no propensity to any kind of debauch, and that
they use all pleasures with equal moderation.
Their passions are not violent. The Greeks
certainly are capable of love and hatred; but neither
their hatred nor their love are blind. They do
good and evil after reflection, and their most
extreme proceedings are always guided by
reasoning. They will not kill their enemy until
they have made sure of impunity. Consequently,
madness is a very rare disease. An hospital for
the blind has been lately built in Athens; they
will never want to build a Bedlam for maniacs.

The Greeks have exactly sufficient passion to
set in action the amount of talent they possess.
They are as talented as any people in the world,
and there is no intellectual labour of which they
are incapable. They comprehend quickly and
well; they learn with marvellous facility whatever
it is their interest to know. It is probable
that they are not very apt at  highly speculative
science; some centuries may pass before Greece
produces metaphysicians or algebraists: but
Greek workmen will learn even a difficult trade
in a few months; young commercial men
rapidly manage to speak five or six languages;
students in law, medicine, and theology speedily
acquire the knowledge requisite for their
profession; every mind is open to receive every
sort of useful information: the love of gain
is a master who will one day teach them every
art.

They study through necessity; they also
study through vanity. A people gifted with
intelligence and self-esteem is a people of which
we never need despair. They learn, well or ill,
ancient Greek, to convince themselves that they
are the descendants of the Hellenes; they study
their own history in order to have a subject
for boasting. They educate themselves out of
pure curiosity, and they are equally eager to
tell what they know, and to learn what they do
not know.

Every intelligent man is proud of his
manhood and jealous of his liberty. When the
Russians have begun to think, they will refuse
to be obedient. The Greeks detest obedience.
The love of liberty must be very deeply planted
in their souls, not to have been eradicated by so
many centuries of slavery.

The nature of the country is singularly favourable
to the development of  individualism. Greece
is cut up into an infinity of fractional parts by
mountains and by the sea. This geographical
arrangement formerly facilitated the division of
the Greek people into small states, independent
of each other, which constituted, as it were, so
many complex individuals. In each of these
states the citizen, instead of allowing himself to
be absorbed by the collective existence on the
city, jealously defended his personal rights and
his own proper individuality. If he felt himself
menaced by the community, he found a refuge
on the sea, amidst the mountains, or in a
neighbouring state which adopted him.

Thanks to the sea and to the mountains, it
was in vain to subjugate Greece; she still
remained free. The Archipelago has never wanted
for pirates; the mountains have never wanted
for brigands or clephts. The two southern
peninsulas of the Morea have ever remained
unsubdued. The Mavromichalis, beys of Magne,
administered themselves the whole of this district,
and paid to the Turks only a derisive tax, which
the fiscal agent came trembling to the frontier
to receive. They held out to him, at the point
of a drawn sabre, a purse containing a few pieces
of gold.

The mountaineers of Magne are rude and
uncultivated, like their country. They eat acorns,
as did formerly the inhabitants of Dodona. The
sweet acorns of the valanede oak are not an
unbearably unpleasant food. The Maniotes
speak a peculiar language, which approaches
closely to ancient Greek; their pronunciation is
different from that of the Athenians. Their
dances and their customs belong to them
exclusively: it is even stated that their religion
retains traces of paganism.

They are, with the clephts of Acarnania, the
most courageous, also the most robust, of all the
Greeks. The porters and the delvers of Athens
are Maniotes; they do their work with no great
skill, but they have shoulders capable of carrying
an ox. When Beulé was searching for antiquities
in the Acropolis, he confided the direction of
the undertaking to two workmen: one was
active, clever, and fond of loitering; he was
Athenian. The other was heavy, powerful, and
indefatigable; he was a Maniote. It was like a
recommencement of the Peloponnesian war, with
Athens and Sparta face to face.

Travellers rarely penetrate into Magne; for
Laconia has always been richer in virtues than
in works of art, and the only antiquities to be
found there are the manners. The inhabitants
are, as formerly, brigands and hospitable. A
stranger who is known to nobody is sure to
return without his luggage. Get a recommendation
to a Maniote of some little influence, and
you may travel the whole country through without
it costing you a farthing. Your host will
send you on to all his friends. You will be
conducted from village to village, and in the poorest
house they will kill a lamb in your honour. It
is well known how affable the English are to the
stranger who is presented to them, and how
cold to him who presents himself. The Maniotes
have the same merit, and the same defect, a
little exaggerated; they carry their affability as
far as kissing, and their coldness up to gunshots.
In spite of these trifling blemishes, they are the
most interesting of all their compatriots, because
they are the most manly.

The Greeks marry young. Marriage is the
subject of conversation amongst young people
sixteen years of age. They marry somewhat
inconsiderately, and without any certain
prospects. If they delayed taking a wife until they
were sure of being able to maintain her, the
population would diminish. Marriage is a purely
religious act. The betrothal, another religious
ceremony, has almost as sacred a character as
marriage. In certain cantons—in Missolonghi,
for instance—a betrothed  young man enjoys