JANUARY 31 



the patient animal's quarters, as he stands haunch-deep 

 in the river. It takes about half an hour to fill each pair 

 of hides in this archaic way : the loaded beast then climbs 

 painfully up to the town — the water squirting freely from 

 rents and seams in the leather. It is on this primitive 

 method of supply that the entire town of some 10,000 in- 

 habitants depends, for the wells attached to private houses 

 have become deservedly suspect. The water of the Peneus 

 is said to be wholesome; but when, as we saw it, it is 

 swollen with winter floods and as yellow as the Tiber, it 

 was a comfort to reflect that Larissa has store of sound, 

 if not particularly palatable, wine. Moreover, it is hardly 

 reassuring to observe that a gigantic muck-heap, where 

 all the refuse of the town is cast — the happy hunting- 

 ground of innumerable dogs, poultry, magpies, and pert 

 little Eastern jackdaws — occupies about an acre and a half 

 of the river-bank immediately above where the water-skins 

 are filled. 



Pursue we then our way up the principal street, past 

 the bazaar and Turkish cafd, where dozens of wide- 

 breeched, be-fezzed, and be-slippered citizens are drinking 

 co£Fee, bolting sweetmeats, and sucking away at huge 

 hubble-bubbles. Once into the Turkish quarter and you 

 are back in the middle ages. No wheeled carriage may 

 venture on that fearsome pavement, for Turks always go 

 on horseback ; and though the roadway suffices for their 

 quick-footed barbs, you, on foot, must hop from pro- 

 montory to island, and from island to isthmus in the 

 ocean of filth. Still, you will be tempted to linger here 

 and there ; for although the house-walls facing the street 

 are, after oriental fashion, mostly without windows, here 

 and there an open door gives a glimpse into a sunny 



