THE UNFORTUNATE DEMETRIO ATHANASI. 365 panied us to the door of his apartment, wishing us a pleasant journey and every kind of prosperity.

In the evening an Albanian colonel, accompanied by a dozen guards, brought the promised letter to our lodging: our friend Gianko also called; and two or three Greek gentlemen dropping in, we detained them all to pipes and coffee, and discussed the valour and politics of Ali Pasha over a flowing bowl of punch made in Antonietti's best

manner.

Next morning we intended to have resumed our journey, but Nicolo complained so much of the state of his health, that we thought it right to wait another day, to see what turn his complaint might take. Early in the morning, being accompanied by Demetrio, I ascended the mountainous steep behind the city with an intention of gaining the summit; but we found this impracticable, on account of the many deep chasms which presented themselves in our path. About noon, Nicolo feeling better, I walked out with him, on a visit to poor Demetrio Athanasi, whose fine house at Ioannina had been seized by Ali for his nephew the Pasha of Ochrida. A small miserable tenement was now the residence of this wretched family, who had been long accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries of life: its master appeared gradually sinking under the attacks of a slow fever, nor did any consolation or medicine afford him relief.

Nessun maggior dolore

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.

The cause of this worthy man's exile and the confiscation of his property, when explained, is enough to make one shudder at the insufferable tyranny under which he was doomed to breathe: it was a refusal to let one of his

366

MSS. HISTORY OF DRINOPOLIS.

beautiful children become a victim to the despot's lust within the walls of his accursed harem!

I

Soon after our return, a person was introduced who had brought, at my request, a paper from the Bishop of Argyro-Castro, containing the number of villages and inhabitants in the valley of the Druno. As I understood the bearer had taken the trouble to copy out this document for my use, I presented him with a small pecuniary remuneration: he showed great good-nature in accepting it; for I found, to my utter confusion, that I had been feeing one of the most dignified canons of the church. had not made such a mistake since the time when I gave a pair of English razors to the old dragoman at Tripolitza, who prided himself upon the longest beard in the Morea, a beard which steel had never touched since it first sprouted from his chin, and which he nourished with a more than parental attachment. Beside the statistical paper, the canon gave me a curious history of the settlement of Argyro-Castro, or rather of Drinopolis, written in excellent Romaic, which refers its foundation to Theseus, king of Athens, and contains numberless other inconsistencies and absurdities.

CHAPTER XII.

APRIL 2d. Signore Nicolo being still indisposed, we left him, and set out in a northerly direction along the western side of the valley. We passed, at some distance on our right, the fortress of Schindriada, crowning the summit of an abrupt eminence: it was built by the vizir about nine years before the surrender of Argyro-Castro, to annoy his enemies and protect that line of country through which he was obliged frequently to pass. In one hour and a half we came to a deep fountain, by the road-side, called Viroua, where the water rises, as it were, out of a profound crater, curling at the surface into broad eddies: it then flows precipitously over a steep rock and forms at once a river. In about half an hour more we turned suddenly to the left, through an opening in the mountain

368

VISIT TO THE RUINS OF GARDIKI.

barrier, down which a torrent from the melted snow, flowing rapidly towards the plain, made it difficult for our horses to keep their legs: the ruins of many villages on all sides scathed by the flames of war, testified the cruel mode of warfare practised by the Albanian soldiery. We toiled for more than an hour up this wild and rugged glen, when the mountains, suddenly taking on each side a bold sweep, formed a perfect amphitheatre, and displayed to view the ruins of Gardiki, spread over the sides and summit of a conical hill which rises in the centre of its vast area high above this mountainous enclosure appeared the huge summits of Acroceraunia, whose wintry snows, now melting, allowed the spiry fir here and there to peep out from beneath its resplendent mantle: few cities could boast of so superb a site. Near the foot of the hill we passed a large farm-house which once served as an outpost to the garrison: the doors and walls, pierced with a thousand bullets, testified the sharp conflicts it had lately sustained in the plain beyond we observed a small village peopled by Suliots, who had been collected on this spot by the pasha's orders; it was thought he meditated to take some signal vengeance upon these unfortunate victims when he had got as many as possible within his grasp.

Having crossed a deep ravine, which defended the city towards the south and east, we ascended its steep hill by a winding narrow path which but a short time before had led Ali's troops to victory. Upon a detached eminence to the right stood a small citadel, whose ruined walls presented nothing worthy of notice: after slightly inspecting them, we entered at once into the mournful skeleton of Gardiki, "a peopled city made a desert place," where no living beings disturbed the solitude, but serpents, owls, and bats. A chilling kind of sensation, like the fascination of some

VISIT TO THE RUINS OF GARDIKI.

369

deadly spell, benumbs the senses, and almost stops the respiration of him who treads, as it were, upon the prostrate corpse of a great city, just abandoned by the animating spirit. The feeling is very different from that which he experiences amidst the fine ruins of antiquity, whose aspect, mellowed down by time and unconnected with any terrible convulsion, inspires only pleasing melancholy, or animating reflections: but here the frightful contrast of a recent dreadful overthrow appals him; and while the deep silence is broken only by the breeze sighing in the ruins and the funereal cypresses which here and there wave over them, he almost expects to meet a spectre at every step.

Amidst these monuments of destruction we found our progress often interrupted by vast masses; nor after an hour's ramble did we discover one habitation which had not suffered in the work of demolition: even the tombs were razed, and the very mosques themselves had not escaped profanation; so duly had the vengeance of an implacable foe been executed : one minaret alone peered out amidst surrounding fragments, to the top of which we ascended, that we might contemplate in its whole extent this melancholy scene. From hence we observed a solitary dervish stealing gently from the covert of some ruins at a distance: probably the poor man had come, in spite of Ali's dire anathema, to live and die amid the relics of this once populous city, to weep over the memory of former days, of friends departed, and connexions broken. Yet the heart of him who had thus rudely torn asunder all the bands of social life, gloried in the dreadful deed, the memory of which, instead of festering like a canker in his bosom, seemed rather a source of joy and exultation.

In our return down the fiumara we marked with sur2 A

VOL. II.