EGYPT, AND BARBARY.

UNIVERSITY 75 CALIFOR

The inhabitants of this island were looked upon in
ancient times as being of Trojan origin: they
pretended to be the descendants of Zacynthus, the
son of Dardanus, who conducted a colony hither.
They founded Saguntum in Spain; they were
fond of the arts, and delighted in hearing the verses
of Homer sung: they frequently afforded an
asylum to proscribed Romans, and it has even
been asserted that Cicero's ashes were found among
them. If Zante has actually been the refuge of
exiles, gladly would I decree it any honours, and
subscribe to its appellations of Isola d'oro, and Fior
di Levante. The latter reminds me that the
hyacinth originally came from Zante, and that this
island received its name from the flower which it
had produced: thus, in order to confer honour on
a mother, the ancients sometimes added the name
of her daughter to her own.
In the middle ages,
we find a tradition that is not generally known, re-
lative to the island of Zante. Robert Guiscard,
Duke of Apulia, died at Zante, on his way to Pa-
lestine. It had been foretold that he should expire
at Jerusalem; whence it has been concluded, that
in the fourteenth century the whole island, or some
place in it, was thus denominated. At the present
day Zante is celebrated for its springs of petroleum,
as it was in the time of Herodotus, and its currants
rival those of Corinth.

Between the Norman pilgrim Robert Guiscard, and myself a Breton pilgrim, it is indeed a good many years; but in this interval the Seigneur de

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Villamont, my countryman, passed by Zante. set out in 1588, from the duchy of Bretagne for Jerusalem. "Courteous reader," says he, at the commencement of his travels, "thou wilt receive this, my little work, and correct, if thou pleasest, the faults which it may happen to contain; and, receiving it with as good a will as I present it to thee, thou wilt give me courage in future not to be sparing of the good things which I have had leisure and opportunity to collect; serving France according to my desire."

The Seigneur de Villamont did not land at Zante: he came, like me, in sight of the island, and, like me, was driven by a strong west wind towards the Morea. I awaited with impatience the moment when I should discover the coasts of Greece; I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, and fancied every cloud to be the wished-for object. On the morning of the 10th I was upon deck before the sun had risen. As he issued from the deep, I perceived confused and lofty mountains in the distance; they were the mountains of Elis. Glory must surely be something real, since it makes the heart of him who is but the judge of it throb with such violence. At ten we passed Navarin, the ancient Pylos, covered by the island of Sphacteria; names equally celebrated, the one in fable, the other in history, At noon we came to an anchor off Modon, formerly Methone, in Messenią. In another hour I was on shore, I trod the classic soil of Greece, I was but ten leagues from Olympia,

thirty from Sparta, on the road which Telemachust followed when repairing to Menelaus to make enquiries respecting his father: and it was not yet a month since I quitted Paris.

Our ship had anchored half a league from. Modon, in the passage formed by the continent and the islands of Sapienza and Cabrera, formerly Enussæ. Viewed from this point the coast of Peloponnesus, towards Navarin, appears dreary and barren. Beyond this coast, at some distance inland, rise mountains, seemingly of white sand, covered by withered herbage: these were nevertheless the Egalean mountains, at the foot of which Pylos was built. Modon has the appearance of a town of the middle ages, surrounded with Gothic fortifications, half in ruins. Not a vessel in the harbour, not a creature upon the shore: all was silence, solitude, and desolation.

I went into the ship's boat with the captain to get intelligence on land. We approached the beach: I was ready to spring out upon a desert shore, and to salute the native country of arts and of genius, when we were hailed from one of the gates of the town. We were obliged to change our course, and make for the castle of Modon. We perceived at a distance, on the top of a rock, some janissaries, completely armed, and a number of Turks drawn thither by curiosity. soon as we were within hearing, they cailed out to us in Italian: Ben Venuti! Like a true Greek I took notice of these first words of good omen,

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that greeted my ears on the shore of Messenia. The Turks plunged into the water for the purpose of hauling our boat'to land, and assisted us to leap upon the rock. They all spoke at once, and asked a thousand questions of the captain in Greek and Italian. We entered by the half ruined gate of the town, and advanced into a street, or rather into a real camp, which instantly reminded me of the beautiful expression used by M. de Bonald: "The Turks have encamped in Europe." It is scarcely possible to conceive how just is this expression in its fullest extent, and in all its bearings. These Tartars of Modon were seated before their doors, cross-legged, on a kind of stalls or wooden tables, beneath the shade of tattered canvas, extended from one house to another. They were smoking their pipes and drinking coffee; and, contrary to the idea' which I had formed of the taciturnity of the Turks, they laughed and made a good deal of noise.

We repaired to the Aga, a poor wretch lying upon a sort of camp-bed in a penthouse: he received me with great kindness. The object of my voyage being explained to him, he replied, that he would take care that I should be furnished with horses and a janissary to conduct me to Coron, to the French consul, M. Vial: that I should find no difficulty in traversing the Morea, because the roads were clear, since examples had been made of three or four hundred banditti; and that there were now no impediments to travelling.

The history of these three or four hundred banditti is as follows:---Near Mount Ithome there was a band of about fifty robbers, who infested the roads. The Pacha of the Morea, Osman Pacha, repaired to the spot; he surrounded the village where the robbers were accustomed to take up their quarters. It would have been too tedious and troublesome for a Turk to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty: all within the Pacha's enclosure were dispatched like wild beasts. The robbers, it is true, were exterminated; but with them perished three hundred Greek peasants, who were accounted as nothing in this affair.

From the house of the Aga we proceeded to the habitation of the German vice-consul, for France had not then an agent at Modon. He resided in the quarter of the Greeks, without the town. In all those places that are military posts, the Greeks live separate from the Turks. The vice-consul confirmed what the Aga had told me respecting the state of the Morea; he offered me hospitality for the night, which I accepted, and returned for a moment to the ship in a galley-boat, which was afterwards to carry me back to the shore.

I left Julian, my French servant, on board, with directions to wait for me in the ship, at the promontory of Attica, or at Smyrna, if I should miss the vessel. I fastened round me a girdle, containing what specie I possessed; I armed myself at all points, and took into my service a