Spartans, and came into harness again with the Greek confederacy at the invasion by Xerxes, and exhibited such prodigies of valour at Salamis, that, by universal admission, they bore off the palm from all, even from Athens. But Pericles subsequently avenged the Athenians of this humiliation, and of their ancient hate and jealousy, by overpowering the brave islanders with his fleet of seventy sail, which resulted in their total submission to that imperial potentate.

In the course of the afternoon we found ourselves again safely entering the celebrated port of Piræus, which now seemed, after our perilous wanderings, almost like another home, especially to those cherished friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, who had been our constant companions.

On landing, we quickly set out for our long-desired and much-beloved Athens.

Though I have frequently spoken of the degraded and abject poverty of the modern Greeks, yet our visit, with all its ills and privations, was made a most delightful one, and will ever be fruitful of the most agreeable recollections.

Few of our countrymen have made so extensive a journey into the interior as we have, and without any serious accident; for which, in the then disturbed state of the country, we cannot be too thankful and happy.

On our return to Athens we found our friends very anxious about us, as two murders had just been committed near to the city.

Even one of our missionaries, who had been on a journey to the Peloponnesus, returned before us, in consequence of the country being infested with robbers.

There is but one hope, in my opinion, for the regeneration of this once classic and brave people, and that is in disseminating the blessings of education. The axe is

certainly laid at the root of the evil, as we have already said, in the meritorious and indefatigable exertions of our most worthy and excellent missionaries. Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon them and their Godlike labours. They have directed their attention to the rising generation in establishing schools for the children, and their success is already beyond every expectation. Should the country remain sufficiently tranquil for ten years to come, the light of education and Christian knowledge will be let in upon them, and will dispel the gloom of midnight darkness which everywhere shrouds and overhangs this fairy land of the hero and the poet. These schools are to be the nursing fathers and the nursing mothers, the heralds of the future promise of the Greeks. They will be the true benefactors of their race. The present adult Greeks are sunk too low in all the vices of Oriental indolence ever to be resuscitated. It is not in their moral, mental, or physical organization ever to be reformed or regenerated. In this opinion I have not been precipitate or hasty. It has not been drawn from a survey of the far-famed Athenian or Attican; but I have had an opportunity of seeing the Theban in his mountain and his capital, the Lebadean in his capital and on his beautiful plain, the Delphian about his rugged cliffs, and the inhabitant of the mighty snow-topped Parnassus. I have viewed the whole line, from the long stretch of Mount Helicon to near the highest summit of Parnassus, from Acro-Corinth to the plains of Argos in the Morea, and but one strong feature reigns through the whole.

But what must have been the character and condition of these people, when pilgrimages were made by thousands from other lands to worship at their shrines and their temples; when poets, and heroes, and emperors

Qe

came to enter the caves and fissures in their rocks and mountains, to consult and interrogate their mystic oracles in these hidden recesses, and to learn from them their future destiny. Poor deluded victims of fable, of folly, and of superstition!

Inexplicable and humiliating must the fact ever seem to us, that a people whose genius had reached so extreme an elevation of intellectual culture in architecture, sculpture, poetry, oratory, in military and commercial glory, and all the ennobling and refined arts of life, could have had their reason and their faith so completely absorbed and seduced, as it was, by the dreamy allegories and complicated machinery of a fanciful system of polytheism. Yet to this unphilosophical, but beautiful mythology, which pervaded every thought of their life, do we owe not only a vast portion of their admirable literature, but those magnificent monuments which everywhere enrich and embellish their land, and which all the world adore, while they mourn over the bewildering infatuation and impassioned idolatry which those monumental remains imbody, and express under forms so captivating. Forever must we still exclaim with Byron : "Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground;

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon.
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone :
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past

Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng;

Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast,

Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ;

Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore,

Boast of the aged, lesson of the young,
Which sages venerate and bards adore,

As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore."

EGYPT.

AFTER reposing for a few days at Athens, and enjoying the society of our much-esteemed friends there, we made the necessary arrangements to take passage for the Archipelago in one of the French steam-ships-of-war for conveying the mail, and which was to touch at the Piræus in a few days. She arrived at the appointed time; and now, bidding an affectionate farewell to our much-endeared Athenian friends, Mr. and Mrs. Perdicaris, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. King, Mr. Pittakys, Dr. Raisor, &c., embarked in her for the island of Syra. We found the commander, as in all this line of mail steamers, gentlemanly and agreeable, a skilful mariner, and in every way well fitted for his important duties. The accommodations were excellent, and we were always treated more as friends and companions, or invited guests, than as strangers or mere passengers from whom any compensation was to be expected. We are happy in having this public opportunity of returning our warmest acknowledgments for the polite treatment we have received from the able officers in command of these French vessels throughout all the East; as we have had numerous opportunities, during our excursions in the Mediterranean, of testing their capacities and participating in their courtesies. We would on all occasions recommend to our countrymen and travellers, to give the preference, in their journeyings in these seas, to this mode of conveyance.

After a pleasant trip to the island of Syra, anciently Syros, the great point of rendezvous for steam-vessels,

we were immediately transferred, while in the beautiful bay of the island, and without landing, to the steam-ship ready to proceed on her route to Egypt.

We observed, from the yellow flag that was flying from her mast, that she was in quarantine, and had therefore come from a region infected with the plague ; and it may easily be conceived what our feelings were in passing to a vessel of this description, knowing, as we did, that the moment we touched her, we should be considered among the number of the infected, and be rigidly interdicted from all communication with the shore, and with every boat or person belonging to the island. This unpleasant transhipment created still more disagreeable sensations, when we reflected that we were departing still farther from home, and from our families and friends; and plunging into new scenes and into greater dangers, perhaps those of pestilence and death, the contingencies of which we could not anticipate without some degree of apprehension. But as we had made up our minds to the expedition, with a full knowledge beforehand of the dangers to which we should be exposed, we resolved to persevere at least with a good grace in the undertaking we had projected.

Directly after arriving on board, my attention was diverted from these gloomy thoughts by the arrival alongside of an open rowboat from the island, with the American missionary, Dr. Robinson, and a part of his family. He hailed the ship, and requested my professional advice for one of his children; for, though I had only been but a few hours in the port, and not at all on shore, he had, it seems, heard of me, and was resolved, at the risk of my infected position, to avail himself of my professional services. I descended down the side of the ship to the water's edge, and there held communion with my little