the district called Rhiza or Rhizoma
ends, and the traveller enters Sphakia.
Leaving the plain, the road enters the
gorge or pass which leads to Askýfo.
The mountains on either side are lofty
and generally barren, though inter-
spersed with ilexes. It was through
this pass that the Mahommedans fled
in August, 1821, after a disastrous con-
flict with the Christians in the plain of
Askýfo, and are said to have lost on
this occasion 900 men, as well as many
mules laden with military stores and
their 3 field-pieces. An ascent of 40
minutes from Krápi leads to the highest
point of the ridge, whence a descent of
20 minutes brings us to Askýfo, situated
nearly 2000 feet below the highest sum-
mits of the Sphakian mountains, and
between 4000 and 5000 above the level
of the sea.
The hamlets round the
plain, known under the common name
of Askýfo, are called respectively Goní,
Péra-Goní, Pétres, Mudári, Kóstos,
Stavrorákhi, and Karés. The present
number of families at Askýfo is 160, all
Christians, as is the case throughout
Sphakia. The town of Sphakia, on the
southern coast of the island, is the
winter residence of the Askýfiots.

The villages known by the common name of Anópolis are Limnæa, Skala, Marianá, Gýros, Kámpos, St. Demetrius, Kampiá, and Rhiza, at the last of which the traveller arrives, after crossing the plain. It is situated on a rocky elevation on the S. side of the plain, which is only partly cultivated. Very interesting details of the peculiar manners of the Sphakiots, and of their local dialect-a relic, doubtless, of the old Cretan-Doric-will be found in Pashley's Crete, chaps. xxxv., xxxvi., and xxxvii.

An ascent of a few minutes up the rocky elevation, at the foot of which the village of Rhiza is situated, brings the traveller to the site of an ancient city, whence there is a view, along the southern coast, as far as the point of Mesará.

Franko Kastello, the scene of Khadji Mikhali's fatal contest and death,* is 12 miles off. Just by the castle is the whitewashed church of the Panaghia, which forms a very distinct object. Below us, and 2 miles off, is the port of Lutrón, and its little village, the winter residence of the Anópolitans. It is, as has been already observed, the port of the Sphakiots; and is probably the Port Phoenix of antiquity. The ruins where we are standing may be those of the ancient city of Phoenix. The whole circumference of the rocky elevation occupied by the ancient city is 1 mile. The chief remains are to the W., where a considerable piece of ancient wall still exists. Its length is about 300 paces, and its width generally about 6 feet. The height varies from 5 feet to 11 feet, and the chisel has nowhere been used on any of the stones. Among the ruins are many cisterns.

After crossing the plain of Askýfo, an ascent commences, which continues without intermission for 1 hour. Descending by a very bad path, we follow its windings along the S. side of this great chain of the White Mountains, and not very far from their summits: in about 1 hour the road improves, and the African sea and island of Gozo are in sight. Trees grow on all these mountains, except quite on the summits of the highest ranges. In hour the road passes a fountain of beautiful water, shaded by a solitary fig-tree. This spot is 2 miles N.N.W. of the village of Muri. An hour hence the road leaves When the Turkish force, during the the valley it had followed for some time, war, was at Murí, on its way to Anówhen the islet of Gozo and the project-polis, they captured, along with other ing point of Mesará are in view. Look- persons, a young mother and her infant, ing back, both Pselorítes (Ida). and whom she carried in her arms. She Kendros are in sight. From this point was beautiful enough to be an object of the road, which is very bad, descends contention among those who laid claim along the sides of the mountains 4 miles to the spoil, and, while her brutal capto the plain of Anópolis. *See below, p. 374.

tors, when at Anópolis, were quarrelling who should possess her, she went out, with her child in her arms, to one of the large open wells near the village, and, plunging into it, escaped the horrors of slavery by a voluntary death. Mr. Pashley has recorded this anecdote as one of the many which he heard related as characteristic of the Greek revolution. Similar was the conduct of the Suliot women, who threw themselves from their native cliffs rather than be seized by the Moslems.

due W. is the church of St. Paul, close to waich a plenteous stream of water rushes out of the beach, and forming a rapid stream, flows into the sea. Another fountain in the island is also honoured by the derivation of its name from St. Paul, who is said to have used the water to baptize his Cretan converts. It is near Hierapetra, "where they say St. Paul preached: there is a large chapel, having 12 pillars all cut out of the rock, which was done by the Christians in the night-time. Close by is a fountain, where they say he used to baptize, and it is now called St. Paul's fountain; the water thereof is very good to cure such as have sore eyes." The Cretan tradition relates that St. Paul conferred similar benefits on Crete, as Maltese tradition affirms him to have conferred on that island-freeing it from wild beasts and noxious animals.

Leaving Rhiza, and crossing the plain in a westerly direction, we reach the hamlet of St. Demetrius. Thence the road crosses the low ridge which bounds the plain of Anópolis on this side, and reaches, in hour, the brink of a chasm running S. of the village of Arádena. The path winds along each side of this nearly perpendicular cleft, of several hundred feet in depth. At We shall pause here to comment on every 10 or 12 paces the path changes St. Paul's visit to Crete, so far as it is its course. These turns are the only known from the narrative of the Acts of very dangerous points. A similar ascent the Apostles, chap. xxvii. 7-16. The leads to the opposite summit of the ship conveying the Apostle was forced chasm. The descent and subsequent by an adverse wind to run to the S. of ascent on the opposite side to the village Crete from Cnidus, a promontory at of Arádena occupies 25 minutes. A few the S.W. of Asia Minor; "We sailed slight remains of antiquity indicate under" (i.e. under the shelter or lee of) Arádena, or its immediate neighbour-" Crete, over against Salmone" (which hood, as the site of the ancient Cretan is the eastern extremity of the island); city of the same name. mile W. of "and, hardly passing it, came unto a the modern village, there have been dis- place which is called the Fair Havens" covered some ancient tombs. (a name which it still retains). As it After leaving Arádena, the village of was already autumn, the season had Livadianá is 1 mile to the left, and arrived when it was considered unsafe, W. of the chasm which was crossed be- in those days of timid navigation, to fore reaching Arádena: soon after, attempt voyages in the open sea. It changing its course, the road approaches became then a matter of very serious nearer the shore, and in about 1 hour's consideration whether they should retime Sélino-Kastélli is visible. The main at Fair Havens for the winter, or path lies over rugged rocks, In these seek some safer and more sheltered parts of the island the traveller should, harbour. St. Paul's advice was very perhaps, substitute a mule for a horse, strongly given that they should remain A zigzag road now winds down the where they were: perhaps his prophetic face of a rocky and almost perpendi- powers were acting in combination with cular precipice, at the bottom of which the insight derived from long experience the traveller still finds himself at a of "perils in the sea (2 Cor. xi. 26). considerable elevation above the sea; "Nevertheless the centurion believed the descent continues, and, though less steep, still by a zigzag path, and at length reaches the sea-shore. 1 mile

the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were *Randolph's 'State of Candia' (1687).

worship, is on the shore at the entrance of the glen of St. Ruméli, but very slight vestiges of antiquity remain there. At a place called Trypeté, between St. Ruméli and Súia, are some slight traces of antiquity, marking the site of Pakilassos.

Leaving the village of St. Ruméli to explore the glen as far as Samaría, the path is so narrow in some parts where it winds round abrupt precipices, that no horse could pass along it; in the first

spoken by Paul. And because the Tarrha, which is interesting as one of haven was not commodious to winter the earliest localities of the Apollo in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phoenice, and there to winter: which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south-west and north-west." Messrs. Conybeare and Howson (Life and Epistles of St. Paul, chap. xxiii.) consider that "there cannot be a doubt, both from the notices in ancient writers and the continuance of ancient names upon the spot, that Phoenix (or Phoenice) is to be identified with the modern Lutron. This is a harbour which is sheltered from the winds above mentioned: and, without entering fully into the discussions which have arisen upon this subject, we give it as our opinion that the difficulty is to be explained, simply by remembering that sailors speak of everything from their own point of view, and that such a harbour does 'look'-from the water towards the land which encloses it—in the direction of S.W. and N.W."

Sailing, therefore, with a gentle southern breeze from the Fair Havens, the sailors hoped to reach Port Phoenix, or Lutron; but the ship was suddenly caught by the Euroclydon (probably the Gregale, or hurricane from the N.E., still so dreaded in the Levant), and driven first "under a certain island which is called Clauda" (the modern Gozo), and thence across the open sea towards Melita or Malta. The English traveller will always rejoice in elucidating the journeys and voyages of the great Apostle of the Gentiles.

Leaving the spring and chapel of St. Paul, we follow the shore, and in hour we reach the entrance of the valley of St. Ruméli, and Samaría. On each side of the glen are bold hanging mountains, with a river rushing between them over its rocky bed. 1 mile up the glen is the village of St. Ruméli. The villagers say that the lofty mountains by which they are surrounded are the best fortresses to be found in Crete, and the only place within which the Turks never penetrated during the long war between 1821 and 1830. The site of

hour the river is crossed five or six times, and then the traveller arrives at a most striking pass, commonly called the Gates (óprass). The width of this chasm is about 10 feet at the ground, and widens to about 30 feet or at the most 40 feet at the top. The length of the way through which the traveller must pass in the middle of the stream is 60 paces, and for 100 farther he is more in than out of the water, having to cross the torrent several times. 20 minutes farther the rocks again contract, so as to become nearly perpendicular, and in a few minutes we reach a spot called the Turk's Pass, from the fact of a Mahommedan having been killed there, during the attempted invasion of Sphakia, in 1770. In 20 minutes more we reach a cluster of fine plane-trees, and a copious source called Kephalovrýsis, which supplies the river with great part of its water. contortions of the rocks near this spot show how violent must have been the operation of the causes which threw them into their present shapes. On approaching Samaría, cypresses are seen in great numbers on the mountain sides.

The

1 hour above Samaría are some ruins, called by the natives "the last refuge of the ancient Hellenes," but discovered by Mr. Pashley to have no claim to the title of Hellenic remains, being the vestiges of a medieval fort. The wildness and magnificence of the scenery, however, amply repay the traveller for the labour of the ascent. 3 miles from Samaría, at the foot of the White Mountains, is the monastery of St. Nicholas,

surrounded by the largest cypresses in found in Gordon's History, &c., book Crete. It lies N.W., in the direction of vii. chap. v. the Xylóskalo. These cypresses are still regarded with a sort of superstitious veneration by the mountaineers of Sphakia.

SECTION IV.

ALBANIA, THESSALY, MACEDONIA.

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION.

1. Historical Sketch and actual condition, &c.-2. Climate, Soil, &c.-3. Passports.-4. Boats and Packets.-5. Money.-6. Character of the Albanians, &c.— 7. Peculiarities of Manners and Dress.—8. Dances.—9. Directions for Travelling, Accommodation, &c.-10. Skeleton Tours.

1. HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ACTUAL CONDITION, &C.

415

418

428

432

435

For an account of the history, laws, institutions, and statistics of the Turkish Empire, and for the character, manners, and customs of the Ottomans, see HANDBOOK FOR TURKEY. There are but few Ottomans, i. e. Turks by race, in the provinces of Albania, Thessaly, and Macedonia. For a general account of the inhabitants of those provinces, see supra, GENERAL INTRODUCTION, pp. 42-52.

2. CLIMATE, SOIL, &c. (see GENERAL INTRODUCTION, d, e).

Our remarks on these subjects in treating of the Kingdom of Greece (SECTION II., 2) are, in a great measure, applicable also to Thessaly, Macedonia, and Albania, except that portions of these latter provinces are still more wild and mountainous than the more southern districts of Greece.

The population of Oriental countries is always more or less a matter of guesswork. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we set down the entire population of European Turkey at about 8 millions, of which number not more than one million are Ottomans, and not quite 3 millions professing Mahommedans of any race. The remainder are Greek, Wallachian, Slavonian, and Albanian Christians, almost entirely of the Greek Church, and acknowledging the Patriarch of Constantinople as their ecclesiastical head. More particularly, the population of Albania may be calculated at about 900,000, of which number above half are Mahommedan Albanians, while 60,000 are Latins, and the remainder Greek Christians. On a similar rough estimate, Thessaly would contain about 300,000, all Greeks, except 50,000 Mahommedans and about 10,000 Jews. So in Macedonia, with a total of 800,000, there are, in round numbers, 200,000 Mahommedans, 120,000 Jews and Armenians, the remainder being Slavonians and Greeks of the Eastern Church. It is to be observed, however, that by other authorities the entire population of European Turkey has been calculated to amount to from 12 to 14 millions; but there is reason to believe that this latter is a highly exaggerated estimate.