see no real danger to the Constitution. With such an army, however, and such a revenue as the Crown possesses, the turning of a straw is important to the balance; and they who preach the slavish doctrines just now cited, are indeed the heralds-we know them to be the well paid heralds-of a despotism by which every man who dares not resist it, deserves to be crushed. It cannot be too often repeated to the people of this country, that their very worst enemies are those who affect never to see any real danger to liberty;-hold up to ridicule all its best friends as senseless alarmists, crying out without a reason;-and at each blow that is given to the undoubted rights of the Nation, are ready to exclaim how slight it is, and how much is left uninjured. †

ART. IX. Travels into the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly and Macedonia, during the Years 1812 and 1813. By HENRY HOLLAND, M. D. F. R. S. &c. Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Co. London, 1815.

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Ir is but a few years since Mr Gibbon could say with truth, that the country which is the principal theatre of these travels was as little known to the civilized world as the wilds of North America. There is, however, no longer the same room for this reproach. The new situation in which Europe has been placed during the last 20 years, if it has obstructed the intercourse of nations in many respects, has certainly promoted it in others. The French expedition to Egypt, carried into the East a number of learned and scientific travellers, who, but for that singular attempt, would probably never have gone beyond the borders of their own country: And the first of those who have lately visited Albania, was a member of the learned Body which proposed to plant the sciences of Europe on the banks of the Nile. The attempt of Napoleon to shut all the ports of Europe against the trade of England, forced merchandize into new channels; and while the manufactures of that country, and the produce of her colonies, found their way

The extraordinary measure of delaying the assembling of Par liament, until some months after the most important Peace ever concluded by this country has been signed, ratified, and in part carried into execution, merits particular attention; especially considering the time chosen for such a departure from the practice of the Constitution. To ask a parliamentary sanction of the treaty, after this interyal, is a mere mockery,

from Salonica to Vienna, across the wildest part of the Turkish empire, the people became accustomed to the sight of strangers, and the chieftains felt it their interest to protect them. The English traveller also, excluded from France and Italy, to satisfy his curiosity or his restlessness, was forced into the more distant regions of Egypt, Syria and Greece. Since Pouquéville, the French physician just referred to, three English travellers have, in succession, visited Albania, and have given some account of its geography and its inhabitants. Hobhouse, in 1809 and 1810, travelled over a great part of that country, and has recorded what appeared to him most worthy of notice. Major Leake, after passing much time in Greece, has published Researches, which however are almost entirely confined to the subject of language, the dialects of the Romaic, and their affinity to the antient Greek. Room was still left for Dr Holland's inquiries, which are the more valuable that he appears to have attended particularly to the physical geography and mineralogy of the country, and that he had an opportunity of crossing over the great central chain of Pindus as he passed from Albania into Thessaly, and afterwards of penetrating farther into the northern parts of the former tract than any European traveller had done before him.

It may assist our readers in forming a distinct notion of the principal scene of these travels, to consider that the great promontory, of which Greece makes a part, is traversed longitudinally by a chain of mountains descending from the north, which, between the parallels of 40° and 39° north, attain their highest elevation, and had anciently the name of Pindus, separating Epire on the west, from Thessaly on the east. Farther to the south, the same chain, lowering its elevation, forms the celebrated heights of Oeta, Parnassus, Helicon, and Cytheron ; after which, in the plains of Attica, it descends to the level of the sea. The length of this chain does not much exceed 200 geographical miles; its direction is north-west and south-east, nearly bisecting the peninsula traversed by it, which is about 120 geographical miles in breadth, having the Ionian sea on the west, and the Archipelago or Gulph of Salonica on the east. the south end, where the promontory just described greatly contracts its breadth, it is joined by the isthmus of Corinth to the Peloponnesus or Morea on the west side; and to Euboea or Negropont by a still narrower neck on the east. Taken altogether, these may be considered as one great promontory, which maintains everywhere a breadth nearly uniform, but increasing somewhat at its southern extremity, where a very irregular and deeply indented outline either marks the depredations of the sea, or the encroachments of the land.

At

Greece, however, the country which has been the parent of so many great men, and the theatre of so many great events, did not occupy the whole even of this limited territory. On the western side of the longitudinal chain was Epirus, of which the inhabitants were Greeks; but beyond them, and farther to the north, were the Illyrians, an uncivilized race, on whom the Greeks bestowed the name of barbarians, with more justice than always accompanied their use of that appellation. The present Albania comprehends a great part both of Epirus and Illyricum. It is a name, however, not applied to any part of this tract by the writers of antiquity, earlier than the days of Ptolemy, in whose geography the names of Albani and Albanopolis are mentioned for the first time. Albanopolis is there laid down about 48 geographical miles north-east of Dyrachium, and near the source of a river which is represented as running into the sea, on the south side of that promontory. The course of this river in the modern maps, is different from that in Ptolemy's, and would place Albanopolis east from Dyrachium (Durazzo) inclining a little to the south. The Albani are represented in the map of the same geographer as inhabiting a territory of small extent between the river just mentioned, and another farther to the south, which it is not difficult to identify with one traced in the modern maps of that region. The antient Albani, therefore, inhabited but a small tract near the northern extremity of what is now occupied by the people of the same name. Thus, we are left entirely in the dark as to the extension of the name of Albania from a small district to a great country; and we are equally without information concerning the origin of the people who now inhabit it. The writers just named, have taken some pains to remove this obscurity, and to trace out the history of the Albanians. Their researches have not been very successful: And indeed, for what purpose should we inquire into the history of barbarous tribes, ruled, at least in the times nearest the present, by the iron rod of despotism, and subject to the continual vicissitudes of servitude and insurrection? If those tribes, however, have produced in Scanderbeg a hero who may rank with Pyrrhus, the glory of the same country in better times, it must be confessed that they have one strong claim to our attention.

The present condition of Albania also merits attention, as it exhibits the phenomena of incipient civilization, and of light breaking in from the west on the darkness, so profound and extensive, which has long overwhelmed the east. On this subject, Dr HOLLAND affords some very important information. He appears himself as a candid and enlightened observer, free from prejudice, and having the information necessary to enable him

to describe both the natural and the moral phenomena of the countries which he has visited. He is the same person of whom some years ago we had occasion to speak with much praise, on account of the historical detail concerning Iceland, which he drew up when he returned from the visit which, along with SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, he made to that island. We are happy to meet with him now in a more genial climate, and shall endeavour to follow him through Albania and Thessaly. He has paid much attention to the geography of these countries; and his own skill has been assisted, as he tells us, by that of SIR WILLIAM GELL, to whom the geographer and the antiquary are already under so many obligations. The map accordingly, which he has given us, though on a small scale, seems infinitely more correct in its physical characters, particularly in the relation of the chains of mountains to the courses of the rivers, than those of the other travellers we have mentioned. The maps of POUQUEVILLE and HOBHOUSE, though in some respects constructed with considerable care, are loose and vague as to the position of the mountains, and convey no idea at all of the direction, the breadth, or the elevation of the chains which they form. The map of Greece, in the Travels of the younger ANACHARSIS, is as defective as the rest, though it probably possesses considerable correctness as to the outline and the figure of the shores. There is, it must be admitted, a great deal of merit in having excelled in the description of a country where the physical geography is of so much importance.

The chief city of Albania is loannina, situated on the west side of a lake, in a high plain, about 30 miles from the sea, and elevated above it about 1000 or 1200 feet: the length of the lake is about six miles, and its breadth hardly two, its channel being narrowed by a projecting point, on which stands the citadel or fortress of Ioannina, with a small island opposite to it. The area of the fortress, which forms a small town in itself, is cut off from the city by a lofty stone wall, and a broad moat filled with water from the lake. The extent of the city, as it stretches backwards from the fortress, and on each side, is more considerable than the same number of inhabitants would occupy in the towns of other European countries. Besides the vacant spaces of the mosques and burying grounds, all the better houses, both of Turks and Greeks, have areas attached to them, in which there generally grow a few trees, producing that intermixture of buildings and wood which is always beheld with so much in

terest.

The central part of the city, occupied in great part by the streets forming the Bazars, is the only one where much continuity is preserved; and here the houses are in general much lower and

smaller than elsewhere. The breadth of the town, which nowhere exceeds 13 miles, is defined by a range of low eminences, running parallel to the shore of the lake, and affording, from their summit, one of the most striking views of the city, the lake, and the distant heights of the Pindus chain. The interior aspect of Ioannina, except where there is some opening to the landscape that surrounds it, is gloomy, and without splendour. Few of the streets preserve a uniform line; those inhabited by the lowest classes are mostly wretched mud built cottages, and are chiefly in the outskirts of the city. The middle ranks dwell in a better description of buildings, the upper part of which is constructed of wood, with a small open gallery under the projecting roof. The higher classes, both of Greeks and Turks, have in general very large houses, often forming two or three sides of the areas attached to them, with wide galleries which go along the whole front of the building.'

The number of inhabitants of this metropolis does not seem to DR HOLLAND to exceed 30,000; though there is considerable uncertainty, accounts varying, as he says, from 25 to 40, or even 50,000. This population is composed of Greeks, Turks, Albanians, and Jews; the Greeks probably the most numerous, and certainly the most respectable. They are the oldest inhabitants of the city; many of their families having been established there for several centuries.

The Albanian residents in Ioannina are among the lower class of the people; those in military service are chiefly quartered upon the Greek families, and are a severe burden. A Greek merchant is often required, all at once, to provide lodging for 40 or 50 men, of an irregular and undisciplined soldiery. The absence of the Vizier from his capital, is of course a sort of jubilee to the principal inhabitants. Very few of the natives of other European countries are to be found at Ioannina. Mr FORRESTI, the English resident, was absent at the time when they first visited the city. M. POUQUEVILLE, the French resident, under the title of Consul-General for Albania, had passed seven years here, somewhat comforted by the presence of his brother, who had the office of Consul at the sea-port of Previsa.

Our acquaintance with this gentleman was the source of much satisfaction to us during our stay here. We found him extremely intelligent and well informed, and were indebted to him for a degree of attention, which the nature of his situation, under a government hostile to ours, did not entitle us to expect.'

The police of Ioannina is extremely good; the vigilance of the Pasha extends to every corner of the city; and patroles of Albanian soldiers pass the night in the streets, to ensure tranquillity. No one is allowed to walk in the streets, after dark, without a lamp or torch. The bazars are regularly closed at a certain hour of the evening, and are delivered over to the care