romises of the Soldiers.

_Corfu, Friday, Oct. 31, 1834._--I found I could get no information
respecting Albania at Corfu, though the high mountains of Epirus seemed
almost to over-hang the island. No one knew anything about it, except
that it was a famous place for snipes! It appeared never to have struck
traveller or tourist that there was anything in Albania except snipes;
whereof one had shot fifteen brace, and another had shot many more, only
he did not bring them home, having lost the dead birds in the bushes.
There were some woodcocks also, it was generally believed, and some
spake of wild boars, but I had not the advantage of meeting with anybody
who could specifically assert that he had shot one: and besides these
there were robbers in multitudes. As to that point every one was agreed.
Of robbers there was no end: and just at this particular time there was
a revolution, or rebellion, or pronunciamiento, or a general election,
or something of that sort, going on in Albania; for all the people who
came over from thence said that the whole country was in a ferment. In
fact there seemed to be a general uproar taking place, during which each
party of the free and independent mountaineers deemed it expedient to
show their steady adherence to their own side of the question by
shooting at any one they saw, from behind a stone or a tree, for fear
that person might accidentally be a partizan of the opposite faction.

[Illustration: TATAR, OR GOVERNMENT MESSENGER]

The Albanians are great dandies about their arms: the scabbard of their
yataghan, and the stocks of their pistols, are almost always of silver,
as well as their three or four little cartridge boxes, which are
frequently gilt, and sometimes set with garnets and coral; an Albanian
is therefore worth shooting, even if he is not of another way of
thinking from the gentleman who shoots him. As I understood, however,
that they did not shoot so much at Franks because they usually have
little about them worth taking, and are not good to eat, I conceived
that I should not run any great risk; and I resolved, therefore,
not to be thwarted in my intention of exploring some of the monasteries
of that country. There is another reason also why Franks are seldom
molested in the East--every Arab or Albanian knows that if a Frank has a
gun in his hand, which he generally has, there are two probabilities,
amounting almost to certainties, with respect to that weapon. One is,
t