286 Mr. W. H. Simpson's Ornithological Notes 



All these fellows up here are, or have been, brigands to a man, 

 and, therefore, having bad consciences, see in every stranger an 

 agent of police come to levy some unpaid tax, or to apprehend 

 them for any little " difficulty " in which they have been en- 

 gaged. But hearing we were the insane Europeans who went 

 about that country collecting eggs, they withdrew their opposi- 

 tion and permitted us to continue the ascent. A well-directed 

 stone would have sent the whole party to perdition, as at that 

 time we wei'e clinging like flies to a wall. One of the volunteers 

 did make himself scarce at this point, not caring to face it any 

 more. 



The Great Klissoura, till within the last three years, was the 

 most noted place in all Western Greece for robberies. Whole 

 parties have been murdered here, and frequent combats have 

 taken place since the War of Independence between the troops 

 and the brigands. During that period and up to the year 1857, 

 no less than 1200 people have lost their lives in these affairs, as 

 I was informed by the sergeant in command at the fort. Fine 

 times these for our friends the Griffons ! No wonder there is 

 such a thi'iving community close at hand. To the present chief 

 of the police at Mesolonghi the credit of putting a stop to such a 

 state of things is due ; but the same people are still here — those 

 savage ^tolians, who, in Thucydides' time, were said to be " rude 

 of tongue and eaters of raw meat " *— men that swagger about 

 with long guns and a bellyful of pistols, perpetually carrying 

 arms, as did their predecessors in these same mountains at the 

 beginning of the Peloponnesian war, long after the other Greeks 

 had discontinued the practice t- 



These two fellows heard our proposal to take the Lammer- 

 geyer's nest with a sort of suspicious incredulity, though, to do 

 them justice, this reserve gradually wore away, and they even 

 volunteered to produce a man who would go down. But his 

 courage quickly evaporated as soon as he saw the place, and so 

 indeed did mine when I thought of the bungling crew with 

 whom I should have to work. As an instance of the want of 



* ayvuxTTOTaroi. Se yX&xrcrai/ koX f!)fio(f)dyoi eialv, wr Xeyovrai (Hist. iii. 94). 

 t TO Tf cn8ripo(pope'i(r6ai tovtois to7s TjirtipoiTais an6 ttjs jraXaius Xporet'as 

 efiHefji€vt]K.f {ibid. i. 5). 



