It so happened that in the morning while on a visit to the bey, or waiwode, we heard the reading of a firman bringing the news of the taking of Belgrade by the Turks. During the reading the primates all stood up, and when it was concluded all exclaimed: 'Thanks to God for this success! May our Sultan live!' In the evening we went to dine with Logotheti. There were a Corfiote doctor and several other Greeks. Our talk was of their hopes of emancipation, as it always is when one is in company with Greeks, with the inevitable references to Leonidas and the Hellenes.
Our hosts and the other Greeks struck me as heavier and more Boeotian in appearance than the Greeks I was accustomed to, but also more polished. The Corfiote, of course, was talkative and ignorant: they always are. We ate an immense quantity of turkeys--roast, boiled, hashed and again roasted--fowls and all sorts of poultry dressed in all sorts of ways, and we drank a great deal of bad wine in toasts to King George, success to the Greeks, &c.
As soon as Hughes could move we went on from Livadia by Chæronea to Castri,[43] the ancient Delphi. Until within the last few years the region we were now in was impassable owing to robbers, but Ali Pasha's tyranny has at any rate the merit of an excellent zabete or police, so that it is now fairly safe. The scenery among the mountains is splendid. Our visit to Castri was not a long one. Except the Castalian spring and the stadium, one could make out nothing of the ancient topography. The whole site is covered with walls running in every sort of direction, possibly to keep the earth from slipping down the hill.
A buyulurdi such as we carried confers the most arbitrary rights; but it was not until the protocaro had been cudgelled by our Tartar that we were able to procure a lodging, a tolerably good one, in the house of the papa. I reflected how wretched is the position of the Greeks, and how ungenerous of us Englishmen to live at their expense and assist in the general oppression; but I was too pleased to get a lodging for the night to act upon it.
From Crisso we went to Salona, and here it became necessary to settle upon our further route. When we came to look into it, it appeared that the plague is raging in every town on our way by Nepacto and Missalonghi through Ætolia. Moreover, the roads are rough and infested by robbers, the horses bad, and in fact the best way to get to Albania seemed to be to go by sea. This was settled upon accordingly, and we started to do it. From Salona to the port is a two hours' ride. Thence we set sail in a felucca. The sea was running very high, the wind was in our teeth, and though we got to Galaxidi at last, it was not without considerable peril. I have had a good many adventures, but I do not think I was ever in greater danger than during those four hours of sailing in that weather in the dark, and I thanked God heartily when I found myself ashore. The only lodging we could get was in the guard-house, a filthy magazine so alive with bugs that after a first failure I gave up all idea of going to sleep, and sat up with Parker smoking till morning. It was out of the question going to look for other quarters. The country is so infested with robbers, who think nothing even of penetrating into the town and carrying off a primate or so, that arriving late and knocking at doors we should have been taken for brigands and answered by pistol shots from the windows.