need is there to say more or wonder why
they are so fallen?

On I ride with my uncongenial companion,
while these thoughts are passing through my
mind. On, over the unequal paving of
ancient roads, which may have been trodden
by St. Paul; on, through shady lanes where
the wild flowers cluster, and where the briar
tree and the olive grow entwined together in
dark luxuriance; on, through whole forests
of olive trees, some in all the vigour of their
foliage, others withered to dry stumps by the
terrible winter of eighteen hundred and fifty,
which destroyed half the wealth of the island.
We pass merry parties of pleasure-hunters,
bound to the same place as ourselves. The
peasantry are dressed in their own national
costume, and sing gaily on the way; but
those who aspire to a higher rank of course
deform themselves with Smyrna coats which
do not fit them; and all who are under the
protection of any foreign consulate assert
their superiority to the law by a European
hat, and make themselves ridiculous
accordingly.

At length a sound of fiddling comes briskly
through the pleasant noonday air; and the
frequent appearance of little white houses tells
us we are near the village. After scrambling
up one ravine and down another and crossing
a dangerous gutter, which had once been part
of an ancient theatre, we find ourselves
among a group of men seated on the ground
and smoking nargillys. We are at Moria.

Leaving our horses to the care of our
guides, who speedily left them to their own,
I put myself under the protection of my
acquaintance and begin to partake of the
pleasures of the day.

Now a Greek feast is a feast indeed. It is
the only festival I know of which is really
worthy of the name. A Yorkshire Christmas
or New Year in Norway is nothing to it. A
Greek feast is one continual round of eating
and drinking delicacies, from the beginning
to the end of it. From eight o'clock in the
morning, when the holiday makers are ready
dressed for business, till twelve o'clock at
night, when their palates must be fairly
wearied out, they never rest for five minutes.
They go from house to house, from café to café,
and strut and swagger and talk—(heaven and
earth, how they do talk!)—and eat and drink,
and sing and dance together, till human
nature can hold out no longer. As the night
deepens, many an old score is paid off with
the ready knife which the revellers carry in
their girdles.

The first house we entered was that of
mine host of the solitary locanda at Mytilene.
He and his family, comprising a good stout
serviceable set of children, were passing a
few days at Moria during the gathering of
the olives on their estate, and they received
us very kindly. We found a large party of
men seated in a circle round the room, and
three musicians very busy in one corner of
it. All rose as we entered; for there is no
nation in the world so naturally polite as the
Greeks. We took our places, after some
ceremony, among the rest; the paper cigarettes
of the smokers were restored again
to the mouths from which they had been
withdrawn: a chiboque was handed to each
of us, and the musicians again struck up the
airs which our coming had interrupted. Their
instruments were a lute of very antique
shape, a fiddle and a flageolet. Every now
and then the players stopped to sing a few
bars of an air; and then went on with their
playing. Sometimes they played and sang
together.

I am bound, however, to acknowledge
that the music was very bad. There was
nothing even interesting or original in it to
a musical student. The best of the airs
were filched from second rate Italian operas,
and spoilt by the most abominable variations.
In one, I plainly detected the " Last Rose of
Summer," faded and gone indeed. Even the
words of the songs—which I took great pains
to catch accurately—were worth nothing as
poetry or traits of manners.  They had
nothing national about them. The groan of
the patriot, and the sigh of the lover, were
alike but an echo. The songs were very bad
translations. In fact, modern Greeks are all
mere imitators; and, as far as I know, they
have not original talent of any kind. They are
alike in all things, and in all mere plagiarists
and pretenders.

It is due to the company assembled at
mine host's, to say that they seemed to have
a poor opinion of the musical part of the
entertainment themselves; and on a loud
clock in the next room striking twelve, the
whole circle gravely marched off to dinner,
without a word; leaving their musicians in
the midst of as unmusical a yowl, as ever
was called by courtesy a song.

We were going to follow, when we were
stopped by the hostess bearing in the glyco,
or preserved fruit jelly and water, which it
is customary always to present to guests in
a Greek house. We knew it would be
considered discourteous to refuse it and so
stayed. After this, came sugar plums:—a
delicate sweetmeat, in the confection of which
isinglass must play a notable part, a saucer
full of the small white fruit of the bread
tree, and some ornamental glasses of a very
strong, pure spirit, called rakee. Having
disposed of this second course also, it was
followed by a third of coffee, made very
strong and unstrained. We were then
suffered to depart for this once. And so we
went visiting, according to the custom of the
country, from house to house, feasting at
each. The Greeks are very hospitable,
though they do not ask you to dinner; and
I found on my return home, by an aching
head, that I had partaken, during the day, of
no less than twenty-one cups of coffee, the
same number of small glasses of rakee, with