Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 153.djvu/429

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.