182 SUPPEll SCKNK WITH COLOCOTRONI. 



" Eh ! Viva ! Signer Capitano," said the General as he finished 

 his dram, " will you not eat some salad ?" 



I nodded an assent, but fidgetted about with a piece of biscuit that 

 I might have an opportunity of seeing how the natives intended to 

 proceed, lest I should commit some solecism that might ruin me with 

 them. I had not to wait long; the General plunged his hand into the 

 bowl, and grasping an immense quantity of the esculents, sopped it 

 well in the dressing and crammed it into his mouth, the superfluities 

 dropping on his chin and naked breast ; he then picked out an an- 

 chovy, and dexterously stripping it from the bone with his nail, one 

 half he thrust into his own mouth, and the other, to my utter dis- 

 comfiture, into mine, saying, it was " bono per lo stomacho," a piece 

 of choice Italian which he made use of more than once during the repast. 

 With a desperate spasm I gulped down the anchovy, and called for 

 some wine. A chitza* was handed to me by a beautiful dark-haired 

 maiden, who, I afterwards understood, had been compelled to take 

 upon her the office of Hebe, a custom very prevalent amongst the 

 dissolute soldiery of Greece.f I took care to touch the tip of my 

 chin, my forehead, lay my hand upon my heart, and say " the teen 

 hygeian sas," before I raised the chitza to my lips. 



The salad having speedily vanished, my gastric nerves were next 

 put into a state of insurrection by the approach of that sanguinary 

 wretch the butcher, with his accursed plaited tripes. They appeared 

 to be very highly relished by the company assembled, but I posi- 

 tively and peremptorily declined to partake of them. The lamb was 

 next served up, that is to say it was laid upon the board, still upon 

 the spit. Colocotroni drew forth his ataghan, and making several 

 gashes in it, and pointing out with his finger to me the part I was to 

 lay hold of, with two or three cuts of his knife he separted it from 

 the mass. It consisted of three or four ribs (the lamb was small and 

 had been killed, as usual, when about a fortnight old), and notwith- 

 standing all my European prejudices, and my disgust at the te mo- 

 dus operandi," I never remember to have eaten any thing so delicate, 

 so tender, so delicious, in the whole course of my life. The General, 

 having helped himself and the President, passed the mutilated carcase 

 to the rest, with a special, and as it appeared to me, wholly unneces- 

 sary injunction not to eat the head. It was not without some horrible 

 misgivings, that I soon after saw the caput mortuum returned to him, 

 having previously been split in two. He commenced operations upon 

 it, by taking out the tongue which he chopped into three portions, 

 two of which he distributed with his fingers to myself and Sessini, 

 keeping the third himself. I was delighted to see him swallow the 

 brains, a portion of which I had entertained fears he would have 

 inflicted upon me. I was, however, compelled to take the disgusting 

 equivalent of an eye, (Sessini being honoured with the other;) a 



A chitza, a rudely-fashioned flat-round tuprel, containing about three quarts, 

 rather inconvenient to drink out off. 



$ The Greek soldiers, when they enter a village, compel the peasants, with 

 blows of the ramrod, to furnish them provisions, and force their daughters to 

 minister to their orgies. 



