About the middle of September, Cockerell, with Ingilby[14] and Foster, set sail for Greece. They stopped on their way to pay a visit to the Plain of Troy. The facilities for travelling nowadays have made us calmly familiar with the scenes of the past, but in 1810 to stand upon classic ground was to plant one's feet in a fairyland of romance, and a traveller who had got so unusually far might well permit his enthusiasm to find vent. When Cockerell was pointed out the tomb of Patroclus, he took off his clothes and, in imitation of Achilles, ran three times round it, naked. Thence they went by Tenedos and Lemnos to Salonica. Nothing in the notes of this journey is worth recording except perhaps the mention he makes of Tenedos as being still in a state of desolation from the cruel Russian attack upon it in the year 1807. "I ought to give you a notion of the political state of this part of the country. Ali Pasha of Yanina rules over the Morea, Albania, and Thessaly nearly up to Salonica, while the Pasha of Serres has Salonica and Macedonia nearly up to Constantinople, and both are practically independent of the Porte, obeying it or assisting it only as far as they please. Now, Ali Pasha has sent his son Veli with 15,000 men to join the Sultan's army against the Russians, but he on his way has encamped near Salonica and threatens to take possession of it. The Bey accordingly pays every sort of court to him, and sends out presents and provisions to mollify him. In the meanwhile the Sultan has given to another pasha a firman to take the Morea in Veli Pasha's absence, and he (Veli) is now waiting for his father Ali's advice as to whether he should proceed to the war, recover the Morea, or take Salonica. Fancy, what a state for a country to be in! The Sultan is a puppet in the hands of the janissaries, who on their side are powerless outside the city, so that the country without and within is in a state of anarchy." The party took a passage from Salonica to Athens in a Greek merchantman. "We passed Zagora, until lately a rich and prosperous commercial town, but it has been taken by Ali Pasha and he has reduced it to utter ruin. Off Scopolo a boat came out and fired a gun for us to heave to. The crew told me she was a pirate, but when we fired a gun in return to show that we also were armed, the crew of the boat merely wished us a happy journey.