absolute command to the Grand Signor, that it was possible to travel in districts, formerly the most dangerous, without any apprehension. Count Laborde informed me, that he visited a certain part of Asia Minor under the especial protection of a Turk, who informed him, that had he come but a few months sooner, he should himself have been the first man to plunder him.

The misrule of many parts prior to the Revolution, and the anarchy and confusion of the Revolution itself, opened a wide field for the exertions of robbers and pirates; and, as was the case with Ancient Greece, according to Thucydides, the profession was deemed honourable*. It is a boast, even now, to be descended from an ancient Klepht family. Many of the Greek Captains, who made the greatest figure in the Revolution, had been leaders of banditti, with which they had infested the highways of the Peloponnesus; and it was to the influence and eminence gained in this manner that they owed their subsequent power. I have often heard a Greek aphorism, which reminds us of an expression in the Book of Proverbs, Τὸ κλεμμένον ἀρνὶ εἶναι γλυκὺ

* Οὐκ ἔχοντός πω αἰσχύνην τούτου τοῦ ἔργου, φέροντος δέ τι καὶ δόξης μᾶλλον.

(Stolen lamb is sweet+): and it is understood in the sense of exculpating theft, by the consideration that an object is the more enjoyed for which nothing is paid.

Nor was it merely on Turks that the Greek klephts exercised their plundering propensities. They spared not their own countrymen, nor even the ecclesiastical order. A captain of klephts informed me, as a ludicrous occurrence, of their having once encountered and pillaged the principal Protosyngelos in the Greek Church. But this proved a fatal adventure to many of them; for, on his return to Constantinople, he not only procured the most alarming excommunications to be pronounced against them, but took such active measures to arouse the arm of justice, that many of the klephts were taken and made public examples, and the rest obliged to flee from the Morea. Asking an old klepht, whom I once met with, how many Turks he had killed in the exercise of his profession, he replied, "Twenty." Soon afterwards, I inquired of his captain whether it was the fact. He assured me that it was a mere boast, but that he really remembered his killing one of his own countrymen.

+ Stolen waters are sweet.- Prov. ix. 17.

The Maniotes are represented to be in the perpetual practice of depredation, not only on strangers, but even on each other. They follow the plough with fire-arms attached to their person, uncertain when an attack may be made on them by the possessor of the adjoining field. I have heard the following anecdote related by Greeks. It is one of the most singular combinations of superstition and crime which can well be imagined; and, whether true or false, it proves that the persons accused are deemed capable of such an action.

A bishop, on a journey through the district of Maina*, was waylaid and plundered. He had scarcely been permitted to proceed, when the robbers became uneasy, from the apprehension that he would excommunicate them, as soon as he had arrived at a place of safety. Alarmed by such a danger, they saw no means of averting it, but by the death of the bishop. Influenced by this consideration, they went in pursuit of the unhappy prelate, overtook, and actually put him to death.

On the amazing extent to which piracy was

*The Greeks call this district, Manyee; and the inhabitants, Manyotes. Maina is unintelligible to them.

carried in the Archipelago I shall offer no remarks, as the subject is well known. But the surprising manner in which it was entirely quelled, on the arrival of Capo d'Istria, is worthy of notice. Men-of-war, of all sizes and nations, had been scouring the Ægean to no purpose; but I question if more than one signal instance of piracy occurred after his coming. This circumstance is to be attributed, in part, to a strict examination of boats and vessels of every description, which were registered, and obliged to sail with proper credentials; in part, to the idea which universally prevailed, that Capo d'Istria had as many bayonets of the three Powers (to use their own expression) at command as he thought proper; and, in part, to the general restoration of internal order and public credit, which diminished the temptations to a life of rapine. When I made my principal tour in the Morea, at this period, I took with me an armed Pallikari, in compliance with the advice of friends; but I found such perfect tranquillity in all directions, that his protection was wholly needless.

CHAP. VII.

MORAL CHARACTER OF GREEKS.

Falsehood of Greeks not superior to Turkish-Turkish Falsewitnesses Conduct of Sir Thomas Maitland to Greek Judges-Illustration of St. Paul's Character of the Cretans -Disadvantages under which the Oriental Clergy have laboured-Excellent Character of two Greek Ecclesiastics, and interesting Adventure with one of them in the Island of Cefalonia.

No charge is more frequently and loudly urged against the Greeks than their want of truth. This accusation appears to derive strength from a similar characteristic of their ancestors; and "Mendax Græcia" (Lying Greece) is deemed as applicable to modern as to ancient times. I am obliged to acknowledge, that there is too much justice in the imputation; but I have never been convinced that the Greeks are more culpable in this respect than the Turks. I have never met