We had, indeed, a missive from the Greek Prime Minister, which we presented to the Chief Police Officer of each town—a gentleman in the usual scarlet cap and white petticoats, but carrying a great dog-whip as the sign of his office. This custom, strange to say, dates from the days of Aristophanes. But the Prime Minister warned us that, though things were now safe, there was no permanent security. Any revolution in the neighborhood (such, for example, as that in Herzegovina, which at that time had not yet broken out) might, he said, send over the Turkish frontier a number of outlaws or other fugitives, who would support themselves by levying blackmail on the peasantry, and then on travellers. We were assured that the Morea, which does not afford an easy escape into Turkey, has been for years perfectly secure, and I found it so in several subsequent journeys. So, then, any traveller desirous of seeing the Peloponnesus—Sparta, Olympia, Mantinea, Argos, or even Central Greece—may count on doing so with safety. Not so the visitor to Tempe and Mount Pindus.(76) The Professors of the University with whom I talked were, indeed, of a more sanguine opinion. They did not anticipate any recurrence of the danger: they considered Greece one of the safest and quietest of countries. Moreover, in one point they all seemed agreed. It was perfectly certain that the presence of bandits would be at once known at Athens. Why this was so, I was not informed, nor whether travellers would be at once informed also. In any case, either M. Trikoupi or the British Minister can be perfectly relied upon for advice in this matter. So much for the safety of travelling in Greece, which is suggested by the melancholy fate of Mr. Vyner and his friends, though that event is now so long past. But one point more. It is both idle and foolish to imagine that revolvers and daggers are the best protection against Greek bandits, should they reappear. They never attack where they are visible. The first notice given to the traveller is the sight of twenty or thirty muzzles pointed at him from the covert, with a summons to surrender. Except, therefore, the party be too numerous to be so surrounded and _visé_, so that some could fight, even were others shot—except in such a case, arms are only an additional prize, and a tempting one, for the clephts. It is, indeed, very seldom that the carrying of arms is to be recommended to any traveller in any land.