Col. William Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (v. 1-4)

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§ 1.221 We arrive at the khan of the Five Wells at 8.38, and make a long halt, for at this season of the year it is necessary to divide the day’s journey, and to rest during the meridian hours, which, especially in the villages, are by far more quiet than the night, when asses, hogs, dogs, fowls, rats, bugs, fleas, gnats, are all in a state of activity. Of the three latter plagues, which by adding want of sleep to the effects of fatigue and climate often contribute powerfully to destroy a traveller’s health, the flea is the only one from which he may not be protected by a well constructed mosquito netting. This torment and the excessive heat are the chief impediments to the traveller’s repose in the day, for as to the incessant chirping of the woodcricket, he soon becomes accustomed to it, though he will hardly bring himself to consider its note musical, as the ancients seem to have thought. At 3.15 p.m. we descend from the khan into, the valley, with the village of Varlam on the left, and beyond it the mountain Olytzika, as the highest point of the range to the left of our road, and the most remarkable peak in all the surrounding country is now called. I know not where we are to look for its ancient name. Below Varlam are some fields of tobacco, but the chief produce of this valley, as well as of that below Muliana, is kalambokki. At 4.45, after having crossed the plain, there is a further descent, with the village of Pesta on the right, to a fine source of water on the road side.
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§ 1.222 Here, to the left, on the opposite side of the valley, rises a sloping cultivated hill, on the summit of which are the ruins of a triangular Hellenic fortress, naturally fortified at the back by a precipice, which overhangs the ravine lying between it and Mount Olytzika. Twenty minutes farther there is another paleo-kastro, at about an equal distance to the left of our road, of the same kind as the former, and similarly situated, but the hill is steeper, higher, and more uneven, and die in closed space is larger. We now begin to descend towards the great plain of Ioannina, and at 5.52 arrive at the khan and small village of St. Demetrius, situated in a little bay of the plain, half an hour beyond which, Bartzi is on the side of the hills on the left; hereabouts are several round ponds in the plain, some of which are covered with water lilies. We hasten forward, and at eight arrive at Ioannina. The distance from Arta is about forty-two miles by the road. In time, it is thus generally reckoned: from Arta to Khanopulo 1.30; to Kometzadhes, 1.30; to a ruined khan under Muliana, 1.30; to Pendepigadhia, 1.30; to Ai Dhimitri, 3; to Ioannina, 3. Total, 12 hours, or 14 with baggage. June 29.—Since my visit to the Vezir at Tepeleni, he has built a foundery at Bunila, in the plain of Ioannina, where he had before established a colony of Bulgarians, whom he brought here in 1802, on his return from the Danube, and lodged in cottages built in a quadrangle, like their own native palankas. When I asked His Highness how he procured copper to make his gun-metal, “I collect it,” he says, “from my subjects; one furnishes an old pot, and another a kettle.”
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§ 1.223 A magnificent room, which he has just finished in his new serai in the Kastro, is probably not surpassed by those of the Sultan himself. It is covered with a Gobelin carpet, which has the cypher of the King of France on it, and was purchased by the Pasha's agent at Corfu. His Highness has lately taken Dr. Frank, formerly one of the physicians of the French army of Egypt, into his service, at 10,000 piastres a year. In the evening he has some mortar practice at Bunila, with an old five or six inch mortar, which has been considerably damaged by its employment in the siege of Suli. They fire loaded shells, one of which explodes close to a party of Greeks standing upon a height, but fortunately without hurting any of them. The Pasha laughs very heartily at the joke. We then visit the foundery, the roof of which seems likely to fall. July 1.—This afternoon I set out on a tour to Suli, accompanied by the Italian renegade Mehmet Effendi, together with one of the Vezir’s trusty Albanian bolu-baahis, and his chief architect named Peter of Korytza. who constructed the bridge and serai at Tepeleni, and has built many others of the Pasha's palaces and castles. His Highness furnishes me with an excellent mule, for the mountain paths, from his own stable. We proceed no farther this evening than Rapeista, a village distant 1.30 hour from the city, in the middle of the plain on the right hand side of the road to Ai Dhimitri.. On the hills above Rapsista are two or three convents prettily situated among woods of pirnaria.
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§ 1.224 July 2.—At 4.10 this morning we quit Rapsista, leaving the baggage to follow; at 5.40 leave the khan of Ai Dhimitri half a mile on the left, then ascending the lowest part of the mountain which borders the western side of the plain of Ioannina, we arrive at six in a small level on the summit where the village Ferekisi is at a short distance on the left, from thence descend into the valley of the Varia, and at 6.23 arrive at that stream near the beginning of its course. On our left, as we proceed, is the ridge which separates this valley from that of Pesta and Varlam, and on two points of which are the two Hellenic castles mentioned on the 28th of June. We now cross another ridge, in the middle ascent of which are some ancient sepulchres and remains of Hellenic walls in and beside the road, and then descend to Variadhes, where we arrive at 8. This is a small village, with a kula or pyrgo belonging to the Vezir, situated at the eastern foot of the southern summit of Mount Olytzika, where the heights overlook the narrow vale of the Varia. From Variadhes, at 3.30 p.m., we proceed to cross the lowest part of the southern summit of Mount Olytzika, and arrive at 5.3 at a church of St. Elias, standing on the crest of the ridge which separates the valley of the Varia from that of a branch of the river of Suli, and commands a view of both. We descend the slope obliquely to the left, and at 6.45 arrive at Dervidjana, properly Tervitziana, situated amidst fountains, large walnut trees, vineyards and gardens,—on the middle descent of the ridge, and enjoying a prospect of the valley below it, which is beautifully diversified with broken ground, streams, woods, and cultivated fields. At seven we arrive at the farther end of the village, at the kula of the Bolu-bashi, an Albanian of unusually polished manners.
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§ 1.225 July 3.—At four this morning we descend into the valley, and after passing a tributary of the river of Suli, cross at 5.30 the principal branch, which, taking its rise near the village of Lakia, is called the Lakiotiko. The hills at the foot of Mount Nasheri, which is a peaked summit, separated only by a hollow from Olytzika, are covered with oaks, some of which are large. All the villages in this beautiful valley formed a part of the Suliote league in the time of its greatest power, when Variadhes, the vale of Varia, and all as far as the summit, overlooking the plain of Ioannina, were included in it. The village of Paleokastro, which is a mile and a half on the left after crossing the river, belonged to the Botzari family. Three minutes farther we begin to ascend the great mountain of Suli at the kula and tjiftlik of Romanates, where are some ruins of another tower, which was surprised and blown up by the Suliotes during the war. Aly’s Albanians having, as they thought, secured the place, went to forage, leaving a few of their youngest soldiers in it, and on their return remained at night on the outside.
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§ 1.226 During the night the Suliotes, approaching silently, set fire to a mine which they had left at the foot of the tower, and, as soon as it exploded, attacked and slew, or dispersed, the Albanians. After the war, the Vezir destroyed the church of Romanates, and converted the village into a tjiftlik. From hence the ascent of the mountain is in a steep zigzag; the road has been well made, but in some places the borders are giving way. At 6.40 we pass a copious βρύσις or source of water, in a hollow grown with pirnaria; and continuing from thence to ascend, arrive at 7.28 on the crest of the ridge, about a mile to the southward of the highest summit of the mountain. Lefkadha is in sight to the southward; Paxu and Andipaxo to the west, with the hills behind Parga and the coast near Port Fanari: but Suli and its vicinity are hidden by a lower summit of the mountain, immediately overhanging them. After a halt of six minutes we begin to descend; pass many remains of the konaks, or temporary huts of loose stone constructed by the contending parties during the siege; and having descended the steep mountain on foot, arrive at 8.45 at the village of Suli. On the side of the mountain grows a great quantity of a small fragrant species of abrotonum, not very common in Greece, and here named απιστία. Suli, called Kakosuli from its fame and strength, like the Κακοΐλιον of Homer, or Megalo-Suli, to distinguish it from another Suli on the Kalama below Zitza, contains 150 scattered houses, all of which are in ruins, except five or six, tenanted by Musulman Albanians, to whom the Vezir means to add a colony of Christians from the neighbourhood of Tepeleni.
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§ 1.227 The ruins of the principal church he is now converting into a mosque. The houses, which seem all to have been built on a similar plan, were small square buildings, with a pitched roof and two stories, of which the lower was a store or stable, and the upper contained two apartments. They were dispersed among terraces, artificially formed on the side of the hill, and now uncultivated, but which formerly bore potherbs, and corn, among fruit-trees. In the height of their prosperity, the Suliotes possessed all the adjacent part of the plain of Glyky, containing rice grounds and maize fields,in the culture of which they employed the Greek peasants of that district, thinking such employments beneath them, and delighting only in robbery, war, and idleness. The instances of their activity, of their swiftness in walking over the mountains and through roads and passages, to us impassable, of their expertness in the use of the musket, of their keenness of sight, in which they excelled all other Albanians, who themselves are exceeded only by the Arabs of the desert; their vigilance and sagacity, their ability in planning, and activity in executing, the most refined stratagems of their desultory warfare, would, in some instances, exceed belief, if they were not so universally attested by their enemies. Their power of vision in the night is particularly mentioned in terms of astonishment by the troops of Aly Pasha, who opposed them.
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§ 1.228 From Suli we proceeded south-westward to the hill of Kughni, an Albanian word, which the Greeks interpret λόφος, a summit: the fort of Kukia occupies the southern point of the hill, and is distant from Suli 35 minutes. Kukia was the last point which resisted the arms of Aly. He is now erecting a new fortress on the spot, after having levelled all the walls, huts, and meteris of the Suliotes, as well as their church: 4 or 500 yards to the northward of Kukia, and not much lower than that point, is a peak called Ai Dhonato ( St. Donatus ), from a church which formerly stood there, and which the Pasha converted into a kula, and made the headquarters of the siege. Having descended by the same road to the foot of the hill of Kughni, we fall into that from Suli to Kiafa, near the ruined village of Samoniva, and in half an hour arrive at the ruins of Kiafa, or Gkiafa, situated amidst a few terraces and fruit-trees, and from thence, ascending the hill of Trypa, in Albanian Bira, arrive at a new fortress, not yet completed, situated on the summit of this narrow ridge, and midway between its two extremities. The south-eastern end of the height is the Bira, properly so called, which gives name to the whole ridge; the north-western is specifically named Breke Vetetimis, in Greek η Ράχη της Αστραπής, or the Hill of Lightning, because in stormy weather the lightning often strikes the summit, so often indeed that the Suliotes were obliged to give up building upon it. A kula which the Pasha erected there last year has already had one of its angles beaten down by a thunderbolt.
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§ 1.229 This point, in fact, being lofty and precipitous, and surrounded by an amphitheatre of much higher mountains, cannot fail often to attract the electric fluid. Northward it looks down upon Kughni, at the distance of 1000 or 1200 yards, and is separated from that hill by a narrow vale, in which the Lakiotiko, or main branch of the river of Suli is joined by the Tzingariotiko, so called as rising near the village of Tzingari, on the mountain which rises to the northward of the hill of Kughni. The fortress in the middle of Mount Trypa, which the Vezir began to build as soon as he obtained possession of Suli, is now nearly finished: my companion Kyr Petros, of Korytza, is the architect. The crest of the ridge is so narrow, that there is just room for a path, and Kyr Petros was obliged to level the hill before he began the castle. Towards the mountain of Tzikurates, which is separated from the hill of Trypa by the river, and commands it on the southern side, as the mountain of Suli does on the eastern, he has built bomb-proof magazines, casemates, and cisterns. He has also completed a house for the officer in command, and is now building a large serai for the Vezir in the middle of the fort. The only guns at present here are two short pieces of brass, carrying a 12 1b. ball. These and two five or six inch mortars were all the artillery used in the siege. The hill of Trypa towards the river is a rapid descent, covered with loose stones, and interrupted in many places with precipices and pointed rocks;
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§ 1.230 although the slope forms an angle of about 30° with the horizon, the women of Trypa were in the habit of mounting it, with large jars of water from the river, upon their heads. The southeastern end of the ridge of Trypa terminates in three pointed summits, the two northern of which are surmounted by kulas, lately erected by the Pasha to contain a guard of Albanians; one of these buildings has already been damaged by the lightning, but not so much as the tower at the opposite extremity of the mountain. The hollow between the two northern summits of the southeastern end is properly the Trypa or cavity from which the whole mountain takes its name, but the posts of the Suliotes extended over all this extremity of the hill, and their meteris may still be traced as far as the place where the southern gate of the fortress now stands; 100 yards to the south of which, is a small Suliote church still subsisting. As it was necessary for the Pasha, when he had expelled the Suliotes, to build a fortress for his Albanian garrison, he could not have chosen a better site. Suli, however, although it would be troublesome to him in the hands of an enemy, is of no importance as a pass or point of communication between the several parts of Aly’s dominions, nor can it be of much use to him as a place of refuge in case of disaster, for the mountains on both sides command it within a moderate range of cannon-shot; and although they are very difficult of access on all sides, an active enemy, if superior in the field, would soon find the means of transporting artillery over them.
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§ 1.231 Upon all the summits around Suli are still seen the remains of the Meteris and Konaks which were erected by the Pasha’s troops during the siege. The former are upon all the most advanced and commanding points of the mountains, and are nothing more than little breastworks of stone, from behind which the besieger fired his long heavy musquet, resting it on the top of the wall. The konaks, or lodgings, were in the most unexposed situations, and were just large enough to afford shelter during their hours of repose, to the men who were stationed at that point of the investment. As the siege proceeded, the meteris were drawn nearer, serving the purpose of approaches in a regular siege, and blockading the posts of the Suliotes until they were reduced to starvation. In like manner the konaks of the Suliotes are to be seen on all the rocky points and precipices of the hills of Trypa and Kughni. The river, after the junction of the two branches, flows through the Klisura, or narrow opening between the mountains of Tzikurates and Zavrukho, into the plain of Glyky, where it is generally known by the name of the Suliotiko, or river of Suli. Along the rocky sides and precipices of the Klisura, above the left bank of the river, the Vezir has lately made a good paved horse road from Suli to Glyky, so that now there is a road, though in some parts rather dangerous, through the entire pass, communicating from the plain of Luro, or of Ioannina, into that of Glyky.
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§ 1.232 The view from the Hill of Lightning comprehends all the adjacent part of the plain of Glyky with its numerous villages, and I perceive at once that the river is the ancient Acheron; for after winding through the plain it traverses a lake, or marsh, or rather combination of both, which is evidently the ancient Palus Acherusia, and then falls into the harbour called Porto Fanari, or Splantza, which (it is equally manifest) is the Glycys Limen: so great is the quantity of water poured into it from the lake and river, that the water of the harbour is observed to be generally fresh, as the ancient name implies. The harbour and a great part of the Acherusia are hidden from Trypa by a part of the mountain of Tzikurates. At the foot of the hills of Margariti which rise from the western side of the plain of the Acheron, is a marsh called Vuvo, through which passes a river of the same name, flowing from the vicinity of Paramythia. Its subsequent course is traceable through the plain to a high stone bridge near Kastri, a name generally indicative of an ancient site, and in this instance derived fropi the conspicuous ruins of a large Hellenic city on a height above the village. The Vuvo, as I am informed, afterwards winds to the left in a direction nearly parallel to the Acheron, and joins that river near the sea. It is probably the ancient Cocytus.
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§ 1.233 In the lower part of the plain the Suliotiko or Acheron is more commonly called Fanaritiko, or the river of Fanari; this name (in Albanian, Frai) being generally applied to the plain around and below the Acherusia, as Glyky is to the portion above it towards Suli. Formerly there was a village and church of Glyky near the right bank of the river, a little below the spot where it emerges from the gorges of Suli into the plain. But this church was destroyed by the Vezir two months ago, and there now remain only two or three of the buttresses which sustained the walls, and which may be remarked from the Trypa. During the war this was an important military post of the Suliotes, and sometimes was equally useful to their besiegers. The name Glyky, by a process of change not uncommon in all countries, seems to have spread from the harbour to the plain, and afterwards to have been applied specifically to a place, where, though nothing but a ruined church is now to be seen, there was probably a town of the Lower Empire; for Glyky still gives title in conjunction with Buthrotum to one of the bishops of the province of Ioannina, whose residence is Paramythia, and the church at Glyky is acknowledged to have been the cathedral of that diocese. At Glyky the plain is about five miles wide, and extends to the right in a northerly direction four hours to Paramythia. This large town, which is inaccessible to me at present on account of the hostility of its chief family to Aly Pasha, is situated at the extremity of the valley of the Vuvo, and has a castle behind it on a steep and lofty hill, near the foot of the range which terminates to the southward in the mountain of Zavrukho and the Klisura of Suli. The entire range, like most of the moun tains around Suli, is bare and rocky in the middle, but is covered at the summit with pine-trees.
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§ 1.234 The official name of Paramythia, by which it is always designated in the firmahns of the Porte, is Aidonat Kalesi, or the Castle of Aidonat, which doubtless is a corruption of'Άγιος Δονάτος, or St. Donatus, who was the patron of this part of the country: the church of Glyky was dedicated to him, as well as another on the ridge of Kughni, and a third in the village of Suli. It is curious that his name should so nearly resemble, especially in modern Greek pronunciation, that of Άϊδωνεύς, the ancient monarch of this country; for though the Greek mythology confounded Aidoneus with the lord of the infernal regions, he appears to have been in reality the mortal possessor of the valuable district watered by the Acheron, at the time when Theseus, prince of Athens, was on his travels. The Suliotes, having no written memorials nor any clear traditions older than a century, it can only be offered as a conjecture, founded on strong probability, that Suli was occupied in the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, by a colony of those Albanians, who, at the latter period, overran the Despotate of the West, avoiding Ioannina the capital, which was in the hands of Greek, Servian, or Frank princes; but settling at Arta and on the banks of the Achelous, and extending themselves, as their present settlements and the use of their language indicate, throughout maritime Epirus, from Illyria nearly to the Ambracic Gulf.
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§ 1.235 The Turks, when they penetrated into Epirus, were satisfied with the conquest of Arta and Ioannina, and had little temptation to enter the poorer and more mountainous parts of the country, which neither the Greeks, Vlakhiotes, nor Albanians, who possessed them, were disposed to yield without a struggle. The Albanians soon discovered that the Ottoman empire was an excellent mart for their services as mercenary infantry; but that, in order to obtain all the advantages in view, it was necessary to profess the dominant religion. The consequence has been, that more than half the nation has become Musulman, that Mahometan Albanians are to be found in the service of every chieftain or governor of that faith, from the Straits of Gibraltar, to Arabia, Persia, and the Danube; and that at home they have either brought the Christians under their yoke, or have forced them to take refuge under a milder despotism in Southern Greece or Asia Minor. To the former country the stream of Albanian migration had been setting, even before the Turkish conquest; those countries having already been depopulated by wars, or by the bad. government of the Franks and the Byzantine Greeks. Such is now the military preponderancy of the Musulman faith in Albania, that with the exception of a tribe belonging to the Roman church, in the district of Skodra, the Khimariotes are the only Christian Albanians who preserve their independence. The Suliotes were the last who fell under the Mahometan yoke.
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§ 1.236 During the past century, as well in the early part of it, when Ioannina was governed by a Musellim dependent on the Pasha of Arta, as after the year 1740, when it became the head of a Pashalik, the Suliotes were constantly engaged in war, with the neighbouring beys of Margariti, Paramythia, or Ioannina; for it was not until Aly succeeded to the government of Ioannina, in the year 1788, that a factious oligarchy, similar to that of the Albanian towns, and which had left very little authority to the Sultan’s officer, was rendered powerless, and has at length been stripped by Aly of the greater part of their property. The Suliotes soon found that they had an opponent in Aly far more formidable than they had yet known; and that to resist such a bold and crafty enemy would require all their energy. Nor was the Pasha less prompt in arriving at the conviction that he could have little hope of extending his power in the degree which his ambition contemplated, until he had reduced the Suliotes, who were a constant rallying point to the Christians, were capable of strengthening by their alliance every Mahometan chieftain disposed to resist him, and even threatened his capital whenever he might be engaged in any distant undertaking. By his usual artifices, he succeeded first in turning against them one or two of their Musulman neighbours, and then the Christian armatoli of Acarnania and Aetolia; which so provoked the Suliotes, that their predatory excursions, hitherto confined to hostile and neighbouring places, were extended to Makrinoro, or to the passes leading from Arta to Ioannina, and even into the plain of Ioannina, where they plundered travellers without distinction, and never spared the life of a Mahometan unless with the prospect of a heavy ransom.
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§ 1.237 The war between Aly and the Suliotes was actively carried on during the years 1790 and 1791. In 1792 the Pasha made that formidable attack upon the mountain itself which has been related by Eton on the authority of a Greek interpreter in the service of the French consulate at Saloniki, who happened to be at Ioannina at the time. His army approached Suli from the plain of Glyky, forced the Klisura with difficulty, met with a still more resolute opposition in the pass of Paraskevi, which leads between the hills of Kughni and Bira to Megalo-Suli; but succeeded by the effect of superior numbers in obtaining a momentary possession of the town, when both women and men rushing forth against them, and an attack being made at the same instant on their rear, by a party which for this purpose waited only to receive a signal from Bira, the Mahometans were totally defeated with an immense slaughter, and with very little loss to the Suliotes. Mukhtar escaped with difficulty, and Aly fled with precipitation to Ioannina, fearing to be intercepted. This victory saved the Suliotes from any serious danger for the next six years, during which they were aided by a tacit, but not less real alliance with the Venetian towns of Prevyza and Parga; and through them with the adjacent islands, the Septinsular government having always been sensible of the necessity of maintaining good terms with the tribes of the opposite continent,
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§ 1.238 and of preventing any single chieftain from acquiring too large a portion of the Epirote coast, upon which the islands depend for the supply of several objects of prime necessity. Ultimately, however, this connection of Suli with the Venetian places was destined to contribute to its ruin; for when the designs of the French Republic against Turkey became apparent, Suli was involved in the denunciations of the Porte against all those who were suspected of being friendly to the French in this quarter; and when Aly had taken Prevyza, it gave him great influence over all the neighbouring Musulmans, and left them no plea for declining to join him against the Suliotes, as abettors of enemies who threatened the Turkish empire with destruction. Before the Suliote war, which began in 1798, the increase of Aly’s power and his unceasing activity had curtailed the Suliotes of some of their dependencies, and had diminished the number of their combatants. The history of this last and longest of the Suliote wars, which continued to 1803 without any intermission except in the year 1802, when Aly Pasha, as Rumili Valesi, was employed against the adherents of Pasvent Oglu near Adrianople, has been written by a native of Parga, a part of whose narrative has been printed. As he seems to be a man of some education, who treated the subject with great minuteness and apparent accuracy, and was anxiously watching the progress of events in a neighbouring and: allied town, it would be in vain to attempt to collect a more correct account from the illiterate actors in the contest, now dispersed over every part of the Vezir’s dominions, or in the Seven Islands.
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§ 1.239 The greatest misfortune, or rather the certain ruin of Suli, was the defection of its own citizens. The arch-traitor was George Botzari, who received a bribe from the Vezir to desert with his fara before the war began, and who, in the course of it, tempted others to follow his example. Bira was lost in this manner, by the desertion of the Zervates, about two months after the loss of the town of Suli, and Avariko in consequence of a similar treachery on the part of Polios Gusi. After the fall of Bira, the Vezir’s troops began to invest the hill of Kughni, where 300 families were collected. The four pieces of ordnance before-mentioned were placed at Ai Dhonato, and on the side of the Hill of Lightning, in situations which are on a lower level than the summit of Kughni. The Pasha was totally in want of artillery-men; and although his shells destroyed the houses of Kughni, not more than three of the garrison were killed by them. The Suliotes made bomb-proofs by digging holes in the ground, and covering them with a slanting roof of timber, spread with boughs and earth. The women took refuge in a cavern, or in little konaks of loose stones, constructed for the occasion on the western side of the hill, where they were covered from the enemy’s fire.
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§ 1.240 On the summit there was nothing but a slight wall, comprehending a small church to the eastward, of which the foundations now remain. The rest of the fortress consisted only of the walls of the exterior houses, united and loopholed. The Vezir’s Mahometan Albanians showed as much perseverance in the attack as their Christian opponents in the defence: the former climbed up the sides of the hill, particularly on the west, and made some small meteris of stone at the distance of a few yards only from the enemy’s konaks. The Suliote women exposed themselves to the fire of the enemy, supplied the men with water, ammunition and provisions, and when not otherwise employed, discharged vollies of verbal abuse against the assailants. When resistance began to be hopeless, a part of the garrison made their escape by forcing their way over the enemy’s meteris, like the Plataeans in the Peloponnesian war. The defence was chiefly prolonged by the exhortations and example of a priest named Samuel, a native of one of the Aegaean islands, who had the care of the ammunition and provisions, and who, after the capitulation, was blown up in the magazine, which stood at the northern end of the hill, within the present fortress. One of the Pasha’s officers, who had been sent to receive the fortress and its stores, suffered with him and two or three other persons, which seems to prove that the explosion was either accidental, or premeditated by the priest, and not as some persons imagine, the result of a scheme of Aly Pasha, to get rid in this manner of his most formidable opponent; but who, in fact, was already in his power.
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§ 1.241 The Vezir’s Albanians assert that it was an accident; but the Suliotes maintain that it was the deed of Samuel, which is very probable, as he could not expect any mercy if taken, and as it accords with his determined character, and with that of the Greeks in general, who often exhibit similar examples of desperation. The remaining families had permission to retire unmolested in whatever direction they thought fit; but the Vezir, in violation of his promises, intercepted many of them in their retreat, and brought them to Ioannina. Of those who escaped, the greater part are now in the Greek corps, formed by the Russians in the islands, and many of the women and children are in the domestic service of the Christians of Epirus. There are now about seventy men prisoners at Ioannina, and as many women and children. These the Vezir gradually disperses among his tjiftliks as labourers, and generally sends them to the most disagreeable and unhealthy situations. July 4.—This afternoon, having descended on foot from the castle to the ruins of the village of Kiafa, we proceed at 3.45 eastward, along the hollow between the mountain of Suli and the hill of Trypa. At the end of this pass, just under the Trypa, stands the ruined village of Avariko, from whence there is a descent into a deep ravine, formed by the meeting of the two great mountains of Suli and Tzikurates; one of the darkest and deepest of the glens of Greece:
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§ 1.242 on either side rise perpendicular rocks, in the midst of which are little intervals of scanty soil, bearing holly-oaks, ilices, and other shrubs, and which admit occasionally a view of the higher summits of the two mountains covered with oaks, and at the summit of all with pines. Here the road is passable only on foot, by a perilous ledge along the side of the mountain of Suli; terminating at a narrow opening, where the Acheron enters the defile from the vale of Tervitziana. The river in the pass is deep and rapid, and is seen at the bottom falling in many places in cascades over the rocks, though at too great a distance to be heard, and in most places inaccessible to any but the foot of a goat or a Suliote. On the side of the road, at intervals, planks are collected, which have been sawn out of the oaks on the spot, and left in readiness to be removed. At 5.45 we arrive at the end of the defile, and descend into a valley, where the river, coming from the north in a direction almost at right angles to its course through the Suliote glens, previously makes many turns and meanders, as if unwilling to enter such a gloomy passage. At 6, leaving Seritziana close to the right, where only five or six houses now remain, and to the left Gorina, standing on the side of the range of Tzikurates, we cross the river at 6.15, and immediately ascend into a vale, or opening between the ridge of Tzikurates and Mount Nasseri, which latter here changes its direction, and turns eastward towards Luro and the Gulf of Arta. From hence riding over a beautiful undulated valley, naturally fertile, but little cultivated, we arrive at 7 at Zerml, where the Vezir has lately built a tjiftlik of five or six cottages, inclosed by a square wall. My konak is an open gallery on the outside of one of the huts. In the evening the whole atmosphere glitters with fire flies.
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§ 1.243 July 5.—At 4.20, a.m. we begin to follow the same valley, descending towards the south-east: the sides of the hills and the valley become more woody as we advance. At 5 the monastery of Arasso is a little on the right at the foot of the mountain, and Zerlia a small village is on the heights to the left. Near the monastery there are said to be many ancient sepulchres, few of which have ever been opened; they show that the monastery occupies a Hellenic site. As the name appears to be ancient, Arassus may very possibly have been one of those numerous cities of Epirus unnoticed by history, but of which the former existence is well attested by their remains. At 5.30 a tumulus occurs on the road side, and at 5.45 the village Kutzanopulo on the hill to the left. We soon afterwards arrive on the bank of a dry torrent, shaded with fine planes, where the valley opens towards the Gulf of Arta, and a rich level is covered with plantations of maize. Leaving the castle and village of Luro a quarter of an hour on the left, we proceed to skirt the foot of the mountain of Zalongo which is united by a lower ridge with the hills on the right side of the vale which we have passed. After having made the semi-tour of the mountain, through a wood of small oaks, Libokhovo remains three quarters of a mile to the left, at 8;
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§ 1.244 soon after which we begin to ascend the southern face of the mountain, and at 8.20 arrive at Kamarina, a village of 30 or 40 Greek families, situated among fruit gardens at the copious sources of a little stream which flows to the plain of Lamari, and there unites with a river which falls into the sea a little to the southward of a small harbour called Agriapidhia. My lodging is a chamber and open gallery in the serai, as it is called, of a Christian captain of Armatoli, named Ianaki, who is entrusted by the Vezir with the government of the surrounding district. The village commands a beautiful view of the gulf and plain of Arta, with the mountains around them, including the Makrinoro, the hills of Valto and Xeromero, and to the southward, the town, channel, and whole island of Lefkadha, ending in Cape Ducato, to the right of which is seen the Point of Viscardo, in Kefalonia. Within this magnificent amphitheatre appear the town of Prevyza, the peninsulas of Actium and Nicopolis, and immediately below us an undulated country and plain, consisting of pasture, corn-fields, and olives, forming the district of Lamari. A line of tall detached masses is seen stretching across the plain, formed of a mixture of stone and Roman tile. These are the piers of the ruined aqueduct of Nicopolis.
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§ 1.245 The summit of the mountain of Zalongo, which is a mile to the north-eastward of Kamarina, is famed for having twice been the scene of a gallant resistance of the Suliotes. [map of Zalongo and Cassope]
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§ 1.246 On the first occasion, 100 families, who had retired hither by capitulation from Suli and Kiafa, and who had lived on the hill unmolested until the reduction of Kughni, were suddenly attacked by order of the Vezir, on the pretence that the natural strength of the position had tempted them to commit acts of hostility against him. When affairs became desperate, Kitzo Botzari and a party with him escaped. Of the rest, 150 persons were made slaves, 25 heads were brought to the Albanian Bolu-bashi at Kamarina, who commanded the attack, and 6 men and 22 women threw themselves from the rocks, at the place where the precipice is highest, in preference to falling alive into the hands of their enemies. Several of the women who had infants, were seen to throw them over before they took the fatal leap. Last year again, in the month of July, a party of 400 Suliotes, under Botzari, sent over by the Russians to assist the Beys of Tzamuria in their war with Aly, stood a siege here, in conjunction with as many Tzamidhes, for six weeks, against a large force sent against them by the Vezir; they capitulated, on condition being permitted to return with their arms into Tzami. The meteris of the Suliotes are still seen on the weak points of the cliffs, which surround the hill on all sides, and particularly near a winding road which ascends through the cliffs, from the deserted monastery of Zalongo to its metokhi of Άγιος Ταξιάρχη or St. Michael, which is situated in the middle of the summit, and is still occupied by two or three monks.
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§ 1.247 The monastery stands just under the cliffs at the western extremity of the hill; from which point the tabular, though sloping summit, which is of an oval form, rises gradually to the opposite extremity, where it terminates in a natural citadel, 200 yards long from north to south, and 35 broad. All the summit around the metokhi is covered with low oaks. No remains of Hellenic architecture are to be seen on this height, though it commands, at a distance not greater than the length of the hill itself, the eastern extremity of the acropolis of an ancient city of great extent. This acropolis occupies a level about 1000 yards long, and one-fourth at the utmost of that breadth, and which is surrounded by low cliffs on every side, except to the north, where it is still better fortified by high rocky summits, connected with the height of Zalongo by a lower crest or ridge; on the farther extremity of which stands the monastery. The ruined walls of the acropolis may be traced in their entire circuit, but are best preserved at the western end, and towards the upper cliffs. There were very few towers, and the masonry is so completely of the second order, that I do not observe one regular course, or rectangular stone. In the highest part of the inclosure at the foot of the cliffs, towards the western end, is a theatre in good preservation, of which the interior diameter is 50 feet; the rows of seats, which are 37 in number, are divided into two compartments by a precinctio, or διάζωμα, the lower containing 24 rows, the upper 13. The cavea is greater than a semi-circle, and is divided into cunei, separated by steps.
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§ 1.248 The outer circular wall of the cavea, and those which support the two extremities, are built of polygonal masonry, without any squared stones, and are well preserved. The scene or structure in front of the cavea was divided into two compartments, of which the inner was equal in length to the inner diameter of the theatre, and the outer half that length; both were about 24 feet in breadth. Two immense fragments of rock, which have fallen from the cliffs above, are lying on the cavea; this accident is said to have happened not many years ago. On the descent from hence to the western extremity of the acropolis, near where it terminates in an angle, is a subterraneous building, which the peasants call the Vasilospito, or King’s House. Its plan resembles, on a small scale, that of the tombs of the kings at Egyptian Thebes, and it was intended probably for a similar purpose; but instead of being hewn out of the rock, it is constructed of masonry. A passage, nineteen feet in length and five feet in breadth, with a curved roof one foot and a half high, leads to a chamber nine feet nine inches square, and having a similar roof five feet seven inches in height. The arches are not constructed on the principles of the Roman arch, but are hollowed out of horizontal courses of stone: the interior of the arch is plastered, and is adorned with a small cornice in the same material at the bottom of the curve.
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§ 1.249 The architrave of the outer entrance is formed of a single stone seven feet long. The passage and chamber, but particularly the latter, are obstructed with stones and rubbish; so that in no place the surface of the ground is more than six feet below the bottom of the arch. There is an excavation of earth before the door; and the upper surface of the roof, which was probably in former times entirely covered with earth, is now partly visible on the outside. These seem to be the effects of a search which has been made for treasure. Upon the roof lie several stones in the form of segments of a circle, belonging apparently to some circular building of about ten feet in diameter. Not far from this subterraneous building there is a vaulted postern gate in the wall, the arch of which is formed by concave stones, as in the Vasilospito; but in this instance the concave parts of the two upper stones do not meet, and the top is completed by a flat stone. The wall is here entirely of the second order. The principal gate of this fortress, which is still in good preservation, is in the western front, between the theatre and Vasilospito. It is flanked on either side by a square tower, in one of which stands a sorus, formed of a single stone with an operculum, which has been removed just enough to admit of an examination of the contents of the tomb and of an abstraction of them.
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§ 1.250 Below the theatre are many rectangular foundations, all of polygonal masonry, and apparently belonging to very large buildings. In some places the ancient streets may be traced, crossing one another at right angles. The circuit of the fortress is upwards of a mile, and that of the city could not have been less than three miles; for though I cannot exactly trace the inclosure of the exterior town towards the south, a piece of wall, which crosses the slope of the mountain ten minutes below Kamarina, serves to mark the extent in that direction. Along the foot of the wall, between the great gate and Kamarina, and particularly in a spot immediately behind the village, are many tombs of an ordinary kind, seven to nine feet long, and three or four wide. They were either hewn in the rock, and covered with three massy pieces of stone, or where the soil was earthy, had sides constructed of four fragments of stone set edgeways, with a covering of similar slabs. Having caused four of these tombs to be opened, I found in the first a great number of broken vases and bones, three or four small lachrymatories, as they are commonly called, and several long rectangular pieces of iron, one-tenth of an inch thick, and covered with gold leaf. The second tomb, though it had no appearance of having ever been opened, produced nothing, not even bones: a part of its cover and all the body of the tomb was cut out of the rock.
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§ 1.251 The third, which was also hewn out of the solid rock, produced fragments, but not many, of skulls and bones, with coarse vases of the usual forms, together with fragments of utensils made of lead, and a circular mirror of copper or mixed metal, six inches in diameter, placed within a covering of thinner metal; the lustre is still perfect on the side which has been protected by the covering. The opposite side has a rim three-eighths of an inch high, and the handle has an ornamented border. The same tomb contained also a leaden box two inches and one-eighth high, and one inch and three-eighths in diameter, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and having a button serving for a handle in the centre of the lid. As the labourers believed that the box contained jewels, and were afraid perhaps of an avania, I opened it in their presence: nothing remained in it but some earth, amidst which were two or three shells of a minute kind of snail. The mirror, and the box which once contained probably some ointment or perfume, show the tomb to have been that of a female. In the fourth sepulchre were found two or three vases, and some more of the ornaments of iron and gold above-mentioned. The speculum was placed vertically at the feet of the deceased: the vases were found in every part of the tombs, and are all of the most ordinary kind of Greek pottery. The annexed was the only form among them that is not very commonly found in Greece. [sketch]
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§ 1.252 This great city I take to have been Cassope, or the city of the Cassopaei, who occupied the maritime country between Thesprotia and the Ambracic Gulf, and bordered on the territory of Nicopolis; for although in the time of Scylax the Cassopaei dwelt κωμηδον, or in small towns, it is very probable that the most advantageously situated of those towns became subsequently the head of the nation, when the Cassopaei arose to such power as to obtain Pandosia and some other places in the ancient Thesprotia. The acropolis, therefore, of which the masonry indicates so remote an antiquity, may have been the Κωμη, older than the time of Scylax, and the lower city may have been added at that later period to which the coins of the Cassopaei have the appearance of belonging. That this people had a capital city, is shown by Diodorus, who, in relating an expedition of Lyciscus, commander of the forces of Cassander, against Alcetas, king of Epirus, in the year B.C. 312, states that Lyciscus, marching from Acarnania into Epirus, pitched his camp near the city Cassopia. Alcetas, after having sent his two sons, Alexander and Teucer, to collect forces, advanced to meet Lyciscus; but his Epirotes having passed over to the enemy before the reinforcements arrived, he fled to Eurymenae, where he was joined by his sons.
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§ 1.253 He then fought two battles with the enemy, and in the former had the advantage; but the Macedonians having prevailed in the latter, he took refuge with his two sons in another place of strength, leaving Eurymenae to be taken and destroyed by Lyciscus; soon after which Cassander, arriving in Epirus, made peace with Alcetas, and entered into an alliance with him. It seems not improbable from these circumstances, that Eurymenae stood in the vale of the Upper Acheron, towards Lakia, Variadhes, or Tervitziana; for the valley of the Acheron, below Suli, together with the country extending from thence to Zalongo, appears to have been occupied by the cities of Elaea, Buchaetium, Cichyrus, Pandosia, Batiae, and Elateia. Agriapidhia was probably the λιμην, or harbour of the Cassopaei. Captain Ianaki has an annual income of about 1000 piastres, now equivalent to 65L sterling. He is authorized to deduct 300 piastres for himself, and 50 for each of his men, from the Vezir’s revenue, which he collects; the remainder of his income is derived from fees on his arbitration of the disputes which arise in the district under his charge. My travelling companion, Kyr Petros, of Korytza, considers Captain Ianaki an object of envy; and with reason,—for although Peter is the Vezir’s chief architect and engineer, he has served in his present capacity for five years without receiving a para, although constantly employed in superintending the building of some castle or serai for the Vezir or his sons.
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§ 1.254 His property and family are at Korytza, where by special favour he is now and then allowed to stay a few days. He relates that when he was excavating the ground for the new serai in the castle of Ioannina, a stone was found inscribed in honour of Thomas Ήγούμεvoc,. benefactor of Ioannina. Having reported his discovery to the Vezir, his highness said, “Go read all the old histories, and come to-morrow morning and let me know whose monument it is.” This same benefactor of Ioannina is said to have been a much worse tyrant than Aly himself; and one among several examples which show that many of the Christian chieftains of Albanian and Servian race, with their military followers, exercised a dominion over the subject population of Greece not less oppressive than the Turkish. Kyr Petros states that his native town and the neighbouring one of Moskhopoli formerly contained five or six thousand houses, but that the emigrations which have followed the tyranny of the Pashas have reduced them to less than eight hundred. The distress of the Christian population throughout the diocese of Ioannina, he ascribes in great measure to the extravagance of the bishop, who has loaded the see with debts to such a degree, that at his death the mansup will hardly find a purchaser; while, meantime, his flock is fleeced to pay the immoderate interest, without which money cannot be raised in this country.
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§ 1.255 July 8.—This morning, having set my watch to Turkish time to accommodate my companions, we begin the descent from Kamarina at 10, and in ten minutes arrive at some remains of the exterior walls of the ancient city, near a mill turned by the stream, which has its rise in the village. At a quarter of an hour short of Luro, we cross the mouth of the valley of Kutzanopulo, and at twelve arrive at the house of the Proestos of Luro, which village is situated in a low unhealthy situation, near a square castle of the Vezir, now in a ruinous state. All the hills around are clothed with oaks. Coarse but good blankets are made here, and in some of the neighbouring villages: a piece of seven feet by four feet and a half costs ten piastres. In the afternoon, at 8.53, we proceed over a desolate plain overgrown with brambles and bushes, and at 9.12 arrive at the foot of a rocky mountain, from which issue some copious streams of water, forming a large pond: it is very deep and pellucid, abounds in fish, and is closely shaded around the margin with trees and shrubs. To the right are marshes extending for a great distance towards the sea; and near the sources a kula for the protection of the pass, with the remains of a Hellenic tower, which doubtless served the same purpose.
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§ 1.256 A paved road here passes over the foot of the mountain, descends beyond the lake again into the plain, and then turns to the left through an opening between two mountains, in which stands the village of Kanja. The aqueduct of Nicopolis was conducted through this opening, as appears by some remains of it visible on the slope of the hill to the left, as we pass through Kanza at 9.33: we then enter a small plain surrounded by mountains, and continue to ascend through it until turning a point of hill we open the view of an extensive valley, included between two parallel ridges of hills, of which those on the east are richly clothed with trees. To our left a woody height is surrounded with remains of the inclosure of the Hellenic city which possessed this beautiful vale, consisting only of the foundations of town walls, chiefly of the third order. The site is now called Kastri. At a distance of one hour and a half from Kanza is Lelovo, situated on the rocky foot of the western hills. Around the village are plantations of olives, and below it fruit trees and gardens, extending into the valley, which stretches four or five miles farther, terminating inland in heights which separate it from the valleys watered by the upper tributaries of the Acheron, and of the eastern branch of the river of Luro.
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§ 1.257 Lelovo contains 150 or 200 houses, much dispersed. Papa Nikola is both priest and proestos, and has a large house with yard and outhouses, erected with considerable expense, but utterly in want of the most vulgar comforts. He has the reputation of being a tyrant, and a complaint has lately been preferred against him by the village, but the Pasha seldom listens to such representations, unless to impose a fine upon the person complained of. The principal church, which was built about six years ago, is adorned within with costly gilding and painting. This is a vanity which Aly readily allows the Greeks to indulge in, and though he exacts something in permitting them to rebuild or repair their churches, he is very moderate on these occasions, and desirous of encouraging the practice. Lelovo contains the ruined serai of a Turkish Bey who once possessed a considerable property here in land, but was stripped of it by the Vezir, and now lives in misery at Ioannina. All the better houses have spacious yards, in which the people delight to sit at this season, on a rude sofa raised upon sticks, and covered with fern leaves. These, when the leaves are fresh, are cool and agreeable, but they soon become dry and swarming with fleas, like every place in this country in summer where man inhabits.
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§ 1.258 July 9.—At 9.40, Turkish time, we begin to cross the valley in a south-eastern direction, and having traversed it, as well as the range of hills which border it on the east, we arrive at 10.45 at the issue of a large stream which flows to the river of St. George. We then ascend an uncultivated valley overgrown with bushes, and having passed through a wood of large oaks, fall a little beyond the summit of a low ridge, into the road from Kanza to Pendepigadhia, which here pursues the side of a woody and rocky height, about 100 yards above the river of St. George. The ruined channel of the aqueduct of Nicopolis follows the side of our road. Steep rocky heights covered with wood rise from the opposite bank of the stream. This is the main branch of the river, which joins the Gulf two or three miles to the northward of Nicopolis, and is usually called the river of Luro, perhaps from being collected into one body in the marshes of Luro. The river of St. George, although considerably smaller than the Arcadian Ladon, in volume of water, is broader and very rapid, falling with a great noise in a continued cataract over the rocks. This peculiarity leads me to believe that it was anciently named Charadrus; for although no author mentions any river besides the Arachthus in this part of Epirus, Charadrus was a natural name for such a rapid stream; and as Polybius twice alludes to a town of Charadra l, which in one passage he clearly shows to have been on the road from Ambracus to the Strait of Actium, there is every reason to believe that it was situated on this stream towards the gulf, and that it took its name from the river. Some ruins on its bank, at Rogus to the eastward of Kanza, mark probably the site of Charadra, as some remains of Hellenic walls are reported to be there mixed with the ruins of a town of the Byzantine empire.
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§ 1.259 At 11.40 we descend upon the right bank of the river, which is here overshadowed by very large plane trees, and after following it for a few minutes, arrive at a spot where the larger portion of the river issues from a rocky opening, under the foot of the opposite hill, and joins the direct branch, which falls into it, over a ledge of rocks in a wide cascade. The subterranean river is said to be the discharge of a katavothra. A little higher up is a conjunction of several small streams which sink under the rocks. We continue to follow the right bank of the ravine, amidst plane trees, and soon arrive at a natural bridge formed by the rocks in the river’s bed, under which the water is concealed for the distance of 100 yards. Towards the upper end, a part of the subterraneous current may be perceived through a lateral opening in the rocks, and several small tributaries tumble over them, flowing in numerous rills among the planes, until just above the natural bridge they unite and disappear in a great whirlpool. Two hundred yards above this spot occurs the junction of two other principal branches; that to the right, which is the larger though not so broad as the other, rises near Potamia, and flows through the plain of Khierasovo and Koliadhes, the other comes from Ferekisi, where we crossed it near its sources in the road from Ioannina to Varia. A little above the junction is the ruined aqueduct of Nicopolis, built across the ravine of the Ferekisi stream, which rushes through the arches of the aqueduct over a stony bed.
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§ 1.260 The beautiful effect of this ruin, fringed with shrubs, and which in the middle of the ravine is 70 feet high, with a double tier of arches, 18 feet wide, standing between two rocky, extremely abrupt, and woody mountains, and stretching over a rapid torrent shaded with enormous plane trees, it is easier to imagine than describe. The ruin is commonly known by no other name than that of σταίς καμάραις, or the arches. [sketch plan of aqueduct] Besides the principal ruin there are remains on either bank of another row of arches, which crossed the ravine obliquely a little higher up the stream, and met the former in an acute angle, from whence began the conduit which was constructed along the side of the hills nearly as far as Luro. Across the valley of Luro it was probably again necessary to raise the aqueduct upon arches, though I did not perceive any vestiges of them. In the plain of Lamari, which the aqueduct crossed, long rows of the piers, as I have already mentioned, still remain, and the aqueduct may be traced, from thence to the western end of the hill of Mikhalitzi, and from thence to Nicopolis. The length was about thirty miles. Not a vestige remains in the bed of the river of the piers of the aqueduct B C nor can I discover from what sources it was supplied.
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§ 1.261 The aqueduct A-C was filled by a stream which issues from the side of the mountain, at a church of St. George. In order to reach that place we are obliged to return down the right bank to cross the united river at the natural bridge, then the branch from Potamia, and lastly the stream from the church, which falls over the side of the mountain with the utmost rapidity, and supplies derivations for turning some mills. The source is in the mountain behind the mills, and issues in the church itself. When the aqueduct was in use, the water was of course conducted into it by an artificial channel; it now falls the whole height of the source above the bed of the river in less than half a mile. From the church we ascend in five minutes to the village of St. George. where we had intended to rest during the meridian hours, but find that it has been abandoned by the inhabitants on the news of our approach. Recrossing therefore the Potamia branch, and passing for half an hour over some heights, we enter the valley of Potamia, at the end of which, on the right, but not in view, is the village of Sfeliniki; and directly in front of us the summit of the Xeroviini, or Kelberini range, which is just above Kometzadhes. Having passed some copious sources which join the river, we follow the foot of the hill from whence they issue, and reach the bank of the river, which is here a deep and muddy stream flowing along a marshy valley covered with rice fields.
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§ 1.262 In an hour from St. George, we arrive at Koliadhes, a village of fifteen houses, now abandoned by its inhabitants on account of the bad air and gnats. All the villages in the valley have summer residences on the surrounding hills, a common practice both in Greece and Asia Minor. The summer village of Koliadhes I have already noticed as being in sight, to the left of the high road from Arta to Ioannina, between Kometzadhes and Pendepigadhia. Khierasovo is situated in the valley of the river of Potamia, at the foot of the mountain immediately over against Koliadhes; between these and Potamia, near which the river rises, there are six or eight other small villages inhabited in the season by cultivators of the rice-grounds, but which are all now empty. At a pyrgo at Koliadhes, where we halt, a Papas visits me, the only person left in the place, and who is losing his sight by a disease of the eyes exactly resembling the ophthalmia of Egypt. At 9 we set out again, continue to follow the left bank of the river, and the foot of the hills, from whence issue several sources, and at 10 quit the valley, which stretches considerably higher up, and turn to the right up an opening of the mountain, following a torrent which in some places is thickly shaded with stunted plane trees, until at 11.20 we arrive at the head of it at Pende Pigadhia. Pursuing from hence the ordinary road from Arta to Ioannina, we arrive at the Khan of St. Dhimitri at 2.35, lighted for the last two hours by the moon.
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§ 1.263 Chapter VI EPIRUS, MACEDONIA. JULY 14.—Having received intimation of some remarkable ruins at the foot of Mount Olytzika, I proceed thither this afternoon. The road, leaving Rapsista a quarter of a mile on the left, enters an opening in the ridge which borders the plain of Ioannina on the west, passes to the left of Kosmira, a village situate in the midst of vineyards; and after having crossed the ridge, descends into a narrow valley at the foot of Olytzika, on the side of which mountain are situated the four villages of Milyngus, Alepukhori, Tjerkovista, Drametjus, or Dhramisius: in that order from southeast to north-west, and consisting of dispersed houses prettily situated among gardens on the mountain side.
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§ 1.264 The summit of Mount Olytzika, like most of the high mountains of this country, is a bare white limestone rock, deeply furrowed by torrents. Below this naked region there is a belt of firs, and then a cultivable slope. The ruins, called as usual the Paleokastro, are in the valley immediately below Alepukhori, but nearer to Dhramisius. Here are the walls of a Hellenic fortress, crowning the summit of a small rocky height, which rises from the lowest part of the vale. The form is an irregular quadrangle, and the inclosed space is not more than equal to a square of 550 feet. Within the enclosure is a small subterraneous building, supported by rude pilasters, and formerly covered with a roof formed of flat beams of stone, which have now fallen in. The walls of the fortress, flanked with towers, are extant in some places to the height of 15 or 20 feet, and are from 10 to 15 feet in thickness, according as the ground required a greater or less defence. The towers are not uniform in size or shape, nor are the intervals between them equal: the faces of those at the angles are from 25 to 35 feet long; in the intermediate towers they are not so long. The flanks in general are about 15 feet. The irregularity of the fortress, although caused in some measure by the nature of the ground, seems to have been partly adopted for the sake of obtaining a convenient site for an immense theatre, facing the south, and separated only, at the back, from one of the angles of the fortress by a passage 27 1/2 feet in width. Like the theatre of Sparta, and many others in Greece, the middle part was excavated in the hill, and the two ends supported by two great masses of masonry, faced with rectangular stones, nicely fitted without cement.
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§ 1.265 There were 65 or 66 rows of seats, of which the two lowest were cut in the rock. As usual in Greek theatres, the seats were divided into horizontal portions by precinctions or corridors, and vertically by cunei, separated from each other by radiating scalae or flights of steps, each step being half the height of a seat. There were two precinctions, dividing the seats into three divisions, besides a third corridor of the same kind at the top of the theatre: in the upper division were 22 seats, and there were perhaps an equal number in each of the two lower; but there is some difficulty in ascertaining this fact, for though the seats all exist, their component blocks are very much displaced by the effects of vegetation or other causes, and are lying in confusion. In the upper division of the seats there were twice as many scalae as in the two lower divisions, as may generally be observed in Greek theatres. Two broad flights of steps conducted from the exterior level, on either side of the proscenium, to the middle diazoma. The interior diameter or length of the orchestra is about 80 feet, and each wing being about 190 feet, the total diameter is 460 feet nearly: dimensions which place this theatre among the largest in Greece, such as those of Athens, Megalopolis, Sparta, and Argos. It differs, however, from all I have seen, either in Greece or Asia sufficiently preserved to afford a comparison, in having a cavea which, very little, if at all, exceeds the semicircle.
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§ 1.266 In proportion to its diameter, therefore, it was incapable of containing so many spectators as some of those above mentioned. There are some foundations of the constructions belonging to the scene, which it would be interesting to excavate. [plan]
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§ 1.267 On the north-eastern side of the theatre, and below the adjacent wall of the fortress, an enclosure, about two-thirds as large as the fortress itself, was surrounded on the other sides by a wall not more than half as thick as that of the fortress. It appears to have had an entrance by the side of a tower at its north-eastern extremity, and to have been separated by a narrow passage from the eastern side of the theatre. The slightness of the wall, and the remains of two temples in the enclosed space, evidently show that it was a sacred temenus, of which the theatre may have formed a part. Of one temple, which stood on higher ground than the other, and not far from the theatre, one or two columns only remain in situ; but of the lower temple, which is near the north-eastern end of the peribolus, or wall of the temenus, the lower parts of most of the columns are extant amidst the ruins. It was a tetrastyle, with at least 10 columns in the sides, about 70 feet long, and 25 broad, built of a coarse limestone, which is much injured by time. At one end of the temple, among the ruins, lies a piece of the frieze, ornamented with small capita bovis, connected by garlands formed of an intermixture of the vine with oakleaves, acorns, and ears of corn: the relief is very low, and roughly executed. Below the temenus was a third enclosure, smaller than the former, in the shape of an irregular quadrangle, and enclosed to the southward by a wall still slighter than that of the peribolus. Nevertheless, a part of it still stands to a considerable height; and at its termination to the south-east was a large tower, with the remains of a gate
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§ 1.268 on one side of it, and on the other a long narrow space in the lowest part of the valley, enclosed with the remains of a slight wall. But neither here, nor in any other direction, can I find any traces of town walls, such as were universally employed in the cities of Greece. Nor was this narrow valley, deficient in water, and closely surrounded by hills, such a situation as the ancients usually chose for their towns. As well from these circumstances therefore, as from the nature of the buildings, I conceive them to have composed a ιερόν, and place of public assembly, protected by a fortress, the dimensions of the latter not being even those of a κωμη, or small town. The position is so nearly central in the country of the Molossi, that it was probably a place of common sacrifice and political union for the use of all the towns of that division of Epirus. The valley is now chiefly cultivated with maize. The waters flow to the Kalama. Variadhes is about three hours to the southward, over the roots of Mount Olytzika. Aug. 4.—The afternoon thunder-showers, which fell at Ioannina two days out of three during the months of June and July, and still oftener on the neighbouring mountains, have ceased for the last ten days. The heat reflected from the hill of St. George, on which the upper part of the town stands, as well as from Mount Mitzikέli, which has the effect of an immense wall on the opposite side of the lake, is unmitigated, except by the maestrale, which the former hill in great measure intercepts.
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§ 1.269 The thermometer, about 3 p.m., ranges from 90° to 98° in the coolest places. The want of rain to carry off the accumulation of filth, which nothing else ever removes from a Turkish town, begins to infect the air; and the muddy edges of the lake send forth exhalations which render that quarter unhealthy. This evening at sunset I set out for Kalarytes, one of the Vlakhiote towns of Mount Pindus, to the south-east of Ioannina; and in less than three quarters of an hour arrive at a khan, near the small village of Katzika, which is situated near the south-western angle of the Lake of Ioannina, not far from the foot of the hill of Kastritza. From hence, after reposing for a few hours in a dirty cabin, adjacent to the shop of the Khan, we proceed at half-past three, tempo Francese, as the Italians and Levantines call the mode of reckoning used by French and English: follow the hill of Kastritza, which rises from the southern extremity of the lake; and leaving it on the left, then pass through a narrow opening between it and some heights which are connected with the range of Xeroviini, into the valley of Barkumadhiwhich surrounds Kastritza, and to the eastward of that height touches the lake. Crossing the southern end of this valley, and leaving Ardhomista and two other small villages to the left, we ascend the ridge of Dhrysko, or Drysko, which separates this plain from the vale of the river Arta. All the land in the plain of Barkumadhi still belongs to
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§ 1.270 Turkish beys of Ioannina, no part of it having yet become a tjiftlik of the Pasha. On the ascent of Drysko, we pass, at 5.15, a large monastery surrounded with oaks, named Eleokali, which the monks have abandoned on account of the frequent passage of late of Albanian soldiers by this road. At 6.50 we arrive at a chapel on the summit of the ridge; descend by a steep and very bad road, and at 8 ford the river Arta at the junction of a torrent on the left bank, where amidst barren mountains are a khan, some mills, and a few fields of maize. A high narrow bridge crosses the river and another the torrent, but little use is made of them in this season. The river flows from hence through a very narrow vale to our right, and soon enters a deep ravine. To the left the snow-capped mountains, which stretch from Konitza to Metzovo, are seen above Mount Mitzikeli. We now climb for an hour one of the steepest ridges of Pindus, as far as another khan under one of the highest peaks, which is never entirely free from snow, and on the other side falls to Syrako. Having remained at this khan from 9.5 till 4.40, we begin to make the tour of the summit, passing round its southern extremity, and leaving on the right a succession of cultivated slopes, with rocky intervals between them, which reach to the Arta. In these slopes are several mills, turned by torrents from the mountain. The heights, which rise abruptly from the opposite bank of the Arta, and connect Dhrysko with Mount Xerovuni, are well cultivated by the natives of twelve villages called the Katzano,
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§ 1.271 or Tomaro khoria. At half an hour beyond the khan, the side of the mountain is covered with immense fragments of rock, and innumerable smaller pieces —the effects of the fall of a part of the mountain which occurred about twelve years ago. My companion, a Kalarytiote, states, that the previous fall of a portion, and the appearance of the rest, gave sufficient warning; so that no damage ensued, except the destruction of the road. The ruin is half a mile in length, and the path through it winding and difficult. The immense rock of Djumerka now presents itself in face of us to the southward, the opening between which and the parallel range of Xerovuni displays a fine view of the Gulf of Arta, with its shores and the mountains of Xeromero beyond it. On the nearest part of Tzumerka is seen the village of Pramanda, and a cultivated tract, sloping northward to a large branch of the Arta, which before its junction with the main stream passes through a narrow gorge between two very high precipices. This branch of the river is formed of three streams, one of which flows from Matzuki, the middle from Viliza, the third and largest from Kalarytes and Syrako. We now cross over the ridge, of which we had been following the side, and at 7.15 arrive at a small church of St. George, situated on a narrow summit, three or four miles to the southward of the peak which is above Syrako. The church commands a view of Syrako and Kalarytes, both covering slopes of
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§ 1.272 excessive steepness; the former just under the peak, the latter upon an insulated mountain, occupying a space between the ridge of Syrako and the still higher summits to the north and east, which form the central chain of Pindus. The third of the three streams above-mentioned passes between the two towns, which, although only two or three miles apart in a direct line, require as many hours to walk from the one to the other. Kalaryrtes, standing on the eastern side of its mountain below the summit, is hid by that summit from Syrako. Nothing can be more surprising than the sudden view of these two large towns on arriving at St. George, after travelling the whole day amidst precipices, arid rocks, and desolation. It is particularly in the present season that the contrast is most remarkable; for while the little patches of cultivation within view, show nothing but a dry stubble, the gardens among which the houses of the two towns are dispersed, are maintained in the brightest verdure by numerous rivulets originating in the towns, or a little above them, and which undoubtedly guided the first settlers in their choice of the two positions. All the surrounding scenery consists of bare rocks or parched elopes, except to the southward, where a peak rising to the left of the fork of the Kalarytes and Arta rivers, is covered from a little below the summit to the base with a thick forest of firs, mixed in the lower region of the mountain with other trees, and thus forming a most beautiful object in front of Kalarytes. Several of the lower slopes in the ravines of the rivers
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§ 1.273 of Kalarytes and Syrako, are clothed with woods: but they form no decoration to the picture in the higher positions, being hidden by the depth and narrowness of the ravines; so that in descending from St. George to the river of Syrako, I was surprised to find myself suddenly in a thick forest of linden, maple, cherry, horse-chestnut, oak, elm, ash, beech, sycamore, and hornbeam, mixed with cornel, holly, elder, hazel, and a variety of plants of lower growth. The hill is so steep that the descent occupies half an hour by a continued zigzag. At the bottom the stream bounds over the rocks with a loud noise, and in some places forms deep pools which abound in trout; as all the neighbouring rivers are of a similar description, the Kalarytiotes are thus plentifully supplied with these fish in summer. They are most commonly taken by means of quick lime thrown into the head of the pool, which soon brings the intoxicated fish to the surface. In seasons of rain, nothing can resist the fury of the river: not long since, my Kalarytiote companion thus lost, in an instant, some mills and buildings which had given him a yearly rent of 1000 piastres. At the bridge, the road to Syrako branches to the left up the right bank of the river, until it arrives at a point immediately below that town, from whence there is an ascent similar to that which we follow from the bridge to Kalarytes. The latter resembles exactly the descent from St. George, excepting that it is not so woody.
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§ 1.274 Like the descent, it occupies half an hour. At 8.30 we arrive in the upper part of the town. Kalarytes or Akalarrytes, and Syrako or Serraku, are two of the largest of the Vlakhiote villages, which in number about 500, and none very small, are dispersed throughout the mountains of Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia. Vlakholivadho, near Olosona, is reckoned the largest, and then Metzovo. We learn from the Byzantine history, that the Wlakhs, in Greek Βλάχοι or Bλαχιώταις, occupied so large a portion of Thessaly about the twelfth century, that the whole country was commonly known by the name of Μεγάλη Βλαχία, or Great Wallachia. But it is the tradition of Kalarytes, that the Vlakhiotes have not been settled in this part of Pindus more than 250 years, which is very credible, as it is not likely that they quitted the more fertile parts of Thessaly until they felt the oppression of the Turkish conquerors, and their inability to resist it. The removal has not been unfortunate, for their descendants have thereby enjoyed a degree of repose, and have obtained advantages which their former situation could hardly have admitted. They began by carrying to Italy the woolen cloaks, called Cappe, which are made in these mountains, and much used in Italy and Spain, as well as by the Greeks themselves. This opened the route to a more extended commerce: they now share with the Greeks in the valuable trade of
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§ 1.275 colonial produce between Spain or Malta and Turkey, and many are owners of both ship and cargo. The wealthier inhabitants are merchants, who have resided abroad many years in Italy, Spain, or the dominions of Austria or Russia, and who, after a long absence, return with the fruits of their industry to their native towns, which they thus enrich, and, in some degree, civilize. But they seldom return for permanent residence till late in life, being satisfied in the interval with two or three short visits. The middle classes pursue a similar course; but as their traffic seldom carries them so far from home as the higher order of merchants, they return more frequently, and many of them spend a part of every summer in their native place. These are chiefly shopkeepers in the towns of Turkey, or artisans, of whom the most numerous are tailors, and workers in gold, silver, and copper. They excel in mounting pistols and musquets in the Albanian taste, in making flisans or silver coffee cups, and in embroidering Albanian dresses. The poorer householders are chiefly carriers or shepherds. At Syrako are a few goldsmiths, who work chiefly at Prevyza and Lefkadha; but there the great body of the people are owners of sheep, shepherds, or carriers. The gardens, and the small quantity of arable land which surrounds these towns, are chiefly cultivated by the women, who reap the harvest as well as perform all the household work, and spin. Heraclides Ponticus remarks, that in Athamania the men tend the flocks, and the women till the
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§ 1.276 ground; and we are here, if not in Athamania, at least very near it, and in a country altogether similar. As some of the retired merchants have houses at Ioannina, and the shepherds drive their flocks in that season to the plains and maritime districts, Kalarytes in that season is chiefly inhabited by women, children, and priests; and as the snow lies sometimes five months in the town, or at no great distance from it, there is little communication with the surrounding country, and it is customary for every family to lay in a winter provision of rice, flour, oil, saltfish, and firewood. Kalarytes and Syrako contain between five and six thousand souls, besides those who are abroad, amounting to about a tenth of the population. Each town has its iatros, or medical attendant, receiving a fixed salary from the public, and its dhaskalo, or master of literal Greek; but the latter teaches scarcely any thing more than the rudiments of the language, the illiterate parents taking little interest in a proficiency, which seems to them unnecessary, unless their children are destined to the priesthood; in fact, it adds little to their prospect of success in life. The lower classes of Kalarytes (and the same is said to occur in all the villages of these mountains) preserve, in a remarkable manner, the ancient spirit of independence for which the Greeks were
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§ 1.277 so remarkable. They will not easily submit to be household servants: and heads of families, who have not been abroad, are generally served by their wives and daughters; those who have been accustomed to different fashions abroad generally take servants from Ioannina or Trikkala. A Corfiote, who came to establish himself here as physician, could not for a long time procure any one to wait upon him, because he made use of a bell, which they said was fit only for sheep and goats. On the other hand their wives are perfect slaves. As a community, their peaceable pursuits have been adverse to their retention of that independence which their ancestors conquered and long enjoyed in Northern Greece, and to which their almost inaccessible retreat in this part of Mount Pindus would have been extremely favourable, had they been as martial a people as many of the Greek and Albanian mountaineers. But they have made little or no resistance to Aly Pasha, who has been inclined to treat them with lenity, as well from that circumstance, as because the revenue of Kalarytes, and of some of the other principal towns, is an appanage of the Valide Sultan, who with her kiaya still enjoys great power at the supreme court. Aly regularly accounts, therefore, for the dues to the imperial treasury, and has hitherto endeavoured to avoid all flagrant cause of complaint from the rayahs of these places. The conquest of Suli, however, has of late rendered him bolder, and the people now complain of the angaria, or gratuitous labour of men and horses, for which they have often been called upon
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§ 1.278 since the Pasha began to build the castle of Kiafa. The 14,000 piastres, which was formerly the amount of the contributions of Kalaryrtes, have gradually been raised to 45,000, and the town has been lately obliged to increase its public debt by 100 purses, which they have borrowed from Turks of Ioannina at an interest of 15 per cent. My host informs me that he pays 170 piastres a year, equal to 12L. or 13L sterling, in direct contributions. The corn-fields of Kalarytes, which are chiefly on the northern and eastern sides of the town, and on the face of the opposite mountain in that direction, produce a sufficiency of wheat in favourable years for about four months’ consumption. In the present year the harvest has been very bad, and has scarcely returned double the seed. It is a bearded wheat, with short straw, and makes excellent bread. They are supplied with maize, wine, and oil, from Arta, wheaten flour from Trikkala, and a few articles, chiefly European, from Ioannina. Some of the narrowest terraces and most stony soils are grown with vines: grapes, apples, and pot-herbs are the principal produce of the gardens. For these and a few ordinary commodities and manufactures from Ioannina, they have a market on Thursdays and Saturdays, which is attended from some of the nearest villages. The surrounding mountains furnish an excellent pasture for sheep in summer, and large flocks are here tended by Vlakhiote shepherds during that season.
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§ 1.279 Such is the steepness of the hill of Kalarytes, that the topmost houses are at least 500 feet higher than the lowest, and the vertical streets of the town are mere zigzag paths formed into steps. On the southern side, by which we approached the town, the position terminates in a tremendous precipice, the summit of which is so near to the church of St. George, on the opposite ridge, that words may be heard from the one place to the other; and the first intelligence is constantly communicated in this manner, on the arrival of passengers or caravans from Ioannina, which in winter are sometimes arrested there by a sudden fall of snow for several days. It is curious to remark with how much ease this τηλολαλία or distant conversation is carried on. It is an art which, as well as that of τηλοσκοπία, or of distinguishing distant objects, is possessed by the Albanians and mountaineers of Greece in a degree which seems wonderful to those who have never been required to exercise their ears, eyes, and voices to the same extent. The same qualities were among the accomplishments of the heroic ages of Greece, the manners and peculiarities of which have never been extinct in the mountainous and more independent districts of this country. The houses of Kalarytes are all on a small plan, but generally neat, well arranged, and well furnished, according to Greek ideas of convenience. The hanging gardens which separate them are watered by streams from numerous fountains, supplying every part of the town with a cold and pure water, of which the Kalarytiotes are justly
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§ 1.280 proud. The roofs of the houses are covered like those of Greek mountain-villages in general, with πλάκαις, or large slabs of a limestone, which readily splits into this form. These are squared more or less accurately according to the opulence of the owner, and in addition to other fastenings, generally require large masses of stone to be laid upon them, in order to obtain increased resistance to the furious winds which prevail in this elevated situation, and which in the winter often unroof the houses in spite of all precautions. Every dwelling of the better kind has a χειμονικόν, or winter apartment, in the lower story; above which is the principal chamber of reception, generally fitted with windows of coarse Venetian glass, but otherwise constructed and fitted up in that Turkish style which is so little adapted to the climate of these mountains. The language of the Vlakhiote towns of Pindus differs very slightly from that of Wallachia, and contains consequently many Latin words, derived from the Roman colonists of Dacia. At Kalarytes all the men speak Greek, and many of the women; but the Wlakh is the common language both in the towns and among the shepherds. The Latin words are not so numerous as in Italian or Spanish, but the flexions and the auxiliary verbs, in some of their forms, are less changed than in any of the daughters of the Latin.
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§ 1.281 The Greeks give the following expression as an example of the vocality of the Wlakh, a characteristic in which the Greek itself is not deficient: oao, aue, oi, aua αυγα, σταφύλια, πρόβατα, εδω. With the aid of these words, a party of Albanian or Greek palikaria may order their dinners on arriving at a Vlakhiote village. On the north-eastern side of Kalarytes, a long declivity, which contains the greater part of the cultivable land belonging to the town, falls to a torrent, the middle one of the three tributaries already described, as forming one of the branches of the Arta. On the lowest part of the slope, on the bank of the river, stood the Hellenic town which possessed this secluded district. The ruins are in no part extant to any great height, though almost the entire circuit is traceable, consisting of a loose ill-constructed kind of masonry, of the third kind, but containing a few large masses of stone. The site is covered with vineyards in terraces, at the back of which some high rocks were the upper limit of the town; from the opposite bank of the torrent rises abruptly a rocky height, on the other side of which is Matzuki. A little below the ruins are some mills; the view from the ancient site is extremely confined on every side, except down the river, where the opening shows woody slopes folding over one another, with the mountains near Arta in the distance. The place is called Viliza, or Vigliza, a modification of the Romaic vigla, and like the Latin vigilo, from which
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§ 1.282 it is immediately derived, may be traced to the same root as the Hellenic synonym Phyle. The former state of the district of Kalarytes is preserved in the following proverb: κάστρον Βηλιζά, χωρίον Ματζύκι, Άκαλαρρύταις μαχαλά, και Συράκω πεντεσπητια, meaning that formerly Viliza was the fortress, Matzuki the town, Akalarrytes an outlying quarter of the town, and Syrako a little detached hamlet. But such is the change, that there are now 500 houses in each of the two last places, and in Matzuki only 25. Some years ago (it was before Aly Pasha gained Ioannina) there were 40 Turkish families at Kalarytes, but such was the influence of the Christians at that time with the Valide, that the Turks were removed to Vendista, on the opposite side of the Aspro. It may be remarked in every part of Greece, that whenever circumstances, which are often occurring, though they are seldom very permanent, favour the industry and security of the Greeks in any particular place, and enable them to acquire some degree of comfort and opulence, they are never slow in tempting their tyrants to plunder them, by their imprudence and vanity, or by their envious and contentious disposition. The Vlakhiotes, who with less native acuteness than the Greeks, are endowed with more steadiness, prudence, and perseverance, are nevertheless like all republicans, (for such they may be styled, as well as the Greeks of the Eleftherokhoria, notwithstanding the despotism of the supreme government) seldom free from intestine intrigues and divisions.
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§ 1.283 The Pasha takes care to be well informed of the local politics, and allows no good opportunity to escape of turning these, or any other accidental circumstances to his own purposes: Not long since, on discovering that G. T., one of the leading citizens, had lent a large sum to the town and was in great want of a repayment, which the town could not conveniently make; the Pasha offered T. his interference, on condition of his having a large share. Not many years ago, the Kalarytiotes were moved with the desire of having bells to some of their churches, one of the attributes of the temples of the Oriental Christians, of which, because forbidden by the Turks, they are particularly proud. Aly, though generally very indulgent on the subject of building and repairing churches, did not omit so good an opportunity of making the Kalarytiotes pay for their vanity, and exacted 15,000 piastres from them for the permission to have bells.
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§ 1.284 Aug. 12.—At 4.30 this afternoon, I set out, in company with Messrs. John and David Morier, with the intention of climbing to the summit of the peak of Mount Pindus, called Kakardhitza, or Kakardhista, which bears S.E. from Kalarytes, and has the appearance of being the highest point in the whole range. Descending into the ravine of the torrent of Viliza, we cross it at some mills a little below the Palea Khora, or ruins before described. One of these mills is for corn, and another for fulling the skuti, or cloth for making the cloaks called Κάπαις, the chief manufacture of the Vlakhiotes. The torrent, bridge, and buildings, overhung by precipices, form a beautiful piece of mountain scenery. We cross the ridge which lies between the river of Viliza and Matzuki by a tedious zigzag ascent and descent, and arrive, in 1.45 from Kalarytes, at Matzuki, which is situated in a hollow immediately at the foot of Kakardhista, where a torrent collected from the great summits around, rattles along the ravine, and proceeds to join the streams from Viliza, Kalarytes, and Syrako. At the back of the village, towards the north-east, rises the steep ridge which connects Kakardhista with the summits towards Metzovo, called Peristeri and Tzikurela: like all the others, it is a white bare mass of limestone. The houses of Matzuki belong chiefly to persons, who keep shops for the sale of capots and a few of the other productions of Greece, in the islands of the Adriatic and Ionian seas, or in the maritime towns of Italy. The two most opulent of their traders are settled at Corfu. Very few of the men are now in the village. Those who reside are employed in the manufacture of capots, or as carriers with their mules, or in cultivating a few χωραφια, or fields of corn and maize, on the mountain side, or in the care of sheep and goats.
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§ 1.285 The person of whom I have hired a mule for the expedition, who brought it to Kalarytes, and accompanied me on foot, kept a shop for capots, and other commodities, during seven years at Cadiz, and for another three years at Leghorn. He was at Rome when the French entered it the first time. Most of these people, as may be supposed, speak Italian. They ascribe the ruin of their town to the quartering of Albanian soldiers; the place being more accessible to this pestilence, than Kalarytes and Syrako. The annual contributions of the village amount to 9000 piastres, of which 6000 are paid to Aly Pasha, 500 to the Turkish Subashi for staying away, and the rest for the interest of money borrowed by the village, and other local charges. The burthen to each house increases with the diminution of the population: so that one of the proprietors of our mules has paid this year, as the head of a family, 110 Spanish dollars, or more than twice as much as some of the larger householders at Kalarytes, and has been obliged to borrow the money at Ioannina, at twenty per cent, interest. Beldani, who was made tutor to the Emperor Alexander, and his brother Constantine, by the Empress Catharine, was a native of Matzuki. He was a poor merchant at Leghorn when Alexis Orloff took him into his service, and carried him to St. Petersburg. Our hosts of the poor cottage in which we lodge, priding themselves on being μεσοφράγκοι, or half Franks in their manners, endeavour to prove it by giving us a covered table at supper, with plates, knives and forks. At 2 in the morning we set out to scale the mountain.
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§ 1.286 August 13.—The ascent being very rugged, our progress is slow; the route crosses many small torrents, which flow to the right into a ravine, lying between this mountain and the pine-covered peak conspicuous from Kalarytes, which connects at its southern extremity Kakardhista with Tzumerka. At 4.30 the road being no longer practicable for mules, we mount on foot, during another hour, by a very steep ascent, where loose stones and earth, or grass dripping with dew, carry the feet half way back at every step. Towards the summit are some deep patches of snow, and a hoar frost on the grass. At a few minutes after sunrise we reach the highest point. To the east the view is rendered indistinct by the sun being in that direction, and by an atmosphere not perfectly clear. There is a haze likewise over the sea on the opposite side; but this is the ordinary state of the atmosphere of Greece in the middle of summer, and a clear day in winter is much more favourable for obtaining a sight of distant objects. Nevertheless we distinguish Corfu, Cefalonia, and Mount Voidhia in the Morea. To the north, Mount Tomor, and the summits between it and Bitolia, are seen, particularly a peak between Kastoria and Filurina, to the right of which are those more eastward, towards Vodhena and Verria. The horizontal arch between N.E. and S. is bounded by Olympus, Ossa, Pelion, Othrys, and the mountains of Aetolia, of which latter the peaks called Velukhi and Viena are the most conspicuous.
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§ 1.287 The remotest point which I can recognize is Voidhia, or Panachaicum, in the Morea; the direct distance of which is about 100 geographical miles. The ridges along the western coast from Xeromero to Khimara, are naturally much more distinct. To the north-west the geography of the valleys of the Upper Aous, in which Arghyrokastro, Tepeleni, Premedi and Konitza are situated, is well defined, though none of those places are distinguishable. Immediately below us, to the east, are the mountains of Aspropotamo, a confused mass, resembling the waves of a stormy sea; and to the right, those of Agrafa, of the same description: the highest summit of the former is nearly in a line with Pelium. Olympus has the appearance of being the highest point in sight. Of those in the Pindian ridge, none seems to rival Kakardhista, unless it be a summit near Samarina. Its height above the sea is probably about 7000 feet. A great part of the course of the Aspro or Achelous is traceable from Kakardhista, though the river cannot be distinguished in consequence of the depth of the valleys in which it is encased, or the haziness of the atmosphere hanging over them. Its reputed sources are at Khaliki, a Vlakhiote village of 200 houses, situated midway between Kalarytes and Metzovo, on the south-eastern side of Mount Tzikurela, but not in sight from hence. As the name Khaliki, which is not uncommon in Greece, is generally a corruption of the Hellenic Χαλκίς, indicating the former existence of a Chalcis in the same place, it serves, in the present instance, to illustrate an hitherto unexplained passage of
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§ 1.288 Dionysius the geographer, in which he evidently intended to remark that the Achelous rose at Chalcis. After receiving several streams from the mountains around Khaliki, the river follows the narrow ravines included between the summits in the district of Aspropotamo, and those of Kakarhista, Tzumerka, and Radhovisi. On the slope of one of the mountains in the last-mentioned sub-district of Arta, are seen the lands of Vrestenitza above the right bank of the river, near the bridge of Koraki, which is in the road from Arta to Trikkala, through Agrafa. From thence the Aspro flows for about 20.miles through a country, in which the great summits are more distant on either side, after which it again skirts the foot of a lofty rock of the Tzumerka chain, which is named Kalana, and is a conspicuous object from Prevyza. Here the river is again crossed by a bridge, called that of Tetarna, from a monastery on the left, and a few miles lower is joined by its principal tributary. The united stream then passes between perpendicular rocks into a country of woody heights, of secondary elevation, until it emerges near the ruins of Stratus into the great Aetolian plain. In almost every direction the mountains hide the valleys; Kakardhista being in the centre of the most mountainous part of Greece. The only plain in sight is that of Ioannina, with a small portion of that of Trikkala: Ioannina is the only town.
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§ 1.289 The immense precipices of Tzumerka appear considerably below us: they hide Arta and all the Gulf, except a small part of its eastern extremity near Makrinoro, which makes its appearance between Tzumerka and Sakaretzi, as the mountain of Radhovisi is named. Kakardhista is quite bare of trees or shrubs, but furnishes a fine short herbage to the very summit. A sharp rocky ridge, which connects it with the peak of Peristeri, separates the course of the waters flowing respectively to the Arta and to the Aspro, and divides the district of Malakassi in the kaza of Ioannina from that of Aspropotamo in Trikkala. The latter sub-district extends fifty miles down the river from its sources, comprehending the sides of the adjacent mountain on either side, and separating first Ioannina and then Arta from Agrafa. The right of pasturage is so accurately defined between Ioannina and Aspropotamo, that the flocks of one district are not allowed to enter the other. Kakardhista itself falls steeply into a deep ravine which lies between it and another lower but abrupt and rocky crest, which slopes to the Aspro. We descend to a mandra, or sheep-fold, supported on each side by one of the palikaria, who have accompanied us from Kalarytes; and who, though with daggers and pistols at their girdles, and a musket slung over their shoulders, never make a false step, though bearing the weight of another person. Some goat’s milk, with bread which we brought with us, furnishes our breakfast. The annual profit of a yew in these mountains is reckoned as follows: two piastres for the cheese
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§ 1.290 and milk, four piastres for the lamb, and half a piastre for the wool; out of which there is a clear gain of five piastres. From the mandra we reach Matzuki in two hours, leave it at 5 p.m., and in two hours and a half return to Kalarytes. So steep is the northern side of the hill of Matzuki, that it takes longer to descend than it had required yesterday to mount it. The shepherds of these mountains, as well as those who tend their flocks around Ioannina, play on a pipe (in Greek φλογέρα, in Albanian fuol), which resembles that described by Theocritus, inasmuch as it has nine holes on the side, and is partly closed at either end with wax. But some of the modern pipes of Epirus have a singularity which has not been noticed by any author, being made of the thigh of the vulture, or of the eagle, which are bones of extreme hardness, and of a size well adapted to a shepherd’s pipe. These materials may be more common now than anciently, because gunpowder has given the moderns the power of bringing down such birds more easily than could formerly have been done by means of arrows. In the mountain pastures in every part of Greece, the shepherds may be heard, as the same poet has described, pouring forth a wild melodious strain from their pipes, amidst the murmuring of the waters, and the whispering of the wind through the trees. Theocritus has particularly referred to the pine as producing this sound. And the pine is doubtless the most psithyristic of trees. It is surprising that he has not noticed also the aromatic odour which emanates from it in summer.
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§ 1.291 Aug. 31.—Leaving Ioannina this forenoon for Grevena, I follow the causeway between the lake and the foot of the hill of Kastritza, and having crossed the plain of Barkumadhi, arrive in two hours at the khan of Ardhomista, near the foot of Mount Dhrysko. The plain is covered with maize and melons, of both which the harvest is near at hand. After resting an hour and a half, we quit the khan, ascend in three quarters of an hour the ridge of Dhrysko, and in another quarter arrive at the khan of that name on the eastern face of the mountain, which is a continuation of Mount Mitzikέli, and derived, undoubtedly, its name from the oaks still growing here, and which anciently may have been larger and more numerous than they are now. The khan seems to have been placed here for the sake of a copious source of water, which the tatar, who accompanies me, and who has had long experience, declares to be the best between Ioannina and Constantinople. One of his corps brought letters a few days ago from
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§ 1.292 Constantinople in four days and a half: thus performing two hundred computed hours, or six hundred miles of road distance, in one hundred and eight hours, including stoppages. To be appointed to such a journey as mine, is to be well paid for a comparative state of repose, and is considered, therefore, as a favour conferred upon the tatar by the Pasha. After a twenty minutes’ halt we continue our descent, and in another twenty minutes arrive at the junction of the two great branches of the Arta: one flowing from Zagori, the other from Metzovo. The place and neighbouring valley are hence named Dhipotamo. A bridge of three arches, called the Lady’s Bridge, crosses the Zagori branch, which is the larger of the two, and is composed of a great number of streams collected in the hollow between Mount Mitzikeli and the parallel higher range, or central ridge of Pindus. On the side of the mountain of Syrako, above Dhipotamo, stands the village of Gotzista, divided into two makhalas, and surrounded with cultivated slopes. A point above it, which is separated by a ravine from the great mountain, is the site of a Hellenic fortress or fortified come, the walls of which inclose the summit and face of the hill. In winter the road, after crossing the bridge, follows the right bank of the river of Metzovo. Instead of crossing the bridge, we ford the united stream, and then ride along the bed of the Metzovo branch, which, though consisting
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§ 1.293 entirely of loose stones, is a saving in time, the line being shorter than along the ακραις, or rugged banks. Occasionally, however, we cross some of the akres. Like all the roots of the mountains bordering these valleys, they are covered with small oak, ilex, piraari, and a variety of shrubs, among which the lentisk is the most common. At 6 we arrive at a half-built kula of the Pasha, on the right bank of the river, where are a few fields of kalambokki. In winter, the road reaches this point from the bridge of the Lady, by crossing and recrossing two other intermediate bridges. On the heights to the left stands Khrysovitza, beautifully situated among the woods, and noted for its monastery of the Panaghia, whose festival on the 23d of August is resorted to by all the neighbourhood, particularly from Ioannina. At 6.35 we halt for the night at the Three Khans. situated on a height overlooking the right bank of the river, in a part of the valley where its direction and that of the river change from about E.S.E. to E. by N. The three khans may possibly be the successors of three Roman taverns; for Tres Tabernae is a name repeatedly occurring in the Roman itineraries; and although this road is not found in any of them, the general structure of the country is a sufficient proof that the pass of Metzovo was in all ages one of the chief thoroughfares of Northern Greece.
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§ 1.294 The summit named Tzikurela, or Tzukurela, was immediately above us on the right, about half way up the valley. To the north-eastward is the other peak, called Peristeri; beyond which is the summit above Khaliki, of the same height nearly as that of Syrako, and situated midway between Peristeri and the southern end of the Zygos of Metzovo. The hills around the Three Khans are covered with vineyards and wood. At less than a mile beyond them, at the head of a slope of vineyards reaching to the river, is the village of Yutinos, and on a height on one side of the vineyards some remains of ancient walls called Lakhanokastro. The masons of Metzovo resort to it for the sake of the tiles which they find there. It was perhaps a Roman military station, for the defence of the pass, which is here more open than in any other part. Sept. 1.—Our route continues along the river’s bed, crosses it several times, and at intervals passes over its woody and rocky banks by an execrable road. The village of Grevendista is situated among some cultivated slopes on the side of the mountain to the right. In seventy minutes we cross to the right bank by a bridge, a little above which is the junction of two branches of the river, one coming from Metzovo, the other from a valley to the right, in the direction of the mountain of Khaliki, which thus gives rise both to the Arachthus and Achelous. We ascend along the side of the mountain which overhangs the right bank of the Metzovo branch of the river, and at 8 a.m., in two hours from the khans, arrive at the northern and larger of the two makhalas, into which Metzovo is divided by the ravine. The northern is
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§ 1.295 called Prosilio, as being exposed to the sun, while the southern being shaded by the mountain on which it stands, is named Anilio. The road to Trikkala passes through the latter, and then ascends the Zygos, or ridge, as a long woody mountain is named which has a north and south direction, and which separates the sources of the Arachthus from those of the Peneius, connecting Kakardhista and the ridge of Syrako with the Zagori summits and those near Konitza and Samarina. The streams descending from the western slope of the Zygos, are the principal feeders of the torrent which separates the two makhaladhes, of Metzovo, and which we followed from the bridge. There are about seven hundred houses in the two divisions of the town, which, together with Malakassi, a village on the eastern side of the Zygos, and two others is an appanage of the Valide Sultan. Formerly, in consideration of the expenses to which the Metzovites were subject from the passage of soldiers and travellers, they were liable only to the Kharadj, and to the payment of five thousand piastres a year to the Valide’s agent, for which advantage they were bound to ensure the safety of the Pass, and to maintain a body of armatoli under a captain. The Vezir, by paying a larger sum to the Valide than she before received, has obtained the Mukata, and exacts from the Metzovites fifty-five purses, besides obliging them to maintain an Albanian guard, nominated
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§ 1.296 by himself. The adjoining slopes produce wheat, barley, and rye; but the wheat is not more than enough for the consumption of a month or two, and the barley still more insufficient, on account of the demand of passengers for their cattle. They have some large flocks of sheep and goats; but the greater part of the men, as in the other mountain villages on the borders of Epirus and Thessaly, seek their fortunes as labourers, artizans, and shopkeepers, in other parts of Turkey, or as merchants in Germany, Hungary, Russia, or the Mediterranean. Those who are not too distant, visit their families for a short time in the summer. The climate, in winter, is described as more severe even than that of Kalarytes. At 2.25 we quit Prosilio, and mounting the hill for half an hour, arrive in a plain called Politzia, inclosed between the heights of Metzovo and Mavro-vuni, which is a long mountain covered with pines, lying in a north and south direction, and forming a northerly continuation of the Zygos. On its slope near the plain is a place called by the Vlakhi Beratori, a name supposed to be a corruption of Imperatoria. Wrought stones, coins, and similar remains of antiquity, are found there, as well as appearances indicative of some process of metallurgy having been carried on in the place. These vestiges, combined with the name, seem to show that a Roman settlement existed here earlier than that of the Dacian or Vlakhiote colonists, whose descendants now occupy these mountains.
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§ 1.297 On the opposite side of the plain to Beratori stands a beech-tree, called in the Vlakhiote tongue Fago scripto, from some appearance of inscriptions on it. The plain produces in summer some rye, and a great abundance of excellent grass, all which is consumed by the cattle of Metzovo or those of passengers. During the remainder of the year the plain is either covered with snow or is in a state of marsh. There are no sheep or cattle upon it, though it is now dry; the soil apparently is good. The small streams which water it flow to the north, through the district of Zagori, towards Konitza, and are therefore the extreme tributaries of the Aous. Having traversed the plain for an hour, we ascend a ridge connected with the northern end of Mavro-vuni, and covered towards the summit with pines, and at 4.30 arrive at the guard of the Tjankurtara derveni, after having passed a large khan of that name a little below the summit of the pass. At the derveni there is nothing but a temporary shed. Here the mountains Mitzikeli and Olytzika are seen in one direction, and in the other Mount Bimno, with the mountain of Siatista to the left of it, and nearer the lower hills about Grevena. After a halt of fifteen minutes we descend from the derveni through a dense forest of large pines, remarkable for the straightness of their stems. On the ascent where the trees are not so close, some of them are fifteen feet in circumference, and sixty or eighty feet high: several of them have been struck with lightning, and are burnt at the top.
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§ 1.298 There is reason to believe from Livy, following Polybius, that this part of Mount Pindus bore the appellation of Citium, probably from a town of that name which stood in some part of the pass leading from Grevena to Ioannina. Mount Citium is mentioned by the historian in his relation of the expedition of Perseus, when he led an army of ten thousand infantry and three hundred horse to Stratus, in the winter of the year 170—169 B.C. On the third day from Elimeia, he reached Mount Citium, where he was much impeded by the deep snow, and with difficulty found sufficient space for encamping. The fourth day, in which his beasts of burthen particularly suffered, terminated at a temple of Jupiter Nicaeus; and the fifth, which was a very long march, at the Arachthus, where he was detained by the swollen state of the river until he had constructed a bridge. At the end of one day’s march from thence he was met by Archidamus, the strategus of the Aetolians, halted on the borders of Aetolia, and on the following day encamped on the Achelous, near Stratus. Perseus appears to have marched through Epirus because the Molossi had invited him, and because the Athamanes, who were on the more direct route, were in alliance with the Romans. As it is evident
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§ 1.299 that he descended upon the right bank of the Arachthus, since otherwise there would have been no necessity for crossing it; and as he made only two marches from his bridge to Stratus, there can be little doubt that he crossed the river not far above Arta, and that his route from Mount Citium was either through Zagori into the plain of Ioannina, or through the same district in a more southern direction to Mount Dhrysko, the site perhaps of Nicaion, and from thence by the Tomarokhoria. In either case it follows, from the geographical construction of the country, that during the long march terminating on the right bank of the Arachthus, he pursued the course of that river, and during all that day perhaps was seeking for a passage. He then, probably, passed through the modern Rhadhovisi to the Achelous, or by the valley of Komboti into that of the Petitarus, but avoiding Ambracia, which was in the hands of the Romans. After following for half an hour a small river, we arrive, at 5.40, at Milia, a Vlakhiote village of forty families, situated in the midst of the forest, on the bank of the stream. A few corn and maize fields dispersed on the hills around, and several mills on the river side, are all the property of the village, except the cattle, which they employ as carriers. We halt ten minutes, and then follow a good horse-path along the banks of the same stream, in a ravine bordered by a continued forest of pines; and at 7.20 quit the river, which here turns to the left of our route in a northerly direction along the foot of a ridge, which is thickly
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§ 1.300 covered with pines, mixed occasionally with beeches and a few horse chestnuts. The numerous small caravans which we meet, show that this is one of the great lines of traffic between Epirus and Macedonia. At 7.30 we arrive at Krania, a Vlakhiote village of fifty neat cottages, pleasantly situated in an opening of the forest, amidst fields of maize and other corn, fenced with a well-made palisading. The scene has an appearance of comfort and successful industry seldom seen in Greek or Turkish villages: but, unhappily for these poor Vlakhiotes, their village has lately become one of Aly Pasha’s tjiftliks. The corn, after deducting the Vezir's portion, suffices only for a small part of the consumption of the inhabitants, whose means of subsistence are chiefly derived from the cheese of their sheep and goats; from the wood which they cut in the forest and transport to Ioannina and other towns; and from the profit of their horses and mules, which are let to traders and travellers. The master of the house in which I lodge, who possesses two horses and two oxen, formerly kept a shop at Smyrna, Constantinople, and Salonika; and now employs himself in transporting wood to Ioannina, Grevena, Larissa, and Trikkala, by which he is just able to pay the twenty per cent, interest on the money he has been obliged to borrow.
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§ 1.301 Sept. 2.—This morning we arrive in half an hour at the summit of a ridge facing Krania to the eastward, just as the sun is rising behind the broad Olympus, as Homer so properly describes that mountain. The range which unites it with Pindus, and at the foot of which are the towns of Siatista and Kastoria, is seen stretching from Olympus to the north-westward. Our road is well beaten, and winds agreeably through a forest of pines and oaks, gradually descending until at the end of one hour and fifty minutes from Krania we pass, at 7.30, through Kiepero, one of the small Vlakhiote villages, of which we have seen several on either side of our road. At Kiepero men and women are employed in threshing rye, by driving a sledge with one man standing upon it, round the threshing-floor. The huts of the Vlakhiotes are well built, and neatly plastered with earth: and to the traveller afford better shelter than the cottages of a similar class among the Greeks and Albanians, the inner apartment being well protected against cold and rain in winter, and most of the cottages having a gallery in front, closed at either end; which is not too cool for a lodging in the fine season, when the inner part of every house, not excepting those of the Vlakhi, swarms with vermin. From Kiepero, having descended rapidly the roots of the mountain where fields of corn and vines, fenced with pallisades, are intermixed with woods consisting of oaks of various kinds, and where the soil, like this side of Mount Pindus in general, seems capable of a productive cultivation, we arrive at 8.40 at the junction of two rivers.
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§ 1.302 The larger is that which we followed down the vale of Milia, and left at Krania, taking there a turn to the left of our route; the other proceeds from the woody sides of Pindus on our right to the southward. A little below the junction a bridge crosses the united stream, which then flows eastward over a rocky bed of limestone, composed of thin flakes lying vertical to the horizon, along a valley closely bounded by undulated downs, like those which border the Orontes near Hama, but with banks not so high. Though now shallow, the river is wide, and in winter impetuous. It is called Venetiko. We follow the right bank for a short distance under a woody hill, then pass below a height of bare rock washed by the river, and afterwards along a narrow vale which is grown with stunted oaks and wild pears, and is bounded by woody hills, or irregular downs of fine corn land, a description of country which continues to a considerable distance below Grevena. At 9 we halt at the Khan of Venetiko, which has lately been built at the expense of a Tutunji, or smoke-master, of the Vezir, and stands on the river-side at a fountain of excellent water, issuing out of the side of the hill. The charge for eggs, butter, melons, water-melons, bread, salt, red pepper, and brandy, is about sixpence a head, which I have some difficulty in persuading my tatar is not unreasonable. Departing at 10.15, we cross the river, and having followed its left bank for a quarter of an hour, traverse some downs to a much smaller stream, which, having also crossed, we immediately ascend, at 11.30, to the Metropolis of the bishopric of Grevena, where stand the cathedral
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§ 1.303 church and palace of the bishop, surrounded by twenty Greek houses. The bishop I left at Ioannina. The Turkish Makhala of Grevena is a mile distant to the north-eastward, and though it contains only eighty families, is the chief place of Grevena which in the plural number comprehends a great number of small Turkish villages and tjiftliks. The country resembles Northern Europe more than Epirus or the other parts of Greece, consisting of an undulated surface, well supplied with sources of water, intersected by numerous streams, and diversified with beautiful groves of oak and other timber trees. Nor is the soil inferior to the aspect, but would produce corn in great abundance, if population and security were here in any moderate proportion to natural advantages. The many πράγματα φορτωμένα, or loaded horses and mules, which we have met on the road from Metzovo, and the far greater part of which were charged with flour, show that even now it supplies Epirus and the islands with bread. The Venetiko and river of Grevena join the Vistritza, separately, to the eastward near the foot of Mount Burino; after which the united river winds round the southern extremity of that mountain to Servia, and having passed that town, flows northward through narrow valleys and deep chasms in the great Olympian range, until it emerges near Berrhoea, which town still preserves its ancient name. There can be no doubt that this great river, which the Turks call Injekara-su, is the ancient Haliacmon.
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§ 1.304 The largest villages in the district of Grevena are Avdhela and Perivolio, inhabited by Vlakhiotes, and each consisting of about 300 houses. They stand near each other on the eastern side of the great ridge to the W.S.W. of Grevena, whence proceeds one of the branches of the Venetiko, which is joined before it enters the plains by those from Spilio and Krania. The Turks of Grevena occupy, as usual, the lower and richer lands. The largest of their villages are Tjurkli and Kryftissa, not far from the river which separates the district of Grevena from that of Anaselitza. To the southward, towards Stagus, Grevena extends six hours over unproductive hills, where the villages are neither large nor numerous. Sept. 4.—From Grevena to Siatista. At 6.35 we descend in a quarter of an hour from the Metropolis to the Musulman quarter, which has a ruinous and wretched appearance, like all the Turkish villages of Greece. After following the left bank of the river for a quarter of an hour, we turn to the left across an undulated country, intersected by narrow valleys, where the cultivated land is mixed with woods of oaks. Neither the olive nor the mulberry for the silkworm, are grown in this country, which produces scarcely any thing but grain and cattle, with a little wine; but carts, which are not to be met with in the great plains of Arta, Ioannina, or Arghyrokastro, are used in agriculture; they are drawn by two oxen, run upon four solid trucks, and have a square space for the load, inclosed within wattled sides.
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§ 1.305 At 7.45 we pass to the left of the small Turkish village of Kubla, and at 8.30, opposite to another similar hamlet called Dovrado, we cross a small branch of the Vistritza. From thence the road traverses a rich and pleasant country of the same description as before, but little cultivated, until at 9.30 we arrive at a khan, and a high narrow bridge of six arches called Pasha Kiupri, which crosses the Vistritza just at the point where, after having pursued an easterly course, it turns to the south along the foot of Mount Burino. At 10.15 we quit the khan, and ford the river a quarter of a mile above the bridge, then immediately leaving to the right the road to Venja and Servia, we ascend the slope of the mountain of Siatista, having the Turkish village Iankovo a little on the left. An opening between the mountain of Siatista and Mount Burino shows the mountain of Verria, the ancient Bermius. Soon afterwards we enter the vineyards of Siatista, and mounting a rocky hill, arrive at the principal makhala called η χώρα at 11.45. After some delay we are sent to the lower quarter, named γιεράνη, from whence I am conducted back again to the Khora, to the house of Kyr N., one of the archons, and nephew of the bishop of Siatista, whose ordinary residence is here, but who happens at present to be at Selitza. His title is bishop of Sisanium and Satista, the vulgar pronunciation of which is Shatsta. His superior is the archbishop of Akhridha.
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§ 1.306 The town, which contains about 500 houses, is situated upon a narrow level, between the upper and lower heights of a high rocky mountain, at the foot of which extends a large tract of vineyards. From this fruit the Siatistans make some of the best wine in Rumili, and which has an extensive sale in Macedonia and Thessaly, but is seldom sent into Epirus, on account of the difficulty of transport over the Pindus. The wine is of four sorts:—1. The ηλιουμένον, or sun-dried, which is a mixture of white and red grapes, left for eight days in the sun, or for six weeks in a covered building, after which the produce is a white sweet wine, of strong body and high flavour. 2. A dry, white wine. 3. A dry, red wine. 4. The αψιθινον, or wine of Absinthium, which is made also in other parts of Greece, and is flavoured with a species of Artemisia, laid among the grapes when placed in the press. This wine is sweet and high flavoured, but not the better for the wormwood. The Siatistans keep their wines three, four, five years, and sometimes more. Each considerable proprietor has a wine-press, and there are cellars under all the larger houses, exhibiting the agreeable spectacle of butts arranged in order, as in civilized Europe. The most stony soils are held to produce the best wine. The grapes this year have not attained their full growth, in consequence of the want of rain, and the vintage, it is expected, will be small in quantity, though good in quality.
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§ 1.307 I was not a little surprised to observe the proofs of drought in the appearance of the vineyards, the weather having been very different in Epirus. It shows the great atmospheric difference between the two sides of Mount Pindus. Besides their wine, the Siatistans have to boast of the excellence of their mutton, fed on the delicate herbage of their limestone mountain; and of an abundance of game. The hares are even troublesome, being so numerous, that when the snow lies upon the vineyards, as it often does in the winter for many days together, it is a common custom to go in pursuit of them without dogs, and to kill them with sticks, half famished as they then are, and unable to run. A little earlier in the season they afford good sport, and coursing is a common amusement of the Siatistans. Our mode of killing partridges on the wing they are not accustomed to, nor have I seen it in any part of Greece. The birds, indeed, which are all of the red-legged species, are larger, longer in their flight, and wilder than ours; and it is not very easy to shoot them. To catch them in nets is the common practice in Greece, but they are seldom seen for sale in the markets. They are more abundant however in Macedonia and Epirus than in Southern Greece. Almost every family in Siatista has one member of it residing as a merchant in Italy, Hungary, Austria, or other parts of Germany, and there are few of the elders who have not spent ten or twelve years of their lives in one of those countries. German is of course very generally spoken, and Italian almost as much.
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§ 1.308 The houses are convenient, clean, and well furnished, and the people more curious in their tables than any I have met with in Greece. This, as the stipendiary physician of the place observes to me, is almost the only source of disease, so healthy is the air and situation. But they drink, he remarks, rather too much of their own good wine, of which one of his patients is an example, who is now dying of the effects of a fall from his horse, after an indulgence of that kind. This physician’s name is Paul Renaud, son of a Frenchman, who was attached to the English Consulate at Zante. His brother is now French Commissaire in that island, and there was a third brother in the English East India service, who rose to be agent at Busra. All this, which I happened to know, was news to M. Paul, who, having written to his brothers some years ago and received no answer, had long been ignorant of the fate of them both. The Siatistans complain bitterly of the oppressions of Aly Pasha. They say, that not contented with robbing those who have, he puts in prison those who have not, and thus succeeds sometimes in extracting money from their relatives. The ordinary annual payments, regular and irregular, amount to five hundred purses, besides which the bishop makes the Vezir an annual offering of 4000 piastres, 2000 each half year. Such has been the practice for the last twelve years. Like the Kalarytiotes, the Siatistans have lately been obliged to supply workmen and horses for the castle of Suli.
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§ 1.309 When Aly makes a tour round this part of his territory, he never fails to visit this place. The Archons generally meet him in the plain, and offer perhaps twenty purses, begging him not to come into the town. He receives the present with smiles, promises that he will not put his friends to inconvenience, afterwards comes a little nearer, informs them that no provisions are to be had in the plain, and after being supplied upon the promise of not entering the town, quarters on them, in the course of a day or two more, with his whole suite, perhaps for several days, nor retires until he has received a fresh donation. In these progresses he expects something from every village, and will accept the smallest offerings from individuals. His sons in travelling fail not to follow so good an example. As he dares not exercise this kind of oppression in Albania, the districts on the eastern side of Pindus are the great sufferers; and neither pestilence nor famine are more dreaded by the poor natives than the arrival of those little scraps of coarse paper scrawled with a few Greek characters, and stamped with the well-known little seal which makes Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia tremble. Sometimes these papers contain a request, that in consequence of a momentary want of money, they will supply him with a few purses, and place them to his account, though he has never been known to admit of any deduction in consequence of these loans from the annual contributions. It is admitted, that sometimes the Pasha is supplied with a pretext for his extortions by the Greeks themselves, who have the folly to refer their quarrels to him. In these cases, after extorting something from both
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§ 1.310 parties, he commonly ends by sending his decision by some faithful servant, with an order that he shall receive 500 or 1000 piastres for his trouble in carrying the letter. This is generally some favourite Albanian, who, having been for several years employed in executing the Vezir’s orders without reward, is at length recompensed in this manner at other people’s expence. Not long ago the riches of a certain great cattle-feeder, brother-in-law of Kyr N., having excited the Pasha’s avarice, was kept in prison until he had paid thirty purses, and was then obliged to feed his cattle in certain pastures of the Vezir’s not far from Siatista, where His Highness hired thieves to carry off 2000 sheep. The usual mode of squeezing a rich man, is to send for him to Ioannina, and put him in prison upon some pretended accusation. There are no means of avoiding the summons but by flight, which with a family is extremely difficult, as the Pasha generally takes care to keep a strict watch upon the motions of all the relatives of those who are known to possess property. Numerous emigrations have, nevertheless, taken place, in consequence of the late Extension of Aly’s power; and many of the merchants of Moskhopoli, Korytza, Kastoria, Selitza, Kozani, and Servia, instead of carrying on commerce as formerly with correspondents or relatives in Germany, or other parts of Europe, have withdrawn into those countries, while some have migrated to other parts of Turkey. The Osmanlis of Thessaly and Macedonia entertain as great a dread of Aly as the Greeks themselves, and perhaps a more keen hatred; because it is inflamed
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§ 1.311 by a consciousness of military inferiority. On the other hand, the Greeks of these countries are ready to admit that they are much more secure now from the lawless depredations and highway robberies of the Albanians than they were before the extension of Aly’s power over these districts, when there was little safety in the roads; and when Siatista among other places had often to resist the organized attacks of Albanian freebooters made in great force. Hence the houses of the town have all been built with a view to defence as well as comfort. Each has its small garden, but which, from the deficiency of water, serves only to supply a few vegetables in the spring and early summer. Sept. 5.—This forenoon, in company with Kyr N. and M. Renaud, I visit the Boghaz, or Klisura of Siatista, a remarkable pass, leading from the champaign country of the Injekara, or Vistritza, into the plain of Sarighioli. The latter name is a Turkish word, meaning yellow lake; the common use of which by the Greeks in preference to their synonym λίμνη κίτρινη, shows that we here approach the limit of the general use of the Greek language. Sarighioli comprehends a large extent of level country, subject to inundations, one of which is in part permanent. We were twenty
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§ 1.312 minutes in descending from Siatista through vineyards to the beginning of the pass, from whence in one hour and twenty minutes more we arrived at the end, where it opens into a plain which branches off to the left behind the mountain of Siatista, and from thence conducts into the district of Kariani, or Karaianni, which, like Sarighioli and another named Djuma, to the eastward of the former and southward of the latter, is inhabited chiefly by Turks dispersed in many small villages. The whole of this champaign country is bounded eastward by a lofty range of mountains, branching northward from Olympus, and at the eastern foot of which stand the Greek towns of Verria, Niausta, and Vodhena, on the edge of the great plain of Lower Macedonia, which extends to Saloniki. Karaianni is separated from Sarighioli by a ridge of inferior heights, and from the district of Kozani, which town is situated three or four hours eastward of the Klisura, by other hills of greater elevation which branch from Mount Burino. The Klisura of Siatista is a valley about a quarter of a mile in width, included between the mountain of Siatista, which is a high white naked rock, and another mountain to the south equally steep and lofty, but green with shrubs. The latter is called Tjervena and is connected to the southward with Burino: it is noted among the sportsmen of Siatista for its abundance of partridges. The vale of Klisura consists of open corn land, interspersed with wild pear-trees, which, though one of the
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§ 1.313 most common natives of Greece, are not indigenous here, but are planted by the peasants, to whom they are recommended by the toughness of the wood serving many useful purposes in agricultural machinery, and by the dense shade of the tree, which never grows to such a height or expansion as to injure the corn. The lands of Karaianni and Siatista meet in the middle of the pass: near this spot stands the tomb of Selim Bey, of Monastir, who, after having been kept in prison at Ioannina seven years by the Vezir, was at last dismissed with an appearance of friendship; but on his way home was strangled in his bed at Siatista by one of his own attendants. Having returned from the Klisura to Siatista, I set out from thence at 4.15, with the same two gentlemen as companions, for Selitza, which lies in the opposite direction to the Klisura. There are two Hellenic ruins near Siatista, one on the face of Mount Tjervena, three quarters of an hour distant from the lower makhala of Siatista, at a village which receives the name of Paleokastro from the ruins. The other bears the common Bulgaric name of Gradish, or Graditza, and stands on the highest point of the lower ridge of the Siatista mountain, in front of the upper town. Neither of them being of large dimensions, they may both, perhaps, have been fortresses, dependent upon a city which occupied the site of Siatista itself. By the learned of this place, Graditza is supposed to be the ancient Tyrissa, a Macedonian city noticed by Pliny and Ptolemy, but as the latter places
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§ 1.314 its name next to that of Europus in Emathia, there is reason to believe that Tyrissa was very far from hence to the north-eastward. Whatever the name may have been, the situation was of great importance, as commanding the principal entrance into Macedonia from the plains of the Haliacmon, which river was here the boundary between Upper Thessaly and Upper Macedonia. It seems to have been near Siatista that Domitius Calvinus was encamped when opposed to Scipio, while Caesar was employed against Pompey in Illyria. We learn from the Commentaries that Scipio occupied some heights on the right bank of the river, at a distance of about six miles from the camp of Domitius. Scipio leaving twelve cohorts under Favonius, with orders to fortify his position, attempted to surprise Longinus, who commanded a legion of Caesarians in Thessaly, but was speedily recalled by Favonius, and returned just in time to prevent an attack upon him from the superior forces of Domitius. Soon after his return, Scipio crossed the river, but no action ensued; and on the second night he found it prudent to resume his station on the right bank. In a subsequent attempt to surprise the enemy's foragers, eighty of his cavalry were slain, and soon afterwards he was tempted to quit his strong position by a stratagem of Domitius, who pretended to retire for the sake of obtaining supplies, but withdrew only three miles into a pass, which concealed his whole force.
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§ 1.315 The cavalry and light-armed in advance of Scipio, on entering the pass, discovered the ambuscade, but too late to prevent the loss of two turmae and a prefect. The Klisura of Siatista seems perfectly adapted to this transaction from its nature and its situation relatively to the Haliacmon, but still more as being the Gate which led from the extensive open country watered by that river through Sarighioli, which was probably the ancient Eordaea into Lyncestis; for we learn from Caesar, that Domitius afterwards really retired to Heraclia (of Lyncestis ), where he narrowly escaped from falling into the hands of the enemy, marching into Macedonia after his victory over Caesar at Dyrrhachium. A position in front of a pass, which secured the entrance into a large extent of fertile country, was exactly such as we may suppose to have been chosen by Domitius for his camp.
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§ 1.316 CHAPTER VII MACEDONIA SEPT. 5, (continued).—Leaving the peak of Graditza on the left, we descend the mountain from Siatista by a rocky road, and at 5 enter again the plain of the Vistritza; where near the foot of the mountain, to the left, the river Pramoritza joins the Vistritza below the village of Tzenisia. We continue our route along the foot of the ridge of Siatista, and at 6.20 arrive at Selitza, which is situated in the hollow of a ravine descending from the summit of the same mountain, and at the head of a slope which towards the Vistritza is covered with vineyards. Numerous springs water the gardens of Selitza, and render the situation preferable to that of Siatista in every respect except those of its healthy elevation and coolness in summer. Selitza is two or three miles distant from the river which here pursues a course
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§ 1.317 parallel to the foot of the mountains, and receives from them several small streams. The summit above Selitza, which is higher than either of the other points of the same chain, namely, Burino, and the mountain of Siatista, is named Σινιατζικον, vulgarly pronounced Sinatjko. On the other side of it are the villages Platissa and Pepelista, below which lies the plain of Sarighioli. In front of Selitza, beyond the great valley of the Haliacmon, the entire range of Pindus is presented to view, from the summits near Metzovo to a point beyond Korytza, called Xerovuni. Mount Smolika, or Zmolska, above the Vlakhiote town of Samarina, is the most remarkable peak, beyond which, above the centre of the range, and to the left of Mount Smolika, is seen the great ser rated rock called Lazari, which is near the village of Papingo in Zagori, and not far to the southward of Konitza. The undulated low country, which borders the Vistritza and its western branches, constitutes the district of Anaselitza, of which the Turkish Kassaba or capital, named Lapsista, is visible at the distance of a few miles to the westward. Selitza formerly contained many Greek merchants trading to Germany, but having fallen into the hands of the Vezir Aly, it has been abandoned by them. The houses are tolerably built, and have good gardens; the vineyards yield a wine not much inferior to that of Siatista; the other cultivated lands produce wheat, barley, maize, and millet; but none of the richer productions of lower Macedonia or Southern Greece are found in
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§ 1.318 these cold regions; neither silk nor cotton, rice nor oil. An olive tree planted by the bishop in his garden at Siatista did not thrive after the second year. On my inquiring of the bishop for remains of antiquity, he sends for an inscription which he has partly traced in charcoal, and partly copied, but without attending to the lines of the original, from a marble still existing in a monastery near Sisani, which, though now only a small village, is one of the places from which his bishopric takes its title. The monument shows that at Sisani, or near it, stood a city of some importance, but not named in the inscription,—an unfortunate omission, as the ancient authors have left no description of this part of the country sufficiently precise to supply the deficiency. Elimeia I should conceive to have been nearer to Grevena. The inscription is complete at the beginning, but imperfect at the end; it contains a list of Ephebi, with the names of the gymnasiarch and ephebarch, and a notice that the city supplied the oil for the gymnastic exercises. It is dated in the year 135, which, taken from the battle of Actium, corresponds to 105 from the birth of Christ, or the eighth year of the reign of Trajan.
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§ 1.319 Sept. 6.—After treating the bishop with an English breakfast, which seems not much to his taste, I proceed on horseback with my two companions to the monastery of St. Athanasius, situated in a wood on the side of Mount Siniatziko, and afterwards to one of the nearer summits on foot, a laborious walk, and scarcely worth the fatigue, as the height commands no very important points that are not seen from below, with the exception of Olympus, which rises above the ridge of Siniatziko in all its breadth and majesty, and shows its superiority to this range still more strikingly than from the plain. A little to the left of Olympus appears the mountain of Livadhi, or Vlakholivadho, a large Vlakhiote town, four hours beyond Servia, in the direction of Olympus. On a little elevated plain between us and the summit which rises above Siatista stands Konasko, a small village formerly noted for the skill of its inhabitants in the use of the musquet, their activity in climbing the mountains, and those other qualities of the independent mountaineers of Greece and Albania, one of which was generally a disposition to robbery. They have been subdued, and are now kept in quiet by the strong arm of Aly Pasha. The monastery contains at present no more than three monks, all the others being absent on their usual tours of begging, which sometimes carry them as far as Germany. The house is supported by these means, and by the produce of a few corn-fields and sheep pastures in the bosom of the mountain, assisted by the presents made to the church by the neighbouring
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§ 1.320 inhabitants, who often come in the summer to pass a day or two in this pleasant retreat, and on the festival of the saint, frequent it in considerable numbers. The monks are building a new konak for the accommodation of their profitable visitors, while a painter, who has the reputation of being one of the best in Greece, is employed in the church in retouching, new silvering, and gilding the pictures of the saints. In the minutiae of drapery, in the expression of muscles and features, his effect and finishing are remarkable, while the figures themselves are in the usual Greek taste, intolerably stiff and unnatural. But they resemble in many respects the early productions of the Italians, among whom the revived art of painting had its beginning in the pictures of the Greek church. The same painter is the most celebrated performer on the violin in this part of the country, and fails not to be in attendance whenever there is an assembly at the monastery. At 3.20, taking leave of my two companions and the bishop, I proceed through the vineyards at the foot of the mountain, and cross at 3.50 a small branch of the Haliacmon, coming from the mountain on the right. Sisani stands on the right bank of this stream, at the distance of two hours from this spot. The hills seen up the glen are well wooded, and are not so high as the bare white summits above Selitza and Siatista.

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