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the bed of the Vistritza and the intervening downs were veiled in a thick white mist.

The courtyard beneath us was bright with half-a-dozen flaming fires, around which soldiers, muleteers, and peasants squatted in picturesque groups, busy with gigantic spits, and pots and pans, for the preparation of the evening meal; while others were hurrying to and fro, tethering up the horses, piling up the baggage, or doing swift execution on batches of unfortunate sheep and screaming poultry. Above the hum of voices, Turkish, Greek, Albanian, Wallach, sounded the hungry barking of the village dogs, disturbed by the unwonted invasion, and excited by the even more unwonted smell of roasting viands.

In about an hour's time our host, who had been busy awhile among the crowd below, stimulating them by word and example, announced that supper was at last ready, and lifting the carpet hangings which alone separated the two apartments into which the loft had been divided, led us to the banquethall. The table-i. e., a huge brass platter resting on a low stool about fifteen inches highstood in the centre of the room, and around it

we squatted on the floor in true oriental fashion. Six statuesque Albanian youths, retainers of the house, held flaming torches above our heads, while others climbed nimbly up and down the ladder-staircase, balancing on their heads the ponderous dishes which had been prepared below. It was a truly Gargantuan repast, both for the number and the dimensions of the courses. To a huge bowl of a kind of mulligatawny soup succeeded the obligatory whole roast sheep; and then, through a never-ending medley of entrées, sweets, roasts, more sweets and more entrées, we at last came to anchor on a pyramidal pilaw, the proper function of which in a Turkish dinner appears to be the filling up with rice of nook and cranny every that may yet have escaped the intrusion of more solid food, and the effectual checkmating of all digestive operations. Coffee, cigarettes, and ablutions were wholly unequal to dispel the lethargy superinduced by hard riding and harder eating, and we soon curled ourselves up in cloaks and quilts, to sleep, and snore, and dream away the indigesta moles of our feast.

The sun was already streaming over the silver

domes of Mount Olympus when our host threw open the wooden shutters of our casement and let in the crisp morning breeze; but as we had only a short day's work before us, there was no need to hurry. So, while the horses were being leisurely saddled, I sauntered over the chiftlik of Pyrgos. It gave its name to one of five similar estates belonging jointly to three Albanian brothers. The lands attached to it consisted of about 2000 donoums, or 1400 acres. These lands were farmed, as in Thessaly, on the métayer system, and provided work and occupation for fifteen families, whose houses composed the chiftlik. There were twenty-five adult male labourers, and altogether one hundred and twelve souls on the estate. Thirty-five pairs of oxen, the property of the chiftgis or peasantry, were used for farming purposes, the whole of the land being devoted to agriculture. soil, though light, was generally fertile, as there was nowhere any lack of water: barley, wheat, oats, cotton-wool, and Indian corn were grown in the usual rotation, one acre in three being allowed to lie fallow every year, in order to prevent the exhaustion of the soil. Manure

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was never used, except as fuel. Yet the landlords' share of the profits, after deductions for tithes and taxes, generally exceeded 1000 liras a-year; and as the same amount accrues under the métayer system to the farmers, the share of each household (consisting of seven souls) could not be set down at less than sixty liras (£54), -an income which, considering their modest wants and the cheapness of all necessaries of life, certainly represents a larger measure of comfort and prosperity than falls to the lot of many other groups of peasantry living under the paternal rule of more civilised Governments. Nor are these exceptional or specially selected figures. Throughout this part of Macedonia I found the farmers on the various estates which I visited very evenly circumstanced, and satisfied, as they well might be, with their condition. Much, of course, depends upon the personal character of the landlord or agent; but the interest of the latter alone operates effectually to check any tendency to short-sighted oppression. Christian villages are as a rule more flourishing than Moslem villages, as they escape by the payment of a comparatively trifling poll-tax the curse of

the conscription, which has of late years entirely drained some of the latter of all their adult male labourers.

From Pyrgos we made a short detour to visit a chiftlik belonging to Selami Pasha himself,a pretty little hamlet ensconced among walnuttrees and apple-orchards on the banks of a bright, bubbling stream. Our visit was entirely unexpected, and almost all the population had turned out to work in the fields; but the Pasha was soon surrounded by a small host of children, who kissed his hands and curtseyed in the most approved fashion at the bidding of an ancient village priest. But the news of our arrival was soon bruited about, and presently the peasants came flocking in to do homage to their lord with much wasting of gunpowder. Every one, too, had his own tale to tell and his own grievance to set forth, and to every one the Pasha listened with unvarying good-humour, giving the agent, who was in attendance, orders to remedy such complaints as appeared reasonable, and dismissing the more futile petitioners with a gentle joke, to which the bystanders never failed to rise. It was evident that here at least the

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