place. The Spaniards besieged and took it from the Infidels in 1633. The knights of Malta distinguished themselves at this siege, which was of some note. On this subject Vertot has fallen into an extraordinary error, as he supposes Coron, to be Cheronæa, the birth-place of Plutarch, which is not, any more than the other, the Cheronea where Philip enslaved Greece. Having again fallen under the dominion of the Turks, Coron was once more besieged, and taken by Morosini in 1685. At this siege were two of my countrymen. Coronelli mentions only the commander de la Tour, who there fell gloriously; but Giacomo Diedo speaks also of the Marquis de Courbon. I was pleased to find at my outset the traces of French honor in the genuine country of glory---in the country of a people who were such good judges of valour. But where are not such traces to be discovered? At Constantinople, at Rhodes, in Syria, in Egypt, at Carthage, I was shewn the camp of the French, the tower of the French, the castle of the French. The Arab has pointed out to me the tombs of our soldiers beneath the sycamores of Cairo, and the Siminole under the oaks of Florida.

It was also in this same town of Coron that M. de Choiseul began his splendid collection of views.* Thus chance conducted me to the same spot where my countrymen had earned the double wreath of talents and of arms, with which

For his Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce.

Greece delighted to crown her sons. If I have myself run without glory, but not without honor, the two careers in which the citizens of Athens and of Sparta acquired such high renown, I am consoled by the reflection, that other Frenchmen have proved more fortunate than I.

M. Vial took the trouble to shew me Coron, which is but a heap of modern ruins: he also pointed out to me the spot from which the Russians cannonaded the town in 1770, a fatal epoch for the Morea, whose population has since been swept away by the massacres of the Albanians. The narrative of Pellegrin's travels is dated from 1715 to 1719: according to that writer, the territory of Coron then comprehended eighty villages; I am doubtful if five or six could now be found within the same district. The rest of this devastated tract belongs to Turks, who possess three or four thousand olive-trees, and who consume the patrimony of Aristomenes in a harem at Constantinople. Tears started into my eyes, on observing the hands of the Greek slave steeped, to no purpose, in that oil, which nerved the arms of his forefathers to triumph over tyrants.

The consul's house overlooked the Gulf of Coron. From my window I beheld the sea of Messenia, painted with the most beautiful azure; on the other side of that sea rose the lofty chain of the snow-capped Taygetus, which Polybius justly compares to the Alps, but to the Alps beneath a more lovely sky. On my right extended the open

sea, and on my left, at the extremity of the Gulf, I discovered Mount Ithome, detached like Vesuvius, which it also resembled in its truncated summit. I had not power to force myself from this spectacle: what reflections are excited by the prospect of the desert coasts of Greece, where nought is heard, save the eternal whistling of the wind, and the roaring of the billows! The report of guns, fired from time to time against the rocks of the Mainottes alone interrupted these dismal sounds, by a sound still more dismal; and nothing was to be seen upon this whole extent of sea but the fleet of this chief of the barbarians. It reminded me of those American pirates, who hoisted their bloody flag in an unknown region, and took possession of an enchanting country in the name of slavery and death; or rather fancy transformed them into the ships of Alaric, quitting the smoking ruins of Greece, carrying off the plunder of the temples, the trophies of Olympia, and the broken statues of liberty and the arts.

On the 12th, at two in the morning, I quitted Coron, overwhelmed with the civilities and attentions of M. Vial, who gave me a letter for the Pacha of the Morea, and another for a Turk at Misitra. I embarked with Joseph and my new janissary in a skiff, which was to convey me to the mouth of the Pamisus, at the. bottom of the Gulf of Messenia. A fine passage of a few hours carried us into the bed of the largest river of the Peloponnese, where our little bark grounded for

want of water. The janissary went in quest of horses to Nissi, a considerable village, three or four miles up the Pamisus. This river was covered with a multitude of wild fowl, and I amused myself with watching their sports till the return of the janissary. Nothing would be so pleasing as natural history, if it were always connected with the history of man: we should with delight behold the migratory birds quitting the unknown tribes of the Atlantic to visit the renowned banks of the Cephisus and the Eurotas. Providence, in order to confound our vanity, has permitted the animals to know before man the real extent of the abode of man; and an American bird might probably attract the attention of Aristotle in the rivers of Greece, when the philosopher had not the slightest suspicion of the existence of a new world. Antiquity would furnish us in its annals with numberless curious approximations; the progresses of nations and of armies would be found connected with the pilgrimages of some solitary bird, or with the peaceful migrations of the antelope or the camel.

The janissary returned with a guide and five horses: two for the guide and the three others for me, Joseph, and himself. We passed through Nisi, which seems not to have been known in ancient times. I saw the waywode for a moment: he was a young and very affable Greek, who offered me confectionary and wine; but I declined his hospitality, and pursued my route to Tripolizza,

We directed our course towards Mount Ithome, leaving the ruins of Messene on our right. The Abbé Fourmont, who visited these ruins seventy years ago, counted thirty-eight towers then standing. I think M. Vial informed me that nine of these yet remain entire, together with a considerable fragment of the exterior wall. M. Poucqueville, who travelled through Messenia ten years before me, was not at Messene. We arrived about three in the afternoon at the foot of Ithome, the modern Mount Vulcano according to D'Anville. I was convinced, by an examination of this mountain, how difficult it is thoroughly to understand the ancient writers without having seen the places of which they treat. It is evident, for instance, that Messene and the ancient Ithome could not comprise the mountain within their limits, and that we ought to adopt the -signification assigned to the Greek particle zeg by M. Lechevalier, who, on occasion of the pursuit of Hector by Achilles, observes, that it ought to be rendered before Troy, and not round Troy.

We passed through several villages, Chafasa, Scala, Cyparissa, and several others recently destroyed by the pacha, during his last expidition against the banditti. In all these villages I observed but one female; with her blue eyes, her majestic stature, and her beauty, she was no disgrace to the blood of the Heraclides. Messenia was almost invariably unfortunate: a fertile country frequently proves a baneful boon to its inhabitants.