Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/314

264 During his stay Captain King sent off a boat to Delos, to look for pirates, who have multiplied since the war broke out, but are so chased by the boats of the French and English ships of war, that there is every hope that they will be put down. They have had the audacity lately to rob a boat in sight of the harbour of Syra. According to the opinion of Mr. Wilkinson, our Consul there, the scoundrels who massacred the crew of the "Harriet" the other day were volunteers going off to the frontier, and not professional pirates, who do not generally commit murder in these seas.

At Syra I took leave of the "Leander," and embarked in an Austrian steamer boimd for Smyrna.

Returning to my old post, after an absence of nearly a year and a half, I found Mr. Grenville Murray, who had been acting in my stead during my absence, anxiously awaiting my arrival in order to be released from the monotonous weariness of insular life. He has a shrewd appreciation of the Greek character, and his estimate of the Mytileniotes seems to be much the same as my own. Now that I have had the opportunity of comparing Mytilene with other islands in the Turkish Archipelago, I am struck with the fact that its superior wealth and intelligence have contributed so little to the moral improvement of the population.

The difference in the state of society here and at Rhodes may be thus accounted for. The Rhodiote is for the most part a peasant proprietor; his chief employment is to cultivate his own land, consuming the greater part of the produce in his own family.