Well, it happened some time afterwards, that I found myself at the same port, having gone thither with the view of embarking for the port of Syra. I was anxious, of course, to elude as carefully as possible the quarantine detentions which threatened me on my arrival, and hearing that the Greek consul had a brother who was a man in authority at Syra, I got myself presented to the former, and took the liberty of asking him to give me such a letter of introduction to his relative at Syra as might possibly have the effect of shortening the term of quarantine. He acceded to this request with the utmost kindness and courtesy; but when he replied to my thanks by saying that " in serving an Englishman he was doing no more than his strict duty commanded," not even my gratitude could prevent me from calling to mind his treatment of the poor captain who had the misfortune of not being an alien in blood to his consul and appointed protector.

I think that the change which has taken place in the character of the Greeks has been occasioned, in great measure, by the doctrines and practice of their religion. The Greek Church has animated the Muscovite peasant, and inspired him with hopes and ideas which, however humble, are still better than none at all; but the faith, and the forms, and the strange ecclesiastical literature which act so advantageously upon the mere clay

of the Russian serf, seem to hang like lead upon the ethereal spirit of the Greek. Never, in any part of the world, have I seen religious performances so painful to witness as those of the Greeks. The horror, however, with which one shudders at their worship, is attributable, in some measure, to the mere effect of costume. In all the Ottoman dominions, and very frequently, too, in the kingdom of Otho, the Greeks wear turbans, or other headdresses, and shave their heads, leaving only a rat's-tail at the crown of the head; they of course keep themselves covered within doors as well as abroad, and they never remove their head-gear merely on account of being in a church: but when the Greek stops to worship at his proper shrine, then, and then only, he always uncovers; and as you see him thus with shaven skull, and savage tail depending from his crown, kissing a thing of wood and glass, and cringing with base prostrations and apparent terror before a miserable picture, you see superstition in a shape which, outwardly at least, is sadly abject and repulsive.

The fasts, too, of the Greek Church, produce an ill effect upon the character of the people, for they are not a mere farce, but are carried to such an extent as to bring about a real mortification of the flesh. The febrile irritation of the frame, operating in conjunction with the depression of the spirits occasioned by abstinence, will so far answer the

objects of the rite, as to engender some religious excitement, but this is of a morbid and gloomy character; and it seems to be certain, that along with the increase of sanctity, there comes a fiercer desire for the perpetration of dark crimes. The number of murders committed during Lent is greater, I am told, than at any other time of the year. A man under the influence of a bean dietary (for this is the principal food of the Greeks during their fasts) will be in an apt humour for enriching the shrine of his saint, and passing a knife through his next-door neighbour. The moneys deposited upon the shrines are appropriated by priests. The priests are married men, and have families to provide for; they "take the good with the bad," and continue to recommend fasts.

Then, too, the Greek Church enjoins her followers to keep holy such a vast number of saints' days, as practically to shorten the lives of the people very materially. I believe that one-third out of the number of days in the year are "kept holy," or rather kept stupid, in honour of the saints. No great portion of the time thus set apart is spent in religious exercises, and the people don't betake themselves to any such animating pastimes as might serve to strengthen the frame, or invigorate the mind, or exalt the taste. On the contrary, the saints' days of the Greeks in Smyrna are passed in the same manner as the Sabbaths of well

behaved Protestant housemaids in London—that is to say, in a steady and serious contemplation of street scenery. The men perform this duty at the doors of their houses,—the women at the windows. Windows, indeed, by the custom of Greek towns, are so decidedly appropriated to the gentle sex, that a man would be looked upon as utterly effeminate if he ventured to choose such a position for the keeping of his saints' days. I was present one day at a treaty for the hire of some apartments at Smyrna which was carried on between Carrigaholt and the Greek woman to whom the rooms belonged. Carrigaholt objected that the windows commanded no view of the street; immediately the brow of the majestic matron was clouded, and with all the scorn of a Spartan mother she coolly asked Carrigaholt, and said, "Art thou a tender damsel, that thou wouldst sit and gaze from windows?" The man whom she addressed, however, had not gone to Greece with any intention of placing himself under the laws of Lycurgus, and was not to be diverted from his views by a Spartan rebuke, so he took care to find himself windows after his own heart, and there, I believe, for many a month, he kept the saints' days, and all the days intervening, after the fashion of Grecian women.

Oh let me be charitable to all who write, and to all who lecture, and to all who preach, since even I, a layman not forced to write at all, cant

hardly avoid chiming in with some tuneful cant! I have had the heart to talk about the pernicious effects of the Greek holidays; and yet to these I owe most gracious and beautiful visions! I will let the words stand, as a humbling proof that I am subject to that nearly immutable law which compels a man with a pen in his hand to be uttering every now and then some sentiment not his own. It seems as though the power of expressing regrets and desires by written symbols were coupled with a condition that the writer should from time to time express the regrets and desires of other people—as though, like a French peasant under the old régime, he were bound to perform a certain amount of work upon the public highways. I rebel as stoutly as I can against this horrible corvée-I try not to deceive you-I try to set down the thoughts which are fresh within me, and not to pretend any wishes or griefs which I do not really feel; but no sooner do I cease from watchfulness in this regard, than my right hand is, as it were, seized by some false angel, and even now, you see, I have been forced to put down such words and sentences as I ought to have written, if really and truly I had wished to disturb the saints' days of the beautiful Smyrniotes !

Disturb their saints' days?-Oh no! for as you move through the narrow streets of the city at these times of festival, the transom-shaped windows