I decided to go to Volo as soon as the annexation was accomplished, and took letters of introduction to several leading citizens, amongst them one from Tricoupi. The Christian portion of the town was, of course, in exultation, but an attempt at inspection of the Turkish quarter had to be abandoned precipitately before a demonstration of the Mussulman juvenility. My visit had to be abbreviated, for the filthy khan which was the only place of entertainment for man and beast swarmed with bugs and mosquitoes; and, though the five letters I had were to the wealthiest persons in Volo, amongst them being the mayor, not one offered me hospitality when I told them the next day that I must return by the steamer that brought me, in default of a decent bed and eatable food; and, though they expressed polite regrets, they saw no alternative, and I took a return passage. Hospitality in continental Greece has no traditions; and even in Athens, except from Greeks who had lived in England, I have never been asked to accept bed or bread, while in Crete and in the Peloponnesus there was always a more or less active competition as to who should give me both. The stranger, who was in the classical days the messenger of the gods and received welcome as such, has degenerated to the position of the modern tramp. The difference is, no doubt, due to the centuries of oppression and isolation in which the fragments of the race have lived, and in which they have suffered the intrusion of unwelcome elements amongst them, always overborne and finding no protector except their own cunning, and no friend save in their own religion.