crowned with a turban; and a fountain built by a sherif poured its waters into the road, for the benefit of the traveller. Fain would I have lingered awhile in this cemetery, where the laurels of Greece, overtopped by the cypress of the East, seem to renew the memory of the two nations whose ashes repose in this spot. From this cemetery to Coron, is nearly two hours' journey. We proceeded through an uninterrupted wood of olives; the space between the trees being sown with wheat, which was half eut down. The ground, which at a distance has the appearance of a level plain, is intersected by rough and deep ravines. M. Vial, then the French consul at Coron, received me with that hospitality for which the consuls of the Levant are so remarkable. delivered to him one of the letters of recommendation to the French consuls, which M. de Taleyrand had, at the request of M. d'Hauterive, politely furnished me with. M. Vial had the goodness to lodge me in his house. He dismissed my janissary from Modon, and gave me one of his own janissaries to travel with me through the Morea; and to conduct me to Athens. The captain-pacha being at war with the Mainottes, I could not proceed to Sparta by way of Calamate, which you may take, if you please, for Calathion, Cardamyle, or Thalama, on the coast of Laconia, almost opposite to Coron. It was therefore determined that I should make a long circuit; that I should endeavour to find the defile of the gates of Leondari, one of the Hermæums of Messenia; that I should proceed to Tripolizza to obtain from the pacha of the Morea, the firman necessary for passing the isthmus; that I should return from Tripolizza to Sparta, and thence go by the mountain road to Argos, Mycena, and Corinth. Corone, like Messene and Megalopolis, is not a place of very high antiquity, since it was founded by Epaminondas on the ruins of the ancient Epea. Coron has hitherto been taken for the ancient Corone, agreeable to the opinion of D'Anville. Q this point I have some doubts. According to Pausanias, Coron was situated at the foot of Mount Temathia, near the mouth of the Pamisus: Coron, on the contrary, is at a considerable distance from that river; it stands on an eminence, nearly in the position in which the same Pausanias, places the temple of Apollo Corinthus, or rather in the position of Colonides.* At the bottom of the gulph of Messenia, on the sea-shore, you meet with ruins which may be the remains of the ancient Corone, unless they belong to the village of Ino. Coronelli is mistaken in supposing Coron to be the ancient Pedasus, which according to Strabo and Pausanias, must be sought in Methone. The modern history of Coron very closely resembles that of Modon. Coron was alternately in the possession of the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Turks, and at the same periods as the latter place. The Spaniards besieged and took it from the Infidels in 1633. The knights of Malta distinguished themselves at this siege, which was of some note. On this subject, Vertot has fallen into an extraordinary error, as he supposes Coron to be Cheronæa, the birth-place of Plutarch, which is not, any more than the other, the Cheronea where Philip enslaved Greece. Having again fallen under the dominion of the Turks, Coron was once more besieged, and taken by Morosini, in 1685. At this siege were two of my countrymen. Coronelli mentions only the commander de la Tour, who there fell gloriously; but Giacomo Diedo speaks also of the marquis de Courbon. I was pleased to find at my outset the traces of French honour in the genuine country of glory-in the country of a people who were such good judges of valour. But where are not such traces to be discovered? At Constantinople, at Rhodes, in Syria, in Egypt, at Carthage, I was shown the camp of the French, the tower of the French, the castle of the French. The Arab has pointed out to me the tombs of our soldiers beneath the sycamores of Cairo, and the Siminole under the oaks of Florida. It was also in this same town of Coron that M. de Choiseul began his splendid collection of views. Thus chance conducted me to the same spot where my countrymen had earned the double wreath of talents and of arms, with which Greece delighted to crown her sons. If I have myself run without glory, but not without honour, the two careers in which the citizens of Athens and of Sparta acquired such high renown, I am consoled by the reflection, that other Frenchmen have proved more fortunate than I. This is also the opinion of M. de Choiseul. M. Vial took the trouble to show me Coron, which is but a heap of modern ruins: he also pointed out to me the spot from which the Russians cannonaded the town, in 1770, a fatal epoch for the Morea, whose population has since been swept away by the massacres of the Albanians. The narrative of Pellegrin's travels is dated from 1715 to 1719: according to that writer, the territory of Coron then comprehended eighty villages; I am doubtful if five or six could now be found within the same district. The rest of this devastated tract belongs to Turks, who possess three or four thousand olive-trees, and who consume the patrimony of Aristomenes in a harem at Constantinople. Tears started into my eyes, on observing the hands of the Greek slave steeped, to no purpose, in that oil which nerved the arms of his forefathers, to triumph over tyrants. The consul's house overlooked the Gulf of Coron. From my window I beheld the sea of Messenia, painted with the most beautiful azure: on the other side of that sea, rose the lofty chain of the snow-capped Taygetus, which Polybius justly compares to the Alps, but to the Alps beneath a more lovely sky. On my right extended the open sea, and on my left, at the extremity of the Gulf, I discovered Mount Ithome, detached like Vesuvius, which it also resembled in its truncated summit. I had not power to force myself from this spectacle: what reflections are excited by the prospect of the desert coasts of Greece, where nought is heard but the eternal whistling of the wind, and the roaring of the billows! The report of guns, fired from time to time against the rocks of the Mainottes, alone interrupted these dismal sounds, by a sound still more dismal; and nothing was to be seen upon this whole extent of sea, but the fleet of this chief of the barbarians. It reminded me of those American pirates, who hoisted their bloody flag in an unknown region, and took possession of an enchanting country, in the name of slavery and death; or rather fancy transformed them into the ships of Alaric, quitting the smoking ruins of Greece, carrying off the plunder of the temples, the trophies of Olympia, and the broken statues of liberty and the arts. On the 12th, at two in the morning, I quitted Coron, overwhelmed with the civilities and attentions of M. Vial who gave me a letter for the pacha of the Morea, and another for a Turk at Misitra. I embarked, with Joseph and my new Janissary, in a skiff, which was to convey me to the mouth of the Parmisus, at the bottom of the Gulf of Messenia. A fine passage of a few hours, carried us into the bed of the largest river of the Peloponnese, where our little bark grounded for want of water. The janissary went in quest of horses, to Nissi, a considerable village, three or four miles up the Pamisus. This river was covered with a multitude of wild fowl, and I amused myself with watching their sports till the return of the janissary. Nothing would be so pleasing as natural history, if it were always connected with the history of man: we should with delight behold the migratory birds quitting the unknown tribes of the Atlantic to visit the renowned banks of the Cephisus and the Eurotas. Providence, in order to confound our vanity, has permitted the animals to know before man the real extent of the abode of man; and an Ameri can bird might probably attract the attention of Aristotle in the ' rivers of Greece, when the philosopher had not the slightest suspicion of the existence of a new world. Antiquity would furnish us in its annals with numberless curious approximations; the progress of nations and of armies would be found connected with the pilgrimages of some solitary bird, or with the peaceful migrations of the antelope or the camel, The janissary returned with a guide and five horses; two for the guide and three others for me, Joseph, and himself. We passed through Nissi, which seems not to have been known in ancient times. I saw the waywode for a moment; he was a young and very affable Greek, who offered me confectionary and wine; but I declined his hospitality and pursued my route to Tripolizza. We directed our course towards Mount Ithome, leaving the ruins of Messene on our right. The abbé Fourmont, who visited these ruins seventy years ago, counted thirty-eight towers then standing. I think M. Vial informed me that nine of these yet remained entire, together with a considerable fragment of the exterior wall. M. Poucqueville who travelled through Messenia ten years before me, was not at Messene. We arrived about three in the afternoon at the foot of Ithome, the modern Mount Vulcano, according to D'Anville. I was convinced, by an examination of this mountain, how difficult it is thoroughly to under: stand the ancient writers without having seen the places of which they treat. It is evident, for instance, that Messene and the ancient Ithome could not comprise the mountain within their limits, and that we ought to adopt the signification assigned to the Greek particle by M. Lechevalier, who, on occasion of the pursuit of Hector by Achilles, observe, that it ought to be rendered before Troy, and not round Troy, We passed through several villages, Chafasa, Scala, Cyparissa, and several others recently destroyed by the pacha, during his last expedition against the banditti. In all these villages I observed but one female; with her blue eyes, her majestic stature, and her beauty, she was no disgrace to the blood of the Heraclides. Messenia was almost invariably unfortunate: a fertile country frequently proves a baleful boon to its inhabitants. From the desolation which reigned around me, it might have been supposed that the ferocious Spartans had again been rayaging the native land of Aristodemus. A great man undertook to avenge a great man: Epaminondas reared the walls of Messene. Unfortunately this town may be charged with the death of Philopomen. The Arcadians revenged it, and removed the ashes of their countryman to Megalopolis. I passed with my little caravan over precisely the same roads as the funeral procession of the last of the Greeks had done about two thousand years ago. Having skirted Mount Ithome, we crossed a brook which runs to the north, and may, possibly, be one of the sources of the Balyra. I have never defied the Muses; they have not struck me blind like Thamyris; and if I have a lyre, I have not thrown it into the Balyra, at the risk of being transformed after my death into a nightingale. I mean yet to pay my devotion to the Nine for a few years longer; after which I shall forsake their altars. Anacreons' crown of roses has no attractions for me; the fairest crown of an old man is his silver hair and the recollections of an honourable life. Andania must have been lower down on the Balyra. I should have rejoiced in the discovery at least of the site of the palace of Merope; but Andania was too far out of our track to think of looking for its ruins. An uneven plain, covered like the savannas of Florida, with long grass, and droves of horses, conducted me to the extremity of the basin, formed by the junction of the |