1803. stipulated sum, what punishment, caloyer, A.D. do you imagine the vizir has prepared for you, since you have thus foolishly entrusted yourself within his power ?”* "He can inflict none," said Samuel, "that can have any terrors for one who has long hated life, and who thus despises death;" at the same instant he fired his pistol into the case of gun-powder on which he was seated, a terrific explosion ensued, and the monk, the Turk, and his attendants were buried in the ruins. One of the Greeks, who had been posted at the door during the conference, alone escaped with life; but of the body of the heroic caloyer no vestige was ever discovered.t Ali had at length acquired the last disputed point of that territory which he had so long and so ardently coveted; but he well knew that he could never enjoy undisturbed possession of Suli so long as a single Suliot existed to attempt its recovery. The occupation of the deserted villages was but a portion of his Ali had sworn to flay him alive, and stuff his skin as a curiosity. Hughes, v. i. p. 168. † Perevos, v. ii. p. 36. Villemain, p. 25. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 204. Bartholdy, v. ii. p. 286. Hughes, v. ii. p. 168. Fauriel, v. i. p. 274. See also No. vii. of the War-songs of the Suliots, in M. Fauriel's Collection, v. i. p. 300. Dufey, v. i. p. 159. 1803. A.D. scheme of ambition; he halted but so long as was requisite to place garrisons throughout the conquered districts, and then hastily dispatched the strength of his army to overtake and exterminate the fugitive Greeks. Fortunately Tzavellas conducted the march of his division with such rapidity that they had gained the vicinity of Parga ere they were surprised by their pursuers. A brief skirmish ensued, the Parguinots rushed to the assistance of their allies, and the Turks were compelled to retreat with a trifling booty, which they had wrested from a straggling party of the exiles.* The troops returned hastily to Suli, and after a short repose set out in pursuit of the second division, which had retired to Tzalongo with Kutzonikas and Kitzo Botzaris. The village in which they had taken up their quarters consisted of a monastery and a few houses seated, like Suli, on the summit of a cliff which overhung the Acheron, and was accessible only by one narrow and precipitous pathway. On the first advance of the enemy, the traitors, too lately awakened to a sense of their crime, and terrified at the approach of that retributive justice, with which the suborners of treason are generally the first to visit its agents, prepared to make a desperate stand against their per * Perevos, v. ii. p. 38. 1803. fidious assailants. They quartered the women A.D. and the aged in the monastery and houses, and for two days succeeded in repelling the enemy from the pass which led to their retreat; unprepared, however, for an assault so unexpected, their ammunition was quickly expended, their provisions were exhausted, and the enemy had possession of the path which led to the springs whence the monastery was supplied with water. In this awful crisis the women of the tribe were the first to perceive the hopelessness of their situation, and sixty of them, taking their children in their arms, repaired to a lofty cliff which overhung the bed of the Acheron the river, foaming through its rocky channels, rolled beneath them, but at such a depth that the noise of its current could be but dimly heard from the towering precipice where they were assembled. Here, after a brief consultation, they embraced their infants, and imprinting the last kiss upon their innocent lips, they hurled them into the abyss below; then advancing to the verge of the precipice, and joining hands, they commenced one of their national dances to the chanting of a wild and melancholy dirge, and each, as her turn approached, sprang from the beetling rock, till the last of the band had perished. Towards midnight the remainder of the tribe 1803. A.D. prepared to make a last effort for existence; they descended the mountain in three divisions, the women and the wounded in the centre of each, and in the front the captains and soldiers, who with one hand led on their children, and with the other clasped their swords. They traversed the camp of the enemy, and after a furious struggle succeeded in gaining the valley; but their escape was but temporary, the Turks, dispersing in their pursuit, the greater number perished in their flight; and mothers, during that fearful night, are said to have stifled their children in order to prevent their cries from attracting the enemy to their hidingplace. Of 800, who left Tzalongo, scarcely 150 succeeded in reaching Parga; and a like number, being sent prisoners to Joannina, were permitted to retire to Vourgareli, a village at the foot of Mount Djumerca, between the rivers Arta and Aspropotamo, (the Aracthus and Achelous,) whither a large body of their countrymen had repaired some time before with the intention of passing into the mountains of Ætolia, and joining the Armatoli of Palæopoulo.* From Tzalongo the Pacha's forces were con * Perevos, v. ii. p. 41. Bartholdy, v. ii. p. 289. Hughes, v. ii. p. 167. Carrel, p. 227. Fauriel, v. ii. p. 277. Villemain, p. 251. 1803. ducted by Youseph the Arab, to Reniassa, A.D. where the widows and children of about twenty families had retired on the destruction of Suli. They commenced the slaughter of the defenceless creatures without mercy or delay, nor did they meet with even a show of resistance save from one heroic woman, Despo, the widow of a Suliot called Botzis, who, with her daughters and grand-children, defended themselves in a tower called the Kula of Dimula.* Their fate, however, was inevitable: she called her family around her, and proposed to them the alternative of submitting to the enemy or dying by their own hands. They unanimously chose the latter, and Despo, ranging them in a circle round a case of gunpowder, applied the match with her own hand, and completed the holocaust of her children.† There now remained only the refugees of The party consisted of Despo the mother, her two daughters Taso and Kitzia, Sofo and Panagio the widows of her sons, and six children, three of whom were girls. Perevos, v. ii. p. 43. + Perevos, v. ii. p. 42. Dufey, v. i. p. 164. Fauriel, v. i. p. 279. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 207. Hughes, v. ii. p. 168. This heroism of Despo has been celebrated in the songs of the Suliots. One in the collection of M. Fauriel records it with dramatic minuteness. ̓Αχὸς βαρὺς, ἀκούεται, πολλὰ τουφέκια πεφτουν, &c. |