24

ITS PUBLIC SCHOOLS, &c.

one Ghioni, a merchant of this city, who had acquired a large fortune by commercial speculations in Valachia. He placed the funds for the support of this foundation in the bank of Venice, which being confiscated when the French took possession of that republic, the school has since been supported by the genuine liberality of an excellent family named Zosimas, long settled in Russia, Poland and Austria, and who being free from the oppression of despotic power, and enlightened by an intermixture with more civilized nations, seek, in their enthusiastic love for their native country, to pour the treasures of literature into her bosom; and as they are unable to assist her degraded sons by arms, aim at supplying thein with the more sure, though slow remedies of knowledge*. About 300 scholars are taught in this seminary, at the head of which is Signore Balano, a most venerable man and excellent scholar: his long white beard descending to his waist, with his mild, amiable manners, brings forcibly to the mind a picture of an ancient philosophert. At the school over which Signore Psalida presides, about one hundred boys are educated: it was founded only thirty years ago by a rich merchant named Picrozoe, born at Gramenou, a small village in the vicinity of Ioannina. To both these seminaries are attached excellent libraries: that of Psalida's possesses also a pair of fine globes, and some good astronomical instruments. system of teaching, partly similar to that instituted by Dr. Bell, has been long established in this place. The Turks do not give themselves

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These benevolent brothers have deposited a large sum for this purpose in the bank of Moscow: by their exertions and munificence a vast number of Romaic books are constantly published and distributed over Greece, with grammars and elementary treatises; they afford assistance for any promising literary publication, and supply many young men of talent with the means of travelling for improvement, or studying at foreign universities. I believe that excellent patriot and accomplished scholar Korai, who is using every exertion to clear his native language from the corruptions of the mixobarous style into which it had fallen, owes his first patronage to the benevolence of the Zosimades.

The geographer Miletius, a native of Ioannina, and afterwards archbishop of Athens, was master of this school, as also was the celebrated Eugenius of Corfu, who translated the Eneid into Greek hexameters. Signore Balano has published a Treatise on Algebra and Arithmetic. His father and his brother were both masters of the school before him. these of Ioannina are at Constantinople, Smyrna, Pelion, Mount Athos, Athens, Chios and Patmos.

The principal Greek schools in Turkey besides Buckarest, Kidhonies, Salonica, Milies on Mount Venice and Vienna are the chief marts for books.

much trouble about the education of their children: a man amongst them who is able to write, is looked on as a being of a superior order, and assumes vast importance by carrying a calamboio, or silver inkstand, as the sign of his mystery, stuck in his girdle. Still there are two large buildings in Ioannina appropriated to this purpose, and to every mosque a small room is attached, in which children are taught to read the Koran. The Greek churches of Ioannina are in general large and ornamented with much gilding: they form a striking contrast with the Turkish mosques, which are singularly plain. As the vizir cares very little about any religion, he is extremely tolerant of all, and in no part of Turkey are the Greeks allowed so many privileges: that which they seem to value most, is the power of calling together their congregations by a bell: the Mahometans disdain to do this by any other sound than that of the human voice; and certainly the sonorous tones of their muzzeins issuing from the light galleries of the airy minarets, wafted over all the city at the hours of prayer, produce an extraordinary and sublime effect.

The chief commerce of Ioannina is carried on with Constantinople, Russia, Venice, and Malta. From the first it procures shawls, turbans, amber, and a variety of toys; from the second oxen, horses, skins, and ermine; from Venice come rich velvets, red skull-caps, and many articles of hardware; from Malta various English manufactures and colonial produce: many houses of Ioannina have a partner, or some connexion, established in these places. Every article pays an ad valorem duty at the Dogana of four per cent. The chief exports sent in exchange are, cotton from the plains of Triccala, Zeitun, and Livadia, raw silk from Thessaly, Lepanto, and Salona, Valonéan bark from Acarnania, prepared goat and sheep skins, and sometimes, though not very frequently, grain. Great profit accrues to the merchants of Ioannina from the distribution of their imports over the smaller towns and villages of Epirus: their domestic manufactures are not numerous: indeed here, as in other countries, the state of manu

26

PRODUCE OF THE SOIL-FOOD OF THE INHABITANTS.

factures is a fair criterion of the state of civilization: whilst the workmanship of all articles that may conduce to general comfort, convenience, and utility, or to the interests of philosophy and science, is quite contemptible, great industry and considerable skill is exhibited in the embroidery of cloth, in filagree, in working silver handles for pistols, muskets, and ataghans, and in ornamenting pipe-heads.

The soil around Ioannina yields grain of most kinds, viz. wheat, barley, arabositi, calamboci, beans and peas: its fruits are grapes, figs, peaches, apricots, plums, almonds, cherries, quinces, oranges, lemons, pears and apples; great abundance of the latter are imported from the district of Zagori, on the other side the lake, and conveyed in boats across the water*: hemp and very fine tobacco is also grown in certain spots. The town is plentifully supplied with fish and wildfowl from the lake, and the surrounding plains and mountains furnish abundance of game: hares, however, owing to a particular superstition, are never eaten either by Turks or Greeks. Very little animal food is consumed here comparatively, as in other Grecian cities. The diet of all ranks is rather spare and simple: oil enters into almost every article of culinary composition, and is relished the better for a slight taint or haut-gout. Botargo, which is the roe of the red or grey mullet, and caviar, which is that of the sturgeon, imported from the Black Sea, form a very favourite diet, especially during the season of religious fasts. Cow's milk is never used for diet; only that of sheep and goats, from which also a cheese is made which is very pungent and disagreeable to the taste. Ducks and geese are scarce, but fowls and turkeys very plentiful: turtle-doves are also plentiful and much esteemed, as also beccaficos at the proper season of the year: the wine used at table is less impregnated with

“Orbiculata ex figura

Epirus was celebrated in ancient times for fine apples, called orbiculata. orbis in rotunditatem circumacti: hæc in Epiro primum provenisse argumento sunt Græci qui Epirotica vocant." Plin. N. Hist. 1. xv. c. 14.

resin than in other parts of Greece, except what is drank by the poorer classes, which is a villanous compound, and like most other marketable commodities, bought by weight: the chief food of these classes consists of a coarse yellow polenta made of arabositi, which looks very like a rice-pudding*; under an idea that it might resemble it also in taste, I once purchased a lump for a para, and was nearly choked by the first mouthful, being obliged to wash it down with a most nauseous draught of resined wine from the same shop, almost as bad as spirits of turpentine.

The climate of Ioannina is more variable than is generally found in Greece: in the summer the heat is quite oppressive: the winter is sometimes very rainy, at others extremely cold, and the inhabitants, who at one season of the year clothe themselves in the lightest apparel, at the other wrap themselves up in robes lined with furs: the common people preserve their shivering limbs from the severity of the weather beneath cloaks of thick homespun fleecy cloth. Earthquakes are common, and most frequent in the autumn: they sometimes throw down the houses, and the fish have been known cast out of the lake upon dry ground.

Amongst the maladies generally prevalent in large cities, fevers of all kinds are common at Ioannina, especially nervous ones: these arise chiefly from insalubrious dwellings, dirty habits of life, accumulation of filth in the streets, deficiency of wholesome nutriment, and above all from the great number of Albanese troops which are quartered by the vizir upon the houses of the citizens: this is, without exception, the most grievous and vexatious imposition to which these poor people are subject; and nothing tends so much to corrupt their morals and to vitiate their manners: indeed all domestic comfort and

* This polenta resembles the μála duoλyain of Hesiod, a cake made of milk and maize for labouring people. Athenæus mentions a maize cake as the food of the lower classes, who could not afford to buy bread. (Lib. xiv. 663. 6.) Such an one as eat it was sometimes called μalaypérns, which signifies a voracious fellow, that would devour any thing that came in his way. Lib. xv. 686.

28

CRUEL INSTANCE OF ALI PASHA'S TYRANNY.

purity of life must necessarily be destroyed in that family upon which ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty of the most abandoned soldiery are quartered, who join, both officers and men, in the most wanton exercise of power without any responsibility or dread of punishment: sometimes they are sent for the very purpose of gratifying the vizir's resentment, whether just or unjust. The venerable old Turkish gentleman whom I have before mentioned as having been sent to play at chess with Mr. Parker, had been obliged for many months to support fifty of these soldiers; they had broken every window in his house, destroyed all his furniture, torn down his portico for fire-wood, and obliged him to reside in the confined apartments of his harem, from whence not a female of his family dare stir out; and all this for some imaginary offence which he had given to the pasha: yet this person was universally considered the most inoffensive and amiable Mahometan in Ioannina. Such are the blessings of tyranny!