Prices of 
Provisions. 
470 THESSALONICA. 
CHAP, cheap in the market of this city. A turkey costs 
XI 
only twenty-five paras ; a goose, twenty. Fowls 
are so despised, that the poorest inhabitants will 
hardly eat them. The bread is excellent. In 
our Consul's house we had caimack ' and fresh 
butter ; the latter badly made : but this is the 
only place in all Turkey where we recollect 
having seen fresh butter at the meals of its 
inhabitants. The Franks keep good tables ; but 
their large houses are better adapted to a long 
Macedonian summer than to the short period of 
their winter; being airy, in every sense of the 
word, and very cold. Their only fuel is wood ; 
and this is very scarce. During summer, how- 
ever, the merchants retire to other houses in 
Malaria, thc couutry. A terrible malaria prevails in that 
season near the mouths of all the rivers, and 
by the borders of lakes, and in all the plains ; 
especially where there are cotton-grounds^. In 
the summer months, the best plan for Englishmen 
in the Levant is to fix their residence as 
near as possible to the tops of the mountains ; 
for their manner of diet and natural habits 
render them so peculiarly susceptible of the 
(1) Coagulated cream. It h like the c/outed cream o{ Devonshire. 
(2) According to Mr. Hawkins, the malaria is at its height during 
the months of /August and September : and owing to this circnnistauce, 
he was prev^uted visiting the country between Salonica and Katufinf 
