CHAPTER VIII.

ATHENS.-POPULATION.-SCHOOLS.-MODERN LANGUAGE

AND COSTUME.

[6TH OF FEBRUARY.]

YESTERDAY was completed a census of the population. The number of inhabitants, including soldiery, Greek and Bavarian, is fifteen thousand-a great increase we are told, within the last twelve months, but a terrible falling off from the days when Athens was in her splendor.

It would be too much to venture on an anticipation of what it may again rise to, but there are several indications which appear to promise, not indeed her ancient glories, but at least a revival of civilization, which cannot fail to draw to a region so rich in

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objects of art and in mental associations a high degree of internal improvement and prosperity. Athens is not now, for practical purposes, so distant from London-" toto divisos orbe Britannos," Rome was thirty years ago; and who can tell to what a state of prosperity habitual intercourse with the civilized world may again exalt the narrow but illustrious territory of Attica?

Already has the school, established by Mr. and Mrs. Hill, operated most beneficially on the people: though the schoolhouse has only been lately built, the school itself has existed upwards of five years, and it is attended by several hundreds of both sexes and various ages. In addition to this, they have in their own house girls from each of the provinces of the kingdom, whom they are bringing up, with the sanction of the government, to be teachers in their native districts. This is, perhaps, the germ of a literary, moral, and religious reform,

which may restore the Greeks to somewhat of their ancient fame, and to more than their ancient civilization.

The king, to shew his sense of the good which Mrs. Hill has done in improving the moral condition of the Greeks, and his approbation of her conduct, has presented her with a gold medal, accompanied with a letter of thanks.

A little incident occurred, however, today, which shews that the government itself is not quite as active as it ought to be in the work of civilization. Mr. Hill, whose kindness is unwearied, was so obliging as to conduct us to the office of the Nomarch of the city, to procure our passports and the other proper papers for proceeding on our journey. That officer happened not to be at home; and while we were waiting his return, Mr. Hill asked some labourers, who were loitering about the place, what they wanted: they said that they had been there since the previous

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evening, waiting also for an order to remove the corpse of one of their companions, who had died the day before, while working on the roads, and whose body had been ever since lying by the road-side between the Peiræus and the city. We thought, on hearing this account, that if the police laws are so strict that the body might not be moved without an order, it would be but right for the officer, who was to give such an order, to be more particular in his attendance on his duties; for a little attention to such points as these is even more urgent than the restoration of the Parthenon.

As we were walking through the streets with Mr. Hill, we were glad to see that the common people all recognized him with respect and regard, as if they were sensible of the good he was doing them. Most of them addressed him with " oas

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Exaplote," may you be fortunate, or some similar term, to which he always replied

by a different form of words; and he explained to us, that in answer to the salutation by which the people might greet us on our journey, as (xaλ'uɛpa, good day, and so forth), it would not be polite to return the same words, but to use some other expression than that used to us: we therefore provided ourselves, under his tuition, with an intelligible pronunciation of a few phrases, with which we were enabled to respond to the civilities of those who accosted us. And here I may make a few remarks on the pronunciation of modern Greek, to explain the difficulties we experienced in our attempts to speak, or even to understand the language.

The first observation I have to make is, as I am informed by better linguists than myself, that the modern language is not essentially different from the ancient-of course, many modern words, as must happen to every living language, have been added, but the majority of the