l into the habits of a country. Gladstone is as
unoriental as any man well can be, yet his calling on Lacaita to
recite was really just the same thing that every Pasha does after
dinner, when he orders his tale-teller to repeat a story. The
ladies meanwhile were packed off to the harem for the night, Lady
Bowen acting as their interpreter. My L.H.C., his two
secretaries, his three aide-de-camps, Captains Blomfield and
Clanricarde, and the vice-consul, all slept in the same room, and
that not a large one, and we were packed tight on the floor, under
quilts of Brusa silk and gold, tucked up round us by gorgeous
Albanians. Gladstone amused himself with speculating whether or no
we were in contravention of the provisions of Lord Shaftesbury's
lodging-house act!

After a month of cloudless sunshine it took it into its head to
rain this night of all nights in the year, and rain as it only does
in these regions. Gladstone and I walked down again despite of
wind, rain, and mud, and our palikari guard--to keep up their
spirits, I suppose--chanted wild choruses all the way. We nearly
got stuck altogether in the muddy flat near Sayada, and got on
board the _Osprey_ wet through, my hands so chilled I could hardly
steer the boat. Of course we had far outwalked the riding party, so
we had to wait. What a breakfast we ate! that is those of us who
could eat, for the passage was rough and Gladstone and the ladies
flat on their backs and very sorry for themselves.

Mr. Gladstone's comment in his diary is brief: 'The whole impression is
saddening; it is all indolence, decay, stagnation; the image of God
seems as if it were nowhere. But there is much of wild and picturesque.'
The English in the island, both civil and military, adopted the tone of
unfriendly journals in London, and the garrison went so far as not even
to invite Mr. Gladstone to mess, a compliment never omitted before. The
Ionians, on the other hand, like people in most other badly governed
countries did not show in the noblest colours. There were petitions,
letters, memorials, as to which Mr. Gladstone mildly notes that he has
to 'lament a spirit of exaggeration and obvious errors of fact.' There
was a stream of demands from hosts of Spiridiones, Christodulos,
Euphrosunes, for government employ, and the memorial survives, attested
by bishop and clergy, of a ma