our readers will recollect, that the vigorous and flowing pencil of Lord Byron has pictured the romantic scene.

LV.

"He passed the sacred Haram's silent tower,
And underneath the wide o'er-arching gate
Surveyed the dwelling of this chief of power,
Where all around proclaimed his high estate.
Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,
While busy preparation shook the court,
Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;
Within a palace and without a fort:

Here men of every clime appear to make resort.

LVI.

"Richly caparisoned, a ready row

Of armed horse, and many a warlike store,
Circled the wide extending court below:
Above, strange groups adorned the corridore;
And oft-times through the area's echoing door
Some high-capped Tartar spurred his steed away;
The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian and the Moor,
Here mingled in their many-hued array,

While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day."

In the part furthest from the dwelling preparations were making for the feast of the night, and several cooks were employed in dressing kids and sheep. The travellers were informed they were to be lodged in the palace, and accordingly dismounting, ascended a flight of wooden steps into along gallery, opening into which, as in a large English inn, were the doors of several apartments. Into one of these they were shewn, and found themselves lodged in a room fitted up with large silken sophas, having another room above it for sleeping, a convenience scarcely ever to be met with in Turkey. His highness (for so the pashas of three tails are called by their attendant Greeks) congratulated the party on their arrival, and ordered every thing to be provided for them by his own household. The Ramazan, or public fast, prevented the vizier from entertaining the travellers at his own repasts, but sherbet, fruit, and sweetmeats were sent them from the harem.

At sun-set, at beat of drum, the Albanians, most of them Turks, went to prayers.

"In the gallery, which was open on one side, there were eight or nine little boxes fitted up with raised seats and cushions, between

the wooden pillars supporting the roof; and in each of these there was a party smoking, or playing at draughts.

"I had now an opportunity of remarking the peculiar quietness and ease with which the Mahometans say their prayers; for, in the gallery, some of the graver sort began their devotions in the places where they were sitting, entirely undisturbed and unnoticed by those around them, who were otherwise employed. The prayers, which last about ten minutes, are not said aloud, but muttered sometimes in a low voice, and sometimes with only a motion of the lips; and, whether performed in the public streets or in a room, excite no attention from any one. Of more than a hundred in the gallery there were only five or six at prayers. The Albanians are not reckoned strict Mahometans; but no Turk, however irreligious himself, is ever seen even to smile at the devotions of others; and to disturb a man at prayers would, in most cases, be productive of fatal consequences."

In reading the above passage, the mortifying reflection occurred, which has generally occurred to us in the perusal of that portion of history which treats of the state of religion, that in no country does the exercise of devotion run such danger of being ridiculed as in that in which we live; in none is it so liable to be treated as the infirmity of the faint-hearted, and as the resort of those to whom philosophy has denied its succours. In most other countries of which we have read, the reasoning seems to be this, that having once admitted the absolute subjection of human to divine power, having once acknowledged an almighty disposer of the universe, nothing can be more ridiculous than to affect to conceal the badges of our servitude, and to treat the humble recognition of our dependence as below the dignity of our nature. In this Christian land, with a liturgy of the noblest composition, and a church of which the holiest and the wisest men have laid the foundations, scarcely any body attends divine worship on a week day, except a few exemplary females; few more than once on a Sunday; few venture to talk of religion without an apology; and none can avow their sense of its awful injunctions without risking their character for sincerity: while the Moslem shortens his slumbers to call upon the name of Alla, and seven times a day bends towards the tomb of his prophet, equally secure from levity, reproach, and interruption.

It appears that YA-HOW, meaning he who is, is the Mahometan periphrasis for the ineffabie name of God, as was the word JEHOVAH among the Jews. Upon which our author naturally remark, that Dean Swift could scarcely be apprised of this, when satirizing the brutal qualities of the human species he gave that name to the slave of the Houghnhums.

The introduction of the travellers to an audience with Ali, who

was then at his palace at Tepellenè, afforded us much entertainment. And we have to thank Mr. Hobhouse for the interesting sketch with which he has treated his readers of the extraordinary fortunes of that celebrated person. In passing from their apartment in the palace into the presence chamber, they were accompanied by their dragoman and the secretary, which latter person, it is worthy of remark, had put on his worst cloak to attend his master, that he might avoid appearing rich enough to be deemed a fit object for extortion. The account of the vizier's person, and his manner of receiving the strangers, is as follows.

"The vizier was a short man, about five feet five inches in height, and very fat, though not particularly corpulent. He had a very pleasing face, fair and round, with blue quick eyes, not at all settled into a Turkish gravity. His beard was long and white, and such a one as any other Turk would have been proud of; though he, who was more taken up with his guests than himself, did not continue looking at it, nor smelling and stroking it, as is usually the custom of his countrymen, to fill up the pauses of conversation. He was not very magnificently dressed, except that his high turban, composed of many small rolls, seemed of fine gold muslin, and his attaghan, or long dagger, was studded with brilliants.

"He was mightily civil; and said he considered us as his children. He showed us a mountain howitzer, which was lying in his apartment, and took the opportunity of telling us that he had several large cannon. He turned round two or three times to look through an English telescope, and at last handed it to us, that we might look at a party of Turks on horseback riding along the banks of the river towards Tepellenè. He then said, 'that man whom you see on the road is the chief minister of my enemy, Ibrahim Pasha, and he is now coming over to me, having deserted his master to take the stronger side.' He addressed this with a smile to the secretary, desiring him to interpret it to us.

"We took pipes, coffee, and sweetmeats with him; but he did not seem so particular about these things as other Turks whom we have seen. He was in great good humour, and several times laughed aloud, which is very uncommon in a man of consequence: I never saw another instance of it in Turkey.-Instead of having his room crowded with the officers of his court, which is very much the custom of the pashas and other great men, he was quite unattended, except by four or five young persons very magnificently dressed in the Albanian habit, and having their hair flowing half way down their backs: these brought in the refreshments, and continued supplying us with pipes, which, though perhaps not half emptied, were changed three times, as is the custom when particular honours are intended for a guest.

There are no common topics of discourse between a Turkish vizier and a traveller, which can discover the abilities of either party, especially as these conversations are always in the form of

question and answer. However, a Frank may think his Turk above the common run, if his host does not put any very foolish interrogatories to him, and Ali did not ask us any questions that betrayed his ignorance. His liveliness and ease gave us very favourable impressions of his natural capacity."

An account of the progress of Ali to the attainment of his present power may be very succinctly given. He was born at Tepellenè about the year 1750. At the death of his father, who was a pasha of two tails, of no great importance, he was left with nothing but his house at Tepellenè, and is said to have begun his fortune with sixty paras and a musket. Having embraced the profession of a military adventurer, in plainer language, as a robber and plunderer, he succeeded in mastering one village after another, and amassing the produce of his depredations, until he found himself possessed of considerable resources, both of territory and riches. His ambition kept pace with his fortune, and having collected enough money to purchase a pashalik, he maintained a constant war with the neighbouring pashas, till at length he obtained possession of Ioannina, of which he was confirmed pasha by an imperial firman. The pashas of Arta, Delvino, and Ocrida, were successively subdued by his arms: Giafar, the pasha of Valona, was poisoned by him: and Mouctar and Veli, his two sons, were married to the daughters of Ibrahim, the brother and successor of the murdered Giafar. Having fought against Paswan Oglou, on the side of the sultan, he was constituted, on his return from Widdin in the year 1798, a pasha of three tails, or vizier. All offers to be made grand vizier he has constantly refused. Since the establishment of his power he has greatly diminished the number of robbers throughout his dominions, and has promoted, by his various internal improvements, the prosperity of his subjects, as well as his own revenue. His influence is felt through the whole of European Turkey; and his dominions, taking Ioannina for the centre, extend one hundred and twenty miles towards the north, as far as the pashalik of Ocrida; to the north-east and east over Thessaly, touching the feet of Mount Olympus; to the south-east the district of Thebes, and part of that which is attached to the Negroponte, including the populous city of Livadia and its district, bound his territories, which will soon, it is expected, comprise Attica. To the south, he commands as far as the Gulf of Lepanto, and the Morea belongs to his son. The Ionian Sea and the Gulf of Venice are his. boundaries to the south-west and west, and to the north-west the pashalik of Scutari and the banks of the Drino. Parga, on the coast opposite to Corfu, belongs to the French, and the Chimeriotes can scarcely be said to depend entirely on his authority.

Throughout this whole extent of country the imperial firman is little respected, while the signature of Ali commands implicit obedience. His revenue, Mr. Hobhouse observes, he had seen computed at 600,000 of piasters, by the disposal of which he is enabled to carry forward his schemes of aggrandizement. It must not be forgotten that all his work is done for nothing, and his harem, as well as his kitchen and stables, is supplied without expence to his own coffers. The cheap resources of his establishment consist in the produce of rapine, and compulsory con

tribution,

The cruelties said to have been committed by Ali belong rather to the barbarity of the Turks than to the particular disposition of the tyrant. The Albanians are said to have a remarkable contempt for women, and where the lives of human beings are in general so little valued, the lives of the least respected portion of the species will naturally become the sport of cruelty, vengeance, and passion. But let the sex in their turn triumph in the reflection, that social refinement may be measured by the degree of honour in which their merits and capacities are held.

The Albanians, according to Mr. Hobhouse, whose language we are using, are of a middle stature, muscular and straight in their inake. Their faces are of an oval shape, with prominent cheek bones, and a flat but raised forehead: the expression of their eyes, which are blue or hazel, but seldom quite black, is very lively. Their noses are straight, and their eye-brows arched. They wear no hair on the fore part of their heads, but suffer it to flow down in large quantities from the top of the crown. The Albanian women are tall and strong, and not ill-looking, but bearing in their countenances all the marks of wretchedness, hard treatment, and hard labour.

The Albanian costume when clean and new is, according to our traveller, incomparably more elegant than any worn in the Turkish empire. Their jackets are often of velvet, richly worked with gold and silver embroidery; but the clothes of the common people are of a disgusting appearance. Their linen is rarely changed, and their practice of sleeping on the ground without debarrassing themselves of their thick woollen jacket, mantle, and capote, must afford too good a shelter for vermin; and the truth is, that from the grand signor downwards to the meanest subject, every man harbours a number, greater or less, of those detestable little animals which, when greatly multiplied, become the cause and symptom, as Mr. Hobhouse expresses, of an incurable disease.

The houses of the Albanians are, generally, very neat, though from the situation of the fire-place, which is in the middle of the