Simultaneously, Mr. Fish, now become Secretary of State, removed me from the consulate at the request of the Turkish Government, and in June I went to Crete to hand over the consular effects to my successor, and, on the petition of the Cretan chiefs still remaining in Athens, to obtain, if possible, some mitigation of the measures which prevented them from repatriating themselves. I found the island as I had left it, in peace indeed, but the peace of destruction and paralysis. Roads were being made, and block-houses being constructed, but no houses being rebuilt, and the roads were all military. The new Governor-General seemed amiable, just, and good-willed, but in Turkish disorganization the best will does not go far. The subordinates of the local administration were the spies, the traitors, and "loyal" people of the war, with rancors to vent and revenges to take. There was nothing to rob the people of, but there remained prisons and persecutions. I found, naturally enough, all my efforts with the Governor useless, and that the condition of things made return unsafe for any one who had taken a prominent part in the war; and so, despairing of finding any opening, I was about to return to Athens without awaiting my successor, but before going decided to make that visit to Omalos and Samaria which the insurrection had stopped and the state of hostilities ever since had rendered impracticable from the Turkish posts. Even when peace had been restored and not a recusant fugitive remained in the mountain hiding-places, the local authorities could with difficulty reconcile themselves to the idea of my going there; and it was only after the failure of several petty intrigues to prevent my getting away, that they determined to pass to the other extreme and do handsomely what they could not avoid doing. I set out in the dawn of a July day with an officer of the mounted police, a chosen and trusty man, with one private of the same force and my own cavass. The private rode a hundred yards ahead _en vidette_ against any attack on the official dignity by unknowing peasant or unheeding patrol or straggler of the faithful, and discharged his duty on the road to my complete satisfaction, no countermarching troops daring to hold the narrow way to the detriment of the consular dignity. The lawlessness of the Turkish administration in Crete has kept alive, more than in most of the Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the power of and respect for foreign officials. Just as much as the unjust Governor dreads the inspecting eye and the exposing blue-book, so much the Rayah hopes from them, and honors the Effendi as the Turk curses the Ghiaour; and so in Crete the extreme of official deference is kept up, corresponding to the degree of official oppression hitherto obtaining.