132

ALI MADE DERVEN-PASHA.

advanced as far as the suburbs to meet the firman: it was produced and drawn out of its crimson case; when each reverently applied it to his forehead, in token of submission to its dictates. Being then opened, to the utter consternation of the assembly it announced Ali, pasha of Ioannina, and ordered instant submission to his authority.

The forgery was suspected by many, but some credited it; whilst others, by timely submission, sought to gain favour with the man who as they foresaw would be their ruler: in short, his partisans exerted themselves on all sides, the beys were dispirited, and while they were irresolute and undetermined, Ali entered the city amidst the acclamations of the populace: his chief enemies in the mean time sought their safety by flight, passing over the lake and taking refuge in the districts of Arta, Ætolia, and Acarnania.

Ali's first care was to calm the fears of all ranks: to the people he promised protection; to the beys who remained rich offices and plunder: his friends were amply recompensed, and his enemies reconciled by his frankness and engaging manners in the mean time he put a strong garrison into the castron, and acquired possession of the pashalic before the imposture of the firman was discovered. It was then too late to dispossess him of his acquisition his adherents increased daily, a numerous and respectable deputation, led by Signore Alexi's father, carried a petition to Constantinople, and seconding it with bribes to a large amount, ultimately prevailed in establishing his usurped dominion. Thus, according to custom, despotism succeeded to the turbulence of faction, and the people not unwillingly submitted to the change.

Soon afterwards Ali obtained from the Porte the office of Derven-Pasha of Rumelie, not unlike that of our ancient Lord of the Marches, which not only increased his

HIS EARLY PROJECTS.

133

revenue but gave him the means of creating an influence in various provinces of the empire. That proud family which had formerly rejected his alliance now gladly accepted it; and Ibrahim pasha of Berat affianced his three daughters to Ali's two sons and nephew, though he soon found the friendship of a traitor more dangerous than his

arms.

Having thus established his interest on a firm footing as well in Constantinople as Albania, and wielding the resources of an extensive dominion, Ali Pasha began to act upon a larger scale, and to pursue his grand plan of consolidating an independent power in Epirus, a country which nature herself seems to have marked out for independence by the mountain barriers with which she has surrounded and protected it. The means which he resolved to take for the completion of this plan, were to amass treasures, to keep agents in pay at the Ottoman court, to infuse suspicion of other powers into the minds of the Divan, to render himself useful to whatever European state was most able to return his services, and finally to seize upon the property of his neighbours whenever and by whatever methods he could. In the execution of these measures, his rapacity was boundless, his penetration deep, his aggressions innumerable, his perfidy more than Punic, and his success for a time complete.

After the projects of Russia with regard to Greece had failed, and all confidence in that power was lost by the insensible and cruel conduct of its agents, Ali's enemies at Constantinople endeavoured to undermine his credit, by disclosing as much as they knew or suspected of his correspondence with Potemkin: fertile however in expedients, and fearful of a rupture with his sovereign, he found means to counteract these plots, and allay the coming storm, principally, as it is asserted, by the good

134

TAKES ARTA AND KLISSURA.

offices of the French minister at the Porte, whom he contrived to engage in his interests. Being now secure in his most important position he soon found a pretext for quarrelling with his neighbour the Pasha of Arta, conquered his territories, and annexed them, as well as the whole of Acarnania, to his own dominions: thus he secured the free navigation of the Ambracian Gulf and gained possession of many valuable ports in those districts. His next step was to open a free and safe intercourse between Ioannina and his native territory: to this end he attacked and took possession of the strong post of Klissura, where the Aous or Voïussa enters the deep defile which was occupied by Philip in the first Macedonian war, and where he stopped the Roman legions, until the key of his position being betrayed to Flaminius by a shepherd of Charopus he was driven from this commanding situation and obliged to evacuate Epirus.* The seizure of Klissura was followed

The Fauces Antigoneæ, or Stena Aoi. See Livy, lib. xxxii. c. 5. “Principio veris (Philippus) cum Athenagora omnia externa auxilia, quodque levis armaturæ erat, in Chaoniam per Epirum ad occupandas, quæ ad Antigoniam Fauces sunt (Stena vocant Græci) misit. Ipse post paucis diebus graviore secutus agmine, quum situm omnem regionis aspexisset, maxime idoneum ad muniendum locum credidit esse præter amnem Aoum: is inter montes, quorum alterum Æropum, alterum Asnaum incolæ vocant, angusta valle fluit, iter exiguum super ripam præbens." The mountains forming the defile are now called, those to the north Trebechina and Mejourani, those to the south Melchiovo. It is about ten miles in length from Klissura (which from the remains of Cyclopéan masonry cbservable there I take to have been Antigonea) to the junction of the Aous with the river of Argyro-Castro, above Tepeleni. The precipices on each side are tremendous, being apparently a thousand feet in height. The positions of Philip and Athenagoras must have been about midway in the defile, as Flaminius, when he arrived at the Aous is said by Livy to have encamped at the distance of five miles from the Macedonians. (cap. 6.) Many persons have fixed upon Premeti, about twelve miles higher up the Aous, for Antigonea; but I am confirmed in my opinion of its being Klissura, by a passage of Polybius, who speaks of these straights as close to Antigonea: διὰ τῶν παρ' Αντιγόνειαν στενῶν. l. ii. c. 5.

TAKES PREMETI, OSTANITZA, AND KONITZA. 135

by the reduction of Premeti, Ostanitza and Konitza, all capitals of important districts, which secured the course of the Voïussa from its source in Pindus as far as Tepeleni.

We have now traced the march of this extraordinary personage by that imperfect light which his early annals afford, from his infancy to the time when he fixed his seat in the Great Despotate of Epirus. One would have thought that this success might have satisfied the ambition of an Albanian kleft! but ambition's path is deceitful as the mountain, which tempts the traveller's ascent to its false summit, and then exhibits to his view another equally precipitous and lofty, to which it served but as a base.

The remainder of his history, having become connected with European politics and important enough to engage the attention of his contemporaries, offers itself more readily to historic elucidation.

WHILST Ali was extending the limits of his sway towards the north, the southern districts of his dominions were subjected to the incursions of a clan, apparently contemptible for their numbers, but impregnable in their mountain-holds, and capable, by their daring courage and enthusiastic love of liberty, of attacking him in his capital, and alarming him in the very recesses of his haThese were the Suliots; a people that sustained the character of ancient Greece, and assumed the spirit of its independent sons. Among them might be seen the finest forms produced from Nature's mould: exposed constantly to the sun and wind, their skin was of the colour of bronze; for being unprovided with tents, in all their expeditions the sky was their canopy and their own shaggy

rem.