Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 153/Issue 929/Mid-Winter in Thessaly

It is said that during one of the later expeditions to arctic regions a discussion arose among some ice-bound explorers as to which is less endurable—excessive heat or intense cold. There was present a medical officer who had taken part the previous year in the British expedition to Ashanti: he declared that, of the two extremes, he would choose exposure to a low temperature; for whereas it is always possible, with proper appliances, to protect one's self from cold, no expedient suffices to keep one cool in the fierceness of tropical heat. This may be true enough of the grades of temperature just within either limit of human endurance; but in ordinary European experience far more discomfort is caused by low than by high readings of the thermometer. For downright, resourceless cheerlessness commend us to an Eastern town under a visitation of cold, where the chief business of architects and upholsterers has been to provide protection from heat. Such at least was the conviction forced on the minds of our party, arriving at Larissa during a memorable tempest which swept over Greece last January. The previous day had been one of delusive splendour. Basking on deck of the steamer which brought us from the Piraeus up the Ægean Sea to Volo, we had complacently compared the cloudless sky and blue sea to the leaden environment which winter wraps round angulus ille terrarum, fondly cleped by her sons the Pride of the Ocean. Four-and-twenty hours had brought about a grievous change. First, a fleecy scud had crept across the sky; then tall clouds piled themselves upon it, flashing lightning from their violet skirts; a bitter north wind swept down from the mountains; lashing rain changed hilly roads into water-courses, and level ones into sloughs of ineffable despond.

To arrive at nightfall at the capital of Thessaly—the granary of Greece—under these circumstances was somewhat depressing; still, the town looked cheerful from a distance, for it was the eve of Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, and every minaret bore its girdle of lamps, twinkling gaily against the dark sky. But worse was to come. Our hotel—the ξενοδοχείον τού Όλνμπού, or hostelry of Olympus—bore evidence of the revival of prosperity which annexation to Greece brought to Thessaly in 1881; formerly a common khan, it has been rebuilt, and outwardly, with display of broad white walls and multitudinous green shutters, promises some degree of comfort according to European notions, especially from the contrast it affords to the rest of the town, which is mostly mud-built.

Ne crede colori! A more inhospitable retreat for a bitter winter night could hardly have been devised. There was hardly any furniture except beds in the lofty rooms (beds happened to be the only furniture we had brought with us); the only carpets in the house were hung on the walls of a gaunt sittingroom, where all the servants and several idlers from the street were gathered round a small brazier of charcoal; and throughout this large house there is not a single fireplace or stove, for all cooking is done at ​the hotel restaurant in the next street but one. The walls are so thin as to seem, on this blustery night, as if their sole purpose were to prevent the contents of the rooms being blown into the streets: positively, it was colder indoors than out. To crown all, every corner of the house was pervaded with that stench which of all others is least endurable by civilised nostrils.

However, it was no use showing peevishness under the inevitable; to do so would be in discreditable contrast with the unfailing good-humour of the townspeople of all classes—whether Greeks or Turks. The only thing to do was to keep on every available wrap, and get dinner at the restaurant, where English travellers are sufficiently rare to ensure for us curious but respectful attention. It was fairly warm in the dining-saloon, though everybody, including a party of Greek officers, dined in their greatcoats.

After dinner we were slow in turning out to face the frosty gale, and, preceded by a porter carrying n Chinese lantern, struggled back through filth ankle-deep to the Hotel of Olympus. Without the heading of that kindly light it would hardly have been possible to thread the miry labyrinth, for gas is of course unknown in Larissa, and as petroleum lamps are few and very far between, even in the main street, the darkling wayfarer may easily find himself up to his middle in a muck-heap, or heels over head in one of the pits dug for the trees with which the municipality propose to adorn the πλατεία or principal square. The old town law, making it penal to move about after dark without a lantern, has lately been repealed; but in fact nearly every one carries a coloured paper lantern for his own safety, and the effect of the dancing lights is very pretty.

An important ceremony awaited us before we got to bed. The kind consideration of the Government at Athens had caused our approach to be announced to the Demarch or Préfet of Larissa by telegram. The message had been sent from Volo before we left that town, but was delivered in Larissa some time after our arrival. The Demarch, much concerned that we had not been received with more attention, came to explain the circumstances. It was, it seems, the Feast of St John; the telegraph clerk at Larissa was named John: he had been celebrating the festival of his eponymus not wisely, but too well;—in fact—rarest of all misdemeanours in Greece he had got very drunk. The Demarch was profuse in expressing his chagrin; and his purpose of retribution on the delinquent was rendered to us by the interpreter to the effect that poor John "would be stopped for one—two months, and perhaps, in the end, thrown away altogether! " We entertained some hope that, inasmuch as "John" is the only man within many miles of Larissa who can transmit or receive telegrams, his services will, by this time, have been found indispensable.

Things wore a brighter aspect next morning. The rain had stopped: it was as cold as ever, but the wind was busy drying up the streets.

Larissa is in a very interesting state of transition. For centuries the city and the magnificent province of Thessaly, of which it is the capital, slumbered and groaned in its slumber under Turkish misrule, till it was ceded to Greece in 1881 under the Treaty of Berlin. It is the only part of that kingdom ​where large landed proprietors are still to be found scarcely, in sooth, to be found, for most of them, being Turks, have retired to Constantinople, in spite of the inducements which the Greek Government have offered them to remain. That enlightened and courageous statesmen, Monsieur Tricoupi, recognising the evils of absentee landlordism, has been specially conciliatory towards the Moslem subjects of the Greek crown, and the general population of Greeks, Turks, and Jews (there are still about 30,000 Mohammedans in Thessaly) live together on most amicable terms, though occupying distinct quarters in the towns. But most of the landlords have persisted in departing, and are content to draw their rents and spend them in the Turkish capital.

The town of Larissa itself has, as yet, lost little of its oriental character. The Demarch, the Nomarch, and other officials are, of course, Greek, and look back with some regret to the time when, in greater ease and with less responsibility, they lived in their native provinces. But they are proud of their fine territory and confident in the future of their town, which must, when the resources of the country are further opened up, become an important trading centre. Already the railway unites it to Volo on the east, where there is a splendid natural harbour (the British squadron of five war-ships as anchored there at the time of our visit), and to Trikala and Kalabak on the west; and there is a movement on foot to carry the line further to the west, across the Turkish frontier through Albania by Janina to the coast opposite Corfu—a route at present wholly closed to travellers on account of Turkish brigandage. Meanwhile, the municipality, aided by the Government, have carried out some improvements in the town. A wide street has been cut right through the centre of the Turkish rookery, and along this, stone-built houses are beginning to take the place of mud walls. Stone, however, must always be a costly exotic in Larissa, for throughout the vast plain around it is hardly possible to find a pebble big enough to throw at a dog. Probably before long it will be found profitable to start brickworks in the neighbourhood.

From two points of view this ancient town presents a striking appearance. One of these is at the far end of the bridge which here spans the Peneus, or, as the Turks call it, the Salámvrias. The natives credit the Romans with having built this bridge; but, whatever be the date of its foundation, its nine pointed arches denote reconstruction by a later people. Viewed from the river-bank a little below the bridge the town looks its best, rising from a girdle of lofty poplars with tier upon tier of warm-toned walls, crowned by the cupola and minarets of the principal mosque, and all mirrored in the glassy flood.

To reach the other point of view we must recross the bridge, pausing to watch the town water-carriers laboriously scooping water out of the river, and pouring it into cowhides borne pannier-wise by half-starved ponies. The apertures of the hides are kept open by bunches of brush, and half the contents of each jarful is spilt over the patient animal's quarters, as he stands haunch-deep in the river. It takes about half an hour to fill each pair of hides in this archaic way: the loaded beast then climbs painfully ​up to the town—the water squirting freely from rents and seams in the leather. It is on this primitive method of supply that the entire town of some 10,000 inhabitants depends, for the wells attached to private houses have become deservedly suspect. The water of the Peneus is said to be wholesome; but when, as we saw it, it is swollen with winter floods and as yellow as the Tiber, it was a comfort to reflect that Larissa has store of sound, if not particularly palatable, wine. Moreover, it is hardly encouraging to observe that a gigantic muck-heap, where all the refuse of the town is cast—the happy hunting-ground of innumerable dogs, poultry, magpies, and pert little Eastern jackdaws—occupies about an acre and a half of the river-bank immediately above where the water-skins are filled.

Pursue we then our way up the principal street, past the bazaar and Turkish café, where dozens of wide-breeched, be-fezzed, and be-slippered citizens are drinking coffee, bolting sweetmeats, and sucking away at huge hubble-bubbles. Once into the Turkish quarter and you are back in the middle ages. No wheeled carriage may venture on that fearsome pavement, for Turks always go on horseback; and though the roadway suffices for their quick-footed barbs, you, on foot, must hop from promontory to island, and from island to isthmus in the ocean of filth. Still you will be tempted to linger here and there; for although the house-walls facing the street are, after oriental fashion, mostly without windows, here and there an open door gives a glimpse into a sunny court, where ripe oranges and lemons gleam among their rich verdure, and palm-fronds cast flickering shadows across paved garden-paths, and you pass on, wondering what manner of life the men, and most of all, the rarely seen women, pass in these old-world abodes.

Entrance to the mosques is rarely refused to Christians, except on festivals, and it is to the top of the highest minaret in the town that we are bound. The narrow spiral staircase affords no more than head-and-shoulder room; the steps are foul with summer-blown dust, with bones brought in by owls and kites, besides other venerable rubbish; and, after what seems interminable gyration, we emerge upon the airy gallery which encircles the top of the slender tower. It is a crazy perch, for the whole structure sways sensibly in the strong wind, and it seems as if a moderate kick would send the frail parapet clattering down on the tile-roof far below; but, if your head is steady, the view well repays the labour of the ascent. Beneath your feet cluster the flat-roofed houses; here and there a chimney rises, crowned with an immense stork's nest, making one wonder how the domestic economy of the bipeds within the house can be reconciled with that of the bipeds without. From the dusky labyrinth of streets spring twenty-six minarets, like silvery bodkins, besides the one to which we are clinging. Then let your eye travel over the splendid prospect lying beyond the town. Full forty miles the fat plain is spread east and west, and five-and-twenty north and south, with hardly a tree to break the level, save where the peasants' cots cluster round the fortified granges of the landowners. The northern horizon is closed by the massive rampart of mountains which marks the latest shrinkage of Ottoman rule. It is a magnificent barrier, though it ​will not serve to bar the new-born aspirations of the Hellenes; and many impatient eyes are already turning towards the land of promise, where the dozing Porte still holds its sway.

As we stand, Pelion is far to the right; in front of us is Ossa; and to the left the domes and cusps of mightier Olympus tower over all, sagaciously assigned of old as the abode of shadowy deities, whose priests found these inaccessible heights as convenient to their cult as modern ecclesiastics have sometimes proved the labyrinths of controversial theology to be to theirs. Farther again to the west stretches in long perspective a range of snowy peaks, till the faint outlines of Epirus and Albania close the view. There is something in the breadth of this horizon, the rich plain and royal sweep of mountain-crests, that recalls the panorama of Alps and level Lombardy, viewed from the towers of Turin.

After all this brilliancy and breadth, how strangely narrow and dim the interior of the mosque seems when we descend! We stand awhile on the threshold of the inner court, corresponding to the choir or chancel of a Christian church. Worshippers enter one by one, kick off their slippers, pay their devotions, and so depart; and all the time a muezzin, kneeling on a carpet and leaning his back against a wall, chants monotonously and discordantly from the Koran.

There is not much winter shooting in the immediate environs of Larissa. The great fenceless, almost treeless, plain, with its monotonous tracts alternately of ploughed land, dead stubble, or withered weeds, seems to harbour little winged game after the quails have left. Bustard, it is true, are tolerably plentiful; but they are keenly looked after by local gunners, who may be seen bringing them in for sale, slung on the saddles of their mules or ponies.

But our kind friends in Larissa were determined to provide us amusement of the kind dear to Englishmen, and the Demarch arranged for us an expedition to the preserves of a Turkish landowner, distant about ten miles from the city, on the southern spurs of Mount Ossa.

It was a glorious morning when we set out. Not a cloud floated in the sky, the gale had subsided, there was a delicious freshness in the air, and to the north Mount Olympus rose clear and glistering, betokening steady weather. As above mentioned, there is only one street in Larissa over which a carriage can be driven, and as this does not lead in the direction we wished to go, a long detour had to be made after leaving the eastern gate of the city; here axle-deep in ploughed fields, there bumping through Moslem cemeteries, and wholly over ways which any London cab-driver would pronounce impassable. However, after a couple of miles of this work, we gained the new Greek road running straight and fair to Hagyia, and the procession of three carriages rattled on at a good pace. A diversion was caused in crossing a stream some five miles from the start, where two small grebes were sighted on the water. A great loading of guns took place. The English chasseurs were invited to descend and open the sport; but they waived the privilege, declaring the birds not to be ducks, but only plongeurs, and therefore not worth powder and shot. It was clear that their motives were misunderstood, and that they were suspected of having ​misgivings of their ability to hit such small objects. To the Demarch therefore fell the lot to approach and fire, which he did with great eagerness, but without effect.

Progress was resumed. In the distance appeared our rendezvous, a large wood at the foot of the mountains, just under the hill-village of Marmagnano, and the ground began to look more gamey. Three wild geese rose far out of shot from a swampy meadow, and a hare moved out of some rushes after we had left the highroad and were driving across the open plain.

The first ceremony on arriving was an excellent déjeuner à la fourchette, spread al fresco on the short turf in the bright warm sunshine. There were six regular guns—two Turkish gentlemen, two Greeks, and two Englishmen; but in addition nearly all the beaters, of whom there were a score or so, were armed with fowling-pieces of sorts. It was a pretty scene: the bivouac, the groups of romantically dressed peasants, the excited dogs, the picketed horses. The wood was very thick copse, of great extent, and containing some magnificent plane-trees, oaks, and black poplars. The defect of Greek scenery, as a rule, is the want of trees: those that are allowed to stand are cruelly maltreated the hardwood being lopped and hacked for fuel, the firs being gashed and bled to the verge of death for resin, with which the Greeks love to spoil their excellent wine. It is therefore a great treat to get into a bit of real woodland, and the russet oaks and silvery poplar-stems towered nobly against the blue mountain background.

It was not, let it be confessed, without some qualms of misgiving that we surveyed the dense jungle before us and took anxious note of the number of guns—nearly twenty in all—with which the battue was to be conducted. What was the plan of operations? we asked; were we to walk in line, or were we to be stationed round the covert? "Ah! il faut aller partout," replied our host, waving both hands airily in the direction of the wood, "et quand vous entendez aboyer les chiens—alors, vous cherchez une bonne place."

This was not very reassuring; however, the party soon scattered through the copse, and operations began. Once more the unskilfulness of the English sportsmen became too manifest. A blackbird was observed sitting on a bramble-bush; a native chasseur pointed him out to the foreigner, who refused to shoot. Ah! it was too small a mark for him, so down went the Greek, stooping low, stalked the quarry, obtained a safe sitting shot, and, with a prodigious report, laid the unlucky songster low.

But there is bigger game on foot. It is time for each to seek "une bonne place," for the dogs are barking wildly. The pack, by the by, is a mixed one; there is one English fox-hound, three pointers, and six or seven non-descripts. They are tearing through the underwood throwing their tongues merrily—pointers and all. A grey object darts shadow-like across a glade—stay! don't shoot! it is one of the pack: no, by the chaste huntress! it is a jackal, and we should earn effusive gratitude from the shepherds if we could secure his skin. But it is too late now, he is away to the hill, and we shall see him no more. A fine old red dog-fox is not so lucky; he is bowled over by one of the beaters, who falls upon him and flays him on the spot ​—thereby putting him self two clear days' wages to the good, for a fox-skin commands five drachmas in Larissa market. Had the woodcocks been in, there would have been one in every bush, we were assured; the hard weather had driven them to the coast, and only four or five couple were bagged.

One of the prettiest sights of the day was afforded by a pair of white-tailed eagles which had their eyrie, a huge agglomeration of sticks, in the fork of an immense poplar not more than thirty feet above the ground. They were very bold, and it was not till several shots had been fired that they left their strong-hold, and rising slowly on broad pinions to a great height, they continued soaring far above our heads for the rest of the day. Birds of prey, indeed, were much more conspicuous in this preserve than game, and better opportunity could not be had of watching the habits of buzzards (both the rough-legged and common kind), kites, harriers, kestrels, sparrow and other hawks.

As it wore to afternoon the heat became oppressive: the party was scattered far and wide: game was scarce, and two of us made our way back to the carriages to rejoin a Greek friend who had accompanied us from Athens. Not being a sportsman, he had not joined in the chase: none the less, however, had he met with his adventure. Visitors to Thessaly are always cautioned about the ferocity of the sheep-dogs. These strong Molossian hounds are prized by the shepherds as the guardians of their flocks against jackals: if a stranger is attacked he may defend himself with a knife; but—such is the custom of the country—if he shoots one of them in self-defence, the shepherds shoot him, and there is not much chance of redress. Our contemplative friend was strolling along the wood-side, when he was suddenly set upon by two of these ferocious animals. A long black overcoat which he wore was instantaneously bereft of its tails torn off by their powerful fangs; and then, with admirable presence of mind, he bethought him of Ulysses' tactics when, on his return to Ithaca, he was attacked by his own dogs—he sat down.

It is an infallible recipe: the dogs accept the surrender: they are content with setting the trespasser at bay, and they keep him there till their master comes to call him to account. The lesson is worth bearing in mind by visitors in these lands; for the conduct of the sheep-dog is the single exception to the hospitality shown to travellers in the interior of Greece.

As this day of memorable brilliancy drew to a close, a remarkable display of bird-life presented itself. The great fresh-water lake of Karle, producing vast shoals of carp, and attracting large flights of wild-fowl, lies between the mountain-groups of Pelion and Ossa. It seems to be the remains of the inland sea which once flowed over the plains of Larissa and Trikala, the waters of which found an escape through the beautiful vale of Tempe. Immense flights of cormorants, coming from the direction of the Karlé lake, but possibly travelling from the Gulf of Salonike, farther to the east, appeared in the sky, moving steadily towards the nor'-nor'-west. The first and largest of these flights, formed in the shape of a huge V, could not have contained less than 1500 or 2000 birds. From point to point of the V appeared to measure about two miles. This ​great flight was followed by others, numbering from 150 to 500 in each. In all, there could not have been less than 4000 or 5000 birds passing over our heads in the space of half an hour, out of gunshot, but so near that we could hear the sound of their wings in the still air. The well-known ornithologist, Mr Harting, was of our party; but, having remained longer than we in the wood, he saw only the last of the smaller nights at a considerable distance, and thought they were geese. But we examined the birds carefully through a telescope, and most clearly they were cormorants, bound for some definite and distant point. The number of fish consumed by such a multitude of these destructive birds must be prodigious.

It had been our intention to journey through the vale of Tempe to Salonike, about four days' drive, but every one whom we consulted warned us strenuously against the danger of such a proceeding.

Security, which is now absolute within the frontiers of Greece, is as far as ever it was from prevailing in Turkey. The passes of Olympus, and the whole of the Albanian mountains, are infested by brigands, who sustain themselves by levying blackmail on the farmers and villagers, and are always on the look-out for travellers whom they may hold at ransom. We asked if we could not obtain a Turkish escort. "Of course you may," was the reply, "but that would ensure your capture. The Turkish soldiers seldom receive any pay, and would certainly sell you to the brigands." We pointed to our arms and a plentiful supply of ammunition. "Useless," they said ; "you would never have a chance of using them. The first notice you would have would be a loud command to halt, from a band concealed in rocks and brush, and if you disregarded it you would be shot down."

So, reluctantly enough, we altered our plans. But it is exasperating that these beautiful highlands should remain inaccessible through the indolence and incapacity of a rotten Government. Where the will exists, the means of putting down brigandage are easy and inexpensive. They were adopted to good purpose in Greece during M. Tricoupi's first administration. He armed the peasantry, and set a price on every brigand's head. The peasants, hardy and warlike, were delighted at the chance of ridding themselves of their hated tormentors, and nothing has been heard of brigandage in Greece since the capture of Colonel Synge in 1881. That gentleman occupied a large farm on the borders of Albania. Relying on the fidelity and courage of his retainers, he laughed at the warnings of his friends, till one night his grange was surrounded and attacked. He made good his defence, till the marauders managed to fire the premises. Burnt and smoked out, he was captured; between twenty and thirty of his Albanians were murdered on the spot, and he himself was carried off and held to ransom for the usual price asked for an Englishman, £15,000, coupled with the conditions of indemnity for the band, and the release of some of their friends who were in prison. The English Government paid down the ransom, recovering it afterwards from the Turks by stopping it out of the revenues of Cyprus: the other conditions were agreed to, and it is said that the chief of the band retired to one of the islands, where he ​has since lived in comfortable and peaceable circumstances.

But that was the end of it, and since then tourists have been as safe from molestation in all parts of Greece as they are in Dumbartonshire.

The agricultural wealth of the two great plains of Thessaly, that of Larissa and the greater one of Trikala, profuse as it is, is capable of manifold increase. There is, as yet, no land-hunger here; at present there are not enough men to cultivate the soil in the sense that Western people understand cultivation. The use of manure, if not unknown, is at least not practised, though, heaven knows, the streets of every town might furnish plenty of good material: the ears of wheat are reaped with as little straw as possible, the remainder being burnt: each farmer crops one-third of his holding annually, the remaining two-thirds lying fallow. The grain is of splendid quality, and is exported largely to Italy for the manufacture of macaroni. It is a sadly spendthrift system, for the fallow land is not really resting, but is burdened with a rank growth of thistles and other weeds, the strength of which (some of the thistles grow eight feet high) testifies to the generous qualities of this deep dry alluvium. To the politician or philanthropist, worried and puzzled by the land problem in the restless, toiling west of Europe, there comes at first a welcome feeling of relief at the sight of such ample elbow-room. Far as the eye can reach on these great champaigns—as far in every direction as a horse may travel before set of sun there is profitable industry, and room for three families for every one on the land at present. Threefold the present harvest might be reaped, which, of course, on the prevalent métayer system, would produce a threefold rent to the landlord. Contemplation of the conditions of Thessalian agriculture wealth of sun, fertilising rains and streams, an almost inexhaustible soil, steady markets and light taxation turns our envious, wistful thoughts back to the hard-wrung, often ungrateful fields with which British farmers have to deal. There is plenty of English machinery in Thessaly already: the energy of the Greek Government in road-making has opened access to traction-engines, reaping and threshing machines; what forbids some of our English farmers, bled nearly to death by free trade, from settling in this land of promise? Well, the chief obstacle seems to be the ineradicable jealousy which the Greek bears towards foreign enterprise. It was this that put an end to the profitable business of a French and Italian mining company at Laurium: it is this which threatens to make abortive for the time M. Tricoupi's beneficent work in reopening the ancient canals and draining Lake Copais in Bœotia, where the riparian peasant-proprietors resist an influx of strangers to till the land which they themselves are unable to take in hand. There is plenty of land to let in Thessaly; yet at present there is no opening for new tenants. It is not clear what will be the outcome of future years of steady and fostering government. The cruel old Turkish law which endured for centuries, under which the growing crops were taxed, has been lately repealed. Under the old system no husbandman might reap his harvest till it had been visited and valued by the tax-collector. This official, after the manner of Turkish officials, set no ​store by punctuality: often, before he visited the fields, the crop was over-ripe and half wasted; then the farmer had to travel many miles over execrable roads to pay his cess into the office before he was at liberty to put in the sickle. The withering effect of this fiscal blight still lingers: the people have yet to become accustomed to freedom, and learn to make the most of their splendid heritage. When they have acquired that, and begin to avail themselves of modern resources, Thessaly will become the richest province in Greece.

It is among these rank fallows that the plague of field-voles which desolated the harvests of 1891 and 1892 took its rise, and grew to such uncontrollable dimensions; and the object of our visit was to ascertain, by personal inquiry and inspection, whether, as was asserted, Professor Loeffler had really succeeded in extirpating the voles by the application of his specific. This method consists in the diffusion of bacillus typhimurium, or the virus of mouse-typhus, among these mischievous rodents; but inasmuch as the disease is not contagious, but can only be communicated to those animals which swallow food saturated with the infusion, serious doubts had been entertained as to the prospect of successfully dealing by this method with the plague of field-voles which has lately been the cause of so much mischief on the southern uplands of Scotland. In the spring of 1892, Professor Loeffler was invited by the Greek Government to commence operations in the neighbourhood of Larissa and Velestino, where the prevalence of voles threatened utter destruction to the harvest. All expenses were defrayed by the Government, and the learned Professor, having satisfactorily proved that the virus of mouse-typhus is not communicable to human and other valuable forms of life, set to work distributing among the peasants bread saturated in the deadly broth. Immense numbers of mice no doubt died of the disease: it is the opinion of some people that besides those which actually ate the bread, others died from eating the flesh of the dead, but on this point the evidence is unsatisfactory and conflicting. Howbeit, in the opinion of the Professor and of some landowners in the district, the plague had been stayed: reports to that effect were made to the Greek Department of Agriculture, and forwarded to this country, and the British Board of Agriculture were strongly pressed to adopt similar means, and employ Professor Loeffler on the Scottish sheep-farms.

It is well that such a step, which would have involved considerable expense, was preceded by rigorous inquiry. On arriving in Thessaly we found that, so far from the voles having disappeared, they were in as great force upon some parts of the ground as ever. Possibly, had it been feasible to spread poisoned bread over every portion of the land affected, the results would have been more satisfactory; but, apart from the immense area to be dealt with, there was also the indifference of many of the farmers to exert themselves against a visitation which Christians and Mohammedans alike regarded as coming direct from the Almighty, and only removable at His pleasure. Public opinion in Thessaly lends no support to the view that heaven helps them that help themselves. There had been, besides, carelessness in applying the ​remedy. The preparation loses its virtue in a few days: it should be applied as soon as it is prepared. Consequently, on some farms where the bread was scattered no result ensued; and, in dealing with a district, it is of little use clearing one farm if the next one is allowed to remain infested.

On the whole, therefore, the conclusion arrived at was, that although Professor Loeffler's method, when properly employed, is as efficacious, though not so swift in effect, as mineral poison, and has the immense advantage of being innocuous to all animals except those of the mouse tribe, yet it is open to the same objection as any other poison which must be swallowed by the object of attack—namely, the difficulty and expense of spreading it uniformly and simultaneously over a large extent of country.

The liquid costs five francs a bottle, which contains enough liquid for two English acres. It is obvious that the cost of applying this remedy to a Scottish sheep-farm would often exceed the total year's rent of the farm. Thus, to clear a farm of, say, 6000 acres, would involve an outlay of 600 in typhus-broth alone, besides the bread used and the cost of labour. In Thessaly this expense was undertaken by the Government. In this country it would seriously perturb the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he were called on to provide material for the whole infected area in Scotland, extending, as it does, roughly, to about fifty miles in length by twelve to twenty in breadth.

The Thessalian vole (Arvicola Guntheri), though nearly akin to, differs specifically from, the vole with which Scottish farmers are only too well acquainted (Arvicola agrestis). It differs also in habits; for whereas the British vole lives on the surface, and does not burrow, or, at most, scrapes out shallow runs, its Greek congener riddles the banks and fields with innumerable deep holes. At the time of our visit—mid-winter—the little animals were underground: winter in that country, though short, is a period of much more absolute repose in vegetation than in our long dripping seasons; there is no grass to tempt the voles abroad, and the presence of innumerable buzzards, kites, and kestrels, soaring and hovering over the plain from "the rising of the morning till the stars appear," seems to ensure the summary fate of any over-venturesome individual that should emerge.

The fact that birds of prey exist unmolested in such large numbers over the vole-infected districts of Thessaly, has a distinct bearing upon the theory put forward in our own country that the excessive multiplication of mice and voles has been due to the destruction of hawks and owls in the interests of game-preserving. No such proposition can be maintained in view of the plain facts of the case. Not only do the English chroniclers record recurrent visitations of this pest centuries before game-preserving, in the strict sense, was dreamt of in England, but here in Thessaly it never occurs to anybody to shoot the natural enemies of mice. They are always present in great numbers. In 1866, under the dominion of the Turks, there was an outbreak similar to that of this year and last. The Mohammedans are very kind to wild animals, and protect all that an English gamekeeper classes as vermin; but in spite of this the plague of mice comes (as it did ​in the days of Apollo Smintheus, the Mouse-destroyer), waxes and wanes, according to the character of the seasons.

It must not be inferred from this that there is any doubt as to ths useful work done by buzzards, kestrels, and all kinds of owls, against which gamekeepers have hitherto been allowed, and even encouraged by those who ought to know better, to wage indiscriminate war. These birds are harmless to game; their presence may mitigate and sometimes even avert a plague of mice; but mild seasons with abundant herbage will ever tend to encourage extra-ordinary swarms of small rodents, and the only chance of arresting the mischief under such circumstances lies in prompt and combined action by men and with dogs on the first symptoms of undue increase.

Reference has been made to the supineness of the peasantry under the visitation; but there are limits even to Mohammedan endurance; and the prospect of another harvest being ruined by voles has at length stirred the Turkish landowners to vigorous action. On the very day of our arrival at Larissa, a steamer left Volo harbour to fetch a cargo of holy water from Mecca, with which to sprinkle the infested plain! Not improbably this expedient may synchronise with the natural abatement of the plague, which usually runs its course in two seasons: what rejoicing, then, among the faithful who have witnessed the failure of the impious experiments of scientific Christians!

It is impossible to have intercourse with modern Greeks without being touched with some degree of the enthusiasm which inspires thmi in discussing the future of their country, or without sharing the confidence with which they approach it. It may be true that the people are of hybrid race, that little of the old Hellenic blood flows in their veins, but few European nations of note, our own perhaps least of all, can boast unmixed descent: there is that in the air this people breathe—in the language they speak—the land they live in—which is of the very spirit of liberty. One meeting a countryman on the road accosts him as patriote, a term of more significance, of larger meaning than "citizen." But they are a people deeply democratic, and require delicate handling to steer liberty clear of the shoals of licence. Murmurings against the growth of taxation are already heard, and the extraordinary activity of the press ensures the publicity of every unpopular act of the administration. Manhood suffrage is an unstable foundation for a government; yet in Greece, where the population is almost exclusively agricultural, and, except in Thessaly, peasant proprietary is universal, there is less cause to apprehend those furious gusts of popular feeling which affect people crowded together in great industrial centres. If military and naval expenditure (especially the latter, for which in a country without colonies there ought to be no pressing necessity) can be kept within reasonable limits, there is good cause to hope that the new kingdom will be firmly established, her desolate fields become repeopled, and her internal resources steadily developed.

There is one operation obviously desirable, which the Department of Agriculture are already bestirring themselves to promote namely, the reafforesting of the mountains and planting of trees in the plains. ​On a soil exposed to protracted droughts it is of prime importance that waste tracts should be clothed with wood in order to check evaporation, and the tendency of heavy rainfall to run off in destructive floods. But to attain this end the people must be brought to see that it is in their own interest to encourage the growth of young wood. At present it is considered an infringement of freedom to prevent anybody pasturing sheep or goats on any uncultivated land. Such trees as still remain on the hills are felled or lopped at random, the seedlings are browsed down, and millions of acres which might be made valuable woodland now grow nothing but mastic, cistus, and scrubby Aleppo pines. Education is free in Greece: it is not compulsory, because the peasantry are all anxious to have their children instructed: it would tend to increase enormously the wealth of the country could the rising generation be schooled into a knowledge of arboriculture, and induced to foster the natural reproduction of timber, and undertake the planting up of suitable tracts. The Government are liberal in the supply of young plants; it only requires that the young Greeks should be aroused to the importance of planting and protecting them, and so arrest the process of denudation by

There are those whose sense may be offended by all this stir of preparation and bustle of material concern which now echoes through this ancient realm, who sympathise with Mr Ruskin when, in one of his juvenile pieces, lately reprinted, he exclaims: " Who would substitute the rush of a new nation, the struggle of an awakening power, for the dreamy sleep of Italy's desolation, for her sweet silence of melancholy thought, her twilight time of everlasting memories?"

Surely there are few who will hesitate to reply that to open a future full of bright promise before a nation possessed of an immortal past, is to add the harmony of a full orchestra to the voice of one crying in the wilderness; and the English poet who, beyond all other singers, mourned for and celebrated the shattered grandeur of Greece, would be the first, were he present with her now, to beckon her onward in her confident renascence.