Happen To Be A Little Deficient In Some Of The Virtues Which Facilitate The Transaction Of Commercial Business (Such As Veracity, Fidelity, &C.), It Naturally Follows That They Are Highly Unpopular With The European Merchants.

Now these are the persons through whom, either directly or indirectly, is derived the greater part of the information

Which you gather in the Levant, and therefore you must make up your mind to hear an almost universal and unbroken testimony against the character of the people whose ancestors invented virtue. And strange to say, the Greeks themselves do not attempt to disturb this general unanimity of opinion by an dissent on their part. Question a Greek on the subject, and he will tell you at once that the people are traditori, and will then, perhaps, endeavour to shake off his fair share of the imputation by asserting that his father had been dragoman to some foreign embassy, and that he (the son), therefore, by the law of nations, had ceased to be Greek.

"E dunque no siete traditore?"

"Possibile, signor, ma almeno Io no sono Greco."

Not even the diplomatic representatives of the Hellenic kingdom are free from the habit of depreciating their brethren. I recollect that at one of the ports in Syria a Greek vessel was rather unfairly kept in quarantine by order of the Board of Health, which consisted entirely of Europeans. A consular agent from the kingdom of Greece had lately hoisted his flag in the town, and the captain of the vessel drew up a remonstrance, which he requested his consul to present to the Board.

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