26 FOOD. COSTUME, &:c. 



The food of the poorer classes in Albania con- 

 sists principally of a soft, pudding-like, yet most 

 particularly indigestible kind of, baked cake made 

 of Indian corn. It is far from unpalatable, but 

 must require the generally abstemious lives and 

 hardy constitutions of these men to prevent its dis- 

 agreeing. They rarely eat animal food, and their 

 wine, which is of course drunk by Greeks only, 

 is not good, although very superior to that which 

 is made in the Morea and the southern parts of 

 Greece. Mixed with water, I used to find it very 

 tolerable ; and indeed during both my excursions 

 in Albania, I rarely drank any other beverage. 



The strange variety of costume in Janina is 

 very striking. Albanians, military Turks in a 

 wretched attempt at European costume, Greeks 

 of Janina, Greeks of the Ionian Islands, Greeks 

 from Greece, Servia, Bosnia, &c. ; Greek priests 

 in their long black dresses, with long silky hair 

 and long beards, and small black caps on their 

 heads, which they never take off except at par- 

 ticular parts of the ceremonies of their religion ; 

 and numbers of Jews, Armenians, and Franks : 

 such a motley array of costumes and such a con- 

 fusion of tongues as cannot be imagined. 



