least the bond of a common tongue did not unite to Greece, was first shaken. My hosts up at Suli had spoken Greek as well as Albanian, and even knew Turkish, probably owing to their intercourse with the garrison of the fort. But here was a village, and a Christian village, where, with the exception of the priest, not a soul either spoke or understood a word of anything but Albanian. Nor, if our Albanian servant could be trusted as an interpreter, had their sympathies any more affinity to Greece than their language. Their village was the property of an Albanian Mussulman Bey, who had never been near the place, and seemed to let his peasantry do very much what they pleased. Most of them were armed; and the pride with which they mentioned that they were allowed to bear arms while the Greek peasantry to the south were not, showed how vastly superior they considered themselves to a race which could perhaps read and write, but could never fight.

The road to Parga led over a succession of low undulating hills covered with the thick-set bushes of the prickly palluria, and there was

nothing to relieve its monotony save the flocks and tents of a few Wallach winter settlements, until we reached the coast. Suddenly, as we arrived on the brow of a long ridge somewhat higher than the rest, the Adriatic came into view, its blue waters lapping lazily against the grey cliffs, while the land, sloping gently down towards them, was covered with well- tilled fields and groves of dark olive-trees. Close to a ruined old watch-tower stood a handsome new chiftlik belonging to Abeddin Pasha, the exTurkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, together with his brothers, owns a large amount of property in the Albanian districts of Epirus.

It is near this point of the Albanian coast that has been laid the scene of two ancient legends, between which, however dissimilar their incidents, it is difficult not to imagine some curious connection. The first is not unknown to English readers, and I cannot improve on the quaint version of it given by the old annotator on Spenser's 'Pastoral in May.' "Here, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter passion, certain persons sailing from Italy to Cyprus at night heard a voice

calling aloud, Thamus! Thamus! who, giving ear to the cry (for he was pilot of the ship), was bidden, when he came near to Pelodes, to tell that the great god Pan was dead, which he doubting to do, yet for that when he came to Pelodes, there was such a calm of wind that the ship stood still on the sea unmoored, he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead, wherewithal there was such piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like. By which Pan of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom was at that time by Christ conquered, and the gates of hell broken up; for at that time all the oracles surceased, and enchanted spirits that were wont to delude the people henceforth held their peace." The other legend was recounted to me by a learned Mussulman of Yanina, who believed that it had been adopted by the Moslems from an earlier Greek tradition, though its memory appears to have entirely died out among the Christian peasantry of the neighbourhood. "After Judas had sold his Master to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver, the traitor fled in terror of revenge to the sea

port of Jaffa, and embarked on the first ship which was about to sail. Now Judas was not aware that the crime to which he had ministered was never consummated, for that God blinded the Jews and caused another man to be crucified in the place of His Prophet Jesus; and throughout the journey he was oppressed with remorse, until one night, as they neared the coast of Greece, where the rivers flowing out from the infernal regions pour themselves into the sea, he threw himself overboard with a loud shout, saying that he had killed the Lord his God, and that the spirits of hell were awaiting him. But death being too mild a punishment for the heinousness of his offence, he was borne up by the hands of spirits and carried to the mainland, where he was abandoned to his fate, condemned to roam for all eternity in fruitless search after the kingdom of the dead."

Gradually, as we approach Parga, the cultivation grew more and more luxuriant; the gnarled olive-trees, symmetrically planted on carefully-laid-out terraces, formed a thick forest on either side of the path; and when we debouched out of it on to the beach, we found

ourselves in a small, almost land-locked bay, with the town of Parga immediately facing us. A rocky island, which bears the ruins of a convent and of a fort, encloses the bay to the south. At the northern extremity of its outlet a lofty promontory, crowned by the Turkish citadel, projects into the sea; while the town, backed on all sides by green orchards, runs up the slopes of the amphitheatre of wooded hills which protect it from the chill blasts of the north and east. Parga has had a checkered history. It was the last of the Venetian settlements on the coast of Albania, and passed, with the other possessions of the republic, into the hands of France when Napoleon discrowned the Queen of the Seas. An inscription on the guard-house of the small island-fort-" Pour la defence (sic) de la patrie, 1808"-still recalls the memory of the French garrison which at that time held it. In 1814 the British squadron which was blockading Corfu landed an expedition on the coast, which, with the connivance of the inhabitants, secured the fortress by a bold coup de main. But it was fated to be an evil hour for the Pargiotes when the