ANDRITZENA—CARITZENA—MEGALOPOLIS—BENIGHTED—KALAMATA.

"We left the stylÆ and went down to Andritzena by a shorter road. In going up, the drivers, to be able to charge us more, had taken us round a longer way. Andritzena is not only beautiful in its situation, the people who live in it are charming. Everyone seemed to think it the proper thing to show some attention to the strangers. The girls—and some of them were very pretty—brought us each as a present a fruit of some kind, pears or figs, and did it in the prettiest and most engaging manner; so that we had more than we could carry home with us. Disinterested urbanity is so unusual a feature in Greek character that we were surprised, and I must confess that it was the only time such a thing ever occurred to us in Greece.

The Turks tax these poor wretches unmercifully. To begin with, they have to pay the Government one-fourth of their produce. Then there is the karatch or poll tax, which seems to be rather variable in amount, and the chrea or local tax levied for the local government, which together make up about another fourth; so that the taxes amount to half the yearly produce. Of course the people complain. I can't tell you how often I have been asked 'When will the English come and deliver us from the Turks, who eat out our souls?' 'And why do they delay?' One Greek told me he prayed daily that the Franks might come; and while I am on the subject I may as well mention here, though it was said a few weeks later, when we were near Corinth, by a shepherd, 'I pray to God I may live to see the Morea filled with such Franks.' They like us better than they do the French, because they have heard from Zante and elsewhere that we treat our dependencies more honourably than they do.

We were five days at Andritzena. Haller made drawings of the village, and I finished up my memoranda of Phigaleia. Besides that, as I thought we ought not to leave the neighbourhood without making a final effort to complete our explorations at the stylÆ, and that, the Pasha Veli being absent from the Morea, we might perhaps get leave from the Waiwode of Fanari, Foster and I rode over to see him. We found him exceedingly courteous, perfectly a man of the world; and although his house and the two old cushions in the corner of a dilapidated gallery on which he was propped when he received us did not bespeak great affluence, his manner was not that of a man to whom one could offer a bribe. He said he regretted very much having had to write the letter we had received forbidding us to go on digging, but that it was absolutely necessary that we should cease, and there was an end of the matter. At the same time he hoped there had been no expression in it to offend us. 'Veli,' said he, 'is very peremptory about no bouyuruldu or permission being given by anyone but himself; for he insists on knowing all about travellers who move about in his pashalik, and upon periodically inspecting them and their firman and approving it. The mere fact of my having allowed your party to remain ten days at Phigaleia, no matter whether you dug or not, was enough to ruin me; for these Albanians [that is, Ali Pasha and his sons] ask but few questions [listen to no excuses].' So we had to go back to Andritzena without having effected anything beyond seeing an Albanian Turkish wedding on our way. When we came upon them they were gorgeously dressed, playing the djerid and brandishing their swords. I never saw anything so picturesque. The party were on their way to fetch the bride from Fanari. They had an Albanian red and white banner, with a silk handkerchief tied to the top of it, which was the token sent by the bride to her lover as an invitation to him to come and fetch her. After sunset she is taken to his house on horseback, closely veiled.

Hearing of some columns in an old castle not far off, as the account was a tolerably rational one, I resolved, although I ought to have had experience enough of Greek lies to warn me, to go and see them. There was the hope of making some discovery of interest; for my informant insisted that no milords had ever been there before. So I girt myself with sword and pistol, and walked 2½ hours to a hill or mountain called SultanÉ. I only found a few miserable columns, a considerable fortress and cyclopean walls, and I made two sketches on the road. I was very tired when I got back. The Greek shoemaker, our landlord, came and supped with us, and got very maudlin over the wine.

We went next to Caritzena. The waiwode insisted on our putting up with him, and gave up a room to us, begging that we would order whatever best pleased us; that his servants would prepare anything, and we should purchase nothing. 'Our king at Stamboul is rich enough to receive our friends and allies, the English,' he said. We were preparing to go out and draw when a message came to say the waiwode would pay us a visit. Haller, however, would not stop for anybody. Foster had to ride back to a place where he had changed his coat and in so doing had dropped a ring he valued, and which, by the by, he managed to find. So Linckh and I, though I felt very unwell with a bilious attack, had to stop in and receive our visitor. He was very polite, and his manners really very fine. He told us he had been with the ambassador at Vienna and at Berlin, and spoke a few words of German, which enchanted Linckh. He presently remarked that I seemed unwell, and I told him that I was bilious, and had a pain in my head; whereupon he took hold of my temples in his right hand, while an old Turk who sat near doubled down his little finger and repeated a charm, which he began in a whisper and finished aloud, leaning forward and pronouncing something like 'Osman Odoo—o—o.' Then he asked me if I was better; because if I was not he would double down his next finger and the next till he came to the thumb, which he said was infallible. This prospect seemed more than I could quite bear; so I thought best to sacrifice my principles, and said 'Yes, I was,' to get rid of the matter, but I was not.

Some Greeks came and joined in our conversation. Really, if one had not some pity for their condition, one could not suffer them, their manners are so odious. Nevertheless, as they seem to have all the power here and elect their own governor and give him an allowance, the waiwode would not join me in criticising them.

The waiwode continued to be as civil as ever, but I could not help thinking he looked anxiously for presents, and we had none to give him. All I could do was to offer him one of the common little brass English boxes with a head of King George on it, filled with bark. He took it with every expression of delight, but I could see it was put on. We could only thank him heartily, fee the servants handsomely, and bow ourselves out with the best grace we could assume. He especially coveted a miniature Foster wore of a lady, and this Foster promised to have copied for him and sent him from England; but he could not part with the original. He gave us strong letters of recommendation for Kalamata.

We left early next day. There was an awkward little episode of a box of instruments belonging to Foster, which he missed off a certain sofa. The Boluk bashi had admired them very much. Presently, when the inquiry was made, an officer of the Boluk bashi came in and searched near the sofa, and then suddenly went out. We did the same, and lo! there was the case. And the Boluk bashi looked very disconcerted as we bade him adieu.

We followed the course of the Gyrtinas. These are mountains which on all hands are celebrated among the modern Greeks for the exploits of the Colocotroni[28] and other captains who lived among the hills and maintained a sort of independence of the Turks ever since they have held the Morea. The peasants delight to sing the ballads composed on these heroes, and, exulting in their bravery, forget the horrible barbarities they committed. When Smirke was here the country must really have been in a fearful state of anarchy; and whatever we may say against him, it must be laid at any rate to the credit of Veli Pasha that he has cleared the Morea of banditti. The Colocotroni and the rest of them have had to fly the country and enlist in Church's contingent at Zante.

We spent some time at Megalopolis, and with Pausanias in our hands were able to identify remnants of almost everything he mentions, in especial the spring near the theatre, which only runs part of the year. At Lycosura the ruins are disappointingly modern, and there is not much of them; nothing left of the ancient temple at all. The situation is very fine. Two and a half hours' journey up a stream through woods brought us to Dervine, the boundary of Messenia. Then we crossed the Plain of Messenia, admiring, even in the rain, the mountains, Ithome especially, and at dusk got to a village two hours short of Kalamata. Our agroati did not know the road on, and it was too late to get a guide; but as they told us the road was quite straight we went on in the dark. At the end of an hour we had lost the track; it was pitch black, raining still, and we on the edge of a river in a marsh. There I thought we should have stayed. For four hours we groped about, looking first for the lost path, and then for any path to any shelter. First we tried giving Haller's horse, who had been to Kalamata before, a loose rein and letting him lead the way. At first it promised well, for the horse went ahead willingly; but the agroati took upon him to change his course, and then we were as lost as ever. We could hardly see each other. Then we sent off the agroati to try and reach a light we could see. He came back with awful accounts of bogs and ditches he had met in his path. Finally, after standing still for a time in the pelting rain, we resolved to reach the light; and so we did, over hedge and ditch and through bogs, and Indian corn above our heads as we sat on horseback, and at length, wet through and wearied, reached a cottage in which were some Greeks. They, however, refused to lead us to any house; for, said they, 'we know not what men ye are.' At last one good man took us into his house and gave us a room, and figs and brandy for supper. We were thankful for anything. He was a poor peasant with a pretty wife and a perfectly lovely daughter.

We got to Kalamata next day, meeting on the way numbers of Mainiotes coming to buy figs &c. in the Messenian plain, all armed. Our baggage had arrived very late overnight. We went to the so-called consul, an agent of the consul at Patras, and sent the letter of recommendation of the Waiwode of Caritzena to the Waiwode of Kalamata; but he took no notice of it, and did nothing whatever for us, so we had to find a house for ourselves. We pitched upon a lofty Turkish tower commanding the city, with a very rotten floor which threatened at any moment to let us through from the second storey to the base. The only way up to our room was by a crazy ladder. The shutters were riddled with bullets. Some time before there had been a grand engagement between this tower and the cupola of a neighbouring church, where some Mainiotes in the service of one of their great captains, a certain Benachi, had defended themselves. Kalamata seems to be a constant scene of fights between the party of the Bey appointed by the Porte, or rather the Capitan Pasha, and the party who want to appoint a Bey of their own, and this is the way they fight, each party from its own tower.

From our tower we made panoramic sketches of the city, but were much interrupted by visitors. Among them came a young Mainiote Albanian officer from Church's contingent, who was here recruiting. He was accompanied by two armed Mainiotes, and said he had twenty more concealed about the town in case of danger. He invited us to come with him into Maina as far as Dolus, where his family lived, a proposal we eagerly closed with, and appointed the next morning."