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They finished our entertainment by singing some songs both in Albanian and modern Greek. One man sung, or rather repeated in loud recitative, and was joined in the burthen of the song by the whole party. The music was extremely monotonous and nasal; and the shrill scream of their voices was increased by each putting his hand behind his ear and cheek, as a whipper-in does when rating hounds, to give more force to the sound. They also dwelt a considerable time on the last note (as long as their breath would last), like the musicians of a country church. One of the songs was on the taking of Prevesa, an exploit of which the Albanians are vastly proud; and there was scarcely one of them in which the name of Ali Pasha was not roared out, and dwelt upon, with peculiar energy. Ali is, indeed, a very great man, as you will be inclined to acknowlodge, if you have the patience to proceed with me on my journey."

From Salora to Ioannina the route is through Arta, a considerable commercial town, where the accommodation was very superior to that which had been experienced at the preceding places. The view of the Albanian capital and its neighbourhood is represented as very striking, with its glittering domes and minarets, its gardens and groves, and the glassy lake at the foot of the city, surrounded with the abrupt and mountainous acclivities of its banks. These towering structures glittering at a distance, never fail to fill the mind with lofty ideas of human magnificence and power. Milton could not help introducing gilded battlements, and glittering spires, in his splendid picture of imperial Rome, though they certainly were not properly in place.

The particular description which is given of the city of Ioannina, the very existence of which till very lately was scarcely known, but which is found to be the capital of a very beautiful portion of Europe, once the scene of great transactions, but long buried under the ruinous pile of Turkish tyranny, could not fail to be extremely interesting, and it has lost none of its in-terest in the hands of Mr. Hobhouse.

"The city stands on the western banks of the lake, at about two miles from its northern extremity. In its utmost length it may be perhaps two miles and a half; and in breadth, though in some places it is much narrower, nearly a mile. Immediately near the lake it stands on a flat, but the north and north-western parts of it are built on slopes of rising and uneven ground. A triangular peninsula (of which mention has before been made) juts into the lake, and contains the residence of the Pasha, being defended by a fortification and a tower at each angle. The entrance to this fortress is over a drawbridge. There is one street which runs nearly the whole length of the town, and another that cuts it at right angles, extending to the fortress. These are the principal streets.

"The houses are, many of them, large and well-built, containing

a court-yard, and having warehouses or stables on the ground, with an open gallery and the apartments of the family above. A flight of wooden steps under cover of the pent of the gallery, connects the under and upper part of the houses. Though they have but a gloomy appearance from the street, having the windows very small, and latticed with cross bars of wood, and presenting the inhospitable show of large folding doors, big enough to admit the horses and cattle of the family, but never left open, yet the yard, which is often furnished with orange and lemon trees, and in the best houses com municates with a garden, makes them very lively from within, and the galleries are sufficiently extensive to allow a scope for walking in rainy weather.

"The Bazar, or principal street, inhabited by the tradesmen, is well furnished, and has a showy appearance. The Bizestein, or covered Bazar, is of considerable size, and would put you in mind, as perhaps I have before observed of these places, of ExeterChange.

"Besides the palace in the fortress, and the two I have mentioned in my last letter, allotted to the two sons of Ali, there is another summer residence of the Vizier's in the suburbs, at the north-west end of the town. It is built in the midst of a garden, in a wild and tangled state, when we saw it, but abounding with every kind of fruit-tree that flourishes in this favoured climate-the orange, the lemon, the fig, and the pomegranate. It is in the form of a pavilion, and has one large saloon (I think an octagon), with small latticed apartments on every side. The floor of the saloon is of marble, and in the middle of it there is a fountain containing a pretty model, also in marble, of a fortress, mounted with small brass cannon, which, at a signal, spout forth jets of water into the fountain, accompanied by a small organ in a recess, playing some Italian tunes. The small rooms are furnished with sofas of figured silk, and the lattices of the windows, as well as the cornices, are gilt, and highly polished. The shade of an orange-grove protects the pavilion from the sun, and it is to this retreat that the Vizier withdraws during the heats of summer, with the most favoured ladies of his herem, and indulges in the enjoyment of whatever accomplishments these fair-ones can display for his gratification. Our attendant pointed out to us, in a recess, the sofa on which Ali was accustomed to sit, whilst, on the marble floor of the saloon, his females danced before him to the music of the Albanian lute.

"In a field adjoining the gardens, and surrounded with high walls, are a few large deer and antelopes. The pavilion and its gardens bespeak a taste quite different from that of the country, and most probably the Vizier was indebted to his French prisoners for the beauties of this elegant retirement. We were told it was the work of a Frank.

"Beyond the pavilion there are gardens belonging to the principal citizens of Ioannina, and as most of these have a summer-house in them, they seem to make a part of the city, which, from its great

apparent extent, might be thought to contain a very large population. But the Mahometans never make any efforts to ascertain the exact number of inhabitants in any town or district, and it was only during our stay in Turkey, that the Greek priests of one city were persuaded, for the first time, by a Scotch gentleman, to keep a regular registry of births in their district. This makes every thing that can be said on the population of Ioannina mere conjecture. Some informed me that it contained eight thousand houses, others did not make the number of inhabitants amount to more than thirty-five thousand. I should think this is the lowest possible computation. Of this number, whatever it be, one-tenth perhaps are Mahometans, and the remainder Christians, with a few Jews.

"The Christians of Ioannina, though inhabiting a part of Albania, and governed by Albanian masters, call themselves Greeks, as do the inhabitants of Arta, Prevesa, and even of many villages higher up in the country: they neither wear the Albanian dress, nor speak the Albanian language, and they partake also in every par ticular of the manners and customs of the Greeks of the Morea, Roumelia, and the other Christian parts of Turkey in Europe and Asia. As, however, the appellation Romæos, or Roman, (once so proud a title, but now the badge of bondage) is a religious, not a national distinction, and means a Christian of the Greek church, and as many of the Albanians are of that persuasion, and denominated accordingly, it is difficult to avoid confusion, in giving to the various people of the country their common names. To prevent, however, any mistake, I shall always use the words Greek and Albanian, with a reference, not to the religion, but to the language and nation of the persons whom I may have occasion to mention. At the same time, I shall indulge myself in the opposite licence, of putting the word Turk as a religious denomination, which though an undoubted vulgarism, is prevalent amongst the Greeks of the Levant, and does not, as far as I could see, give that offence to the Mahometans, of which I have somewhere read.

"The Greek citizens of Ioannina appear a distinct race from the inhabitants of the mountains, and perhaps are sprung from ancient settlers, who may have retired, from time to time, before the successive conquerors of Peloponnesus and Greece, into a country where, although enslaved, they were less exposed to perpetual ravages and to a frequent changeof masters. Many of them boast of their ancestry, and I was told that there was in the city a schoolmaster, whose family had taught for 300 years successively, the eldest son always taking upon himself the profession. I would not wish you to believe in this long line of pedagogues, but before you laugh at the notion of a family of schoolmasters, you should recollect, that we have, in our own country, an instance of the same thing, and that, after all, an hereditary scholar is not a more strange being than an hereditary legislator.

"The Greeks of Ioannina are, with the exception of the priests, and of some few who are in the employments of the Pasha, all en

gaged in trade; and many of the better sort pass three or four years in the merchant-houses of Trieste, Genoa, Leghorn, Venice, and Vienna, which, in addition to the education they receive in the schools of their own city, where they may learn French and Italian, gives them a competent knowledge of the most diffused modern languages, and adds also to the ease and urbanity of their address. They have, indeed, introduced as much as they dare of the manners of Christendom, and, as our host, Signor Nicolo, informed us, once aspired for a moment, to the establishment of a theatre for the performance of Italian operas. Some of them, after establishing an intercourse with their own city, settle in the sea-ports of Roumelia, and in the towns of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Hungary; but they generally return home, as the policy of Ali contrives to oblige them to leave part of their family in his dominions, and, indeed, the wealthy merchants cannot leave the country, or even the city, without his express permission. They are not indulged with a ride into the country without a notification of their purpose. The annual revenue which the Vizier draws from his capital amounts, say they, to 250,000 piasters."

But the arts of utility, and such as promote the comfortable existence of man, cannot be expected to receive much encouragement, where even life itself is a thing of but little price. Thus the author observes, that,

"Though the Greeks of Ioannina are as industrious as any in Turkey, and their embroidery, the art in which they excel, is executed very neatly; there was no one who could mend an umbrella in the whole place. And only one man, a poor Italian, was capable of making a bedstead. The only encouragement an able mechanic would meet with would be employment at the vizier's palace, without receiving any emolument."

The excursions of Mr. Hobhouse through the parts of Albania near the capital, were those of a man of well directed curiosity, and intelligent research. He was well lodged at Delvinaki, which is a town on the road from Ioannina into northern Albania, containing about 300 habitations, and peopled by Greeks, partly cultivators or shepherds, and partly a description of itinerant merchants, transporting their small wares on horseback, from Constantinople, Salonica, and Ioannina, and distributing them in the inland towns of Albania and Roumelia. Their wives and families Ali retains at home as pledges for their return, and as a security against the loss of subjects. Here we were amused by a very lively description of the scene which presented itself in one of the rambles of the traveller.

"After the fowls, eggs, and grapes, that always composed our meal, I rambled up a green lane at the back of the town, till the ascent became very steep, when, turning round, I enjoyed a prospect on every side magnificent, and whose beauties were heightened by the

last rays of the setting sun tinging the woody summits of the opposite mountains. A rivulet, that was collected from a hundred little streams into a pebbly channel, sparkled at intervals through the underwood in the valley.

"The vintage was just finished, and horses, cows, and asses, were browsing on the lower grounds; whilst the goats, whose trespass amongst the early vines is equally dreaded by the modern, as it was by the ancient Greek, were now rioting at large in the vineyards on. the steeper sides of the hill. These pretty animals make a conspicuous figure, and are often the sole living objects in an Albanian landscape. They are to be met with in the most unfrequented spots, in the depth of forests, and on the tops of mountains, in places so remote from any human habitation, that the traveller would suppose them wild, did he not see their long herds descending to the villages at the close of day, and were he not reminded of their familiarity with man, by the tinkling of their bells at night, close to the little window of his cottage.

"The flesh of the kid is esteemed as much as that of the lamb in Albania. The goat's milk is made into the hard cheese, which constitutes a chief article of food throughout Turkey in Europe, and which is, in this country, made in sufficient quantities to allow of a trifling exportation. Each of the skins, by a very simple process, is so sewed together as to hold and preserve the new wine, which in the villages is never put into any other bottle, and seldom lasts beyond the next vintage.

"Wine of a year old is mentioned as a rarity. That which is made in quantities, and kept in casks, in Ioannina, or other large towns, is mixed with pine, resin, and lime, and weakened with water. The Greeks consider that the resin gives the strength which the water takes away, and that the lime refines the liquor; but it is to this process that a very unpalatable harshness, generally to be met with in Greek wine, is to be attributed."

Libokavo, a town built on the steep side of a hill, and containing about a thousand houses inhabited by Turks, most of which are of stone, and surrounded with gardens of orange, lemon, and pomegranate trees, were next visited by the travellers. In this place they were entertained at the house of a relation of one of Ali's wives, and, as it appears, very well entertained, except that the whole party, consisting of thirteen, were lodged in one apartment. The cookery is preferred to that of either the Spanish or Portuguese, and the author thinks a dish of chopped mutton rolled up with rice, and highly seasoned, too good to be forgotten. Their sherbet he describes as a poor liquor, being only sweet water, sometimes coloured with marygold-flowers, and a few blanched almonds swimming at the top. The boiled and roast are always done to rags, to suit the convenience as

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