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declares, and I am not inclined to doubt his veracity, that he afterwards met Ali's agent, Signore Colovo, in Malta, who earnestly applied to him for a tasteless and colourless poison of which his master had need, and in search of which he had sent him to Sicily: doubtless he had heard of the re-discovery made in that island of the celebrated Aqua Tofana, which had the properties above alluded to. Colovo, however, having failed in procuring it, and loth to return home without executing his commission, made his shameless application to a British officer, and received the answer which one would expect on such an OCcasion.

Ali's court was supported with a degree of splendor and expense far exceeding those of many princes in the Germanic confederacy. I was informed that provisions were cooked in his palaces at Ioannina for near 1500 persons daily, amongst whom were found visiters and retainers from all parts of the globe, attracted thither by his fame, and whose services he seldom refused. At the time of our residence he had for a guest one of the khans or princes of Persia.

His three principal secretaries of state were at this time old Mahomet Effendi the astrologer, chief of the divan, who had the general management of affairs in his master's absence; Sechrì Effendi, a most violent Mahometan bigot, who generally accompanied him in his excursions and executed his most important commissions; Dwann Effendi, who carried on his correspondence with the Porte, for which purpose a capi-kehagia or procurator was appointed

like poverty, connect with honest nations; and because I have heard many professing Christians and men of high character defend such associations. Surely the petty advantages of political confederacy are more than counterbalanced by such moral contamination and that loss of respect amongst mankind which must ensue !

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at Constantinople. Besides these he had four under-secretaries, all Greeks, whose business it was to correspond with the beys, agàs, and governors in the different Albanian provinces; the two first of these named Mantho and Costa were men of the most crafty and subtile disposition, the ready instruments of all the pasha's schemes of vengeance and of tyranny.*

His two dragomen, or interpreters, were also Greeks; the first Signore Colovo, and the second Beyzady, the son of a prince of the Fanar.

He had four regular physicians, who served him also in the capacity of secretaries and interpreters, as occasion might demand: for every person attached to Ali's service was required to walk out of his own particular course.

Besides all these, there were many sage counsellors who took their places at his divan, though not dignified by any peculiar office: in these he placed implicit confidence, for they were all tried men. The principal of them were Mezzo Bonno, Dervish Hassan, Agho Mordari, and Athanasi Vayà, his favourite and most successful general, who might indeed have been styled commander in chief. This person was intrusted with his master's most intimate secrets, and had free access to him in the hours of his most perfect retirement.

In addition to the above-mentioned officers employed in affairs of council he had a multitude who attended to ceremony; among whom were the Selictar-Agà, or swordbearer, the Bairactar Agà, or standard-bearer, the Capsilar-Agà, or master of the ceremonies.

One of his most important officers and chief favourites

Vely Pasha after his reconciliation with his father so abhorred these men that he requested as a favour that his correspondence with the vizir might not be carried on through their agency. Mantho was his agent in the affair of Parga.

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was Tahir Abbas the Capi-Balouk bashee or head of the Police. This man, the ready instrument of his infamous pleasures and horrid cruelties, was the chief person who ultimately betrayed him to the vengeance of his enemies.

There were also about twenty Chaoushes, and the same number of Kaivasis, who carried silver-knobbed sticks before the vizir in procession, and were the porters or keepers of his door; but in addition to his proper officers, his court was crowded with a multitude of dependants, skilled in every art of adulation and mean compliance. Some of these turned him to good account by working upon his superstition. At this very time a Persian dervish named Sheik Ali had persuaded him that he was able to make a panacea which should render him immortal: he had been working long in the serai with crucibles and alembics, and continued to receive money for his pretended preparations, until death arrested his progress, though it did not open Ali's eyes to his artifices; for in 1817 the vizir ordered a fine mausoleum to be erected over the tomb of this impostor, and spent a considerable part of each day among the workmen, until it was finished; he then suspended a massive lamp of silver from the centre of the dome, and liberally endowed it for a set of Dervishes to watch by turns over the remains of the saint. After the death of Sheik Ali he was for some time the dupe of a Greek of Salonica named Serio whose tricks had nearly created a rebellion and hurled him from his throne. This wretch pretended that he could secure the continuance of life for any duration by a composition, which, among many detestable ingredients, contained a large quantity of human blood, and human hair-the first of these articles was easily procured by bleeding the Ganymedes of the Serai; but to cut their hair would have been a disfigurement that would have unfitted them for their

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station-besides, as an immense quantity was required, Ali bethought him of an easier method, which was to shave the poles of his Albanian troops, who, like the Abantes of antiquity, allow their long locks to flow down their backs, and cut them only in front. This idea however produced such a ferment among the palikars, who thought it was but the commencement of a new system of things, that had it not speedily been counteracted, a scene similar to what occurred among our Indian seapoys would probably have been exhibited. Soon after, as Serio was walking past one of Ali's suburban residences, he was beckoned by the vizir to enter, when he found his own patron Signore Colovo tracing out some large characters on a paper to this the vizir, after having entered into a close and friendly conversation respecting the Philospher's stone, which the impostor was pretending to prepare, affixed his signet, and gave it to one of the chiefs of his police, who accompanied the alchymist on his way home; they had not however proceeded far before the terrified Greek saw a gibbet in his path, and turning round, observed a detachment of the balouk bashee's guards near at hand: the paper, which his companion carried, was then shown to him, and found to be his sentence of suspension, with an exposition of his frauds, which was to be nailed to his forehead when he was hoisted up; this was done accordingly and Serio left to feed the crows.

The retinue of Mouchtar Pasha was very large, though inconsiderable when compared with that of his father. He supported two hundred officers and others of his household, and a thousand troops or Albanian guards. His annual income was estimated at about 350,000 dollars, though the vizir took to himself the greatest part of his revenue from the pashalic of Berat.

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STATE OF LITERATURE IN IOANNINA.

CHAPTER IV.

Ir may perhaps be expected that I should say something of the literary society of Ioannina: but to confess the truth, I saw very little to describe; and if this city was called by some writers the Athens of modern Greece, the term seems to me no bad specimen of the figure of speech called amplification.

Literature throughout Greece is but now beginning to awake from that lethargy in which she has lain for so many centuries: at present her motion is feeble and weak, and she creeps on with torpid languor instead of soaring aloft, as formerly, in eagle flight. The minds of the people have been too long debased with sordid cares, and fettered too heavily with the manacles of despotic power, for sublime aspirations at present; they no longer possess that creative fire of genius, that untrodden soul (the ʊx aßatov) which characterized their great progenitors. In their writings we observe at present only feeble copies of the ancients, or vain attempts at originality, wherein true taste and simplicity is violated. Elaborate truisms, superficial remarks, metaphysical absurdities, inaccurate details, deform the pages of their historians, politicians and philo