There is a trace of genuine Cretan literature, though its chief work, the "Erotókritos," is by an Italian colonist, Vincenzo Cornaro. They have, however, many songs and many bards, though to any but Cretan ears the music is far from agreeable. I knew one of the popular singers, Karalambo, poet and singer at once, as most of them are (and many are _improvisatori_ of considerable facility). He was so much in repute that no wedding or festivity was considered complete anywhere in the range of a day's ride from Canéa unless Karalambo was there; and at other times he used to sing in the cafés on the Marina, screaming, to the strain of a naturally fine tenor, songs which, though to me not even music, used to melt his audiences into tears. He was a patriot as well as poet, and when the insurrection of '66 actually broke out, his songs were so seditious, and excited the Khaniote Christians so much, that he was driven into the mountains, and, joining a band of his neighbors, was one day wounded by the accidental discharge of a pistol one of his comrades was cleaning. The wound was fatal from want of surgical attendance. The Cretan music is always of a plaintive character, and monotonous; in singing, they have a habit of incessant quavering, and this, with the drawling tone, makes it far from agreeable to an ear accustomed to cultivated music, but it has a decided character of its own. There were in Kalepa before the insurrection two _improvisatori_ of considerable repute, who were accustomed to carry on musical disputes, one singing a couplet, and the other replying in a similar one. Sometimes it was a match of compliments, and sometimes the reverse, but following with tolerable exactitude the metre, a four-lined stanza, the second and fourth lines rhyming. All the ballads I have seen are in this form, the music also differing but little to my ear, though possibly to a Cretan there may be wide differences.