It seems that a sweet voice is calling to me, "Far over the wave is a green sunny isle, Where the last cloud of evening now shines in the west 'Tis the island that Spring ever woos with her smile; O! seek it-the bright happy land of the blest." SKETCH OF THE MODERN GREEKS. SECT. 1. Personal Appearance. 1. THE modern Greeks bear a great resemblance to the descriptions which have been transmitted of the ancient inhabitants of the country, in their form, features, dress, diet, and tempers. There is a national likeness observable among them all, but the islanders are of a darker complexion, and a stronger make, than the inhabitants of the main land. The young men are distinguished for beauty, but their appearance is thought too effeminate. 2. Their eyes are large and dark, their eyebrows arched, their complexions brown, but clear, and their cheeks and lips tinged with a bright vermilion colour. Their faces are of a regular oval form, and their features perfectly proportioned, except their ears are rather large. Their hair is dark and long, but shaved off in the fore part of the crown and sides of the face. 3. Beards are worn only by the clergy and persons of authority, but all of them wear thin long black mustachios on the upper lip. Their necks are long, but broad, and well set, their chests wide and open, their shoulders strong, but their waists rather slender, and their legs large, but well made. Their stature is above the middle size, and their form muscular and round, but not corpulent. 4. The women are often very beautiful, but are inferior to the men in face and figure, and though they have the same kind of features, yet their eyes are languid, their complexions pale, their stature rather low, and their whole persons loose and flaccid. 5. Those of the better class are very careful to improve their beauty by paints and washes, and often lay on their F 1 colouring substances to an extravagant degree. They marry at the age of fifteen, but their beauty is short-lived, for they begin to decay and have the marks of age soon after twenty-five. 6. The character of the modern Greeks has been variously represented: but travellers generally concur in the principal features of the following portrait. Though they are very ignorant, they are an ingenious people; and, if rescued from oppression, might again distinguish them selves in the arts and sciences. 7. There is still an abundance of native genius among them; but in the substantial part of their character, they are a degraded nation. Their manners are very engaging, but they have too much the appearance of insincerity. They are extremely courteous towards inferiors, and even servants; and make very little distinction in their behaviour on account of rank. 8. The rich are versatile and intriguing; the lower classes full of merriment, doing nothing at certain seasons but pipe and dance. They perform the rites of hospitality with good humour and politeness, but will take the meanest shifts to gain some pecuniary remuneration, and will do any thing for the sake of money. Though avaricious they are not sordid, but fond of pomp and show, and profuse in their ostentation of generosity. 9. Wealth is the chief object of their admiration; hence they are almost universally engaged in trade in some form or other. The cultivation of the soil is left chiefly to Albanians and colonists. Even their princes and nobles who reside at Constantinople are concerned in commerce. 10. They are little to be trusted; but are light, inconstant, treacherous, subtle, and selfish in all their transaotions: ready to practise the meanest artifices, and to utter the grossest untruths; and are more barefaced in their impositions than even the Jews. Political oppression has ren dered them at once imperious and cringing; showing ferocity when entrusted with power, but rarely displaying the coolness of determined courage. They are completely sensible of their degraded state; and discover a strong atsachment to their country, as well as an ardent desire of political freedom. SECT. 3. Address and Amusements. 11. The Greeks are remarkable for the formality and tediousness of their salutations. When two of them meet, however casually, they stand with their hands on their hearts, bowing gently for five minutes together, inquiring after each other's health, their wives, daughters, sons, fa mily, and affairs, twenty times over, before they begin to converse, or even when they are intending to separate im mediately. 12. At Easter, the Greeks have amusements of all kinds, and crowds of people are collected, who engage in wree tling matches and other exercises. At these scenes are stalls filled with sweetmeats, and sherbet, and groups of people seated on the grass, playing at different games of chance, while others are engaged in dancing, in rings, to the music of an instrument not unlike a bagpipe. On every such day of festivity, the Greeks of course display their best dresses; but they cannot be commended for sobriety of demeanour. SECT. 4. Mode of Travelling. 13. The mode of travelling in Greece, as in the rest of Turkey, is on horseback; none of their roads are practicable for carriages in all their extent. "I was not," says an eminent traveller, "able to discover in the Morea, either any Greek roads or Roman ways. Turkish causeways, two and a half feet broad, carry you over low and marshy spots; and these causeways are sufficient for the asses of the peasants, and horses of the soldiery." 14. Even the conveyance of merchandise takes place on the backs of the horses; and when the journey extends to Dalmatia, traders unite in caravans. The stages are long, generally above twenty miles. Travellers are much an noyed with bugs and other insects. The chief articles of diet are mutton, poultry, and rice; in their season, fruits, as raisins, oranges, dried figs, and pomegranates. 15. Tables are rarely used; a round tin plate, put on the top of a stool, is a substitute for them; and instead of chairs, people sit on couches or cushions. SECT. 5. Funerals. 16. The funerals of the modern Greeks, like those of their ancestors, are celebrated as occasions of various entertainments. On the death of any person of dignity, the body is dressed in a rich garment, and the litter covered with flowers. 17. The friends and domestics, with the priests, walk in procession before the body, and a few old women, on each side of the bier, continue howling and lamenting, enumerating the virtues of the deceased, and dwelling on the many reasons which should have made him remain longer in life. Behind the body come the female relations and friends, muffled up in mourning habits. 18. At the place of interment a funeral service is read, and the body, rolled in a winding sheet, is deposited in the grave with some of the flowers that adorned the bier. About the ninth day after the funeral, a feast is prepared by the nearest relation, who makes presents to the priests, and entertains the guests with music, dancing, and every kind of merriment. 19. The burying grounds are at a distance from the towns, and the churches are generally near the high road. Groves of cypress, or yew trees, generally surround the tombs; and those spots are frequented on certain days by relatives of the recent dead, who after shedding a few tears, and depositing a garland, or lock of hair, in the grave, spend the remainder of the day in dancing and singing. SECT. 6. Religion. 20. The Greek church, in its general form and its doctrines, resembles the church of Rome; particularly with regard to the number of sacraments, the invocation of saints, the belief of their real presence, the practice of auricular confession, the offering of masses for the dead, the division of the clergy into regular and secular, the spiritual jurisdiction of bishops and their officials, and the distinction of ranks and offices among the ecclesiastics. 21. It differs from the church of Rome, in denying the authority of the pope; in not claiming infallibility; in deny Ing the existence of purgatory; in permitting marriage to all orders of the secular clergy inferior to bishops; in not paying religious homage to the eucharist; in administering the communion in both kinds to the laity; and in maintaining the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father only. 22. The head of the Greek church is the patriarch of Constantinople, a person of great authority with the Greeks, and influence with the sultan, though he is not considered as clothed with personal sanctity, or official infallibility. This dignity is now regularly exposed to sale, and costs about sixty thousand pounds. The churches in Greece are numerous, but small, and of great simplicity. The floor is of mud, the altar of stone, the sanctuary separated from the nave by deal boards, and an inclosure of poles at the other end made for the women. 23. They are seldom furnished with seats; in one corner are several crutches on which the aged worshippers support themselves. In the larger towns, and some of the monasteries, they are fitted up in a better style, but in a bad taste, ornamented with gildings and pictures of saints. 24. Many of the rites of the Greek church are in themselves very absurd, and are performed with very little solemnity. There are prayers and portions of scripture, his tories of saints, hymns, and forms for different festivals; but the service consists principally in singing without musical instruments. me." 25. In the celebration of mass, the chief part of the worship consists in crossing and repeating a thousand times, in a combined song, the words, "Lord have mercy upon Wednesdays and Fridays are fasts throughout the year, and the principal feasts, as Easter and Christmas, continue forty days. They are devoted to the worship of the holy virgin; and in almost every cottage her picture or image is to be seen, with a lamp burning before it. ALmost all diseases are considered as effects of demoniac influence. Note. The Morea, the ancient Peloponnesus, is a penin sula in the south part of Greece, to which it is joined by the Isthmus of Corinth.-Dalmatia is a country of Turkey in Europe, north of the Gulf of Venice, in 44° north latitude. |