GREECE. 



697 



cooking utensils, and some of their food, for the khans furnish little but a miserable shelter and 

 a board to sleep on. At the best they afford only coffee, native wine, and bread and cheese. 

 There are now no robbers in Greece, though before the revolution they were numerous. The 

 country is so much impoverished that it costs little to travel in it ; a traveling attendant will en- 

 gage at 4 dollars a month, and board himself. Distance is marked by time ; a form borrowed 

 from the east, where the caravans are so regular, that it is a correct manner of expression. An 

 hour's distance is 3 miles, and when a Greek would say that a place is distant IS miles, he de- 

 scribes it at 6 hours. There is a strict system of passports, which secures the safety of a 

 traveler. A line of stages has been recently established between Napoli and Argos. 



23. Character^ JWanners^ and Customs. Four centuries of slavery under the hardest, the 

 most ignorant, and the most bigoted nation in Europe, every individual of which held almost 

 absolute power over a Greek, must have had some unfavorable influence on the national char- 

 acter. Yet the national traits of the ancient Greeks are as plain in their descendants as the 

 cast of countenance, that has come down to us in medals and statues. There is a great nation- 

 al similarity among all the Greeks. The very severity of the Turks, and the contempt in 

 which they held the Greeks, had, however, its advantages, for had the conquered been allowed 

 any equality of civil or religious rights, they might long since have been blended b}' inter- 

 marriages, and otherwise, with the conquerors. 



The modern Greeks prove their descent, by possessing some of the virtues and all the faults 

 of their ancestors. Slavery is but a bad school for morals, and in it the Greeks have acquired 

 hypocrisy, obsequiousness, and such a tendency towards falsehood, that, generally speaking, 

 their assersions are not to be relied upon, unless it is for iheir interest to speak the truth. Aris- 

 tides, who displeased some of his countrymen in being called the just, would be little envied 

 at the present day for such a trait of character. But the situation of the Greeks under the 

 Turks was favorable to a profitable trade, though it was not safe for them to appear rich ; this 

 and other motives for dissimulation, which the oppressed always have, have left a trace on the 

 national character that better institutions will remove. 



The Greeks are vain, passionate, and versatile, but they have proved themselves as brave as 

 the bravest of their ancestors. Their enterprise and invincible endurance in the unequal strug- 

 gle of the revolution, was confined to no class, and the females themselves were worthy of 

 Sparta. The " Sacred Band," composed of 500 young men, the flower of Greece, assumed 

 on their banner, " Liberty, Death, or Freedom," and were destroyed on their post by the en- 

 emy's cavalry. They bore also on their banner, the charge of the Spartan mother delivering 

 a shield to her son, " Either this, or upon this." 



The vanity and ostentation of the Greeks are invincible. At Constantinople it used to be 

 accorded to the Princes of the Fanal, to wear yellow slippers, as an honorable distinction, to 

 assume which, by a common Greek, was punished with the greatest severity. The late Sultan, 

 in one of his walks, discovered a Greek in yellow slippers, which he had assumed to gratify a 

 momentary feeling of vanity, and caused him to be immediately beheaded ; yet it was not un- 

 common to see others running the same risk. A dragoman, against the remonstrances of all his 

 friends, would display his wealth in a magnificent house. His riches tempted the cupidity of 

 the authorities, and he was beheaded ; yet another of his countrymen immediately occupied the 

 same house. Another dragoman had the prudence, when he erected a large house, to paint it 

 in 3 divisions, of separate colors, so that to passengers it seemed to be 3 houses, though he oc- 

 cupied the whole. 



The Greeks are fond of money, but not from a principle of avarice, for they are ostentatious, 

 profuse, and generous. They are kind and indulgent ; and the females are characterized as un- 

 commonly amiable in disposition. A great man, or in other words, a rich one, when he meets 

 an inferior in the street, omits none of the usual ceremonies of salutation. Both stand with 

 their right hands upon their breasts, bowing for several minutes, while they inquire of each oth- 

 er's family and welfare. The manners of the Greeks are exceedingly engaging, though too 

 much mingled with an air of obsequiousness. They are very attentive to the rights of hospi- 

 tality. In the inland towns a stranger seldom sees the females, who are nearly as much seclu- 

 ded as those of Turkey. They occupy a separate part of the house, and are seldom seen but 

 by members of the family. After marriage, they have the privilege of being introduced to 

 people of their own rank and to travelers. 



The patriotism of the Greeks is undoubted, though it is not always directed by prudence. 

 Their love of country was formerly necessarily connected with hatred to the Turks, not the 



