scene, as it is displayed to the traveller coming towards Corinth from Thebes and Athens. The spectator posting himself upon the south- ern declivity of mount Geranion, not far from a place called Migas, observes below him, oa the TITANOS. 389 left, the gulph of JEgina, at the lowest part of which is the bay called Schoenus, where the Isthmian games were celebrated. Higher up, on the same side, is the port of Kenchrea, and beyond it a long line or wall of mountains, of no great height, stretching toward Corinth. About half-way from Kenchrea to Corinth is seen the village of Hexamillia, which now gives, as it has received, its name from the Isthmus. Below the Acro-corinthus is distinguished the town and the modern port of Lechaeum, for the an- cient, now no longer a port, is known by a magazine on the shore of the gulf of Lepanto, on the right. The eye, continuing to descend on that coast, will distinguish a line, which, cut- ting in a direction from sea to sea, towards Schoenus, shows where the ancients, as well as the moderns, had attempted to cut a canal, and had fortified the southern bank with a curtain and towers, never to be defended successfully, though the attempt, in 1446, is said to have cost 22,000 men, and which artillery would now render still more unavailable. There is a deep natural glen on the side nearest to port Schoenus, which might, however, present a formidable ob- stacle to an invader ; and to those who com- manded on both sides at sea, would, perhaps, prove of the greatest consequence. The real defence of the Morea, however, should, perhaps, c c 3 390 AGIOS GIORGIOS. be the occupation of Mount Geranion itself, from the gulf of Livadostro to the Scironian rocks ; the possession of which, with the sea, would be of the utmost importance. To return to Phlius and its neighbourhood, I found above Alopeci the curious remains of an ancient city, and saw, in the direction of Agios Giorgios, another anciently castellated hill. The whole country is subject to earth- quakes ; and at Alopeki I experienced one of the most alarming nature. I passed from Phlius, along the ancient causeway, to the foot of Mount St. Basili, and about six in the evening reached the little church of St. Irene, where I saw the remains of a small Doric temple. It seemed to have been fortified, and, perhaps, stood in or near one of the little cities, of which two or three may be said to be missing in this district. I was now near the village of Agios Giorgios, which I reached in twenty minutes, after passing ov2r a bridge formed by the architraves of the Doric temple. Here I was not ill received by a person, named, like our friend at Navarino, Conomopoli, who had most excellent wine, and made very strict inquiries as to the tenets of the Church of England, for the benefit of all the in- habitants of the village, with a priest at their head, who, as usual, maintained that our Frank scriptures were corrupted, though his own book PHITI. 391 came from Vienna, and, of course, he did not understand it. No one, however, seemed very angry ; and, on the whole, the St. Giorgians were more reasonable than their neighbours. The temple of Jupiter, at Nemsea, was situated only at a short distance to the eastward of the vil- lage ; but tired of my solitary journey, during which I was forced to provide for myself, battle with the people, and pay the bills, having no janissary to assist me, and the morning of April the 7th beginning with a drizzling rain, which put an end to drawing, writing, or observation, I proceeded in four hours to Argos, passing through as ugly and uninteresting a country as can well be imagined. Entering the plain, on the left was the village of Phiti, which I conjectured to be the site of the Heraeum, or temple of the Ar- give Juno, burnt by the priestess carelessly leav- ing a lamp near some garlands of flowers. How this was contrived still remains one of the most puzzling riddles of antiquity ; for, if it be said that this temple was of timber, which I have no doubt it was not, how was the temple of Diana at Ephesus consumed, where the columns were no less than nine or ten feet in diameter, and on which a thousand cart-loads of firewood could have but little effect? In the same direction, the ruins of Mycenae, with its citadel, like a mural crown, encircling the summit of the hill, c c 4 39% QUARANTINE. was visible, situated in a recess between two peaked mountains. After some time, I arrived at the long straggling village of Pesopode, and passing the dry bed of the Inachus, as well as that of another torrent, the Charadrus, observed a guard at a ruined chapel, supposed to be charged with the duty of protecting the town from the visits of persons infected witli the plague : but the rain liberated me from the tor- ment to which I might, perhaps, otherwise have been subjected ; for few Turks or Greeks will face the rain, even for plunder. It is only lately that this pretended care for the health of the community has existed in Greece. It gives, sometimes, a great deal of trouble ; and there being no legal method of punishing the infringe- ment of quarantine, the great call always evade the arbitrary local regulations. On this account, the sanitary laws or impositions of the Turkish dominions, since they have been adopted, afford even greater facilities "than those of other coun- tries for commercial intrigues, without the least chance of preventing contagion. At Halicar nassus, or Budrun, I remember to have been in the palace of the Bey, when a Turk, who had passed the line which his superior had ordered to be held sacred, was bastinadoed ; a circum- stance which appeared so shocking to Mustapha, that he ran immediately to me to intermediate his QUARANTINE. 3QS pardon, having first told the Turk to roar as loud as he could, that I might hear. In his haste, he related the circumstance so indistinctly, that it was some time before he made himself under- stood ; and when he did, I doubted whether I had any right to interfere ; so that while this was going on, the unfortunate Mussulman was suffering under repeated blows on the soles of his feet. Mustapha, however, ran to his assistance ; and the English Bey's name being used, the rights of hospitality, so far as the granting a petition supposed to have been made by a stranger under the governor's roof, were respected, and the poor man was released. On other occasions I have known Europeans gallop by the guards with great success, as they would have some scruples in firing at a Frank of any nation ; and the Levantines in general have not yet dis- covered that an Englishman may often be in- sulted with impunity, even if innocent ; — a fact too well understood in all the countries once under the influence of Buonaparte. As to the immorality of eluding the sham quarantine which had been established in some parts of Greece during my travels in the coun- try, I think the most squeamish conscience plight be easy under the crime, after witnessing the absurdities with which it is attended. Hav- ing landed one day in the island of Samos, from S94f QUARANTINE. the coast of Asia Minor, while the plague was raging at Scala Nova, I walked with some Mends across the island, till, arriving at the vil- lage of Palaio Kastro, persons stationed as guardians met us, and told us we could not pass through the place. On telling them we wished to go to Vathi, the capital, they had, however, the kindness most politely to shew us a circuit- ous path by which to avoid the village, handed us, with great urbanity, over the garden walls, and through the hedges which we met with in the way, received our money at several differ- ent times, and, as each of the party came up, went through the same follies, in the perfect conviction that they were performing essential service to their country. These magnanimous Samians are said, in the latest accounts from Greece, to have made two or three most suc- cessful attacks on the main land of Anatolia, and to have returned laden with booty. This sounds well : — but when it is known that Changli, the landing-place on one side of Mount Mycale, is Greek ; that Kelibesh, near Priene, on the other, is also Greek ; that Miletus, or Palatia, has not ten Turkish houses, while Ie- ronta has a large and increasing Greek popu- lation, and that there is scarcely any Turkish plunder, except a summer residence of Elez Oglou at Sukui, it might be as well if the suf- ARGOS. 395 ferers had been mentioned, as without such in- formation those who know the country will conclude they were Greeks. Having passed the guard, and turned the point of the Phoronean hill, the modern town of Argos, occupying almost the whole of the flat part of the ancient city, presented itself. The towers of the old citadel had long been the principal object of my admiration, from my first entry into the plain. These fortifications have been deserted for some centuries, but they are on the foundations of the walls of Larissa ; and perhaps nothing exists which bears so imposing a character as this archaic fortress of the earliest civilized inhabitants of Greece. No other city could have produced such an effect as Argos, extending from that lofty summit to the plain. The whole resembles not a little the situation of Naples, though the sea is more distant. I went to the house of the archon Blasopoulo, a person enjoying the English protection, and es- teemed the richest merchant and the man of the best character in the country. He had permitted my companion to make use of an apartment on the ground floor, where I found him, after the enjoyment of three days' rest, and his escape from the cold of the mountains, into which he had resolved never to return. It was now, however, the sixth of April, a period after which cold 396 ARGOS. is rarely experienced in the plains ; and, as soon as the misty rain ceased at Argos, we found ourselves transported into a most genial temper- ature. Our host, Blasopoulo, either through contempt or neglect, gave us no disturbance $ and his female relations regarded us with won- der and horror, from a high latticed balcony, when we went out to see the palace. They did not, however, on that account, scruple to pester me with letters when I had quitted Argos ; prov- ing clearly, as they thought, that I ought to pester the ambassador to confer some signal mark of his esteem on the archon Blasopoulo, and to protect him in some affair of smuggling corn, in which he was engaged. The town is composed of a numerous assemblage of cottages, often disposed in right lines, so as to form streets ; but there are few inhabitants of any sort of consequence, the whole, or nearly so, being Albanian peasants, whose children pelt strangers as they pass, from behind the walls, if their janissary be not present. The people were at that time reckoned about four thousand, and probably they had increased till the period of the revolution. We remained at Argos till we had seen every thing in the neighbourhood ; such as the fountain of the Erasinus Lerna, and the Alcyonian lake, which I forbear to de- scribe, as I have published, in a little work upon NAUPLIA. 397 the antiquities of Argolis, all that occurred on the subject of antiquities, in a district where there is nothing else worthy of remark. From Argos we went to Mycenae, or Kre- bata, where we remained some days, and visited Nemaea. We then came by Tirynthus, and its most venerable remains, to Nauplia, called by the Franks Napoli. At this place, upon a lofty rock, inaccessible except on the east, and there with very great difficulty, is the castle called Palamedi, esteemed one of the strongest for- tresses of Turkey. The only means by which an enemy could ever hope to take possession of it, would be the failure of provisions ; though the magazines cut in the rock are said to be of so excellent a nature, that biscuit is yet preserved there, in a perfect state, from so distant a pe- riod, that I shall not venture to name it. This castle is absolutely impregnable on three sides, and is connected with the town by a covered way, or system of staircases, which I have re- presented in the description of Argolis. Nau- plia was taken from the Venetians in the year 1545 ; but on the walls, near the gates of the lower city, I observed the arms of Spain. The port is, by the accumulation of mud, become so shallow, that large vessels would have difficulty in finding perfect protection during a south 398 NAUPLIA. wind. The city below has retained more of European architecture than other towns of the Morea. There is generally an old Pasha, or other great personage in disgrace, residing in the town, whose sins have not been sufficiently notorious to cost either his head or the whole of his fortune ; and this sort of personage makes a species of court for the amusement of the Turkish citizens. The Pasha, or Vizier, at the time of our visit, was passionately fond of pre- cious stones, — a taste which did not seem to de- pend entirely on their value ; for though I did not visit him, yet I sent several false gems for him to look at ; and he fell so desperately in love with a large, and probably impossible eme- rald, which I had bought in London for such purpose, that I made him a present of it, at the enormous expence of half a crown. A very profligate Turk of my acquaintance, to whom I once gave, because it caught his eye when he came to present me with a hare, a false pearl- necklace for his wife, told me I had given him an invaluable treasure ; and I was surprised to find, from his account of my beads, how much mischief and immorality I had really put it into his power to perpetrate. All semi-barbarians hold in utter contempt and abhorrence every thing of this sort, however pretty, provided it be NAUPLIA. S99 not real ; Amin Aga regularly obtained what he wished, by a promise of the necklace, and only allowing a previous glimpse of it, was always sure of having it returned in contempt, to enable him to bargain for fresh favours. At Nauplia I became acquainted with a Geor- gian, named Pietro Agobi, a person who after- wards travelled with me into Asia Minor, as dragoman to the Dilettanti Mission, in which I was accompanied by two gentlemen, to whose professional merits it would be my duty, as it is my pleasure, to bear testimony, if it were only from the circumstance of the total omission of their names in the work of " Unedited Anti- quities of Attica," the produce of their talents and industry. Pietro Agobi took me to several of the vil- lages eastward of the fortress of Palamedi, and assisted in deluding the Turks, by whom 1 was sometimes observed with a jealous eye, while taking what were, in fact, only picturesque sketches of their castle. He positively took up the book and shewed them the picture, when they told him they were sure we were drawing the castle ; assuring me, at the same time, that there was no Chance of their perceiving any 'ikeness, unless colours were used ; in all which le was right, for he well knew the people he ived with. At another time he persuaded the 400 NAUPLIA. Turks in general, that we only went to the moun- tains in search of kaimac, a sort of clotted milk, which is produced at that season of the year ; and in that manner pacified the most jealous among them. I found the knowledge of the inhabitants of the different parts of the Turkish empire, which this gentleman possessed, of in- finite service in our researches ; curing, or pre- tending to cure, the diseases of those who were ill ; and persuading the people, where it was ne- cessary, that he was a professor of magic, and could amply and easily revenge any insult, they might be disposed to offer us. In some of the places we visited, the country, which had been deserted, became peopled by per- sons who consulted him on all subjects : and thus we got provisions, brought as presents to him, but which we bought. At one place only, Cnidus, he rather overshot his mark, by preaching the necessity of prayer five times a day to our Turkish workmen, and the wicked- ness of neglecting it ; for it being infinitely less trouble to pray than to dig out a portico, the pious Mussulmen never failed to quit our temples for long prayers ; so that we calculated the loss of two hours a-day from this fatal knowledge of the Mahometan laws. — When we quitted Nau- plia, it was to visit Lykouria, near the site of the temple and sacred grove of iEsculapius, at HYDRA. 401 Iero. The whole promontory, once called Ar- golis, is now almost deserted; and the inhabit- ants have not been driven away by any tyranny of the government, but by the frequent attacks of their pirate countrymen. Not far from Iero, at Epidauro, my companion deemed the heat too great for a further pursuit of the journey merely for pleasure ; so that, rinding a boat on the coast, he hired it, and sailed to Athens, leaving me with Mustapha, my English servant, and a Turk called Ibrahim, whom I had hired at An- gos, instead of Demetri, to pursue my researches for a few days longer in the Morea. I rode from Epidauro, through Potamia, to Damala, a village on the site of the ancient Traezene, a long, desolate, and weary journey. Having examined Traezene, I crossed the pen- insula to Kastri, or Hermion, over ugly and bare mountains, having the island of Hydra on the left, and that of Specie in front. The latter was a thriving town of Albanian peasants and pirates, who possessed a brisk carrying-trade during the late war. The inhabitants called themselves Greeks by courtesy, as did those of Hydra, then, and perhaps yet, under the dominion of Capitan Giorgi, who ruled also in iEgina, Poros, and the little rocks in the Athenian gulf There were at length 360 vessels, of different tonnage, belonging to the city of Hydra ; and the city was D D 402 HYDRA. increased to an extent, which, if the natives might be believed, contained fifty thousand souls. There was, at the time I saw it, not a tree upon the island, no water except in cisterns, and no port for the fleet, which, when not em- ployed, was obliged to anchor in the ports near Kastri, on the main land. The Hydriotes are lately become regular descendants of Leonidas, Philopoemen, and Epaminondas, but were in those days considered by the Athenians and their neighbours, who had any pretence to the honours of Hellenism, as the worst and lowest species of Albanians. Notwithstanding this, the pros- perity of the Hydriotes had increased to such a degree, that they had shocked the Athenians by a proposition to commence an establishment at the deserted Piraeus, which would, no doubt, have much augmented the population and con- sequence of their city, but would have termi- nated, at no distant period, in the usurpation of the government of Athens itselfj which the Hy- driotes would have purchased from the Kislar Aga at Constantinople, by offering a larger rent, the moment they had been sure of making it answer. In this way the Athenian archons would have lost their influence, and the tyranny of the captain of Hydra, much more alarming than that of the Turks, would have been estab- lished at Athens, while, I think, one might ven- HYDRA. 403 ture to predict, the antiquities of the city would have been turned into lime, to prevent the intru- sion of strangers, and to bind together the new habitations. In all this the great would lose their consequence, while the people would gain no- thing. The scarcity of corn in Spain during the late war had added much to the riches of the Hydriotes, who bought an exemption from the visits of the Turkish navy ; and the commu- nication with foreigners had, in a great degree, tended to polishing their manners, and getting rid, through the prospect of advantage, of that hatred with which they were inclined to regard all strangers. As to the prowess of their fleet, it perhaps remains to be proved what it may do, when fairly matched j for though the Turks may send out squadrons better equipped in every respect, yet when their ships have been usually manned by a very large proportion of Greek sailors, it is absurd to suppose an engagement could be risked, under the certainty of a mu- tiny during the combat. When the Turks have manned their fleet, I can scarcely believe they will be inferior, in any respect, and they will have the advantage of fighting for their exist- ence ; while the Hydriotes, on the least discom- fiture, will fly from their barren rock, and seek protection in some distant country. Supposing d d 2 404 HYDRA. that foreign powers should interfere in the pre- sent contest between Russia and the Porte, the smallest squadron of an European nation would annihilate, by blockade, the Hydriotes in a month ; and, if they proceeded to blows, it is quite incredible to those who have not seen a Hydriote ship, to what a scene of confusion, dis- order, and insubordination, these naval heroes fall a prey on the slightest accident, even with- out the fear of artillery, grape-shot, or shells ; for no European can form an idea of the total impossibility that such a people should offer an impediment of half an hour, on the open sea, to the smallest force which might be sent against them. On the other hand, it might be very difficult to storm their capital ; but famine would shortly effect that : for the place is too thickly peopled, to leave a possibility of producing sus- tenance. In an early period of the revolution they have been calling aloud for provisions, and complaining of want of supplies, neither of which can be afforded by the opposite terra firma ; and I think one may be pretty sure, if the Turks had the same means of publishing the atrocities of their enemies as the Greeks have, the list would not be short of Hydriote extortions from the inhabitants of the Archipelago. I fear that, in the most peaceable times, the Hydriotes were HYDHA. 405 more dreaded than esteemed by their country- men ; and that it might be truly said of them, as Demosthenes assures us it was of the Athenians, that " when any person quitted their harbours in the command of a ship, the whole human race was considered by that man as a fit prey for extortion and spoliation.'* If it was thus in the most flourishing period of Athens, to which we have been taught to look up with such enthu- siasm, it is not likely we shall hear of any great improvement in the condition of the Greeks under the dominion of the Hydriotes. It is only from reading selections from the history of the ancient Greeks that we seem to have formed a very erroneous opinion of their political liberty ; for Demosthenes might be talking to the Divan of the Sultan, instead of the free men of Athens, when he says, " No admiral (capitan pasha) ever quitted your ports without a present of money from the people of Scio and Chisme, or, indeed, from all who had any to give. The commander of a squadron gets a little, that of a fleet gets more. They call this a present, (bakshish,) in their way of talking, instead of a l)ribe. ,, The country, under the tyranny of the Turks, or the Hydriotes, or the freedom of the ancient republics, is, I fear, doomed for ever to suffer under some species of capitan pasha or 406 HYDRA. other, to the end of time ; and where the Eng- lish have tried what could be done under their last wholesome regulations for the discipline of foreign dependencies, they have, as I have heard, either from too strong an attachment to the ultra Draconic principle, or from the obstinacy of the natives, who will not be forced to be happy, pro- duced a strong re-action of sentiment in favour of that most moral of men, Ali Pasha. I returned to Damala from Kastri, the nearest village of Argolis, to the island of Hydra, and thence dispatched Mustapha to Poros, an island only separated from the Morea by a channel, over which he was ferried in about a minute. There he hired a boat, with three efficient men, accompanied by the usual obstinate old man, and impudent boy, attached to all Greek vessels ; and in that I embarked, with my three horses, for Athens, in the end of April, bidding adieu to the Morea till the following autumn, and visiting the northern parts of Greece in the in- terim. Mustapha was sent home for the culti- vation of his farm during my residence at Athens ; and, having saved almost every thing he had received in my service, he bought more land at Philiatra on his return, and called it the Milord's vineyard. He has since attended me on many expeditions, and I always found him STATE OF GREECE. 407 faithful and useful. I fear that this, with the last parcel of land which this poor man gained in the service of the Dilettanti mission, in the year 1812, and which must have rendered him a man of consequence and fortune in his village, has been long ago delivered to the spoiler, and himself lost in the general massacre of the Turks of the garrison of Navarino, after it had yielded on certain stipulations. It remains to be seen what turn affairs will take in the event of war between Russia and the Porte. In no way can I foresee much profit to the people of Greece, who may change masters, and exist, but can never exist without a master, for they will de- stroy each other ; so that I am convinced all that enthusiasm for their cause, which almost every body feels, or has felt, will evaporate before the details of blood which every well-authenticated account must communicate. In the mean time we learn from every autho- rity, that the little prosperity Greece was begin- ning to enjoy has entirely disappeared. Very many of the persons witli whom I was acquainted at Athens, and other places, have long been forced to quit the country, with all its advan- tages of liberty and liberality it was supposed to have gained by revolution, and have retired to enjoy the blessings of tolerable personal secu- 408 GRECIAN LIBERTY. rity, without ever wishing to hear again of re- generated Greece. Poor Dr. Abramiote, who invented the joke at Amyclse, was resolved to remain at Athens as long as possible, rather than relinquish his property ; but the joys of liberty were too violent ; and in a short time he learned that the revolution was by no means a harmless recreation, to be prosecuted or relinquished like a philosophical experiment. Grecian liberty, I hold, from what I know of the Albanians now en- joying that name, to be a thing quite unattainable at the present day; and I do not see why its ad- vocates should expect it from foreigners who do not enjoy it themselves. I scarcely believe it ever existed even at Athens, not even to the degree it does in Switzerland, far less in England or America. The lawyers and orators of Athens exhibit a frightful picture of confiscations anil extortions, worse than those now enforced by the Turks. Is not the history of the Athenian courts precisely the history of the justice of the seraglio ? Can any thing give a more exact picture of the affairs of a Vaivode or Pasha ac- cused of peculation, than the description given us by Lysias of the practice at Athens. " The guilty person" (says he) " is excused by paying a sum of money; and the innocent is ruined by being brought before your judges. The de- GRECIAN LIBERTY. 409 predator employs the money he had robbed from the people, to bribe the judges to acquit him." Being persuaded that the ancient picture of Greek liberty did not at all come up to the idea we have been accustomed to attach to it, I can- not persuade myself that there is at present any class of men in the country, to whom the Euro- pean method of raising taxes, conscriptions, or granting passports, would be deemed at all ac- ceptable or advantageous ; and I argue, that the great Archon of Lebadia, or of any other city, if he remain alive to make his choice, would prefer the tyranny of the Divan to the restraints of the Prefect, the Mayor, or the Commissary, whom, under the new system, he would be forced to consult, or perhaps fee, for permission to go to the next town. Of all the families I saw in my travels only that of Notara, of Trikkala and Corinth, seemed possessed of something like an hereditary estate, Or of any education to support their station with decency. One of these good people had been educated as a physician, and the other was well versed in the common productions of Hellenic literature. They reside habitually at Trikkala, a place on the mountains, but had bought a mansion at Corinth, where they sometimes reside for a time. The Notaras observing the enthu- E E 4*10 CHARACTER OF siasm with which I sought for, and noted, the vestiges of antiquity in their country, expressed their surprize on finding Turks instead of Greeks in my service. In vain I told them of the diffi- culties I had always experienced in finding a Greek tolerably honest, who could either pay my bills, or procure me a lodging. They were resolved to remain incredulous, and quite shouted in derision, when I told them that a Greek always demanded of a stranger a greater salary than a Turk. We were then in a gallery over- looking the court, and I observed an ugly dirty lout dressed in sheep-skins, who had just brought some goats' milk from the mountains, where, in the most squalid poverty and incapacity, he had been brought up. I called him into the gallery, told him I wanted him to attend me on my jour- ney, and to take charge of my establishment. He seemed delighted, and as I had bargained that none of the gentlemen should speak, I asked him what he should expect to receive per month for his trouble. He very coolly replied 40 piastres, which shocked the bye-standers, but I told him to go below and wait. I then looked again over the yard, and called a Turk whom I saw in it. I told him the same story, and he seemed equally happy to attend me, but when I asked how much he expected in wages, he GREEKS AND TURKS. 411 replied, he should wish to have 12 piastres, but would be happy to serve me for 9 if I wished. The Notaras had no more to urge against my reasoning, and I retained my Turks, whom it is not impossible may be on a future occasion introduced to my reader. THE END. London : Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New-Street- Square. DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER FOR PLACING THE PLATES. Monastery of Megaspelia (page 379.) to face the Title. Navarino..., page 26 Arcadia 79 Glen of the Neda 100 Castle of the Bay of Maina 260 Mistra 333 Orchomenos 370 Plain of Phonia 380 Isthmus of Corinth 388 I; sdL \'V''" nJL-