mium_ of vehicles. On the first precipitous elevation I turned to
laugh at my pursuers, when, to my horror, I saw Strong's omnibus
lumbering along in the distance, surrounded by a considerable crowd, and
I distinguished the loud shouts of the mob:--+Pou einai ho trelos
ho Anglos+; "Where is the mad Englishman?" So my melancholy was
conducting me to madness.

My alarm dispelled all my reminiscences of Lord Cochrane, and my visions
of the Olympic games. I sprang into the droschky of a Greek sailor, who
drove over the rocks as if he only expected his new profession to endure
for a single day. We were soon on the Piraeus road, which I well knew
runs along the foundations of one of the long walls; but I was too glad
to escape, like Lord Palmerston and M. Thiers, unscathed from the
imbroglio I had created, to honour even Themistocles with a single
thought. My charioteer was a far better specimen of the present, than
foundations of long walls, ruined temples, and statues without noses,
can possibly be of the past. He informed me he was a sailor: by so
doing, he did not prove to me that he estimated my discernment very
highly, for that fact required no announcement. He added, however, what
was more instructive; _to wit_, that he had received the droschky with
the horses, that morning, from a Russian captain, in payment of a bad
debt. He had resolved to improviso the coachman, though he had never
driven a horse before in his life--+eukolon einai+--"it is an
easy matter;" and he drove like Jehu, shouted like Stentor, and laughed
like the Afrite of Caliph Vathek. He ran over nobody, in spite of his
vehemence. Perhaps his horses were wiser than himself: indeed I have
remarked, that the populace of Greece is universally more sagacious than
its rulers. In taking leave of this worthy tar at the Hotel de Londres,
I asked him gravely if he thought that, in case Russia, England, or
France should one day take Greece in payment of a bad debt, they would
act wisely to drive her as hard as he drove his horses? He opened his
eyes at me as if he was about to unskin his head, and began to reflect
in silence; so, perceiving that he entertained a very high opinion of my
wisdom, I availed myself of the opportunity to advise him to moderate
his pace a little in future, if he wished his horses to survive the
week.

During my stay at Athens, King Otho was absent from his capital; so
that, though I lost the pleasure of beholding the beautiful and gra