measure off the dirt floor according to our dimensions. Before we were arranged a Greek of a better class, followed by half a dozen villagers, came over, and, with many regrets for the wretched state of the country, invited us to his house. Though dressed in the Greek costume, it was evident that he had acquired his manners in a school beyond the bounds of his miserable little village, in which his house now rose like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher than everything else, but rather rickety. In a few minutes we heard the death notes of some chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a not unwelcome meal. Several Greeks dropped in during the evening, and one, a particular friend of our host's, supped with us. Both talked French, and had that perfect ease of manner and savoir faire which I always remarked with admiration in all Greeks who had travelled. They talked much of their travels; of time spent in Italy and Germany, and particularly of a long residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of Greece; of her long and bitter servitude, her revolution, and her independence; and from their enthusiasm I could not but think that they had fought and bled in her cause. I certainly was not lying in wait to entrap them, but I afterward gathered from their conversation that they had taken occasion to be on their travels at the time when the bravest of their countrymen were pouring out their blood like water to emancipate their native land. A few years before I might have felt indignation and contempt for men who had left their country in her hour of utmost need, and returned to enjoy the privileges purchased with other men's blood; but I had already learned to take the world as I found it, and listened quietly while our host told us that, confiding in the permanency of the government secured by the three great powers, England, France, and Russia, he had returned to Greece, and taken a lease of a large tract of land for fifty years, paying a thousand drachms, a drachm being one sixth of a dollar, and one tenth of the annual fruits, at the end of which time one half of the land under cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee.

As our host could not conveniently accommodate us all, M. and Demetrius returned to the khan at which we had first stopped and where, to judge from the early hour at which they came over to us the next morning, they had not spent the night as well as we did. At daylight we took our coffee, and again perched our luggage on the backs of the horses, and ourselves on top of the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with him, and promised the next day to accompany us to Padras; but this was not a sufficient inducement; and taking leave of him, probably for ever, we started for Lepanto.

We rode about an hour on the plain; the mountains towered on our left, and the rich soil was broken into rough sandy gullies running down to the sea. Our guides had some apprehensions that we should not be able to cross the torrents that were running down from the mountain; and when we came to the first, and had to walk up along the bank, looking out for a place to ford, we fully participated in their apprehensions. Bridges were a species of architecture entirely unknown in that part of modern Greece; indeed, no bridges could have stood against the mountain torrents. There would have been some excitement in encountering these rapid streams if we had been well mounted; but, from the manner in which we were hitched on our horses, we did not feel any great confidence in our seats. Still nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than our process in crossing them, except that it might have added somewhat to the effect to see one of us floating down stream, clinging to the tail of his horse. But we got over or through them all. A range of mountains then formed on our right, cutting us off from the sea, and we entered a valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At first the road, which was exceedingly difficult for a man or a sure-footed horse, lay along a beautiful stream, and the whole of the valley extending to the Gulf of Lepanto is one of the loveliest regions of country I ever saw. The ground was rich and verdant, and, even at that early season of the year, blooming with wild flowers of every hue, but wholly uncultivated, the olive-trees having all been cut down by the Turks, and without a single habitation on the whole route. My Scotch companion, who had a good eye for the picturesque and beautiful in natural scenery, was in raptures with this valley. I have since travelled in Switzerland, not, however, in all the districts frequented by tourists; but in what I saw, beautiful as it is, I do not know a place where the wildness of mountain scenery is so delightfully contrasted with the softness of a rich valley.

At the end of the valley, directly opposite Padras, and on the borders of the gulf, is a wild road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides of a rocky, mountainous precipice overlooking the sea. It is a wild and almost fearful road; in some places I thought it like the perpendicular sides of the Palisades; and when the wind blows in a particular direction it is impossible to make headway against it. Our host told us that we should find difficulty that day; and there was just rudeness enough to make us look well to our movements. Directly at our feet was the Gulf of Corinth; opposite a range of mountains; and in the distance the island of Zante. On the other side of the valley is an extraordinary mountain, very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, as if cut out with a chisel, leaving two straight parallel sides, and called by the unpoetical name of the armchair. In the wildest pan of the Scala, where a very slight struggle would have precipitated us several hundred feet into the sea, an enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and barking toward us; and we were much relieved when his master, who was hanging with his flock of goats on an almost inaccessible height, called him away. At the foot of the mountain we entered a rich plain, where the shepherds were pasturing their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and in about two hours arrived at Lepanto.

After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him, whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all the idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, we procured a room near the farthest wall; it was reached by ascending a flight of steps outside, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled up our baggage in one corner, or, rather, my companions did theirs, and went prowling about in search of something to eat. Our servant had not fully apprized us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity of carrying with us everything requisite for comfort. He was a man of few words, and probably thought that, as between servant and master, example was better than precept, and that the abundant provision he had made for himself might serve as a lesson for us; but, in our case, the objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be profitable. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place, in one side of which was a little cafteria, where all the good-for-nothing loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf of bread and some eggs, and, with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal.

We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore. Though in a ruinous condition, Lepanto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of