MANNERS AND CUSTOiMS. 



489 



Character of the Morean 

 Greeks. 



[Fro77i F. C. Pouqueville's Travels 

 in the Morea, Albania, and other 

 Parts of the Ottoman Empire.^ 



The Morean Greeks, or inhabi- 

 tants of the Morea, are strong 

 made, robust, and distinguished by 

 a cast of features full of expres- 

 sion, yet, as I have observed, evi- 

 dently debased by slavery. Endow- 

 ed naturally with strong talents, 

 which by circumstances are divert- 

 ed from taking a course that would 

 render them at once useful and or- 

 namental to society, they are pro- 

 found dissemblers, crafty and vain : 

 extremely addicted to talking, little 

 dependence is to be placed upon 

 what they say : entertaining no 

 scruples of perjuring themselves, 

 they scarcely utter a word, or traf- 

 fic for the most trifling article, 

 without invokinsr a whole legion of 

 saints as witnesses to their probity. 

 Gay, lively, inclined to dissipation, 

 they make themselves agreeable, as 

 companions, without inspiring 

 confidence; possessing active ima- 

 ginations, their language abounds 

 with ornament, with figures, with 

 metaphors, with similes : if they 

 talk of liberty, it is in a strain of 

 exaggeration which would make 

 one believe that they are ready to 

 undertake any thing, to make any 

 sacrifices in the pursuit of it ; yet 

 it is too evident that the indigna- 

 tion they manifest against their op- 

 pressors, arises less from the desire 

 of enfranchisement than from that 

 of seeing their own mode of wor- 

 ship the predominant one. It is 

 but too evident what is to be ex- 

 pected of people actuated by such 

 an ambition. The descendants of 



Miltiades and Cimon, bowed down 

 under the two-fold despotism of the 

 Turks and their papas, are wholly 

 incapable of conceiving, or prose- 

 cuting, an enterprise of that bold 

 and generous nature requisite to 

 aiford a prospect of their restora- 

 tion to the political situation the 

 country once enjoyed. The mo- 

 dern Greeks, I cannot, alas ! hesi- 

 tate to say it, would see nothing 

 in a revolution but the triumph of 

 their religion, without concerning 

 themselves about political liberty. 

 I must add, that if they hate the 

 Turks, they detest much more, 

 astonishing as it may seem, the 

 Christians who acknowledge the 

 authority of the Pope. This fact 

 is so certain, that the Greeks, if 

 asked who they are, always answer 

 Christians, in the fear that they 

 should be taken for Papists. This 

 hatred of Roman catholics is che- 

 rished by their papas, who are 

 continually talking of the maledic- 

 tions uttered by the Pope against 

 all who are not his disciples, and 

 telling dismal stories of the Greeks 

 that die among the Latins being 

 deprived of the rights of sepulture. 

 The Morean women have un- 

 doubtedly a claim to the prize of 

 beauty, perhaps also to the palm 

 of virtue. They may probably 

 owe the first advantage to physical 

 causes not difficult to be assigned. 

 During the greater part of the year 

 the sun warms the Morea with 

 its benignant rays : the air is free 

 from all humidity, and charged 

 with the perfume of thousands of 

 flowers, is pure and vivifying, 

 while the temperature is mild and 

 serene as in our finest days of 



sprint 



If to this be added the 



moderate share of labour to which 

 the women of the East are sub- 



