peasants did not look upon themselves as the victims of grinding oppression. Village justice having been dispensed under the walnut-tree, we were free to devote the rest of the morning to pleasure, and the Pasha ordained that pleasure should take the form of sport; for, on the strength of two handsome pointers—who, however, never pointed-and of a gorgeous doublebarrelled breech-loader rich with gold and silver chasings, his Excellency considered himself to be a mighty hunter before the Lord. Unfortunately, the hares and partridges were always too quick or too slow for him, and obstinately declined to get in the way of his shot: so, although there was no lack of game, the only trophies which we finally brought back from our expedition were two pigeons which the Pasha carefully stalked and potted in an olivetree, and a healthy appetite for our noonday meal.

In the afternoon a few hours' ride over undulating uplands studded with Wallach villages, and vineyards still rich with grapes, brought us to Kosana, a pleasant little city of some 7000 souls, celebrated for its excellent vintages. The

wines of Kosana are perhaps better known to English readers than they wot of; for it is one of the grands crûs of Macedonia, and during the last few years a considerable quantity has been exported via Salonica to Bordeaux, where it is converted, by the simple process of diluting, bottling, and labelling, into "light and wholesome" claret for the British market. The packanimals and the greater part of the escort had been despatched in the morning direct to Kosana; and the good people of the town, thus forewarned of the Pasha's approach, had had full time to make preparations for his reception. About a mile from the town the officials and municipality and a detachment of the garrison were drawn up in solemn array, and a little farther on the Greek Archbishop and three ecclesiastical dignitaries of his household came ambling gently towards us on confidential mules. His reverence was an old friend of the Pasha; and as soon as the latter caught sight of him, he dismounted to receive him with proper respect. To have witnessed the cordial meeting of the two kindly old gentlemen, as they stood hugging each other in the muddy

road, and lavishing on each other all the pious formulas of the Christian and Mussulman greeting, would have strangely astonished our holy fanatics at home, whose charity endureth all things, save Turks. We were to enjoy the bishop's hospitality for the night; and our motley cavalcade soon threaded its way through the narrow streets of the town to the quaint old episcopal palace, where Greek maidens besprinkled us with rose-water from the overhanging windows as we rode through the gate into the spacious courtyard. The palace ran round three sides of this court, which was overlooked by a double arcade, the lower one resting on handsome Corinthian columns, the spoils of some ancient edifice; while the fourth side opened into a bright little garden, beyond which the view extended over vineyards and fields to the blue line of distant mountains over against Thessaly.

Kosana is the last purely Wlacho-Greek town in Macedonia. Northwards the Wallachs are henceforth only found interspersed with Albanians, Turks, and Bulgarians, and generally in a minority. Here they are still unmixed with

any other nationality; and on the wall of the bishop's reception-room there hangs an ancient map, dating from the last century, on which Kosana is marked in large letters as one of the chief towns of Roumania, that name being applied not to Moldo Wallachia, but to the region I was just crossing from Larissa to the Lake of Ostrovo, twenty miles south of Monastir. But now the name is contemned or forgotten; and though in the 900 houses of this city there are scarcely twenty where around the family fireside any other language is spoken than the old Latin-sounding Wallach, the prosperous townsfolk would be deeply hurt if any doubt were hinted as to the genuineness of their Hellenism. For clerical influence is strong here-strong not only with the strength of ecclesiastical authority, but with that greater strength which it derives from the devotion of the population to the venerable old prelate who has lived and done good amongst them for upwards of forty years. An exception among his class, he has Hellenised his flock not only by schools and sermons, but by kindness and uprightness. The overbearing grasping character of the Greek clergy has too

often undone the work of Hellenisation wrought in the schoolroom and the pulpit. Here the contrary has been the case; and there is therefore little cause for wonder if in the whole Wallach region there is no stancher bulwark of Hellenism than Kosana. But the Hellenism of its inhabitants is not of the heroic kind. Like most towns in Turkey which are entirely or preponderatingly Christian, they have had little to suffer from Turkish rule. A Turkish official generally finds that it pays best to be on good terms with the majority of the population; and so, where the Christians largely preponderate, he makes friends for the nonce with the mammon of unbelief. In Kosana it is the bishopric which really governs the town; and the authorities are well content that it should be so. For the inhabitants pay their taxes regularly, with sometimes a little douceur over and above; and if their sympathies are Panhellenic, they always restrain them within the most Platonic bounds. So little, in fact, does the Government fear intrigues or disturbances on their part, that it has lately distributed arms among the population of the town and the surrounding villages