ey were by birth Moreote Turks; and in the
revolution of that country, when first the Greeks arose against their
Turkish masters, (for really one must particularise in talking of Greek
revolutions,) they had suffered the loss of all their protecting
kindred, and hardly, children as they were, by some kindly intervention,
been themselves saved. It is a sad thing, but a truth, that in this
exterminating war, the cold-blooded massacreing was not all on one side.
The horror and hatred of these deeds have, with their infamy, rested
chiefly on the Turks, because theirs was the power to exceed in
enormity; but the black veil of guilt rests on both sides of the strife.
Still, however blameable the Greeks may be, for the cruelty committed on
occasion, they were far from having power to work the enormous
destruction of harmless life, whose memory still weighs on the Turkish
power, and whose record is still extant in the evidence of ruined and
dispeopled cities. But a short time before coming to Adalia, we had
visited the island of Scio--that island which once was the garden of the
Levant, and the storehouse of her riches. Even now, the great majority
of the Greek merchants who are so prosperous a body in London, are
Sciotes; and in those days they had pretty well all the commerce of the
Levant in their hands. They delighted themselves in adorning their
beautiful island with the artifices which money can command to the
decorating of nature. At present a mass of ruins defaces that lovely
spot. One is disposed to wonder that the Turks have never been at the
pains to clear away the wreck of the town, if only for the sake of
removing the monument of their cruelty. Mere selfish motives might
induce them to be at that pains, and to restore this island to its
former fitness for the habitations of the rich. At present it is one
wide ruin; noble streets are there, with the shells of their houses
remaining, as they were left in the day of massacre and pillage. The few
inhabitants are stowed away in the one or two odd rooms of the old
mansions that remain; being now reduced to such poverty that they have
had neither spirit nor money to build for themselves; and probably
finding it more congenial to the present spirit of their fortunes to
roost among the bats and owls, rather than in trim streets. One
occurrence gave us much pleasure, because it gave the lie to a story
which has many abettors. It is said that when the garrison in the
fortress,