1 18 JOURNEY TO MOUiNT HELICON. 
CHAP. This was precisely the sort of information we 
- had been desirous to obtain. In many parts of 
Greece, where the antient paved road has fallen 
to decay, and the parts of it have been torn up, 
it has been abandoned: in the passage of a 
mountain, the destruction of the antient pave- 
ment would therefore, in all probability, cause 
the road to become so bad as to occasion the 
entire desertion of the whole route ; and that 
this was the case in the present instance, will 
presently be evident. 
Further Wc passcd tlic night, as we had done at Ph- 
ot the tana, in the midst of Albanians, stretched around 
p^Tsan'ts" ^ hearth upon the same floor with us; their 
cattle occupying one half of the room, and the 
family the other. The same simplicity appeared 
in all things relating to their manner of life, — the 
same disinterested hospitality, and the same 
cleanliness: for although the best Albanian cot- 
tage have not even a hole in the roof for the 
smoke from the hearth to escape, yet the walls 
and the floor, being covered with clay or plaister," 
constantly swept, are so perfectly clean, that 
neither vermin nor dirt of any kind can be har- 
boured ; nor is there in these dwellings the same 
liability to contagion which exists in the divans 
and couches of more statelv mansions. For the 
