There did exist one amazing commandant
of the gendarmerie, who seriously endeavoured
to put down brigandage. In a few
months he made all the brigands hide their
diminished heads in their rocky dens. But
the authorities lost no time in dismissing him.
He was sapping the foundations of society.

Two travellers of M. About's acquaintance,
on the point of starting for a province
infested with brigands, thought of
asking for a safe conduct, from the great
personages who patronise the principal
bands; but one reflection made them
desist. "If those gentlemen, to oblige
their underlings, should give them notice
of our coming, on the sly, and so make
them a present of our luggage! Better
trust to chance, than to the honour of a
Greek." They set off on their journey
without a safe conduct.

They were very near repenting it. One
day, after climbing a steep mountain all
alone, they were quietly contemplating the
landscape, when they found themselves
exposed to three guns, levelled at them
by three Pellicares. Hemmed in on three
sides, they escaped by the fourth, and ran
down the hill much more quickly than they
had come up. In vain the three gunners
shouted, "Stop! stop!" One of the fugitives
afterwards stated that, during the
run, for the first time in his life, he felt for
stags and other poor creatures who are
hunted and shot at, with no means of defence
but flight.

A Frenchman was cleaned out while
returning from a short excursion. The
brigands took their choice of his clothes.
They left him his percussion gun, those
worthies only caring for flint guns. Of
course they took his money; but, as he
spoke Greek extremely well, he explained
to the chief of the band that he could not
possibly return to town without a halfpenny.
Whether for the love of the Greek
tongue, or out of pure charity, the chief
generously gave him five francs. This
adventure happened within six leagues of
Athens.

Athens was once all but taken by
brigands. The famous Grisiotis had got
together, in the island of Eubaea, a band
which was almost a little army. He
marched on the capital, and probably
would have taken it, if the first shot fired
at him had not disabled one of his arms.
He fell, and his followers took to their
heels. But, had that bullet missed its
mark, Athens would have been in the
pleasant condition of a hare in the midst of a
pack of hounds.

A lady traveller, who was fond of sketching,
was robbed of her gold chain, just
outside the town, on Mount Lycabetes, by
a young Greek, very well dressed and very
well made. She was busy finishing a
sketch, when the handsome scoundrel came
up and plundered her. When asked why
she let him approach so close to her,
"Could I guess," she answered, "that my
chain was all he was thinking of?"

A negress, who died at Smyrna, in the
odour of sorcery, had revealed the
existence of a treasure which a pacha of
Mistra, she was quite sure, had buried at
a certain spot. The Greek government,
rather simple in such matters by nature,
sent out a commission presided over by
an ex-minister, and escorted by five hundred
infantry soldiers. They began digging
away in good earnest. A ship of
war lay at anchor close by, ready to receive
the treasure. The work was expensive,
and it was the season of fevers.
After two months labour they discovered
a tin candlestick. "We are on the track,"
they said, and redoubled their efforts.
A month afterwards, the president returned
to Athens, convinced that the
negress had made a mistake. His colleagues
strolled piteously towards the
vessel. The troops, who had no treasure to
protect, followed at a respectful distance.
The brigands, who had heard talk of the
treasure, said to themselves at the very
outset: "Let them search in quiet; we will
search them afterwards." Disappointed in
their hopes, and indignant at the commission's
incompetency, they fell upon the
commissioners. Those gentlemen lost all
their money in the scuffle. One of them,
who tried to conceal from the robbers something
he had about him, received a sabre-cut
which nearly carried away his nose.
By such severities, the Greek brigands
proved that they had not lost all moral
sense, and that they had a horror of
trickery and falsehood.

NEW ENGLAND FARM LIFE.

To appreciate the state of farm life in
the Eastern States, preliminary account
must be taken of two facts, in which it is
different from the rustic life of England.
While the land of the "right little, tight
little," island is, to a great extent, held
by a few large proprietors, and there are,
therefore, several quite distinct agricultural
classes—the landlords, the tenant farmers,
the field labourers—in America the land