188 CURIOUS MODE OF CATCHING PARTRIDGES.

common in this country, which I do not remember to have heard of before. The sportsman provides himself with a covering for his whole body composed of stripes of different kinds of the brightest cloth. He has a hole made in it for admitting his gun, and other holes for the eyes; in which state he marches into the field. No sooner do the partridges perceive him, than impelled by this strange attraction, the whole covey run toward the cloth, and thus afford the sportsman an opportunity of murdering them at a blow!

Ibrahim, the present Pacha of Salonîca, is much esteemed here, and is universally spoken of as a humane man. We understand that he is nominated to a Pachalik of more importance, and will presently remove to it. Our arrival with three ships of war threw him into great consternation; he came down to the beach to make observations, and it is rumoured, gave orders for levying a competent force.

We hear that the Pacha of Egypt has sent his son with sixty men of war to Candia, and from twelve to fourteen thousand troops, in order to renew operations against the Greeks. But the Turks are so much in the habit of

INJUDICIOUS CONDUCT OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 189

crowding their ships with men as to render them unserviceable: in such cases the Greek fire must do infinite mischief. The Pacha's son is said to be a man of some talent, but not equal to his father.

Amongst other instances of the injudicious distribution of Bibles, by the BIBLE SOCIETY, which I find daily occurring, it was told me by Mr. Abbot, a Levant merchant in Salonica, that nearly four years ago, forty copies of the Bible, in different languages, had been sent to him from Malta; of these he had, in vain, attempted to dispose of more than three. He also said, that though he had written several times to Malta, to point out the propriety of their being otherwise disposed of, no notice whatever had been taken of his suggestion. This, with various other anecdotes, which I doubt not I shall, from time to time, collect, should teach the Society that they may have mistaken the mode of accomplishing their object; and that the flaming reports which they publish are not always borne out by facts. "In calculating the actual good done by the charitable contributions, which supply the funds of this benevolent association from year to year,"

190 INJUDICIOUS CONDUCT OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY.

says the Fifteenth Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, page 212, " or the be

66

nefit derivable from the labours and exertions of the agents of the Society in any one year, the NUMBER OF VERSIONS AND COPIES OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, which are issued from the press in different languages, and forwarded to the places where they are meant to be distributed, MUST BE CONSIDERED A

PRINCIPAL CRITERION AND MEASURE OF

ESTIMATION. The committee have, therefore, great satisfaction in communicating, as part of the fruits of the past year, the completion of two distinct editions of the New Testament in three Asiatic languages, besides a small edition, in a fourth language, of the Gospel of St. Matthew." How fallacious a mode of arguing this is, I need not, after the facts already stated, trouble myself to shew; but I must observe, that there seems not the smallest pretext for continuing the pernicious system of penny collections and female associations, if such be the use made of the supplies so raised. If packages of books are sent off at random, left to casual distribution, and no enquiry made about them afterward, the

THESSALONICA-GREEK SUPERSTITION.

191

money employed in these measures has been wasted, and the contributors cajoled!

Thursday Evening.-A singular anecdote, relative to Greek superstition, was told to me this evening. Three years after a body has been interred, the friends of the deceased make a procession to the place of its sepulchre, and examine the condition it is in. If the flesh be not decayed, or black, they imagine it to be the consequence of some enormous crime. They then have recourse to prayers and holy water, with which it is lavishly besprinkled, and again committed to the grave.

Friday, 28th Jan.-Sailed early for Scopeli, Captain Hamilton having received intelligence that several piratical ships had been cruising in this quarter, and had done considerable injury. We anchored in the evening off Cassandra.

Saturday, 29th Jan.-This day had nearly terminated most unhappily; and we have the utmost reason to be thankful for our escape from the dangerous extremity to which we were reduced. It blew violently, the ship running at a great rate. About noon we were

192

PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE AT SEA.

off the little island of Skiatho, not more than a mile and a half from the coast, when we suddenly struck upon a rock, of which the charts take no notice, nor had any one on board the slightest knowledge of its existence. The crew, then on deck, were immediately summoned to the forecastle; and the position of the sails altered, in order to take every advantage of the wind. This method succeeded; she was brought off the rock, but the tiller-ropes had snapped, and the rudder, of course, would no longer obey the wheel. I was writing in my cabin at the time, and heard the ship's keel grating over the stone with no very pleasing sensations. Presently the whirl of the broken tiller-ropes threw down a quantity of glass in the after gun-room; and an impetuous rush from all the lower parts of the ship to the accommodation-ladder, plainly indicated the na ture of the case. It was a striking scene that presented itself in the confused and hurried air of the men as they poured rapidly to their stations: the shouts of the officers, the rattling of the cordage, and the violent dashing of the sails against the creaking masts; add to this