First, however, let us state the personal adventure which occasions this reference to Homer, as it illustrates a feature in Greek scenery, and in the composition of Greek society. In the early part of his travels, on a day when Mr. Mure was within a few hours of the immortal Mesolonghi, he (as better mounted) had ridden a-head of his suite. Suddenly he came upon 'an encampment of small, low, reed wigwams,' which in form resembled 'the pastoral capanne of the Roman plain;' but were 'vastly inferior in size and structure.' Women and children were sitting outside: but finally there crawled forth from the little miserable hovels two or three male figures of such gigantic dimensions as seemed beyond the capacity of the entire dwellings. Several others joined them, all remarkable for size and beauty. And one, whose air of authority bespoke his real rank of chief, Mr. Mure pronounces 'a most magnificent-looking barbarian,' This was a nomad tribe of Wallachian shepherds, descended (it is supposed) from the Dacian colonies, Romans intermingled with natives, founded by the later Caesars; the prevalent features of their faces are, it seems, Italian; their language is powerfully veined with Latin; their dress differing from that of all their Albanian neighbors, resembles the dress of Dacian captives sculptured on the triumphal monuments of Rome; and lastly, their peculiar name, _Vlack Wallachian_, indicates in the Sclavonic language pretty much the same relation to a foreign origin, as in German is indicated by the word _Welsh_: an affinity of which word is said to exist in our word _Walnut_, where _wall_ (as the late Mr. Coleridge thinks) means _alien_, _outlandish_. The evidence therefore is as direct for their non-Grecian descent as could be desired. But they are interesting to Greece at this time, because annually migrating from Thessaly in the summer, and diffusing themselves in the patriarchal style with their wives, their children, and their flocks, over the sunny vales of Boeotia, of Peloponnesus, and in general of southern Greece. Their men are huge, but they are the mildest of the human race. Their dogs are huge, also; so far the parallel holds. We regret that strict regard to truth forbids us to pursue the comparison.