[eb] / who alive perhaps \ _All heroes_ < >--[MS. Alternative reading.] \ if still alive / [ec] / _and mountain-bounded \ ---- < > plain_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] \ _and mountain-outlined / [250] ["The whole region was, in a manner, in possession of the _Salsette's_ crew, parties of whom, in their white summer dresses, might be seen scattered over the plains collecting the tortoises, which swarm on the sides of the rivulets, and are found under every furze-bush."--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 116. See, too, for mention of "hundreds of tortoises" falling "from the overhanging branches, and thick underwood," into the waters of the Mender, _Travels, etc._, by E.D. Clarke, 1812, Part II. sect. i. p. 96.] [ed]---- _and land tortoise crawls_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] {205}[ee] --_their learned researches bear_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [251] This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company for some foreign theatre, embarked them at an Italian port, and carrying them to Algiers, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of _L'Italiana in Algieri_, at Venice, in the beginning of 1817. [We have reason to believe that the following, which we take from the MS. journal of a highly respectable traveller, is a more correct account: "In 1812 a Signor Guariglia induced several young persons of both sexes--none of them exceeding fifteen years of age--to accompany him on an operatic excursion; part to form the opera, and part the ballet. He contrived to get them on board a vessel, which took them to Janina, where he sold them for the basest purposes. Some died from the effect of the climate, and some from suffering. Among the few who returned were a Signor Molinari, and a female dancer named Bonfiglia, who afterwards became the wife of Crespi, the tenor singer. The wretch who so basely sold them was, when Lord Byron resided at Venice, employed as _capo de' vestarj_, or head tailor, at the Fenice."--Maria Graham (Lady Callcot). Ed. 1832.] {206}[252] [A comic singer in the _opera buffa_. The Italians, however, distinguish the _buffo cantante_, which requires good singing, from the _buffo comico_, in which there is more acting.--Ed. 1832.] {207}[253] [The figuranti are those dancers of a ballet who do not dance singly, but many together, and serve to fill up the background during the exhibition of individual performers. They correspond to the chorus in the opera.--Maria Graham.] [ef] _To help the ladies in their dress and lacing_.--[MS.] [254] It is strange that it should be the Pope and the Sultan, who are the chief encouragers of this branch of trade--women being prohibited as singers at St. Peter's, and not deemed trustworthy as guardians of the harem.