table, took occasional sips out of her husband's glass, and became talkative. Now all restraint was at an end, and questions about England and the far West occupied more time than I cared to devote to them. Every Greek adores the name of Mr. Gladstone, and I went up considerably in our host's estimation when I told him I had been at Oxford. "Then you are a schoolfellow of Mr. Gladstone's?" To this novel way of looking at the question I deemed it wise to assent. By degrees I drew them on to talk about themselves and their customs line of conversation far more interesting to me. I wished to gather information about the growth of the grape. "Did they have a grand ceremony as in Italy at the vintage season?" a "Not much," was the reply, after a pause. Presently, however, our host told us that when a man wished to plant a vineyard near Pyrghi, he would call together fifty or more men, according to the size of the vineyard he proposed to plant, on a feast-day at the church door. Each of these he would provide with spade, and he would slaughter goats, and fill skins with wine. Next morning the troop would start out to work, singing songs, and preceded by a standard-bearer holding a white banner. They would eat the goats and drink the wine after the planting of the vines, which, according to custom, must all be done in one day, and they would return home in the evening singing and shouting more lustily than when they went. Surely this is very akin to a feast of Bacchus ! "Sing us one of your Chiote songs," I asked our host. He was nothing loth to do this, and his wife gave him the key. note by striking a knife on a brass dish. The tune was monotonous, and of the words I could only catch the refrain, which was, "Forty-five lemon-trees planted by the way." And I felt it must be a purely Chiote song judging by the quantities of lemons we had passed through in the Kampos. Attracted by the sound of revelry the neighbors now dropped in one by one, ostensibly to chat with our host, but really to scrutinize the foreigners. The priest, of course, led the way, and very stately he looked in his tall hat and long robe as he seated himself in a corner, stroked his white beard, and settled himself to look on. The local authorities (the Demoge. rontes) were formally introduced to us as they walked in, and each was handed a glass of wine; other local magnates fol lowed, and the feast waxed merry. De spite their poverty, Turkish oppression, and earthquakes, the Greeks of Chios can still be merry when they please. Our host laughed, and cracked jokes with everybody; he told his experiences by sea and land, on mountain and plain. Perhaps his bow was a little long, especially when talking of sport. I had seen no game in Chios, and I doubted whether he ever had. Apropos of sport, the priest put rather a good riddle to the company. I got our host to write it down for me in my notebook, and the following is the translation: I live on all sorts of sport, yet I never go up to the mountain forests. I weave nets, and I set them, yet I am not a fisherman. I am found with the poor, yet I am by no means a pauper. And with the offspring of poverty I provide dinner for my belly. Most of those present knew the answer, and all eyes were turned upon me, as if to test the ability of a schoolfellow of Mr. Gladstone's. With shame I confess that I had to be told that the answer was a spider; on thinking it over coolly next day I wondered at my stupidity. After a while I delicately inquired if they ever danced in Cihos. "Not often now," they said somewhat sadly; "since the earthquakes we have had no spirit for it." I gently pressed the subject. "I should like to see some of your steps." They looked from one to the other, smiled, and at length hesitatingly consented. There were plenty of men in the room already, so our host was despatched in all haste to secure partners for them all, whilst Mrs. Sunday, at my special request, took her eldest daughter into an adjoining room, and decked her in the holiday attire peculiar to Pyrghi. I have seldom seen anybody look smarter than Miss Friday when she walked in; her scarlet stomacher was beautifully decorated with gold, her jacket was of the same pattern as her mother's everyday one of blue, but it was of yellow silk; from her head came the manthelion, a fairy-like thing of light silk hanging down to her heels behind; on her head was a garland of artificial flowers, and the whole was kept on by beautiful silver pins; her hair hung over her breast in two long plaits. She had on a stiff white petticoat, and an apron of crimson with gold roses embroidered on it. These dresses the Chiotes wear on grand gala days when they dance on the village green, and it was a mark of the greatest condescension on Mrs. Sunday's part to allow of its being seen tonight. I should like to have seen the whole company when dressed like this, but unfortunately they only came in their every day clothes. Nevertheless they looked excessively quaint, each with her hair cut short and brought on to her cheek like whiskers, and the men too with their baggy trousers like divided skirts, which wobbled about oddly as they capered to and fro. departed; but not so the priest, who lingered on stroking his white beard as if reluctant to leave so interesting a sight. We partially undressed with the vain hope of shocking him. Nothing would drive him away till twelve o'clock struck, when he hastily left us with his blessing to retire privately to rest, or rather a mockery of rest, for "those black-faced mules, all blood and skin," as the Chiotes call them, found us excellent hunting-grounds. Before we were out of bed in the morning, snatching a few of those winks of which the exigencies of our nocturnal chase had deprived us, Mrs. Sunday's little family began to peer into our room; first a head, then shoulders, then a body, then another body, and we awoke to the knowledge that four little human beings were contemplating our repose. It availed little driving away the urchins and closing the door. Before we had time to become what we considered presentable, in walked the old priest with his blessing, and took up his position again on his chair. Mrs. Sunday quickly followed him, bringing in a tray with little cups of coffee thereon, and our life of publicity began. They treated us to several dances to the tune of the phlogera, a sort of bagpipe; but as yet they had danced nothing which I had not seen in other parts of Greece. Before closing the entertainment a singing dance was suggested, and, as it was the first I had ever seen, I was deeply interested. The dancers stand in a circle. Each man has a woman on his right hand for his partner, so that every young man has an old woman, and every old man a young woman. They join hands, and dance round slowly in a circle, and the one who is styled the leader be- All ablutions had perforce to be pergins to sing. At the end of four or five formed at a public tap outside. These lines he mentions the second dancer by taps are regular family institutions in name, who forthwith kisses his partner Chios; they are generally rudely decoand then begins to sing; then he men-rated with a carved marble slab covered tions the third dancer, who likewise kisses and sings and so on all round the circle till all have had their song and their kiss. When it comes to the leader again he takes his kiss, but does not continue to sing. Peals of laughter greeted each kiss; it was now obvious to us why the partners were so curiously chosen. : with quaint devices, and here all the washe It was getting very late, past eleven, and as yet we had seen no signs of bed or the abatement of the feast. Perhaps we yawned, perhaps our host himself felt When we were dressed, and our coffee sleepy, but greatly to our relief all the was finished, our host volunteered his guests suddenly took their departure, bid- services as cicerone. Our plan was to ding each of us a hearty κάλλη νύκτα. The visit the objects of interest in Pyrghi priest alone sat on as a privileged person; before a stout lunch at eleven, and after he never spoke, but seemed deeply inter- that to devote our time to inspecting the ested in the unpacking of our meagre immediate neighborhood of the place. So stock of luggage. Mrs. Sunday and her we left Mrs. Sunday spinning away. Her daughters were very busy now. First of wheel was a simple one, being nothing but all they cleared away the table and the a framework of cane stuck into a stone to dishes, then they dragged in a large mat-keep it up, and as she twirled her spintress which was spread on the floor, clean dle, and wished us a good expedition, white sheets and pillow-cases were next one might have thought she had walked fetched out of a cupboard and spread on straight out of the Iliad or the Odyssey the mattress. Over all was cast a quilt for our benefit. rich in its many-colored embroidery. All was ready now. So our host and hostess bade us good-night and soft repose, and The parish church of Pyrghi is nothing much to look at outside. Yet within the wood carving is excellent, as indeed it is universally in these island churches. There is the everlasting tempelon, a sort of rood screen of wood which shut off the holy of holies from the vulgar gaze. This is usually a labyrinth of carving, biblical subjects let in in panels, and wreaths of flowers around them. Carving in minute detail is quite a speciality here, and numerous crosses were for sale, the minuteness of the work on which was almost painful. The pulpit too at Pyrghi is a grand work of carving, as is also the πроOKUVITηριov, where the picture of the patron saint, "St Ballast of the People," is exposed to be kissed by the faithful. The gallery is a curious contrast to these works of art, being constructed of alternate panels of brilliant red and green. Outside the entrance stood rows of chimney-pots with what seemed to be miniature gibbets over them. We were informed that they were tombs over which no gravestone is put, but incense is kept continually burning inside the chimney-pots, suspended in little lamps from the gibbets. Down a dark entrance I was next taken to visit one of the most exquisite little Byzantine churches I had ever seen, numerous as these are over the old Grecian empire, at Constantinople, Athens, and elsewhere. I don't think any pleased me more than this church at Pyrghi. It is entirely shut in by houses, and buried in a luxuriant garden. The red bricks have assumed a rich, mellow tint; the tooth patterns and intricate designs in brick are more than usually elaborate, and around the dome old Rhodian plates, let into the bricks, form an exceedingly rich decoration. The windows are narrow, and the patterns wander on carrying your eye into a deep recess where is a strip of glass scarcely a foot wide. The exterior is like a rich autumn leaf in coloring, or a bit of mediæval tapestry. Inside the dome is covered with frescoes blackened by age and dirt. The Turks made a stable of it during the revolution, and it appears scarcely to have been cleaned since. From the churches our host took us to inspect an olive-oil factory of which there are several in Pyrghi, so that the stream which waters the village is brown with olive juice, like water tinged by peat in an Irish bog. Here they use no machinery or modern appliances in pressing the oil, merely the old primitive wooden press. Women, or sometimes mules, walk round and round revolving a wheel which crushes the olives; in this condition they put them into sacks and then into that "black-faced beifer which devours oakwood," as the Chiotes in their figurative way are wont to describe their ovens. The sacks are then placed one over the other in the press, and two men turn a post which pulls a rope, which drags a stick, which tightens the press, and the oil oozes into the receptacle prepared for it, with water inside. The oil and water of course do not amalgamate, the dregs sink to the bottom, and the pure oil flows into jars prepared for it. It is impossible to realize the affection people have for olives in a purely olivegrowing country. "An olive with a kernel gives a boot to a man,” is a true adage with them. It is the principal fattening and sustaining food in a country where hardly any meat is eaten. It takes the place of the potato in Ireland, and on the olive crop depends the welfare of many. An olive yard is presented to the church by way of glebe, and the peasants collect on a stated day to gather these sacred olives, which they buy from the church, and always at the highest market value. The other objects we visited in Pyrghi did not interest us much. The streets are narrow and dark, and the inhabitants squalid. Moreover, we never could get it out of our heads that they were wicked; the women with the clowns' caps and bushy whiskers, I think uniformly gave us that impression. We went to the school and saw the female youth of Chios occupied in learning Western crochet, instead of Eastern embroidery as their mothers had done, and then we went to see several women weaving rugs of striped col. ors in their looms, here called an upyaλéov, just as in ancient days Homer used the word to express anything hard to do. At eleven we fed off the remains of our last night's repast. During the progress of our meal I heard some curious, monot. onous singing in the square, so I hastened to the window to see what it was. Some children were going from door to door singing a low dirge like the Breton storyteller who goes from fair to fair with his banner to illustrate the incidents of his song. One boy carried a long cane in his hand, on the top of which was perched a rude wooden bird which was moved to and fro in a supplicating fashion by means of a thread inside the cane. "These children," explained our host, "are having their swallow feast (xehidóvioμa) to-day. Every spring when the first swallow has been seen the children claim a half holiday at Pyrghi; in some towns it is the 1st of March, and then they go round and beg for alms.” One boy carried a basket which was nearly full of eggs, another had a basketful of bread, another of olives, and as they went from door to door I caught the first line of their song, nothing more, "The swallow has come from the dark sea," and the rest was lost to me. Some weeks later on Palm Sunday I heard some children singing in a similar strain; this time a girl carried a doll dressed as a bride, and some wallflowers in her hair. Their song was equally monotonous, and reminded me strongly of what must have been a chorus in an old Greek play. The doll was waved in their arms from side to side, and their baskets were filled by the neighbors. I made the leading girl repeat slowly to me her words, and found that the doll was supposed to represent Lazarus, and that the words formed a sacred song, and ran as follows, "Then Christ weeps, and makes Hades to tremble as he says, Hades, Tartarus, and Charon, I demand Lazarus of you.'' No wonder ancient customs and ancient mythology are wonderfully blended with the new. After lunch Mrs. Sunday showed us her linen cupboard full of things woven by herself and her female ancestors. Some of her rugs in stripes of color made us eager to possess, but she was our hostess, we could not summon up courage to make her an offer for her goods; then she had some pretty red and blue towels edged with home-made Greek lace, which struck us with such admiration that Mrs. Sunday was generous enough to present us with a pair. We felt almost as much embarrassed as if we had asked for them, and cast over our few possessions in our minds to find an equivalent to give her. Nothing presented itself as likely except a case of English needles, which were received with raptures. Wherever we went we found English needles appreciated, and they are the most portable and most valuable "beads for the natives" that can be found. We were quite attached to Mrs. Sunday by this time, yet we could see she had a temper of her own which kept her numer ous progeny in great awe. She was, as the Chiotes say, "Pinks to strangers, thistles to her friends." We saw her under both aspects, and enjoyed her as a pink excessively. Talking of pinks, we saw several dried ones in Mrs. Sunday's linen cupboard, which we imagined were intended to act the part of lavender and make the linen fragrant. "Not at all," laughed she; "it is to preserve it from the rats." "Good gracious," we replied, “this is a use for pinks we have never heard of." Mrs. Sunday assumed then a solemn air and continued: "On St. Basil's Day put three pinks into your breast when you go to liturgy. On returning home take them out and cast one on the boards of your house so that it may fall to pieces, and you will be lucky for a year. Eat an other with your household, and no sickness will come nigh your dwelling for a year. Put the third into your cupboard and for a year it will be free from the visitation of rats and mice." It was quite a hot afternoon when we went out to inspect the environs of the town with our host. The year was yet young, but the sun had a great deal of power. The mastic groves were excessively uninteresting low, dark green shrubs covered with a red powdery sort of flower; the stems bore evidence of the use of the knife, but August is the month for tapping. Both as regards scent and taste we had already acquired a disgust for mastic, and were glad to turn into a field where two bullocks were drawing a plough of primitive construction probably differing in no way from the ploughs which Homer would have seen if he had not been blind. It was formed of a young tree with two branches proceeding from the trunk in opposite directions. The trunk served as the pole, one branch stood up and served as the tail, the other had a bit of iron fixed into it, and penetrated the ground. The country around Pyrghi has no pretensions to beauty, as I have already stated. Low, brown volcanic hills surround green valleys; hardly a tree, save the mastic, the olive, and the fig. From every eminence the sea is visible, dotted with islands. There is Psara quite close, the barren island of fishermen which fought so well for Greek independence; but. owing to its geographical position amongst the Sporades, Psara was obliged to see the success her bravery had gained for others, and fall back itself into slav ery. There are the rocky mountains of the north of Chios full of rich mineral treasures, manganese, borrosite, etc., as our host explained, yet somehow the environs of Pyrghi did not please us much, and we were not sorry when rain came on which obliged us to join Mrs. Sunday once more. Rain in spring is plentiful in the Sporades just as the warm weather com. mences, and winds, too, howl amongst them in the springtime with terrific vio lence. The sailors along the coast call each wind by its Italian name, but inland and up in the mountains Boreas the king of winds still rules under his ancient name. From Golden Hours. CHARLES LAMB'S LETTERS. THE eighteenth and nineteenth cen. turies differ as decidedly in their letters as in any other particular. When we remember that at present more than a thousand millions of letters are posted every year, in the United Kingdom, not includ ing hundreds of millions of postcards, telegrams etc., and when we further remember that we rely on their punctual delivery as surely as on the regularity of the solar system, the contrast with the 'good old days" is startling. Writers of a certain school are never tired of describing, with mild enthusiasm, the "cheery " postboy on his trotting nag, or the "well-appointed" mail coach, bitiously styled "Lightning" or "Thunderbolt," tearing away at the bewildering speed of nine or even ten miles an hour. What desperate despatch there was in running out the fresh horses where a change was made, and what a feat had been accomplished when the London mail reached Edinburgh in four days! These pictures are possibly bewitching to some, am A Greek islander has curious fancies about the many storms which visit his coasts. Thunder is the prophet Elias driving in his chariot in pursuit of devils; sometimes a hotly pursued devil takes refuge in a tree, and if lightning strikes this tree the peasants cross themselves and say, " Holy Elias has caught him." Rain, they say, falls through holes in heaven, which is a species of sieve, and from the rainbow the peasants prognosticate many things about the weather and about the crops. In the morning a rainbow announces luck, in the evening woe, and the three colors denote what kind of harvest there will be. If red prevail the grape will prosper, if yellow the corn, if green the olive. It is curious to notice how in these points the ancient mythology is woven into the new. A rainbow is called the nun's girdle, doubtless an adaptation of the virgin goddess Iris. It is still God's messenger to mortal man to - in this as in many other cases "disindicate where a hidden treasure is to be tance lends enchantment to the view." found, and in Chios great excitement still For our own part we cannot help rememprevails whenever a rainbow is seen, for bering that these romantic postboys someat the revolution every one hid his treas- times lingered at country inns; and that ures in the earth before he fled from the the letters were not only a long time on Turkish slaughter. Many died or never the road, but not unfrequently failed to returned to dig them up,,and the discovery reach their destination. Then, as to the of some of these buried treasures from mail-coach about which so much has been time to time serves to keep up the excite-written, it was a sorry, humdrum, jog-trot affair at its best. What an antiquated, jingling old concern it appears by the side of the mail of the present day, with its hundreds of passengers, rushing at fifty or sixty miles an hour, over valleys and rivers, through hills and rocks, now along a high embankment, now deep in a cutting; flinging mail-bags out, and snatch ment. Our second evening at Pyrghi was passed much as the last, saving that an ancient fowl was substituted for the tender kid, and no dancing closed the evening's revelry. The priest was in attendance again, and so were the vermin, and how ever much we regretted taking leave of Mrs. Sunday next morning our sorrowing others up as it goes, and reaching had its alleviation. Then arose the difficulty of remunerating our host and hostess for their kindDess. No money of course would be taken for were we not the friends of their great friend who had given us the letter of introduction? - to receive money would be a distinct breach of hospitality. Experience however in these matters had taught me how to place a coin in the hands of one of the children of the house whilst her mother was looking on, and after this difficult point was settled, I have reason to believe Mrs. Sunday's kiss of farewell was really genuine. J. THEODORE Bent. Edinburgh in nine hours from London, with half an hour for dinner on the way. And with all this improvement in the delivery, there is an equally surprising con. trast in the cost. In those days but few letters could be sent, even between neighboring towns, for less than one shilling; now you can communicate with Russia and even China for one halfpenny. But while we may complacently compare past and present in all matters of despatch and method, what about the letters themselves? The post-bag that was jolted along at some eight miles an hour contained but few letters, perhaps; but they were very frequently elaborate, well-writ |