runaway Ionian convict who had joined the
Turkish service as a sailor. Professing that
I had twice done him great services, he
desired, he said, to be grateful. I knew that
he meant simply to sponge upon me, and
was glad to send him away with a quarter
dollar as I climbed the wall by which I was
to mount my charger. My weight upon his
back excited him to wrath, and caused him
instantly to kick most furiously; in that way
he soon made a clear space about him; and
then starting off at full speed, charged down
furiously upon the rear of my companions.
Having overtaken their last horse, however,
he at once fell into marching pace, and
seemed to have made his mind up for a long
and steady journey.

Albanian roads or paths are very tortuous,
and so we twisted our way on, admiring the
hill scenery, not sorry to see Corfu in the
distance with its two citadels, backed by its
dark green foliage. As we were wandering
up hill, one of our party presently discovered
that we were pursued by two horsemen. We
examined them through a spy-glass, and all
agreed that they were strongly armed;
although their arms seemed to be carried
about them in some very unusual manner.
They were certainly not in military trim. As
they were only two, though they were armed
outrageously, we did not fear them, and
allowed the foremost presently to dash in
among us—a great boy of fifteen—who
shouted, as he reached my horse's rear:
"Well, we have overtaken you at last! You
might as well have let us know, and then we
could have all travelled together!" He was
dressed coarsely and dirtily as an Albanian
servant, and was mounted on a splendid
mule, with a good deal of luggage attached
to it. His chief luggage consisted, however,
of muskets with their bayonets attached,
which he had contrived so to fix round his
saddle, that they formed a chevaux de frise
about him. Four of them he had contrived
to fix upright, two before and two behind
him, like the posts of a bedstead; two pointed
their bayonets over the horse's shoulders and
two over the crupper, so that his charger
might have run into an enemy with pretty
much the same effect as an old British chariot
armed with its scythes.

The youth was in a few minutes overtaken
by his master, a stout respectable old Turk,
completely winded. As soon as our new
friends had breath enough they began to ask
questions through our courier; and, as I was
the only one who understood his language,
the boy fastened himself to me. The old
gentleman, he told me, was in the service of
Emir Pacha, governor of Albania, and because
it had been understood that the English
government meant to sell the arms left by
the French when the island was surrendered,
they had been to Corfu to inspect the goods
and fetch a dozen muskets for the Pacha
himself to examine. Very likely he would
buy them for the "Tacticos"—the regular
Albanian troops—then being organised. The
boy was a wag, and had a great deal to say
of his first visit to Corfu, where he had been,
above all things, shocked by the bare faces of
the ladies, and the bare knees of the Forty-
second Royal Highlanders, at that time in
our garrison.

So we went on our way, good company
together, till we came into the little village
of Monasteri, which I had seen for years
from the esplanade of Corfu as a little speck
upon the hills of the mainland. We Englishmen
proceeded to the monastery itself, our
Turkish companions went to join friends in
the village. Before we parted our soldiers
had been endeavouring to suggest to them
a better way of carrying their muskets which
would be easier to themselves and not so
dangerous to neighbours; they were,
however, not to be instructed, and we, finding
that advice was wasted, said to them jestingly
that they might as well put hangings to
their bedsteads. They had only to stretch
a cloth over the four upright bayonets and
each of them might ride in state under his
canopy.

We did not like our comrades, and gave
them the slip; but they overtook us again in
the afternoon, filling us with consternation at
the consequence of our advice. They had
followed it to the letter. They thanked us
most heartily for the idea. The constant
jolting of the mules slackened the ropes by
which the upright muskets were fixed to the
saddles, and the whole fabric therefore, every
now and then, came down with a run upon
one or the other rider, extinguishing him for
a moment, and at the same time so frightening
his mule that it would start off at full speed
and compel every one who was in advance to
leap aside and get clear of the bayonets. We
did indeed receive now and then some
awkward pricks.

The rascal of a boy was perpetually taken
with a desire to ask some question about
Corfu for his master or himself, and in that
case always charged down upon me at full
speed with his war-cry of Mr. Secretary—so
he dubbed me. He used a nail as a goad,
which he ran along his mule's back when any
question came into his head, and then he
dashed by every one, forcing all to clear the
road before him in an instant, till he pushed
up to me with his "Mr. Secretary, why is
such a thing so and so in Corfu?" I lost
patience at last; and, on one occasion, drawing
into the ditch, let him rush by while I
borrowed of one of our party a fine hunting-whip
with a long thong. Then I rode up to my
Albanian—who, smothered in his panoply,
had stopped in the midst of a plain to
readjust his bedstead—and, while he was so
engaged, held forth to him upon the whipping
he should get if he came down again upon me
in like manner. I heard him tell his master
what I had promised; and, for an hour he