So far then is certain: viz. that the positive danger is greater in poverty-stricken Greece than in rich and splendid Italy. But as to the valuation of the danger, it is probably as yet imperfect from mere defect of experience: the total amount of travellers is unknown. And it may be argued that at least Colonel Leake, Mr. Dodwell, and our present Mr. Mure, with as many more as have written books, cannot be among the killed, wounded, or missing. There is evidence in octavo that they are yet 'to the fore.' Still with respect to books, after all, they may have been posthumous works: or, to put the case in another form, who knows how many excellent works in medium quarto, not less than crown octavo, may have been suppressed and intercepted in their rudiments by these expurgatorial ruffians? Mr. Mure mentions as the exquisite reason for the present fashion of shooting from an ambush first, and settling accounts afterwards, that by this means they evade the chances of a contest. The Greek robber, it seems, knows as well as Cicero that 'non semper viator a latrone, nonnunquam etiam latro a viatore occiditur'--a disappointment that makes one laugh exceedingly. Now this rule as to armed travellers is likely to bear hard upon our countrymen, who being rich, (else how come they in Greece?) will surely be brilliantly armed; and thus again it may be said, in a sense somewhat different from Juvenal's-- Et _vacuus_ cantat coram latrone viator; _Vacuus_ not of money, but of pistols. Yet on the other hand, though possibly sound law for the thickets of Mount Cithaeron, this would be too unsafe a policy as a general rule: too often it is the exposure of a helpless exterior which first suggests the outrage. And perhaps the best suggestion for the present would be, that travellers should carry in their hands an apparent telescope or a reputed walking-cane; which peaceful and natural part of his appointments will first operate to draw out his lurking forest friend from his advantage; and on closer colloquy, if this friend should turn restive, then the 'Tuscan artist's tube,' contrived of course a double debt to pay, will suddenly reveal another sort of tube, insinuating an argument sufficient for the refutation of any sophism whatever. This is the best compromise which we can put forward with the present dilemma in Greece, where it seems that to be armed or to be unarmed is almost equally perilous. But our secret opinion is, that in all countries alike, the only absolute safeguard against highway robbery is--a railway; for then the tables are turned; not he who is stopped--incurs the risk, but he who stops: we question whether Samson himself could have pulled up his namesake on the Liverpool railway. Recently, indeed, in the Court of Common Pleas, on a motion to show cause by Sergeant Bompas, in Hewitt v. Price, Tindal (Chief-Justice) said--'We cannot call a railway a public [Footnote 1] security, I think,' (_laughter:_) but _we_ think otherwise.