The houses are mere hovels built of mud, often without even a tree to redeem their gracelessness. Yet if you go inside them you will find a measure of comfort which many an Irish peasant might well envy. There are bright pots and pans displayed along the whitewashed wall, a good rush-matting on the mud-floor; the wooden divan which lines one side of the room is covered with a gay bit of Elassona carpet or Tirnowa print; in that farther recess the mattresses and coverlets which constitute an Eastern bed are carefully stowed away against the night; and in the corner, where a smoky lamp is burning beneath the family icon, a baby wrapped in the tightest of swaddling-clothes lies peacefully asleep in a wooden cradle of many colours. The chiftlik of the Turkish Bey to whom the village belongs, though he may perhaps count his income by thousands, does not boast much greater luxury. True, a rickety wooden staircase leads up to a second floor, while the peasants' houses seldom possess an upper storey; his divan is covered with a tenth - rate Manchester print, instead of the more solid tissue of the country; and a clock

which has long ceased to go, or a vase of paper flowers, shows the pretensions of the master ; and there he lives among the peasants, whenever his presence is required on his estates, sharing their frugal fare and boorish ways. At this hour the village is deserted save for a few urchins playing about the well, and a few old grandmothers spinning or dozing in the doorways. All that can toil have long since turned out abroad, some to plough the fields, some to the threshing-floors where the golden corn-cobs of the Indian maize are waiting to be picked and sorted, others to the vineyards where the grape is just ripe and ready for the vintage. But we shall meet them farther on along the road: men in fustanellas and leggings, and thick cloaks of coarse grey homespun; women in dark-blue serge petticoats, and braided bodices fastened high up round the waist with big silver clasps; children in fragmentary nondescript garments, yet warm and comfortable withal; and every one well socked and shod, which is always in the East a sign of comparative affluence. A large herd of buffaloes, useful if ungainly animals, are wallowing in a marshy pool

by the roadside to rid themselves of the flies, one of the chief plagues of Thessaly. Heavy waggons full of grain for Larissa, and curious barrelshaped carts laden with grapes and drawn by sleek grey oxen, creak slowly along on ponderous wheels hewn out of the solid oak. Though the race of horses and of horsemen which once made Thessaly famous as the home of the Centaur has long since died out, there is still many a useful bit of imported horse-flesh to be seen about the country. Yet, with all these indications of material prosperity, it is painfully easy to see the moral havoc wrought by centuries of ignorance and bondage. The men are either cringing or surly; they are little better than serfs attached to the soil they till-for among the peasantry of the plain there are scarcely any who own the land upon which they live-and their bearing is that of serfs. The women, prematurely worn by hardships and exposure, have a hard degraded look even here, among Christians, they are treated like mere beasts of burthen. Often have I seen them tramp along the road bent double under a heavy load, while husband or brother slouches along empty in front of them, or

sits dangling his legs from the side of a waggon.

Misgovernment, indolence, and ignorance have not only cast their blight upon man—they have even marred the generosity of nature. A province which might easily maintain a million souls scarcely suffices to provide for 350,000 inhabitants. Owing to the enormous size of many of the estates-fifty, sixty, eighty thousand acres being often held in one hand-the landowners seldom feel the need of bringing the whole of their property under cultivation; and as the soil is light, and no artificial means are used to stimulate its productiveness, land is often allowed to lie fallow for two or three years at a time. Moreover, the amount of pasture-land is out of all proportion to the grain-producing area. Thus it happens that of this rich plain of Thessaly not more than one-fourth or fifth is actually under cultivation. Yet in good years Thessaly has yielded 1,000,000 Stamboul kilehs of barley (the Stamboul kileh is rather less than half a hundredweight), 1,800,000 kilehs of wheat, 1,200,000 kilehs of Indian corn, 3,000,000 lb. of tobacco, besides other smaller crops of rye,

oats, beans, millet, &c.; and even these figures multiplied by four or five would be far from reaching the possible yield of this enormous garden, were as much ingenuity applied to the development of its resources as the Turkish Government display to paralyse them.

But statistics and considerations on the wealth and possible yield of brown fields and fallow land do not suffice to relieve the monotony of a six hours' ride across the plain when a grey sky encompasses the landscape on all sides, and impresses it with its uniform dulness. Right welcome, therefore, was the view when, towards evening, the sun, just sinking behind the Pindus, broke through the clouds, and lit up with its last rays the minarets and ancient stronghold of Trikalla. Trikalla, "The Thrice-lovely," does not perhaps quite deserve so ambitious an appellation, but its position is certainly picturesque. Its straggling houses, interspersed with trees, spread up the slopes of an isolated hill at the end of a long low ridge which the Kambunian chain throws out into the plain of Thessaly; and, rising above the town, an old medieval fortress, still jealously held by a Turkish garri