Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 edition. Excerpt: ...no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Alhania Proper. On Alhania and its inhahitants I am unwilling to descant, hecause this will he 4one so much hetter hy my fellow-traveller, in a work which may prohahly precede this in puhlication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him. Cut some few ohservations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Alhanesc, struck me forcihly hy their resemhlance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder climate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and their hardy hahits, all carried me hack to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded hy their neighhours as the Alhanese: the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of hoth, and sometimes neither. Their hahits are predatory: all are armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, aud Gegdes, are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garh, and essentially in character. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favourahly. I was attended hy two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my ohservation; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigahle in service, are rarely to he found'. The Infidel was named Basilius, the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latier ahout my own. Uasili was strictly charged hy Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of Acarnauia to the hanks of Acheloiis, and onward to...