($) 



grows upon the mountains with the Pine and 

 the Oak , and the cultivated varieties are 

 reared about the villages with the Fig-Tree 

 and the Pomegranate-Tree. 1 



The produce of the soil is said to be one 

 third greater when planted with Olives, than 

 under any other species of culture ; and oil is 

 the principal article of commerce which af- 

 fords the Athenians the enjoyments of life 

 and the means of paying their taxes. 



But the industry of the Greeks languishes 

 beneath a despotism restricted to no forms, 

 and tempered by no public opinion , whose 

 extemporaneous oppression it is impossible, 

 by the most ingenious calculations , to elude. 

 In ancient Athens a premium was given for 

 the multiplication of the Olive, and severe 

 penalties were inflicted upon proprietors 

 who destroyed it on their own estates. The 

 Turks, on the contrary, subject it to a re- 

 turn of one tenth, to which is added a tax 

 of a para for each tree, imposed by Sultan 

 Selim III. To avoid the exactions to which he 

 is a prey, the unhappy Athenian peasant frc- 



1 See Beaujour's Commerce of Greece. 



