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' ornamented with gilding and painting, covered with a mat, and surrounded 'by low couches. On the walls were suspended sabres, guns, and rich garments. These martial ornaments recalled to my mind the state of the 'ancient heroes, when each, like Ali, used to recline beneath his trusty sword,

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ὁῤῥ ̓ δι ύπερθε

Κλινληρος κεδρίνῳ περι πασσαλῳ αιεν αωρία.

'As soon as we were seated an attendant approached, and making a low obeisance, presented each of us with a pipe of an enormous length, the ball ' of which another attendant placed upon a small silver salver, that we might 'not have the intolerable fatigue of supporting its weight. When we had 'smoked a few whiffs, coffee was brought to us in handsome china cups, 'enclosed in others of silver. This was presented by a servant with the same 'ceremonies of bowing and prostration. Meanwhile Ali had begun the con'versation, which was chiefly occupied by enquiries concerning the objects of our journey; the state of the war in Spain-in Sicily-the British expedition 'to the Baltic; and at every answer we gave him, he bowed his white beard on his breast, and thanked us with the umost politeness.

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'Ali Pasha is about sixty years of age, courteous in his manner, and in his ' countenance not betraying any marks of that ferocity which belongs to his 'real character; on the contrary he generally speaks with a smile. He is the 6 son of the Pasha of a small district in Albania, and has advanced himself, 'by a series of successful crimes and aggressions, to his present station. He ' is a barbarian in his passions, cruel to the last degree, and rapacious even beyond the common rapacity of a Turkish governor. In one respect he

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' has benefited the country over which he reigns; he has established a very 'strict police, and expelled or destroyed the hordes of robbers which a few years ago over-run large tracts of Albania. Although the Pasha is totally ' illiterate, yet he is possessed of great political talents, and in the field is an 'able and intrepid general. He has, I believe, since his elevation, learnt to 'read and write Greek, which is the only language which he understands. 'His memory is so tenacious, that according to the information of Constan'tine Caminiotti, the English Consul's brother at Prevesa, he is able, after an ' interval of several years, to remember the face and name of any person with 'whom he has had an interview, and the conversation which passed at the time.

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'Ali is one of the most powerful of the Turkish Pashas, and indeed may ' almost be considered as an independent monarch. The Porte does not choose, or rather does not dare, to oppose him in any of his designs for the aggrandisement of his power, but has successively confirmed him in the possession of the different governments which he has seized from other 'Pashas and united with his own. He has two sons, both of whom have the ' rank of Pashas of three tails, Veli, Pasha of the Morea, and Mouchtar, Pasha ' of Salonica; so that Ali, either in his own person, or by his family, governs nearly the whole of ancient Greece.

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'He has been often invited to Constantinople; and many Capydjys have 'been sent to his court with the fatal mandate of death, the Sultan's khathy'cheryf. He has however hitherto been able to evade these dangers. Once, upon being summoned in time of war to conduct the military quota, which 'he was bound to furnish, to the seat of empire, he devised an expedient to escape from personal attendance, which marks at once the decision and atrocity of his character. He pretended to comply, and actually marched 'to some distance from Ioannina, but returned precipitately to his capital, 'having learned from a courier that the town had been set on fire in various parts. He immediately sent a dispatch to the Porte, stating that he had set out for Constantinople, but that during his absence an insurrection had 'broken out in Ioannina, which had compelled him to return. The rest of 'the story he did not think proper to disclose, namely, that the town had been 'fired by his own express orders. His alliance and friendship have been 'much courted by the French, who have even offered to make him King of Epirus. He has however wisely distrusted their promises, and keeps up a close connection with England.' Journal.

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The situation of Ioannina, the capital of Ali, is very magnificent. Resting on a gentle descent, it extends along a narrow promontory, which projects far into the lake, whose waters are darkened with the shade of impending mountains, amongst which the range of Pindus is visible. The houses in general are mean and wretched, but in this, as in most other Turkish towns, the effect of the whole scene is striking and picturesque; the broad dome of the mosques, the slender column of the minarets, the lofty cypresses, and the range of the Vizir's palaces, towering in gaudy splendour above the mudcabins which surround them, afford most interesting subjects for the pencil.

Ioannina must be considered as the capital of Greece. It is situated in a district which still retains the ancient name of Epiro. It contains about 25,000 inhabitants, and there are generally about five thousand more fluctuating residents. About two-thirds of the population are Greeks, Albanians, Christians, and Jews; the rest are Turks. There is a considerable trade carried on in Ioannina, and at the great fairs which are held there, articles of traffic are brought even from Constantinople and Asia.

The society is more civilized than in any other town of Greece. The Pasha, though illiterate himself, is fond of conversing with learned men, and keeps them constantly about his person. Ali left Ioannina before my departure, and crossed Pindus with a considerable body of troops, in order to have an interview with his son in Thessaly. I overtook him at Triccala, and found that he had brought all the literati of his capital with him, though he intended to be absent only a very short time. There are schools in Ioannina for instruction in the ancient Greek, and with the master of one of them, Athanas Psalidas, I was well acquainted. He was certainly the most learned man I met in Greece, well skilled in the ancient language of his country, and master of Latin, Italian, French, German, and Russ. According to the information which he gave me, the cultivation of literature is making considerable advances amongst the modern Greeks. At his own school he taught Thucydides, Xenophon, Theophrastus, and Homer. But the studies of his pupils are not confined to the classics. I was much surprised when he informed me that Lavoisier's Chemistry is read, and that not only Euclid and Euler, but even Newton's Principia, form a part of their course of study.

In the scanty list of modern Greek authors, the natives of Ioannina hold a conspicuous station. In the barbarous districts of Epirus, we must now seek for the glimmering of that light which once illumined the territory of Attica. Psalidas has published a metaphysical and theological work, entitled Αληθής Ευδαιμονία. He has also made a collection of songs and canzonels in the Romaic language entitled 'guros aπоreλésμala. He is likewise a geographer, and is about to publish a map of Albania. Milesius, a writer held in great estimation by his countrymen, author of the Ecclesiastical History, and of a large work on ancient and modern geography, is a native of Ioannina.

1, 109 Drowsy guard.] In most countries a certain degree of vigilance

is reckoned an important qualification for a centinel; in Turkey, on the contrary, the guard is generally either fast asleep, or so enveloped in clouds of smoke from his chibouque, as to be incapable of distinguishing a friend from an enemy.

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Of rugged Suli.] Suli, a small town, situated amongst the mountains, about twelve hours ride from Ioannina, made a heroic resistance against the power of Ali, and fell at last by treachery; the efforts of 20,000 men of the Vizir's army had otherwise proved ineffectual against the determined courage of its inhabitants, whose number did not exceed three thousand. After its reduction, some emigrated, rather than remain in the power of the tyrant, and are now in the British pay at Santa Maura. Others accepted the offers of the conqueror, and entered into his service. For a more detailed account, see Eton's Survey of the Turkish Empire, p. 377, and Wright's Hora Ionicæ.

1. 178. Phrosyne.] The following is a brief history of the tragical death of this beautiful Greek. Ali Pasha happening one morning to pay a visit to the wife of his son Mouchtar, found her bathed in tears. He enquired into the cause of her grief. She told him that she could not be happy whilst Phrosyne and sixteen other Greek women, who excelled her in beauty, were permitted to live and estrange her husband's affections from her. The tyrant gratified her malignant wish, by instantly causing the unfortunate females to be enclosed in a sack, and thrown into the lake of Ioannina. The melancholy tale of the fate of Phrosyne and her companions has been commemorated by the united efforts of music and poetry. The following is a translation of the few simple words, which set to a plaintive air, and sung by the peasants of Greece, keep alive in their breasts their detestation of the tyrant, and the hopes of revenge.

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Song of Phrosyne.

'Have I not told you, O Phrosyne! not to wear that ring, lest Ali Pasha should know it, and throw you into the lake. Alas, Mouchtar Pasha, come and see my destruction.' 1

'I find that Mr. Hobhouse (Travels in Albania) gives a different account of the cause of Phrosyne's death, which agrees better than mine with the song quoted above, and is probably the true one. I have related the story as I received it from a Greek.

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1. 192. some new Alcaus.] Alcæus, by the energy of his poetry, is said to have raised an insurrection of his countrymen against the oppressor of their liberties.

1. 207. Pindus.] The passage of Pindus presents some of the grandest scenery that is to be met with in Greece. Rugged and precipitous, it stands the barrier of the Thessalian plains, from which, in the language of the poet Lucan, it excludes the last glimmering of light, by the intervention of its own bulk :

'Maturato præcidit vespere lucem.'

The general style of its scenery is sublimity; it does not descend even to the beautiful, but impresses on the mind of the traveller the ideas of wildness and solitude, which are so favourable to the cultivation of poetic genius. The savage grandeur of mountain districts appears to have been always selected by the Greeks for the residence of those deities which preside over the powers of the imagination. On Helicon, on Parnassus, and on Pindus, they placed the abodes of the Muses, and represented them as retiring from plains and valleys, to meditate the lessons of instruction amidst the gloom of overhanging cliffs, and by the roar of wintery torrents.

The happy selection with which the ancients appropriated to their different deities, the abodes best suited to their supposed temper and genius, struck me forcibly throughout my Grecian tour; and conveyed to me a lively and pleasing evidence of the discriminating knowledge of the human mind possessed by the classical inhabitants. I have already remarked that the prominent features of that district of Epirus in which the entrance to the infernal regions was placed, are peculiarly calculated to overwhelm the imagination with the terrors which it was necessary to excite. With equal felicity the Muses are described as dwelling in silence and retirement amidst the sublime scenes of Pindus; Superstition as uttering her awful mandates from the dark cliffs of Delphi; and Pan as revelling to the sound of his rustic pipe in the vale of Tempe, or the flowery vales of Arcadia.

The following account of the passage of Pindus is taken from my Journal. 'Sept. 5. We rose at day-break, and at six o'clock mounted our horses. 'The road, for two hours, was along the bed of the river of Metzovo, the 'stream of which we crossed and re-crossed continually. On each side of 'the stream were high hills, craggy, and covered with shrubs and trees, occa

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