came a victim to his imprudent courage, and was abandoned by his followers at the most critical moment. Thus fell the eldest of the Petimesas, in attempting to repulse a sortie of the Turkish garrison of Corinth; thus the heroic Draco was allowed to fall alive, in the cruel hands of Omer Pasha; and thus failed the glorious attack of Marco. While spreading death and terror around him, he vainly cried out for Stornari and Caraiscachi to arrive and sustain his small band, thus to achieve his victory. Unmindful of their oaths, they basely kept aloof, till, overpowered by numbers and fatigue, the only great man, Greece had produced in these her bastard days, received his fatal wound, and expired in the very tent of the terrified Pasha.

CHAPTER XIX.

Religious observances-Fasts-Prejudices-Greek clergy.

MENTION has already been made of the habitual frugality and simplicity of living, that distinguish the Greeks; and of the extraordinary voracity, displayed during the festivals of their church. During the better half of the year, obliged to observe the fasts it prescribes, and which are far more rigid than those of the Catholics-fish, eggs, milk, and in fact every produce of red-blooded animals, being interdicted— a piece of Indian corn bread, baked under the embers, a dozen pickled olives, a few raw onions, or boiled wild herbs, amply satisfy the appetite of a Greek. He is never embarrassed for his meals; and, as Tournefort quaintly remarks, "will grow fat, where an ass might die of hunger." This is literally true; because the latter eats the leaves only, while the former cooks root and all.

No country can produce more savoury edible plants, and no nation is better acquainted with the virtues and properties of the various vegetables. At the end of a day's march, it is a singular sight for a new comer, to see the Greek soldiers spreading themselves all about the fields to botanize, as they say. For while they are all stooping towards the ground, collecting herbs, their fleecy capote makes them appear exactly like a flock of sheep grazing. After filling their handkerchiefs with roots, frequently fifteen or twenty different species, they form a general

mess; and, after boiling them, sit down in circles to enjoy this simple fare.

The Greek religion, among the common people, is entirely a religion of the stomach; for superstition, which constantly presides at his board, teaches that the orthodox use of food is the chief thing necessary to arrive at salvation; that it is equally his duty as a christian, who wishes to please the saints, the panagìa, and Christ, to fast at the appointed epochs, and to gorge himself, as much as possible, with the various viands under which the tables literally groan at their celebration of festivals. The appetite is with them in ratio with their devotion; and were a Greek to die of an indigestion, produced by inordinate gluttony, he would be considered a martyr, and die with as much assurance of going to heaven, as the Mahomedan, who falls in battle, of being immediately transported into the arms of the houris.

Fasting is looked upon by the Greek as a sacrament, which even divine justice cannot violate. Let no one accuse me of exaggeration; for so strictly convinced is a kleftes of the all-atoning power of fasting, that no consideration will induce him to break it; though, on the very same day, he will, without hesitation, commit the most dreadful atrocities.

Macri most religiously observed every fast in the year. The Greeks retain in their religion various Jewish ceremonies: they consider it a sin, for instance, to eat the flesh of an animal that has been smothered, as fowls and pigeons frequently are by us. This prejudice is so deeply rooted, that, after shooting a bird or hare, they cut the throat of the animal, and refuse to eat it afterwards unless it bleeds. The horror, they entertain for the land tortoise, is invincible. Nothing can induce them even to touch

that animal. They never perceive it without spitting, in sign of the great disgust its sight creates. Some Europeans, who came to see me while at Cerasovo, had caught several on the road. One of them, a German, whom long experience and necessity had rendered proficient in the art of killing and cooking that animal, announced a grand treat, and was preparing to execute his promise, when my hostess hastened with the assistance of her neighbours to remove all her kitchen apparatus; and, on the arrival of her husband, such an outcry was raised against us, that we deemed it prudent to leave the house, and cook in the open air. Notwithstanding our assertions, that its broth was more delicate than that of the finest capon, and the ragout, prepared with its flesh, excellent, we could not prevent the country people from looking upon us, as the most impure beings they had ever met with; and, for several days, they kept aloof from us, as if we laboured under some infectious complaint.

Most of the Greeks, who had travelled, or received some education, were far from being so bigoted as their brethren. They were, indeed, the first to ridicule the endless mummeries of their church; and it may be perceived, on perusing the Provisory Constitution of Greece, that the representatives of the nation, rather sought to reduce the authority of the clergy still more, than to augment them. Since the revolution the power of the upper clergy had almost entirely ceased. For the Turkish principles they always professed; their love of ostentation; the numerous instances of injustice of which they were charged; and the scandalous immorality of their conduct had, for a long time, alienated the affection of their flocks: while their illiberal opinions, and the enmity they, at first, manifested to the revolution, drew upon them

the universal contempt of the better-informed part of the nation. And here it may not be improper to enter a little deeper into this important subject.

The Greek clergy is divided into two classes, the monastic and the secular: the former (póμóvaxoi) are, from their youth, entirely educated in convents; and, after making vows of perpetual celibacy, are admitted into holy orders. All the learning, wealth, and dignities of the church, were in their absolute power, and, by means of these three omnipotent engines, they had, at all times, maintained a powerful authority over the people. The latter class, called коσμо¬àπades, entered into holy orders after marriage. The only education, required of them, was the being able to read the liturgy in Greek. It mattered little whether they understood it or not; that was no business of theirs. They lived among the people, as curates formerly did in the poorer parts of North Wales; but their profits were so small, that to maintain themselves and families, they were in villages fated to depend chiefly on their manual exertions; and they never could aspire to further advancement. Their poverty and ignorance could procure to them little influence over the people; for they stood almost exactly on the same level in temporal matters: they were, therefore, mere passive tools in the hands of the upper clergy.

The insulation of the hierarchy from the rest of society, the total separation and even opposition of their interests, inevitably gave rise to an aristocratical influence which imposed a yoke on the neck of the Greek, almost as oppressive as that of the pasha. In order to conciliate the protection of the Turkish authority, the bishop made them handsome annual presents, which naturally came from his flock. Having thus tacitly purchased impunity, he could indulge