610 
owing to this, the terms “ Klepht’ and 
« Armatodle” were often used indiserimi- 
nately, while, in Thessaly, the former desig- 
nated both these conditions. One highly 
characteristic mark, however, in the cos- 
tume of a Klepht effectually distinguished 
him from an Armatdle: a worsted rope 
coiled round his waist, for the purpose of 
binding the Turks whom he might capture. 
These were generally kept for the sake of 
ransom ; never, however, tortured or even 
ill used, though, on occasions when it was 
impossible to make prisoners, they were 
killed, like wolves, without hesitation. The 
respect evinced by the Klephts to their 
female captives was exemplary, and altoge- 
ther surprising. Instances will be found in 
the ‘History of Suli,’ lately translated 
into English, of captured Moslem warriors 
being dismissed with all their wealth, which 
is generally carried about the person in 
Turkey, untouched ; except their arms, 
which they were invited to renew, and 
again to try their fortune in combat.” 
The Klephts were hardy to a degree 
scarcely credible to more effeminate nations. 
They had no fixed encampment—wandering 
in summer among the higher, in winter, 
over the lower mountainous regions; but 
they always had a spot for rendezvous and 
occasional sojourn, called Limeri, situated 
near the Armatolik, from which they had 
been driven. Their forms, majestic with 
conscious valour, or gaunt with hunger, 
hovering by moonlight around their former 
possessions, must haye appeared like spec- 
tres haunting the scene of all that was dear- 
est to them in life. When not engaged in 
an expedition, their chief resource for 
amusement was found in martial games, 
and particularly in firing ata mark. Con- 
stant practice in this led to a surprising 
degree of skill. By daylight they could 
strike an egg, or even send a ball through 
a ring of nearly the same diameter, at a dis- 
tance of 200 paces; and in the most pitchy 
darkness, they could hit an enemy, directed 
only by the flash of his musket, which they 
appropriately called returning his fire.” 
‘** The activity of their limbs equalled the 
eorreeiness of their eye. Niko-Tzaras 
could jump over seven horses standing 
abreast ; anc! others could clear, at one leap, 
three waggons filled with thorns, to the 
height of eight feet. Their powers of absti- 
nence were not less surprising; and a band 
of Klephts have been known to combat 
during three days and nights, without 
either eating, drinking, or sleeping.— Pain 
found their courage as untameable as thirst 
and hunger; although every Klepht taken 
alive was inevitably subjected, before the 
relief of death, to the most dreadful and 
protracted tortures. There is but one re- 
cord, that of Katzantoni, whose mind had 
been previously subdued by long sickness, 
of a Klepht evincing even apparent con- 
sciousness of what he suffered. — The 
Klephts combined, to a degree yery rare 
Historical Sketch of the Greek Klephtai. 
among a rude tribe, an enthusiastic piety, 
with a proper distrust of the clergy, and of 
that union of ‘ Church and State,’ the effi- 
cacy of which, for the support of despotism, 
and the rivetting of mental chains, was no 
where better understood than in Turkey, 
where the Sultan was in fact the real head 
of the Christian as well as the Mahometan 
hierarchy ; and it is not in the ‘ United 
Kingdom’ that the efficacy of this double 
barrelled gun, as a political weapon, can be 
misunderstood. Yet in their wildest soli- 
tudes, in their most pressing dangers, they 
performed the holy ceremonies of their re- 
ligion; and the captain who plundered a 
chapel or a votive offering was as unrelent- 
ingly put to death, as if he had insulted a 
female captive. Blachavas, with his Proto- 
palikar, left his beloved mountains at the 
age of seventy-six to visit the holy city on 
foot, and actually died at Jerusalem. But 
their piety displayed itself in a more en- 
lightened form ; and, frequent as apostacy 
was for ages among the harassed inhabitants 
of the plains, never did a Klepht hesitate 
to prefer, like Androutzos, captivity, death, 
and even tortures, to the denial of his Re- 
deemer. With this warm and heroie devo- 
tion, they had the sagacity to perceive that 
the clergy, who: looked to the Turks for 
promotion, and whose corporate property 
the infidels always respected, must be sus- 
picious friends, and often dangerous ene- 
mies to the revolted Greeks. In this point 
of viewthe Kleplitic tribes, as forming a ma- 
terial ingredient in the mass of Greek popu- 
lation, will tend to purify it of political sub- 
mission to priests.”"—‘‘ Next totheir touch- 
ing piety, the most striking qualities among 
the Klephts were, generosity to their poorer 
and more timid countrymen, and especially 
to the herdsmen, who shared the mountains 
with them ; devoted love of their country 
in general, and of their own rugged haunts 
in particular, for which, with a nostalgia, 
unknown among more polished communi- 
ties, they often left the flattery of cities, 
where they were gazed on as heroes; and 
tenderness in those domestic affections, 
which formed a beautiful relief to the stern 
and rugged parts of their character.”— 
“Men, like these, who could apply the 
domestic discipline of all the sterner virtues 
to the polity of a tribe, amidst the com- 
pelled external lawlessness of constant pro- 
scription, will extend it to the government 
of a republic ina state of unassailed inde- 
pendence.” ; 
In his remarks on the songs of the 
Klephtai, the autnor thus adds in ano- 
ther place— 
The heroes whose feats they record, 
are in fact the men who have for the last 
two centuries entered a practical and per- 
petual protest against the Mussulman’s 
usurpation of their illustrious country; — 
and to their efforts Greece mainly owes 
the wonderful suecess which has attended 
her — 
a 
