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among men who have smuggled their children out of the country to fight for Greece, with all her faults and imperfections, there is a growing conviction that, if Greece is to carry out worthily in these parts the civilising mission which they ascribe to Hellenism, she must abandon the narrow traditions of a despotic bureaucracy. She must, moreover, guarantee to each locality at least that measure of provincial and municipal self-government which the Turkish Government has been forced to tolerate, and give a distinct earnest that Greek rule means something better than the substitution of the Nomarch for the Pasha, and the caprice of Athens for the tyranny of Stamboul.

Among the various sections of the population of Yanina, there are none who look forward to Greek annexation with more dread and bitterness than the Jews. Descendants, they claim to be, of a colony of Israelites who emigrated to Epirus even before the Christian era, some say as early as the second captivity. Equally removed by religious differences from Christian and from Moslem, they have had time during two thousand years to compare the

persecuting fanaticism of the former with the tolerance, however contemptuous, of the latter. The traditions of their sufferings under the rule of native despots and Byzantine emperors have been constantly revived by fierce outbursts of Christian fanaticism. It is only seven years ago that a Jew was torn to pieces in the streets of Yanina by the Greek mob; and a system of social ostracism was inaugurated under the auspices of the Greek clergy against the whole Jewish community, until the Turkish authorities were obliged to interfere and coerce the Christians into at least the outward observance of their own evangel. If such incidents are not calculated to enlist the sympathies of the Jews on behalf of Hellenic aspirations, there are also other causes which operate to make them view with repugnance any modification of the present state of things. There are many peculiarities connected with Turkish rule which appeal to the money-grubbing instincts of the Hebrew community. The impecuniousness of the Government, which furnishes opportunities for advancing loans at the most usurious rates of interest, the buying and selling of the tithes,

the constant fluctuations of a currency at the mercy of vizierial caprice, the very distress to which the country is reduced by the haphazard misrule of its governors, are so many circumstances which the Jew full well knows how to turn to the best account. Whether he consult his conscience or his pocket, he has no cause to wish for a change, but rather to bless the present system, which allows him to serve both God in peace and Mammon with profit.

It is a relief to turn away from the bitterness of party spirit, and the jealousy and suspicion which convert the various communities of Yanina into so many hostile camps, to the calm and eternal beauty of its natural surroundings. Yanina no longer covers the same area as when Ali Pasha, a king in all but the name, adorned it with all the pomp of his barbaric court, and swore by his long white beard that his capital should equal Stamboul in magnificence as it already rivalled it in power. The massive castle which he built out into the lake is but a heap of shapeless ruins; no trace is to be seen of the splendid palace which astonished even Hobhouse and Byron; the gunboats which he brought

overland from Prevesa at the cost of untold labour and expense no longer darken the peaceful surface of the lake; the wall-like slopes of Mount Mytsekeli no longer re-echo the sounds of nocturnal revelry, or the wild shrieks of victims and of dupes committed to the safe keeping of the deep waters which slumber at its feet. But the town which has risen out of the ashes of Ali's capital still offers much to charm the eye and interest the mind; and, if the traveller wearies of the picturesque forms which animate its streets and quaint bazaars, he can pass out from its crowded thoroughfares to the gardens and groves which cluster on the neighbouring hillside, and watch the varied forms of hill and dale, the opposite precipices of Zagori, the gentle slopes of Drysco, the distant peaks of Pindus grow crimson under the embrace of the setting sun, and pale to ashen whiteness as the fickle luminary hurries away on his westward course.

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STARTING is always a laborious effort in the unpunctual East. There seems no end to the small delays. First, a muleteer does not put in his appearance, then a servant has forgotten some article of alimentary necessity, and finally, perhaps there is a difficulty with the Pasha about the escort. For, alas! there are now few provinces in Turkey where one can dispense with the latter impedimenta; and in Epirus of all other provinces brigandage is rampant. The sun was already high in the heavens when our cavalcade defiled through the streets of Yanina. The good townsfolk were just streaming out of church (for it was Sunday morning), in time to gape at our procession, which consisted of five zaptiehs or mounted police as escort, myself and

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