Bazardjah, and another still more violent at Philippopoli, without causing any damage to the town or the surrounding country; it appeared as if enormous masses of stone were rolling in subterranean caverns and not to affect, except in a slight degree, the surface of the earth.

CHAPTER X.

Journey from Jannina to Arta-Rule of Ali Pacha-The mountains of Epirus-Subterranean rivers-The plain of Arta -Marshes-Arrival at Arta-Sketches of the town and its neighbourhood-Fertility of the soil-Productions-Remarkable ruins-Visit to the church of the Panagia-Singular antique image of the Virgin-Superstition-Climate of Epirus -Its mountains-Rivers-Inhabitants-Ancient bridge over the Arethon-Monasteries, with their orchards of oranges and lemons-Journey over the Marsh of Arta-Arrival at Salagora -Unexpected friends-Voyage to Prevesa-Hospitality of the English Consul-Sketches of Ali Pacha and the FrenchVisit to the ruins of Nicopolis.

HOWEVER much my love of adventure might have tempted me to prolong my stay in Albania, where the insurrection of Guilika was steadily progressing, I determined that Jannina, now suffering from cholera, dysentery and intermittent fever, should not become my residence; and having made an agreement with my amusing kiraidji, Hadji Ismael, I lost no time in setting out for Arta, Prevesa, and the Ionian Isles.

On leaving Jannina we passed through the neat village of Bonilla, inhabited by a colony of Bulgarians. Here we replenished our provender bags, and procured a plentiful supply of wine and raki, sufficient to serve us while crossing the mountain desert, that separates the Elysian fields of Jannina from the town of Arta.

The late Ali Pacha of Jannina, though somewhat tyrannical in his mode of governing, was at least sensible of the utility of roads to a country, and that over which we now travelled had evidently been constructed with great labour; but the entire absence of villages render a journey through these solitary mountains highly dangerous. On viewing the confused heaps of naked rocks towering to the heavens, enclosing deep tunnels, the multiplication of narrow chasms, with their jagged points, and broken summits sparely covered with vegetable soil, and the thermal springs so frequently met with, sufficiently prove how recent has been the commotion that rent these enormous masses of rocks into fragments.

We passed the night at the han of the Five Wells (Pente-Pigalia), from hence our route was one continued descent to Arta, skirting for the most part a magnificent defile, but there was not the slightest appearance of spring or rivulet, and that which lay at the bottom of the defile was so offensive to the smell, that our horses even turned away from it in disgust. The want of water in these mountains, where the sun's rays reflected from the calcareous rock, renders the heat almost insupportable, is a great misfortune to the traveller. In addition to this,

we had to contend against swarms of gnats, which nearly drove our poor horses wild. At length we caught a glimpse of the plains of Arta and the snow-capped summit of the Djoumerska, rising to a height of more than six thousand feet, and soon afterwards heard the loud and refreshing roar of a cataract. The welcome sound was not lost upon our horses, and though only a moment before scarcely able to crawl, they now pricked up their ears, and neighing for joy, set off at full canter, and never stopped till they gained the long-wished for object of their desires.

These springs, which burst with the force of a cataract from the sides of a mountain, are presumed to be one of the subterranean discharges from the Lake of Jannina, and having no regular channel, they inundate the low lands, and are the primary cause of the extensive marsh we find in the centre of the plains of Arta on to he Ambrasian Gulf.

Arta, with its rapid river, its domes and minarets, its turretted castles, monasteries and churches, the fine bridge thrown over the Arethon; the shelving banks glowing with the many tinted foliage of the orchard, the stately cypress, the wide-spreading plane; cannot fail to arrest the attention of the traveller, and induce him to believe that he is about to enter a rich and populous city, possessing all that can minister to the wants of Alas! on a closer inspection, he finds it to be a duplicate of the other towns he visited in European Turkey; here a cluster of straggling huts, there dirty unpaved streets, surrounded by ruins. Even the vast

man.

plain, so beautiful a contrast to the rocky mountains, is for the most part a marsh, poisoning the atmosphere with its exhalations. Yet, however insalubrious this district may be to man during the great heat of summer, part of the plain lying at the base of the mountains cannot be exceeded in fertility, and in the varied and choice productions of the soil. The sunny slopes, covered with vines and olive-trees, produce the finest wine and oil in Epirus; the orchards are famous for their oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and figs. The tobacco grown in the rich alluvial soil of the plain is equal in aromatic flavour to Latakia; the cotton plant also attains to the highest perfection, and the maize may be seen growing to a height of seven feet. Among the forest trees on the shelving sides of the mountains we find that rare tree the white oak, and shrubberies of shumach, so valuable to the tanner. The population, however, is inconsiderable, and the climate so unhealthy, that beyond the vicinity of the town, and the more elevated districts above the marsh, there is no cultivation.

A canal sunk in the centre of the marsh to the Ambrasian Gulf would at once deliver the inhabitants from a pestilential nuisance, bring into cultivation a district as large as a petty German kingdom, and repay the enterprize a thousand-fold. But why allude to works of public utility, in a country under a government so indolent and careless of its own interests as that of the Ottoman Porte ?

Arta takes its modern name from the river Arethon. On viewing the town and its antiquities, there cannot be