This little speech gave me a profound feeling of relief. I looked around with satisfaction. The King, his secretaries, and his soldiers seemed less terrible; the surrounding rocks more picturesque, since I viewed them with the eye of a guest and not as a prisoner. The desire I had experienced to see Athens suddenly subsided, and I decided to pass two or three days in the mountains. I felt that my counsels would not be useless to Mary-Ann's mother. The good woman was in a state of excitement which might urge her to do something rash. If, perchance, she determined to refuse to pay the ransom! Before England could come to her aid, she would have ample time to draw dire calamity upon her charming head. I must not leave her until I had an opportunity to relate the history of Mistra's little daughters. Shall I say more? You know my passion for botany. The flora of Parnassus is very enticing at the end of April. One can find in the mountains five or six plants as rare as they are celebrated. One especially: Boryana variabilis, discovered and named by M. Bory de Saint-Vincent. Should I leave such a lacuna and present my herbarium to the Museum of Hamburg, without the boryana variabilis? I replied to the King: "I accept thy hospitality, but on one condition." "What is it?" "That thou wilt return my box." "Oh well! so be it: and the condition?" "That is it." "Will you tell me of what use it is to you?" "To hold the plants which I pick." "And why do you search for plants? To sell them?" "Nonsense! I am not a merchant, I am a savant." He held out his hand to me and said with visible joy: "I am charmed. Science is a beautiful thing. Our ancestors were wise men. Our grandchildren will be, perhaps. As for us, time is lacking. Savants are much esteemed in your country?" "Greatly." "One gives them rank?" "Sometimes." "One pays them well?" "Enough!" "One attaches a little ribbon to their coat?" "Occasionally!" "Is it true that cities dispute as to which they belong?" "It is true in Germany!" "And one looks upon their death as a public calamity?" "Assuredly!" "What you tell me gives me great pleasure. Then you have no complaints to make of your fellow-citizens?" "Very much to the contrary. It is through their liberality that I was enabled to come to Greece." "You travel at their expense?" "Yes." "You are well-educated?" "I am a doctor." "It is the highest grade in science?" "No." "And how many doctors are there in the city in which you live?" "I do not know exactly, but not as many doctors in Hamburg, as generals in Athens." "Oh! oh! I would not deprive your country of a man so rare. You shall return to Hamburg, Monsieur, doctor; what would they say down below if they knew that you were a prisoner up here in the mountains?" "They would say that it was a misfortune."