JANUARY 29 



Things wore a brighter aspect next morning. The rain 

 had stopped : it was as cold as ever, but the wind was busy 

 drying up the streets. 



Since the time of which I am writing, the tide of war 

 has swept over the plains of Thessaly, and Larissa has 

 been besieged and captured by the Turks. In 1893 the 

 city was in a very interesting state of transition. For cen- 

 turies the city and the magnificent province of Thessaly, 

 of which it is the capital, slumbered — and groaned in 

 its slumber — under Turkish misrule, till it was ceded 

 to Greece in 1881 under the Treaty of Berlin. It is the 

 only part of that kingdom where, previous to the war, 

 large landed proprietors were still to be found — scarcely, 

 in sooth, to be found, for most of them, being Turks, had 

 retired to Constantinople, in spite of the inducements 

 which the Greek Government offered them to remain. 

 That enlightened and courageous statesman. Monsieur 

 Tricoupi, recognising the evils of absentee landlordism, 

 was specially conciliatory towards the Moslem subjects of 

 the Greek crown, and the general population of Greeks, 

 Turks, and Jews (there are still about 30,000 Moham- 

 medans in Thessaly) lived together on most amicable 

 terms, though occupying distinct quarters in the towns. 

 But most of the landlords had persisted in departing, 

 content to draw their rents and spend them in the 

 Turkish capital. How matters may stand since the 

 Turkish invasion of 1897 I do not know. 



The town of Larissa itself has, as yet, lost little of its 

 oriental character. The Demarch, the Nomarch, and 

 other oflScials are, of course, Greek, and look back with 

 some regret to the time when, in greater ease and with 



