The method in which they prepare their fifh is as follows: they firft cut off the head, then gut them, take out the bones, hang the fish up to dry, and afterwards collect them into heaps, and preferve them in ftore-houses, fimilar to thofe of the island of Tchoka.

"Their implements for fishing are the hook and line, nets, and a kind of fpear headed with iron.

"They have two regular meals a day, of which the whole family partake in common, one about noon, and the other at fun-fet. Their domeftic utenfils, and method of cooking, are similar to thofe of the natives of Tchoka; and they procure these utenfils, with other articles, from Mantchou Tartary and Japan.

The avidity with which they devoured the raw fkin of fresh fifh, as well as the cartilaginous parts of the head, particularly aftonished us. Thefe, with train oil, appear to be confidered by them as their greatest dainties.

"Both the men and women have a kind of loose drefs, nearly fimilar to a carter's frock, reaching to the calf of the leg, and fastened before with copper buttons. This garment is in no refpect different from that of the inhabitants of Tchoka it is made fometimes of fifh-fkin, fometimes of nankeen, and in winter of fur: and thofe of the women are ornamented at the bottom with regular rows of flat pieces of copper. They all wear alike a kind of drawers or breeches, made in the Chinese manner, and fhort boots like thofe of the inhabitants of Tchoka; and have befide a ring either of horn or metal on the thumb, and trinkets fufpended from the ears and noftrils.

"I obferved among them no chiefs, but the heads of families. Their only domeftic animals are

dogs, of the fame kind as those of Tchoka, which they employ in winter to draw their fledges.

"The custom fo prevalent among other tribes of this hemifphere, of offering to ftrangers the ufe of their women, is not practifed by these people. On the con. trary, they appear to be held in great eftimation by their husbands, and their occupations are confined to the management of their domeftic concerns, of which the care of the children, and cooking, conftitute the principal objects.

"The umbilical cord is tied in the fame manner as with us, immediately upon the birth of the child; and the child is then fwathed, according to the mode practifed by the Americans. When difpofed to fleep, it is placed in a basket, or fort of cradle, made of wood, or the bark of the birch.

"From the feverity of the climate thefe Tartars are obliged to have both fummer and winter habitations, the form and internal arrangements of which are fcarcely different from those already defcribed in the island of Tchoka. Their winter habitations are remarkable only for being funk about four feet in the earth, and for having a kind of porch before the entrance. Hard and wretched as is their manner of living, these Tartars appeared, notwithstanding, to enjoy while young a tolerable fhare of health; but as they advance in life they are fubject to inflammations of the tunica conjun&tiva, which are common among them, as well as to blindnefs. That thefe diforders are fo frequent, is owing probably to general caufes, fuch as the dazzling whitenefs of the fnow, which covers the ground for more than half the year, and the conftant irritation produced in the organs of fight by the fmoke, with

which their huts are continually filled, and to which they are obliged to retire in winter from the cold, and in fummer from the motchettoes, that in thefe northern regions are extremely numerous.

"Though their manner of life is filthy in the extreme, cutaneous diforders are very rare among the fe people. I faw only two or three flight inftances of rath, and a child fix years of age who had the tinea: and as to bodily conformation, I obferved among them no defect, nor any trace either of the finallpox or of the venereal difeafe.

"The occupations of both fexes, their implements for fishing and hunting, and their canoes, are very little different from thofe of the inhabitants of Tchoka; but the weakness of their phyfical faculties

muft render them incapable of fupporting the fame Labour and fatigue. as the latter, who are a people far. more robuft.

"All these different tribes appear to have the utmost veneration for their dead, and employ their whole induftry to bestow on them, an honourable fepulture. They are interred with their clothes on, and the arms and implements which they ufed when alive are buried with them. The body is depofited in a coffin, made of boards, and of the fame form as ours, the extremities of which are ornamented with fmall pieces of filk stuff, either plain, or embroidered in gold and filver. The cothin is then enclosed in a tomb, raised about four feet from the ground, and conftructed of ftrong planks or boards."

YONQUERED Greece polifh

ed

were Romans. Conquered Greece did not polish Turkey, for the conquerors were Turks. The infenfibility of thefe barbarians is aftonihing: living amid the effulgence of genius, they have not caught one fpark; they gaze with unfeeling ftupidity on the wonder and boast of art, on their glorious monuments, on their temples, and conclude they were built by genii, and then deftroy them, to burn the marble for lime to make ftucco for their own taftelefs houfes, whence the fine arts are banished; where ignorance, tyranny, fuperftition, and grofs fenfuality only dwell in fad and ftupidly-folemn pomp, or iffuing out with favage fury, lay wafte the country round, and imbrue

their hands in the blood of the helpring

thofe they have conquered. Thus the finest countries in the world are become deferts; part inhabited by favage beafts, and part by more favage men: the poor aborigines kulking in hiding places like the timid hare (which epithet the Turks give them in derifion), while thofe beafts of prey roam abroad.

"Every object moral and phyfical, the fair face of nature and the intellectual energies of the inhabitants, have alike been blafted and defiled by the harpy-touch of Turkifh tyranny. As an intance of thofe changes which the country. has undergone, we need only confider the island of Cyprus, now an almost uninhabited defert, which was, not only in ancient times, but

D 4

when

when it was taken by the Turks from the Venetians, populous and exceedingly rich. The gentry lived like princes in fplendor, and even the peafants had each of them at leaft a filver cup, fpoon, knife, and fork. The number and excellency of its productions were wonderful. At prefent only a little cotton, fome filk and wine, and a few drugs, are its produce, all to no great amount. Even the falines (or falt-works) which were fo great a branch of revenue and commerce to the Venetians, have produced nothing fince the Turks poffeffed it.

"Of the defects of the Grecian character fome are doubtless owing to their ancient corruptions; but most of them take their rife in the humiliating state of depreffion in which they are held by the Turks. This degradation and fervility of their fituation has operated for centuries, and has consequently produced an accumulated effect on the mind; but were this weight taken off, the elasticity and vigour of the foul would have wide room for expansion; and though it can not be expected that they would at once rife to the proud animation of their former heroes, they would doubtlefs difplay energies of mind, which the iron haud of defpotifm has long kept dormant and inert. It is rather aftonishing that they have retained fo much energy of character, and are not more abafed, for like noble courfers they champ the bit, and fpurn indignantly the yoke; when once freed from thefe, they will enter the courfe of glory. The truth of thefe obfervations will appear, avhether we confider the Greeks in their cominon character as one people, or whether we confider them according to their local and peculiar diftinétions.

"When we view the Greeks in their more comprehenfive character

as a nation, their fuperiority over the Turks in knowledge is furprifingly great; they poffefs a great degree of genius and invention, and are of fo lively an imagination, that they cannot tell the fame story twice without varying the embellifhments of circumftance and diction; added to this, both men and women speak much, and with wonderful volubility and boldness, and no people are fuch natural orators; numbers of them fpeak Italian, but all have an activity and. fprightlinefs which ftrongly contrafts with the ftupid and pompous gravity of the Turks; an European feels himself as it were at home with them, and amongft creatures of his own fpecies, for with Mahomedans there is a distance, a non-affimilation, a total difference of ideas, and the more he knows their language the more he perceives it; on the contrary, the more intimately he knows the Greeks, the more fimilar does he find them in habits and manners to other Europeans: their bad reputation is more owing to the flander of the French (their mortal enemies) than to fo great a degree of demerit. In general, they are an agreeable and a ferviceable people, but they are much given to levity, immoderately ambitious, and fond of honourable diftinctions; but this very ambition, now a weakness, when they have nobler objects to pursue, will lead them to greatness.

"From the account given by Tott (vol. i. p. 118.) of the disturbances excited by the patriarch Kirilo, it would appear that the Greeks have not yet entirely abandoned that fpirit of fuperftition and bigotry, which was, perhaps, the main caufe of their former downfall.

"It must be obferved, however, that thefe difputes are not fo much fostered upon themselves, as they

arc

66

They bear the Turkish yoke with greater impatience than other Chriftians (who have long ceafed to ftruggle against it), and poffefs a fpirit of enterprize which, however ridiculed by fome authors, often prompts them to noble achievements. Their ancient empire is fresh in their memory; it is the fubject of their popular fongs, and they speak of it in common converfation as a recent event.

"That they poffefs a firm and manly courage, notwithstanding the infinuations of their calumniators, has been too often teftified to be in the least doubtful: the inftances which they have difplayed in the Ruffian fervice have been truly striking. They are paffionate, and fometimes given to affaffination; but, except in Zante and Cephalonia, the stiletto is not fo frequent with them as with the Italians, whom they in general resemble, the best of them, if we add more energy, being very fimilar in character to the Venetians, and the worst to the Genoefe.

"The moft obfervable difference in the Grecian character is between thofe of Conftantinople and their countrymen of the iflands. The merchants and lower orders of the Conftantinopolitan Greeks have indeed no very marked character; they are much the fame as the trading Chriftians in all parts of the empire, that is to fey, as crafty and fraudulent as the Jews, but lefs fo than the Armenians, who are the moft fubtle of all ufurers.

"But there is (in a fuburb called the Fenal) a race of Greeks

who called themselves nobles, and affect to despise those of the islands; they are certain opulent families, from which are generally appointed the drogomans of the porte, and the waywodes of Walachia and Moldavia. They have kept these places amongst them, as they are. moftly allied together, and keep up a conftant connection with the officers of the porte. They are continually intriguing to get thofe in office removed, and obtain their places; even children cabal against their fathers, and brothers against brothers. They are all people of very good education, and are polite, but haughty, vain, and ambitious to a moft ridiculous degree, confidering the contempt they are treated with by the Turks. As to their noble extraction, it is a matter of great uncertainty; most of them bear the names of those families which were illuftrious when the Turks took Conftantinople, but they would find it difficult to prove their descent. They have in ge-' neral all the vices of the Turks of the feraglio; treachery, ingratitude, cruelty, and intrigue, which ftops at no means. While they are dro gomans of the porte, they are obliged to behave with great caution and prudence, but when they become waywodes, they are in nothing different from Turkish pafhas in tyranny; nor is it to be wondered at, when men are obliged to look up not only to tyrants, but to the very fervants of tyrants, for honour and confequence; to flatter their ignorance and ftupidity, their foibles and their vices, and to tremble for their lives at their frowns, that cunning takes the place of wifdom, vice of virtue, and treachery of fortitude. In fuch a fituation the mind must lofe its vigour, the heart its generofity: the abafement of man by

fuch

fuch caufes was never more ftrongly exemplified than in the inftance of the Greeks of the Fenal; they do not weep over the ruins which they cannot reftore, nor figh to rear others of equal magnificence.

"Strange as is the infatuation which induces thefe Greeks to aim at the poft of waywodes, it is perhaps no lefs aftonishing than many examples which daily occur in other nations of the power of ambition. Though ftyling themselves noble, and affecting a fuperiority over the other Greeks, they are the only part of their nation who have totally relinquished the ancient Grecian fpirit; they feem not anxious, as the iflanders are, for liberty, but delight in their falfe magnificence, and in the petty intrigues of the feraglio; and their pride is to appear in their drefs like Turks; and yet the fituation which they are thus eager to obtain is befet with perils, and fcarcely one who holds it efcapes depofition and punithment. No fooner is a waywode appointed, than he fets out in great ftate for his government, attended by a crowd of relations and dependents, for all of whom, as well as for his own fplendor, he must provide by opprefling the unhappy fubjects of his tyranny. Meanwhile his countrymen at Conftantinople are engaged in continual plots for his removal, and it becomes neceffary for him to accumulate a large fum to bribe the minifters and others on his return, and to avert the perfecution, which continues for years afterward to hang over him.

"Thofe of Macedonia, &c. are robuft, courageous, and fomewhat ferocious; thofe of Athens and Attica afe ftill remarkably witty and fharp; all the islanders are lively and gay, fond of finging and dancing to an excess, affable, hofpitable, and good natured; in fort,

they are the best; thofe of the Morea are much given to piracy; but it is not to be wondered at, confidering the cruel treatment they have met with, and the struggles they are continually making against the Turks. Albania, Epirus, and in general the mountaineers, are a very warlike brave people, but very favage, and make little fcruple of killing and robbing travellers; a Turk cannot venture in their country alone; there is no man in the country but would make a merit of fhooting him. and is this to be wondered at ?

"The Greeks of Zante and Cephalonia, fubject to the Venetians, are famous for stabbing with knives.

"In fome islands the people are not handfome. In Metaline, the women are remarkable for very large breafts. In Tino, the women are almost all beauties, and there the true antique head is to be found.

"In general, the people of the iflands have grand and noble features. From different faces you may put together, in walking through a market-place, the heads of Apollo and of the finest ancient ftatues.

"It is fcarcely poffible for any perfon not to be mistaken in judging of the conduct of the porte towards its provinces, by any analogy from the political operations of other European nations. Amongst us, the unfuccefsful revolt of a whole province would indeed give birth to fome additional rigour, and to fome ftriking example of punishment: but the ferocious Turk propofes nothing fort of extermination, in order to free himself from the fear of future defection. It was thus that, when the inhabitants of the Morea, who, inftigated by the defire of liberty, had taken up arms in favour of the Ruffians, returned again under their yoke, a deliberate propofal was made in the divan to

flaughter