and making his men drag out the bodies of those who appeared to be still alive from the heaps of the dead. He sent word to us to remain in the convent till all the bodies had been removed, and that when we could come out in safety he would again send to us. during the crucifixion, when I saw a number of, people lying one on another all about this part of the church, and as far as I could see towards the door. I made my way between them as well as I could, till they were so thick that there was actually a great heap of bodies on which I trod. It then suddenly struck me that they were all dead! I had not perceived this at first, for I thought they were only very much fatigued with the ceremonies, and had lain down to rest themselves there; but when I came to so great a heap of bodies I looked down at them, and saw that sharp, hard appearance of the face which is never to be mistaken. Many of them were quite black with suffocation, and fur-tudes at the foot of Mount Calvary; and fragments ther on were others all bloody and covered with the brains and entrails of those who had been trodden to pieces by the crowd. We stayed in our room two hours before we ventured to make another attempt to escape from this scene of horror; and then, walking close_tngether, with all our servants round us, we made a bold push, and got out of the door of the church. By this time most of the bodies were removed; but twenty or thirty were still lying in distorted atti of clothes, turbans, shoes, and handkerchiefs, clotted with blood and dirt, were strewed all over the pave ment. At this time there was no crowd in this part of In the court in the front of the church the sight the church; but a little further on, round the cor- was pitiable; mothers weeping over their children ner towards the great door, the people, who were the sons bending over the dead bodies of their quite panic-struck, continued to press forward, and fathers-and one poor woman was clinging to the every one was doing his utmost to escape. The hand of her husband, whose body was fearfully guards outside, frightened at the rush from within, mangled. Most of the sufferers were pilgrims and thought that the Christians wished to attack them, strangers. The pasha was greatly moved by this and the confusion soon grew into a battle. The scene of woe; and he again and again commanded soldiers with their bayonets killed numbers of faint-his officers to give the poor people every assistance ing wretches, and the walls were spattered with in their power, and very many by his humane efblood and brains of men who had been felled, like forts were rescued from death. oxen, with the butt-ends of the soldiers' muskets. Every one struggled to defend himself, or to get away, and all who fell were immediately trampled to death by the rest. So desperate and savage did the fight become, that even the panic-struck pilgrims appear at last to have been more intent upon the destruction of each other than desirous to save themselves. I was much struck by the sight of two old men with white beards, who had been seeking for each other among the dead; they met as I was passing by, and it was affecting to see them kiss and shake hands, and congratulate each other on having escaped from death. dying state, for they had fought with their heavy silver inkstands and daggers.―p. 214. When the bodies were removed many were discovered standing upright, quite dead; and near the For my part, as soon as I perceived the danger, I church door one of the soldiers was found thus had cried out to my companions to turn back, which standing, with his musket shouldered, among the they had done; but I myself was carried on by the bodies which reached nearly as high as his head; press till I came near the door, where all were this was in a corner near the great door on the fighting for their lives. Here, seeing certain right side as you come in. It seems that this door destruction before me, I made every endeavor to had been shut, so that many who stood near it were get back. An officer of the pasha's, who by his suffocated in the crowd; and when it was opened, star was a colonel or bin bashee, equally alarmed the rush was so great that numbers were thrown with myself, was also trying to return; he caught down and never rose again, being trampled to death hold of my cloak, or bournouse, and pulled me down by the press behind them. The whole court before on the body of an old man who was breathing out the entrance of the church was covered with bodies his last sigh. As the officer was pressing me to laid in rows, by the pasha's orders, so that their the ground we wrestled together among the dying friends might find them and carry them away. As and the dead with the energy of despair. I strug- we walked home we saw numbers of people carried gled with this man till I pulled him down, and hap-out, some dead, some horribly wounded and in a pily got again upon my legs-(I afterwards found that he never rose again)—and, scrambling over a pile of corpses, 1 made my way back into the body of the church, where I found my friends, and we succeeded in reaching the sacristy of the Catholics, and thence the room which had been assigned to us by the monks. The dead were lying in heaps, even upon the stone of unction; and I saw full four hundred wretched people, dead and living, heaped promiscuously one upon another, in some places above five feet high. Ibrahim Pasha had left the The conversation turned naturally on the blaschurch only a few minutes before me, and very phemous impositions of the Greek and Armenian narrowly escaped with his life; he was so pressed patriarchs, who, for the purposes of worldly gain, upon by the crowd on all sides, and it was said at had deluded their ignorant followers with the pertacked by several of them, that it was only by the formance of a trick in relighting the candles which greatest exertions of his suite, several of whom had been extinguished on Good Friday with fire were killed, that he gained the outer court. He which they affirmed to have been sent down from fainted more than once in the struggle, and I was heaven in answer to their prayers. The pasha was told that some of his attendants at last had to cut a quite aware of the evident absurdity which I brought way for him with their swords through the dense to his notice, of the performance of a Christian mirranks of the frantic pilgrims. He remained out-acle being put off for some time, and being kept in side, giving orders for the removal of the corpses, waiting for the convenience of a Mahometan prince, The description of the moaning and lamenting. of the ensuing night, with the rows of dead people stretched on the pavement of the court under the traveller's window, is very striking; but we must pass on to his interview next day with Ibrahim Pasha : It was debated what punishment was to be awarded enlightened Roman Catholic nobleman of our age" to the Greek patriarch for the misfortunes which had surprised the judicial understanding of the Pluhad been the consequence of his jugglery, and a tarch of the lord chancellors; nay, Mr. Allies and number of purses which he had received from the his friends appear to vouch with equal confidence unlucky pilgrims passed into the coffers of the pasha's treasury. I was sorry that the falsity of for two miraculous cures, effected in the summer of this imposture was not publicly exposed, as it was 1848 at Paris, which city they revisited very soon a good opportunity of so doing. It seems wonder- afterwards: namely, the instant recovery of sight ful that so barefaced a trick should continue to be by one female, and the instant removal of a distorpractised every year in these enlightened times; tion in the spine, which had made another during but it has its parallel in the blood of St. Januarius, several years a miserable bed-ridden cripple, in which is still liquefied whenever anything is to be gained by the exhibition of that astonishing act of virtue of the intercession of St. Vincent de Paul, priestly impertinence. If Ibrahim Pasha had been on his anniversary festival, with the aid, in one a Christian, probably this would have been the last of the cases, of a thread from the vestment of Easter of the lighting of the holy fire; but from the that saint swallowed in a glass of water.* If, as fact of his religion being opposed to that of the these pious writers evidently believe, the gift of monks, he could not follow the example of Louis miracles was granted forever to the church CathoXIV., who having put a stop to some clumsy im- lic, how can they hesitate to act upon the corolposition which was at that time bringing scandal on the church, a paper was found nailed upon the lary that no ecclesiastical body which neither exdoor of the sacred edifice the day afterwards, on ercises that gift nor claims it can be a living member of the church Catholic? Upon what principle can such men consent to eat the bread of the Anglican church A. D. 1849? Upon what principle, if there be any such thing as discipline in our system, are they allowed to eat it? cannot answer these questions; but we think we may answer for their indignation at Mr. Curzon's scepticism in re Sancti Januarii-as also at the satisfaction wherewith he reports that the Greek priests, "like Protestants," always speak of the holy table, (ùɣia igung,) never of the altar! which the words were read De part du roi, défense à Dieu De faire miracle en ce lieu. The interference of a Mahometan in such a case as this would only have been held as another persecution of the Christians; and the miracle of the holy fire has continued to be exhibited every year with great applause, and luckily without the unfortunate results which accompanied it on this occasion.p. 224. We Mr. Curzon's colloquy with the pasha touching the annual manifestation of holy fire will not, we We beg pardon for this digression. Let us suppose, excite any very grave criticism among change the scene. Being at Corfu one October, our still adhesive presbyters of the Littlemore per- our author conceived a strong desire to beat for suasion; for the Oriental churches being, like our his favorite game among the monastic coverts of own, in a state of schism, the gift of miracles the adjoining mainland; and though the accommay be fairly supposed to have passed from their plished officers of the garrison, who had no doubt succession also. But his allusion to the affair of that his object was snipe-shooting, advised him to St. Januarius at Naples must, we apprehend, ex- restrain his propensities, inasmuch as some revopose our author to severe animadversion; and in- lution, or rebellion, or general election, or somedeed, if he has ever indulged in any ambition of thing of the sort, was going on," and robbery and representing his Alma Mater in the house of com- murder must be more than commonly in fashion, mons, we need hardly hesitate to advise the im- the enthusiastic sportsman would persist. For mediate abandonment of such aspirations. He which he thus renders his reason :— stocks of their pistols, are almost always of silver, I would at all events have to encounter the steadiest The Albanians are great dandies about their hostility of that section of academicians who ap-arms; the scabbard of their yataghan, and the proved of the Lives of the English Saints, and are now enjoying with edification the "Letters and Journals" of the reverend gentleman who describes himself on his title-page as "John Thomas Allies, A. M., Rector of Launton, Oxon;" for this rector-besides an elaborate argument for the celibacy of the clergy and the reinstitution of monastic bodies among ourselves, accompanied with very dolorous lamentations over the helplessness under which our condition must continue until we shall have resumed the practice of invoking the intercession of the saints, and formally reunited ourselves to the successor of St. Peter-is at all due pains to exhibit not only his own entire belief, but that of his two fellow-travellers, (both also clergymen in English orders,) in those very recent miracles of the Sister Ecstatica and the Sister Addoloranta, the previous attestation whereof by "an *Published by Messrs. Longman, post 8vo., 1849. * Madame de Sevigny, who knew this saint well, says, on hearing of his death, that he was an agreeable manonly he cheated at cards. there is a considerable chance of its going off. Now these are circumstances which apply in a much slighter degree to the magazine of small arms which he carries about his own person. But, beyond all this, when a Frank is shot there is such a disturbance made about it! Consuls write letters-pashas are stirred up-guards, kawasses, and tatars gallop like mad about the country, and fire pistols in the air, and live at free quarters in the villages; the murderer is sought for everywhere, and he, or somebody else, is hanged to please the consul; in addition to which the population are beaten with thick sticks ad libitum. All this is extremely disagreeable, and therefore we are seldom shot at, the pastime being too dearly paid for. and put on another garment, giving me ample op. portunity of admiring its effect. I expressed my surprise and admiration in bad Greek, which, however, the fair Albanian appeared to find no difficulty in understanding. She kindly corrected some of my sentences, and I have no doubt I should have improved rapidly under her care, if she had not always run away whenever she heard any one creaking about on the rickety boards of the anteroom and staircase. The other ladies, who were settling themselves in a large gaunt room close by, kept up an interminable clatter, and displayed such unbounded powers of conversation, that it seemed impossible that any one of them could hear what all the others said; till at last the master of the house came up again, and then there was a lull.—p. 243. His intercourse with the Patriots, or Klephts, The last Frank whom I heard of as having been killed in Albania was a German, who was studying botany. He rejoiced in a blue coat and brass buttons, and wandered about alone, picking up herbs was frequent, and is described with special liveand flowers on the mountains, which he put care-liness. We again confine ourselves to one speci fully into a tin box. He continued unmolested for men. Mahomed Pasha, Vizier of Janina, gave him some time, the universal opinion being that he was a circular of recommendation to the chief persons a powerful magician, and that the herbs he was al- in all towns of the interior. Entering Messovo, ways gathering would enable him to wither up his enemies by some dreadful charm, and also to detect understood to be a place of steady loyalty, the every danger which menaced him. Two or three hatred and terror of the new Anti-Turklaw League, Albanians had watched him for several days, hiding he cantered confidently up the street till he reached themselves carefully behind the rocks whenever the a considerable company of the aristocracy seated philosopher turned towards them; and at last one with their pipes under an awning by a fountain, of the gang, commending himself to all the saints, and, producing the pasha's document, requested rested his long gun upon a stone and shot the Ger- to be informed of the name and whereabouts of man through the body. The poor man rolled over, the chief person in this town." A most portly but the Albanian did not venture from his hiding-place until he had loaded his gun again, and then, after gentleman, splendidly clad in red velvet, and with sundry precautions, he came out, keeping his eye a bazaar of beautiful daggers and pistols about his upon the body, and with his friends behind him, to belts, took the rescript with polite alacrity, and, defend him in case of need. The botanizer, how- having read it, asked the others with a condescendever, was dead enough, and the disappointment of ing smile if there could be a doubt that he was the the Albanians was extreme when they found that right man; to which receiving the expected answer, his buttons were not gold, for it was the supposed he immediately tore off a scrap of the vizier's paper, scribbled thereupon some Romaic hieroglyphics, and, handing it back, bade him go on and prosper; the Milordos Inglesis need only give that billet to the first soldiers he met at the foot of Mount Pindus, and a sufficient number of them would at once constitute themselves a guard for his excellency's protection, and see him safe to the famous monasteries of Meteora. Thus fortified Milordos pursued his journey for a few hours among rough hills and thick box-groves : value of these ornaments that had incited them to the deed. p. 238. The stanch book-hunter, therefore, proceeded, and the excursion appears to have been more fruitful of adventures, though not of folios, than any other in his tablets. Of the lighter variety of his experiences we can afford only one small glimpse; scene, Paramathia :— On inquiring for the person to whom I had a letter of introduction, I found he was a shopkeeper who sold cloth in the bazaar. We accordingly went to his shop and found him sitting among his merchandise. When he had read the letter he was very civil, and shutting up his shop, walked on before us to show me the way to his house. It was a very good one, and the best room was immediately given up to me, two old ladies and three or four young ones being turned out in a most summary manner. One or two of the girls were very pretty, and they all vied with each other in their attentions to their guest, looking at me with great curiosity, and perpetually peeping at me through the curtain which hung over the door, and running away when they thought they were observed. The prettiest of these damsels had only been married a short time; who her husband was, or where he lived, I could not make out, but she amused me by her anxiety to display her smart new clothes. She went and put on a new capote, a sort of white frock coat, without sleeves, embroidered in bright colors down the seams, which showed her figure to advantage: and then she took it off again, This path continued for some distance until we came to a place where there was a ledge so narrow that two horses could not go abreast. Here, as I was riding quietly along, I heard an exclamation in front of "Robbers! robbers!" and sure enough, out of one of the thickets of box-trees there advanced three or four bright gun-barrels, which were speedily followed by some gentlemen in dirty white jackets and fustanellas; who, in a short and abrupt style of eloquence, commanded us to stand. This of course we were obliged to do; and as I was getting out my pistol, one of the individuals in white presented his gun at me, and upon my looking round to see whether my tall Albanian servant was preparing to support me, I saw him quietly half-cock his gun and sling it back over his shoulder, at the same time shaking his head as much as to say, "It is no use resisting; we are caught; there are too many of them." So I bolted the locks of the four barrels of my pistol carefully, hoping that the bolts would form an impediment to my being shot with my own weapon after I had been robbed of it. The ment had, moreover, been favored with his bill for place was so narrow that there were no hopes of the expenses of his insurrection; and the section running away, and there we sat on horseback, look of the population that had fought and bled, and been ing silly enough I dare say. There was a good deal of talking and chattering among the robbers, and burnt out and plundered, in defence of the sultan they asked the Albanian various questions, to which and the pasha, were grumbling over a tax imposed I paid no attention, all my faculties being engrossed upon them for the defraying of the said bill; which, in watching the proceedings of the party in front, in the comparatively unenlightened time of Viswho were examining the effects in the panniers of count Melbourne, seemed strange work in the eyes the baggage-mule. First they pulled out my bag of a young Milordos. But we all get wiser as of clothes, and threw it upon the ground; then we advance in life. And now for the most singular out came the sugar and the coffee, and whatever else there was. Some of the men had hold of the scenery into which his yet rebellious Klephts had poor muleteer, and a loud argument was going on escorted him-the holy vale and rocks of Metebetween him and the captors. I did not like all this, ora:but my rage was excited to a violent pitch when I The end of a range of rocky hills seems to have saw one man appropriating to his own use the half been broken off by some earthquake or washed away of a certain fat tender cold fowl, whereof I had by the deluge, leaving only a series of twenty or eaten the other half with much appetite and satis- thirty tall, thin, smooth, needle-like rocks, many faction. "Let that fowl alone, you scoundrel!" hundred feet in height; some like gigantic tusks, said I in good English; put it down, will you? some shaped like sugar-loaves, and some like vast if you don't, I'll!" The man, surprised at stalagmites. These rocks surround a beautiful this address in an unknown tongue, put down the fowl, and looked up with wonder at the explosion grassy plain, on three sides of which there grow of ire which his actions had called forth. That groups of detached trees, like those in an English is right,” said I, "my good fellow; it is too good park. Some of the rocks shoot up quite clean and for such a dirty brute as you." "Let us see," said perpendicularly from the smooth green grass; some 66 I to the Albanian, "if there is nothing to be done; say I am the King of England's uncle, or grandson, or particular friend, and that if we are hurt or robbed he will send all manner of ships and armies, and hang everybody, and cut off the heads of all the rest. Talk big, O man! and don't spare great words; they cost nothing, and let us see what that will do." are in clusters; some stand alone like obelisks: nothing can be more strange and wonderful than this romantic region, which is unlike anything I have ever seen either before or since. In Switzerland, Saxony, the Tyrol, or any other mountainous region where I have been, there is nothing at all to be compared to these extraordinary peaks. At the foot of many of the rocks which surround this beautiful grassy amphitheatre there are numerWe are sorry not to quote the rest of the story. ous caves and holes, some of which appear to be By and bye he was told they would carry him be- natural, but most of them are artificial; for in the dark and wild ages of monastic fanaticism whole fore their immediate superior-and he was led flocks of hermits roosted in these pigeon-holes. through a wilderness of ravines to a little encamp- Some of these caves are so high up the rocks that ment on Mount Pindus. The commanding officer one wonders how the poor old gentlemen could ever here was at first sulky enough-but when he had get up to them; whilst others are below the surat last contrived to make out the Messovo scrap, face; and the anchorites who burrowed in them, things instantly put on a new face. All was civility like rabbits, frequently afforded excellent sport to -a comfortable supper, plenty of wine, and asparties of roving Saracens; indeed, hermit-hunting surance of a stout guard for the morrow. He had vious to the twelfth century. In early Greek frescos, seems to have been a fashionable amusement presupposed the stranger to be one of those mean- and in small, stiff pictures with gold backgrounds, spirited Franks who approved of the Grand Turk, we see many frightful representations of men on and consorted with the tyrant of Janina-but horseback in Roman armor, with long spears, who since it was a friend of his own general, whatever are torturing and slaying Christian devotees. In the Patriot Klephts could do for Milordos was these pictures the monks and hermits are repreheartily at his service. sented in gowns made of a kind of coarse matting, and The general of the inthey have long beards, and some of them are covered surgents, the reader sees, was no other than the with hair; these I take it were the ones most to be dignitary in red velvet, who had answered to the admired, as in the Greek Church sanctity is always character of "chief person in Messovo." He in the inverse ratio of beauty. All Greek saints are was a good-natured rebel, and liked a joke, and to painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, his humorous turn Mr. Curzon owed the only dirtier, and older than the rest; they must have scrap of penmanship that could have been of any been very fusty people besides, eating roots, and use to him at that epoch anywhere near Mount living in holes like rats and mice. It is difficult to Pindus. The captain obeyed the general, the de- have persuaded themselves that, by living in this understand by what process of reasoning they could tachment obeyed the captain, and he was con- useless, inactive way, they were leading holy lives. ducted with honesty and decorum to the extraor- They wore out the rocks with their knees in prayer; dinary valley from which the convent-capped cliffs the cliffs resounded with their groans; sometimes of Meteora arise like so many towers, or, in they banged their breasts with a big stone, for a some cases, chimneys. On his return, it is pleasant change; and some wore chains and iron girdles to find that he of the red velvet had become, by a to benefit their kind. Still there is something grand round their emaciated forms; but they did nothing sudden conversion in politics, reconciled to the in the strength and constancy of their faith. They vizier, and was now de jure as well as de facto the left their homes and riches and the pleasures of this chief person in Messovo. The Turkish govern- world, to retire to these dens and caves of the earth, to be subjected to cold and hunger, pain and death, | one, the lower end of which had swung away from that they might do honor to their God, after their own fashion, and trusting that, by mortifying the body in this world they should gain happiness for the soul in the world to come; and therefore peace be with their memory! the top of the one below, I had some difficulty in On the tops of these rocks in different directions there remain seven monasteries out of twenty-four which once crowned their airy heights. How anything except a bird was to arrive at one which we saw in the distance on the pinnacle of a rock was more than we could divine; but the mystery was soon solved. Winding our way upwards, among a labyrinth of smaller rocks and cliffs, by a romantic path which afforded us from time to time beautiful views of the green vale below us, we at length found ourselves on an elevated platform of rock, which I may compare to the flat roof of a church; while the monastery of Barlaam stood perpendicularly above us, on the top of a much higher rock, like the tower of this church. Here we fired off a gun, which was intended to answer the same purpose as knocking at the door in more civilized places; and we all strained our necks in looking up at the monastery to see whether any answer would be made to our call. Presently we were hailed by some one in the sky, whose voice came down to us like the cry of a bird; and we saw the face and gray beard of an old monk some hundred feet above us peering out of a kind of window or door. He asked us who we were, and what we wanted, and so forth; to which we re-bottles with me in my monastic excursions. The plied, that we were travellers, harmless people, who wished to be admitted into the monastery to stay the night; that we had come all the way from Corfu to see the wonders of Meteora, and, as it was now getting late, we appealed to his feelings of hospitality and Christian benevolence. "Who are those with you?" said he. "Oh! most respectable people," we answered; "gentlemen of our acquaintance, who have come with us across the mountains from Mezzovo. abbot and I, and another holy father, fraternized, and slapped each other on the back, till it was time to go to bed; when the two venerable monks gave me their blessing and stumbled out of the room; and in a marvellously short space of time I was sound asleep.-p. 286. In this convent of Barlaam (not Balaam) he admired the kitchen, perched on the very edge of the precipice, square in its plan, with a steep The appearance of our escort did not please the roof of stone, the centre thereof open to the sky. monk, and we feared that he would not admit us Within, upon a square platform of stone, rested into the monastery; but at length he let down a four huge pillars, supporting the roof. This platthin cord, to which I attached a letter of introduction which I had brought from Corfu; and after form was the hearth where the fire blazed, while some delay a much larger rope was seen descend- smaller fires of charcoal could be lit upon stone ing with a hook at the end-to which a strong net dressers all round the wall, so that the whole was attached. On its reaching the rock on which building was chimney and fireplace; and it ocwe stood the net was spread open; my two ser-curred to him to wonder how, when a great dinvants sat down upon it; and the four corners being attached to the hook, a signal was made, and they began slowly ascending into the air, twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottlejack. The rope was old and mended, and the height from the ground to the door above was, we afterwards learned, 37 fathoms, or 222 feet. When they reached the top I saw two stout monks reach their arms out of the door and pull in the two servants by main force, as there was no contrivance like a turning-crane for bringing them nearer to the landing-place. The whole process appeared so dangerous, that I determined to go up by climbing a series of ladders which were suspended by large wooden pegs on the face of the precipice, and which reached the top of the rock in another direction, round a corner to the right. The lowest ladder was approached by a pathway leading to a rickety wooden platform which overhung a deep gorge. From this point the ladders hung perpendicularly upon the bare rock, and I climbed up three or four of them very soon: but coming to ner was in hand for a feast-day, the cooks could escape being roasted, as well as the lambs, pigs, and turkeys. The kitchen at Glastonbury is somewhat like this, but cannot pretend to its antiquity. In the course of the second evening, after another episode of sweet drams and clapping on the back, the Agoumenos and the Milordos adjourned privately to the library, and two Codices, both of the Gospels-one, a large quarto, richly ornamented with miniatures, the other a small one, in gold semi-uncials on purple vellum, with the original binding of silver filigree, and which had once probably been the pocket volume of some Palæologus or Comnenus, were secured for the library at Parham, in consideration of certain pieces of yellow dross, which the worthy abbot "seemed to pocket with the sincerest satisfaction," and of which there is no particular reason to suppose that he ever made any mention |