and very nice it was; on asking the price, the landlord most unaffectedly said there was nothing to pay, and when we gave him a shilling he seemed to think it was most munificent. ‘… The town is now in possession of a Suliote chief, who has taken the castle into his own hands, and has quartered himself and his followers in all the best houses of the town, which is now newly building, and promises to be regular, and even elegant. The streets are quite straight, and cut one another at right angles, and the houses all have piazzas before them; but everything is now at a standstill, and the streets themselves, unpaved, are more like the courses of rivulets than anything else. It was a night of rejoicing, this being the Day of St. Dionysius, and all the common people were assembled in the bazaar, a sort of shambles, and the gentlemen in a coffee-room, smoking and playing cards, in their best dresses: most of them were fine-looking fellows, very quiet and polite. We had coffee there, and very capital it was, but thick and almost like chocolate. I should like to know how they make it. The Greeks there were all dressed in their white linen petticoats, embroidered coats, and shaggy capotes, except one old fellow, who had on an English box-coat, and one other fellow, whom, from his vulgar impudent countenance, I conclude to have been an English blackguard. They all say the Morea is in a most wretched state, full of banditti and pirates, so that you cannot go anywhere without an escort. Next day we found ourselves just off Ithaca, at breakfast-time, and got breakfast over before we entered the strait between Ithaca and Cephalonia. This was the first day that I attempted what is called sketching, and I made a tolerable hand of it; at least, I found out how to make memoranda that did to work upon afterwards. I can make no hand of colour, and think I shall hardly attempt it, till I have time to make some finished studies from nature. You and W[illy] care so little about classics, that I need not trouble you about Ulysses’ castle, Sappho’s leap, etc. We got here on Sunday night, and the rain came soon after us, and has persecuted us incessantly ever since. We got ashore yesterday and walked about the town, which is very picturesque, and exactly like the panorama…. ‘We were at a ball at Corfu on the anniversary of the installation of the Ionian Government, at which all the native population were expected; but the day was so stormy that it made a poor show. I meant to have got you a real Albanian capote, but they were not to be had at Corfu, and the cherry-stick tobacco-pipes were too dear.’ To the Rev. ISAAC WILLIAMS, Jan. 10, 1833.