On the 19th the weather was fine again, and we went on hoping to find the river fordable, but when we got to the bank we found it rapid and deep. One of our Turks, after a good deal of boasting, plunged in, and in an instant sank, and the torrent was carrying him and his horse floundering away. Another of his brother Turks, seeing him carried down, called loudly on Allah, and stroked his beard in great tribulation, but without stirring a stump. In another minute the man would have been drowned, but our servant Antonetti, who was but a Christian, very pluckily ran in and clawed him out. The poor boaster was already senseless when we got him to land. We took him back to Dervishina, and gradually brought him round, when instead of thanking his stars for his narrow escape, or Antonetti for the plucky part he had played, he did nothing but lament the loss of his gun, 'Tofeki,' which he had himself won, he said, and of his shawl which had cost him 50 piastres. We promised to make the latter good, and left him to rest. The whole incident was in all senses a damper to our ardour. When we considered that to pass this river we must wait one day at least, and probably four days to get across the one near Suli, the expenditure of time seemed to us all, at least so I thought, greater than we cared to devote to the expedition. So the long and short of it was that we turned back and slept at Bareatis. Next day we got back to Janina. I made up my mind now that I was wasting time over this trip, and wished to get back to Athens. But before leaving I thought it my duty to call once more on Ali Pasha. A most agreeable old man he is. I was more than ever struck with the easy familiarity and perfect good humour of his manners. We found him in a low apartment with a fire in the middle, generally used for his Albanians and known as laapoda. Then we went to see Pouqueville,[45] the French resident. We found him with his brother, both of them the worst type of Frenchmen--vulgar, bragging, genuine children of the Revolution. Nothing worth remembering was said, but I did gather this from his tone--that the Empire in France is not likely to last. On the 26th my friends, for a wonder, got up early, and we all set out in a boat for a small village where we were to find my horses. There we bid farewell and I mounted. It came on to rain, and I arrived, wet through, at the Three Khans to sleep. Next day the rain became snow, but I set out nevertheless for Mezzovo. We had to ford the river several times, and for the last hour to Mezzovo were up to our middles in snow. The scenery was magnificent, and the country is well cultivated. Mezzovo is a Vlaki or Wallachian village; the people speak a sort of mixed Greek. They are exceedingly industrious and well-to-do.