habited, abounded in natural attractions. For the space of five hours we met with no other sign of life but a mill and a few ruined huts. At Agianaco we began to descend, and after winding along a succession of hills and slopes, we reached the little plain, and soon after the village of Orovies.

Orovies is one of the four villages in the island which were inhabited principally by Turks, and is undoubtedly one of the most agreeable places to the north of Mount Kandeli. Its plain is the only one of importance on the western shores, and its southerly exposure is peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of the vine, the olive, the orange, and the lemon. Like the charming village of Politica, to the south of Mount Kandeli, it abounds in beautiful scenery, and its vineyards and extensive olivegroves descend from the wild and sequestered glens of the mountains to the soft and mild shore of the sea, which encompasses it from mountain to mountain. Nothing can be more mild or more beautiful than the village, and nothing more magnificent than the prospect it commands. The sight of Mount Parnassus is worth the value of the estate.

Mr. Dumas, the proprietor of Orovies, entertained us in the tower, which was once the stronghold of the knights; and while on its ramparts, with the magnificent prospect before us, we were naturally led to the scenes it witnessed during the days of the knights, and the Beys, and over which it still watches like a solitary sentinel.

Mr. Dumas, like most of his compatriots, looks too much to the income, and too little to the improvements of his beautiful village. It is to be regretted that he, as well as all the rest of the Greeks, instead of making their estates their homes, and their peasants their children, have adopted the absurd plan of the Turks, who considered the one as their granary and the other as their ox; and while they are the owners of villages large enough to make them both comfortable and happy, Turklike, they allow themselves to reside in the city with no occupation but that of the idlers of the cafés in Chalcis. The country and the people will never improve so long as those who have the best interests and the strongest inducements, find their pleasure where their duties are not.

Leaving Orovies, we embarked for Chalcis at Limne, and the communication between the two places, though short and frequent, is not without its dangers. Mount Kandeli rises abruptly from the sea, and the winds which descend from its precipitous sides, are a terror to the most experienced sailors. The winds are so sudden and so partial, that while one boat is either dancing amid the agitation of the waves, or is flying before the winds at a perilous rate, another only half a mile off, is pursuing its quiet course, or is perhaps entirely becalmed. We were so fortunate as not to meet with any of these extremes, and accordingly, after a

pleasant sail of less than four hours, we reached the city, where I was kindly entertained by Mrs. D who lives in a Turkish house,

"Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding."

CHAPTER IX.

JOURNEY TO THE BES.

I HAD the good fortune to leave Athens for Thebes, with a very agreeable company, and, like old Chaucer, in his prologue of the "Canterbury Tales:"

"Before I farther in the tale do pass
It seemeth me accordant unto reason-
To tell unto you all, the condition
Of each of them, so as it seemeth me,
And who they were, and of what degree,
And eke in what array they all were in."

The Pilgrims, who on this occasion set off "with devout courage," for Delphi and Messolonghi, for Mount Eta and Thermopylæ, were Mr. and Miss Leeves, Mr. Benjamin,* and the writer of these

* Mrs. Benjamin's health has obliged Mr. B. to leave the field which he has so long occupied in the East, and return to this country. His services to the cause of missions and lettersthrough the translations of useful works into the modern Greekhave gained him the esteem of the Greeks, who have conferred upon him the title of "Benefactor," to the Education Society. His loss, we doubt not, is deeply felt by those he has left, but we

remarks. With the exception of Miss L., who was making her first essay in travelling, and who appeared bewildered with the very idea of going in search of wonders, the rest had all passed the gay and giddy season of youth; and, having already seen something of the world, could not be accused of any excesses of feeling or undue enthusiasm. Mr. B. seemed to think more of his young wife, and the beautiful children he was leaving at home, than of the pleasures or the wonders he was to meet abroad. And as to Mr. L., who had already

"ridden nere and fare,

As well in Christendom as in Heatheness,"

he was too much engrossed with the affairs of "Church and State," to think of the graceful Helicon, or the glorious Parnassus.

On leaving Athens we entered the Via Sacra, and soon after reached the monastery at the pass of Daphne, which, though desolate and deserted, forms an extensive and interesting ruin of the Byzantine age. The church is supposed to occupy the site of an ancient temple of Apollo, and deserves a better fate than the one to which the present government has abandoned it. From the monastery, which served as a rendezvous to our party,

console ourselves that what has been lost to Greece, and the East, is gained by America, where we are sure Mr. Benjamin will not fail to make himself useful.