ISLAND OF PAROS. 121 
. This day, as the Governor offered to accom- CHAP. 
pany us to see the famous Grotto of Antiparos, s. .. ./ 
and as our host had prepared mules and guides 
for the expedition, we set off at eight A. M. and 
rode by the side of a mountain, through corn- 
fields, until we came to the narrowest part of 
the channel, between Paros and ANTIPA-ROS. 
Paros seemed to be in a higher state of cultiva- 
tion than Nazos. The island produces excellent 
oil, and abundance of wine. Its ripe olives are 
highly esteemed by the natives as an article of 
food, after being salted for one day : this sort 
of diet has been often deemed, by inconsiderate 
English travellers in Italy and Greece, very hard 
fare for the poor inhabitants : but it is one of 
their greatest luxuries ; and we became as fond 
of it as the people everywhere seem to be from 
one extremity of the Mediterranean to the other. 
As soon as we reached the shore from which siiip 
, stranded. 
we were to pass over to Antiparcs, we observed 
a large Turkish merchant ship, laden with soap, 
and bound from Crete to Constantinople, stranded 
in the middle of the strait. The master of the 
vessel, without any compass, and with the usual 
fatality attending his countrymen in their sea 
voyages, had relied upon an ignorant pilot, who 
had persuaded him that this was the greater 
loccaze between Naxos and Paros, and the ship 
