While there, an event occurred which had a disastrous physical influence upon Matthew Perry all his life, and which remotely caused his death. A great fire broke out on shore which threatened to wrap the whole city in conflagration. The efficient executive of the flag-ship, ordered a large detail to land in the boats and act as firemen. The men, eager for excitement on land, worked with alacrity; but among the most zealous and hard working of all was their lieutenant. In danger and exposure, alternately heated and drenched, Perry was almost exhausted when he regained the ship. The result was an attack of rheumatism, from the recurring assaults of which he was never afterwards entirely free. Hitherto this species of internal torture had been to him an abstraction; henceforth, it was personal and concrete. Shut up like a fire in his bones, its occasional eruptions were the cause of that seeming irritableness which was foreign to his nature. Among other visitors at Smyrna, were some Turkish ladies, who, veiled and guarded by eunuchs, came on board “ships of the new world.” No such privilege had ever been accorded them before, and these exiles of the harem, looked with eager curiosity at every-thing and everybody on the ship, though they spoke not a word. Nothing of themselves was visible except their eyes, and these—to the old commodore—“not very distinctly,” though possibly to the young officers they shone as brightly as meteors. This visit of our squadron had a stimulating effect on American commerce, though our men-of-war convoyed vessels of various Christian nations. The Greek pirates extending the field of their operations, had now begun their depredations in open boats. Dissensions among the patriots were already doing as much harm to the sinking cause as Turkish arms. Captain Nicholson of our navy, visiting Athens and Corinth, found the Acropolis in the hands of a faction, and the country poor and uncultivated. Corinth was but a mere name. Its streets were overgrown, its houses were roofless and empty, and the skeletons of its brave defenders lay white and unburied. The Greek fleet of one-hundred sail was unable to do much against the Turkish vessels, numbering fifteen more and usually heavier. The best successes of the patriots were by the use of fire-ships. In spite of the low state of the Hellenic cause, Americans manifested strict neutrality, and the Greek authorities in the ports entered were duly saluted, an example which the French admiral and Austrian commodore followed. The fleet cruised westwardly, arriving at Gibraltar, October 12, where Perry found awaiting him his appointment to the grade of acting Master Commandant. The opening of the year 1827, found the cause of the Greeks sunk to the lowest ebb of hopelessness. Even the crews of the men-of-war, unable to get wage or food, put to sea for plunder. Friend and foe, American, as well as Turk, suffered alike.