$ROM THE HELLESPONT To RHODES, 
US 
the Archipelago ; not only from the grandeur, height, and mag¬ 
nitude, of the gigantic masses presented on die coa. t, but from 
the extreme richness and fertility of the island filled with flowe¬ 
ry, luxuriant, and odoriferous plants, and presenting a maguifi- 
(his tailor) to receive me into his house, where I remained some days. Presents to 
the servants are always given. At Melasso, I waited on the governor; it was the 
time of the fast of the Ramadan; I found him sitting on his divan, counting his beads 
of thick amber ; a pipe was brought tome, but not to him, as he did not smoke, eat, 
nor drink, from sunrise to sunset He showed me guns and pistols made in England; 
these some Englishmen had brought to Melasso, coming to buy horses for the army on 
the Egyptian expedition. This fast of the Ramadan I found was most strictly observed. 
My Janissary was not so scrupulously abstemious as my guide, who never even took 
snulf until the sun was below the horizon. I passed the evenings writing my journal, 
and reading some books of travels I had with me. The Turkish peasants would some¬ 
times bring medals ; these they found in the fields. The conversation of the Turks 
turned generally, as I found from my interpreter, on the affairs of the village, and its 
neighbourhood. The women never appeared. I saw some by the road side; and in 
the villages young children made their appearance, with strings of copper money 
around their heads; and the nails, both of their hands and feet, dyed of a reddish co¬ 
lour,. with henna,, the leaves of which are powdered and formed into a paste, and then 
applied. This is a custom of great antiquity; Hasselquisi says he saw the nails of 
some mummies dyed in this manner Although the Turks, in their intercourse with 
each other, strictly adhere to the practice of taking oft* their slippers in a room, (a 
custom of the ancients ; see Martial, lib. iii. deposui solea* 7 ) yet they dispense with it 
frequently in the case of European travellers. 
“ BOside rice and fowls, it is possible to procure, at many of the villages and townfe 
in Asia Minor, yoivry , or sour milk, called in Greek b^byaha.' caimuc, or coagulated 
cream, in Greek dipp-dyoAa $• and soft cheese, xA w po Tupi,a literal translation of the 
. $asev.s viridis of Columella. Mutton is universally preferred to beef; this, in gene¬ 
ral, is coarse and bad tasted: the former is double the price of the latter, and is two* 
pence the pound: 
44 A Greek labourer receives from thirty-five to forty paras.a day, nearly fi teen 
pence : he works only two thirds of the year; the other third consists of holidays. 
During the four fasts, of which that in Imnt is the; most strictly observed, lie eats 
shellfish, caviar (the roe of sturgeon), pulse, and anchovies. 
“ I observed but few Greek villages in Asia Minor ; the Greeks all seek the great 
towns, to avoid more easily the different means of oppression resorted to by the 
Turkish governors; whose short residence in their provinces.is spent, not in counte¬ 
nancing or furthering any improvement or plans ot amelioration in the condition of 
those subject to them, but in exaetiiig every thingthey can, to repay themselves for 
the sum which the Porte takes from them; and in carrying away what wealth they are 
able to amass. It is difficult to ascertain what sum any given province pay? annually 
to the Porte; but a near conjecture may be mad,e,;by adding the hafatefi. (capitation 
. tax) to the sum which the governor stipulates to pay ever) year. 
“ The Turks, as far as. my experience carried me, show no- disposition to molest or 
offend a traveller. Something contemptuous may at times he observed in their man¬ 
ner. But a great change for the better, in their general deportment, is to be attribut¬ 
ed to their never being now exasperated by the attack of corsairs or pirates on the 
coast, 
4 ‘ No people li ving under the same climate, and in the same country, can be so 
opposite as the Greeks and Turks. There is in the former a cringing manner, and yet 
a forwardness, disgusting to the gravity and seriousness of the latter. The Turks 
treat the Armenians, who conduct themselves generally with great propriety and de¬ 
corum, with much less harshness than they show to the Greeks. Their present condi¬ 
tion Is certainly not the most favorable point of vlew for considering the character of 
the Greeks; and their faults, which are those of their unfortunate situation would 
disappear under more favourable circumstances, and a different government. When 
in office and authority, the) 7 are not so devoid of insolence to their countrymen, as 
mighthe wished The codja-bashis in the IV? or ea are, many of them, tyrannical to the 
other Greeks The treatment which the Jews experienced at their hands, in the 
time of the Greek empire, is that which the Greeks now meet with from the Turks. 
44 No one,” says Benjamin of Tudela, “dares to go on horseback;- but the imperial 
physician ; and the Jews are hated in the town by all tne Greeks, without any regard 
•to their good or bad character.” . p:.3@. as cited.by tfitfifm/ir.-' ■ 
“ Neither hay nor oats are known to the Turks .; nor has- any nation in the East ever 
Tised them for their horses. u They brought barley also and straw ft>r the hor&es.’* 
L 2 
