MY DEAR FRIEND,

We are, at last, arrived on the confines of Greece, a venerable name, now almost lost in that of Turkey in Europe, and its former splendour so entirely reversed, that I am particularly fortunate in finding a conveyance for a letter. Here are no posts in this neglected country, and the people once so accomplished, are in utter ignorance of what passes in the world, except from the vague reports they get from vessels, which now and then put in here. And this, alas! is the unhappy fate of all the south and eastern coast of Greece.

But before I say any thing more of this place, I must carry you back to Messina, and give you some account of our voyage.

Thursday, October 9th.

We left Messina at eleven o'clock this morning, and at twelve passed Reggio on the coast of Calabria. The country appears extremely barren, but is full of inhabitants and small towns.

Just before midnight, when all below were locked in sleep, and even those upon deck had scarce strength to resist the drowsy langour brought on by four hours duty; in this silent moment, when superstition, ever powerful in the mind of the sailor, gains new force from the surrounding gloom, the watch were rouzed with terror and astonishment, by a sudden illumination of the whole atmosphere. Their eyes, instantly turned to Heaven, were scarce reverted, when every part of the ship appeared in a blaze, and continued so for many seconds.

Struck by so awful a sight, in the dead of the night, a general silence prevailed, and many, unable to divine the cause of so sudden, and so tremendous an apparition, thought the last day was approaching. Their fears were still increased by observing through the sails, an immense ball of fire floating in the air a-head of the ship; but they were, at length, relieved by its falling into the sea.

The account our friends gave us the next morning, led us into a dissertation on fireballs, which philosophers say are produced by an exceeding great power of electricity, gradually accumulated, until the resistance of the atmosphere being no longer able to sustain it, it drops down slowly, and in no particular direction, not being drawn by any substance which would attract this electric matter, in the shape of common lightning.

October 10th.

Sunset. A westerly breeze has carried us past Cape Spartevento, and we are now just an hundred miles from the coast of Sicily. Mount Ætna is still in sight, and the sun setting directly behind it, forms one of those heavenly scenes, which at once affects us with the beautiful and sublime. Notwithstanding our very great distance, the mountain is so many degrees above the horizon, that would day-light continue, we should see it twenty miles farther. How great does nature appear in these wonderful works!

October 11th.

Lat. 37° 36'. In the last twenty-four hours we have run an hundred and forty-three miles, and are so far across the Adriatic, or Gulph of Venice, as to have land in sight a-head. This breeze is almost the only fair one we have had since we left Gibraltar, and it is now growing calm.

October 12th.

Sunset. We are now between Zante and Cephalonia, with the Morea in front. The part of the islands near us are very rocky and barren, with no verdure except from some scattered olive trees, and brushwood; but the more distant part of Cephalonia appears well cultivated.

Sunday, October 14th.

We lay to all the night before last, and yesterday morning anchored in the harbour of Zante. Lat. 37°. 50'. Long. 21°. 15'. east.

The nearest part of this island is nine miles from Cephalonia, and the same distance from the Morea, and an hundred leagues from Messina. It is above seventy miles in circumference; contains forty thousand souls, and carries on a very considerable trade in dried fruits, particularly currants, so called from a corruption of Corinth, from whence the vines were originally imported.

On the hill above the town there is a fort, very advantageously situated, but much out of repair. It is subject to the Venetians, who have now a ship of the line and three frigates in the harbour. The senior Captain very civilly informed us, that, from his great respect for the English, he would be happy to salute us, if we would return gun for gun; to which we readily consented.

By orders from Venice, the Governor at this juncture, imposes a quarantine of seven days on all vessels, even from his own nearest ports; and therefore, not being allowed to land here, we are going to a less frequented part of the island, where the quarantine is not enforced.

October 15th.

We got under way yesterday evening, and the wind not permitting us to continue our voyage, we stood to the north-east towards Patras, at the mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto; but the wind changing, we put about at twelve this morning, just as we got in sight of its entrance, near the spot on which Don John of Austria obtained the celebrated victory over the Turkish fleet in the year 1571.

In this cruize we have had a view of Ithaca, in which we were told at Zante, the foundation of Ulysses' Palace is still to be traced. His island is now called Little Cephalonia, is about twenty miles long, appears very barren, but is said to be well peopled, though with a very vile race. Zante and the greater Cephalonia also belonged to Ulysses, and are both described by the ancients, as being remarkably fertile. The latter is by much the largest, the former the most productive.

A little to the north of Ithaca, in the Island of St. Mauro, is the famous Promontory of Leucate, the Lover's Leap, celebrated by the Spectator, in his beautiful panegyric on the tender Sappho. Even Venus herself is said to have been led there by Apollo, to be cured of her passion for Adonis.

October 16th.

Wind again contrary. Tacking off Zante, to get into a small bay, where there is a curious spring, from which a great quantity of tar oozes; but not being able to gain the anchorage before sunset, and the wind becoming fair for our course, we stood to the south, and in the night passed the Strophades, a set of small low islands, where Æneas was attacked by the Harpies.

It was not without regret that I passed by Zante, without landing there. It was the only place in the Venetian territories we had any chance of visiting, and I wished much to see the effect of a Government, in which Despotism, in the form of a Republic, makes her votaries believe that Tyranny is Liberty. But by what I could learn from the traders, and a few other people, to whom I had an opportunity of speaking, the police is really shocking.

The Governors are generally needy men, but, by accepting fines as a remission for murder, they are soon enriched, perhaps by the ruin of the widow and the orphan.--Is your husband assassinated--your father murdered? Dry up your tears--your Governor is three guineas richer. Do you remonstrate? For three guineas more you may let loose all the demons of revenge.

Thus one murder produces another; whole families are involved in destruction, or at best live in perpetual alarms; justice never interferes, and society is of course destroyed.

Whilst reflections of this kind distress the Philanthrope who visits Zante, the naturalist finds the tar spring an object well worthy his curiosity. The trade of the island is also a subject on which I should like to be better informed. On an average, the annual produce in currants is ten million pounds weight. Almost the whole of which, besides nearly the same quantity brought from Cephalonia, and the adjacent parts of the Morea, are taken by the English, who load thirty vessels every year.

This trade, however, seems to be a very losing one to us, since our productions have no sale at Zante, and the tin, lead, alum, and a few other articles which we carry to Venice, bear no proportion in value to the fruit we bring home.

It is true, our revenue is considerably increased by a duty of twenty-three pounds sterling on every ton of currants, which is one half as much again as the prime cost, the common price at Zante being fifteen guineas. But this tax is railed upon ourselves, and does not check the importation of this foreign commodity, since we consume three-fourths of what the island yields. It might, therefore, as well be levied on some of our own productions, as on our hereditary plumb-pudding.

October 17th.

Having passed two little forts, called the Navarins, at noon we anchored off Modon, Lat. 37°, Long. 15° 45', distant from Gibraltar near fourteen hundred miles. And now, having brought the ship to an anchor, I shall proceed with the observations I introduced at the commencement of this letter.

Modon is a small Turkish town, on the south-west corner of the Morea, which you recollect is the Peloponnesus of the Ancients, and almost an island, being separated from the rest of Greece by the gulph of Lepanto, and only joined to it by the narrow isthmus of Corinth. After the Greek and Roman ages, it was conquered by the Turks, and afterwards by the Venetians, to whom the former ceded it by the Treaty of Carlowitz, but retook it in 1715, and have maintained it ever since, notwithstanding that, during their last war, Modon was taken by the Russians, who were immediately joined by the Greeks; but the Turks sending a large army thither, Count Orlow and his troops were obliged to abandon their associates to the fury of their enemies, who massacred fifteen thousand of them.

This is the Turkish method of terminating a rebellion, which they say is only to be done by destroying the seeds: but, to palliate their inhumanity, they allege, that, whenever the Greeks have gained any advantage, they have been still more barbarous; that they have spared neither age nor sex; but that, after being guilty of every other brutality to the women, so sacred among Mahometans, not satisfied with slaying them, they have even carried their revenge so far as to expose their naked corpses to be devoured by dogs and birds of prey.

Heaven forbid that such cruel barbarity should exist. But I cannot pretend to give you a just account of the manners and dispositions of these two people on so slight an acquaintance, especially as the light in which they represent each other, is very different from that in which they appear to us.

Nestor's kingdom was in this district. I have found no antiquities worthy notice; and time does not permit me to take a journey in search of Pylos.

A small castle projects into the sea off Modon; and the town has walls round it; but they are much out of repair. The Governor lives in a wretched hovel, which refuses admittance neither to the wind nor to the rain. He is civil enough, and all his people seem glad to see us.

The harbour is formed by a set of little islands, which lie off the town, at some miles distance; the most western is the famous Spactaria, the taking of which is one of the most noted events in the Peloponnesian war. It is now called the Isle of Wisdom; but for what reason I cannot guess, as it is totally uninhabited, and produces nothing but brushwood.

The passages between the different islands make this a charming port for cruizers, since they can be confined neither by wind nor by an enemy. Captain Moore, of the Fame privateer, often put in here during the war, and has impressed the people with very favorable ideas of the English.