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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