rnacular of the land in which they are immigrants of
such antique standing. They talk Turkish--live almost like Turks; and by
their religion only are distinguished from their neighbours. For
religious purposes they use their own language: and, by consequence,
understand no single word of the ritual or lessons. This is certainly a
singular national position--impossible, except from religious
prevention. It is just the reverse of what may be seen elsewhere: for
instance, in the mountains of Thessaly you find a colony of Germans,
who, though completely shut in by the people of the land, and holding
intercourse with none other, remain foreigners and Germans, resisting
the tendency to amalgamation. So in Sicily you find the _Piana della
Grecia_, where the original Greek colonists have kept their language and
customs in their integrity. But where else, save in this one spot, will
you find people who, after having imbibed the influences of the country
to the extent of adoption of its language, have been able to resist
amalgamation with its denizens in every respect?

By the bye, these people have opened a sort of royal road to the
acquisition of the Turkish language. The orthography of this language is
a most vexed and perplexed affair. Those who have made the attempt to
master its difficulties may say something in its vituperation; but the
practice of many of those who are well acquainted therewith, says a
great deal more. These Greeks, for instance, though they have adopted
this language as their own, and have been accustomed in no other to lisp
to their nurses, have altogether discarded the orthography. They speak
as do the natives, but write in their own character; accommodating the
flexible capabilities of their alphabet to the purposes of Turkish
orthoepy. Thus have you the means of reading Turkish in a familiar
character, which also has the advantage of presenting your words in a
definite form. The real Turkish alphabet is any thing but definite; at
least to one within any decent term of years of his commencing the
study. This is a mode of teaching which I have known to be insisted on
by at least one good master: though of course the man of any ambition
would regard this byway to knowledge as merely a step preliminary in the
course.

This was not the only party at which we assisted during our visit. A
rich Greek merchant invited us to enjoy the coolness of evening in his
gardens. It was duly impressed on our minds by t