PATRASS.

ingly, my friend and myself took a walk in some currant-grounds to the north of the town, until we were obliged to return by a signal from the brig, which got under weigh at twelve o'clock. The ship was not long in getting out of the bay, and before sunset we had a distant view of a town called Messalonge, with a singular-looking double shore at the foot of mountains rising one above another as far as the eye could reach, which is, indeed, the appearance of all the country to be seen to the north of the Gulf of Lepanto."

Dodwell describes Patrass as, "like all other Turkish cities, composed of dirty and narrow streets. The houses are built of earth baked in the sun: some of the best are white-washed, and those belonging to the Turks are ornamented with red paint. The eaves overhang the streets, and project so much that opposite houses come almost in contact, leaving but little space for air and light, and keeping the street in perfect shade, which in hot weather is agreeable, but far from healthy. In some places, arbours of large vines grow about the town, and with their thick branches of pendant grapes, have a cool and pleasing appearance. The pavements are infamously bad, and calculated only for horses; no carriages of any kind being used in Greece, although they are known in Thessaly and Epirus." Patrass is supposed to contain about 10,000 inhabitants; they are principally Greeks, among whom are many merchants

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in comfortable circumstances. The Turks of Patrass are reckoned more wealthy than those of Athens, and not less civilised.

Patrass is a place of great antiquity; numerous temples and public edifices which formerly existed there, are mentioned by Pausanias, but of these not a vestige can now be traced. Augustus Cæsar made it a Roman colony, under the title of Patreusium, and a few remains of Roman construction are found, but none of importance or interest. Under the Greek emperors Patrass was a dukedom. It is now a Turkish vaivodeship, and the see of a Greek archbishop. Its situation, as one of the most western ports of the Morea, is so favourable to the commerce of Greece, that it has often recovered from pillage and destruction. Roman merchants settled and traded there in the time of Cicero, as the English and French do now.-Saint Andrew, it is said, was crucified at Patrass.