we last met at Venice, begins the 'piercing of the Isthmus.' _A
propos_ of which, one might suggest to Patras, with due respect, that
(politically speaking) 'honesty is the best policy.'

Being at Patras on St. Andrew's Day, with a Scotch demoiselle on board,
we could hardly but pilgrimage to the place of the Apostle's
martyrdom. Mrs. Wood kindly sent her daughters to do the honours.
Aghyos Andreas lies at the extreme south of the town on the system of
ruts, called a road, which conducts down-coast. The church is a long
yellow barn, fronting a cypress-grown cemetery, whose contents are being
transferred to the new extramural. A little finger of the holy man
reposes under a dwarf canopy in the south-eastern angle: his left arm is
preserved at Mount Athos in a silver reliquary, set with gems. Outside,
near the south-western corner, is the old well of Demeter (Ceres), which
has not lost its curative virtues by being baptised. You descend a dwarf
flight of brick steps to a mean shrine and portrait of the saint, and
remark the solid bases and the rude rubble arch of the pagan temple. A
fig-tree, under which the martyrdom took place, grew in the adjacent
court; it has long been cut down, probably for fuel.

The population of Patras still affords a fine study of the 'dirty
picturesque,' with clothes mostly home-made; sheepskin cloaks;
fustanellas or kilts, which contain a whole piece of calico; red
leggings, and the rudest of sandals; Turkish caps, and an occasional
pistol-belt. The Palikar still struts about in all his old bravery; and
the _bourgeois_ humbly imitates the dingy garb of Southern
Italy. The people have no taste for music, no regard for art, no respect
for antiquities, except for just as much as these will bring. They own
two, and only two, objects in life: firstly, to make money, and
secondly, to keep and not to spend it. But this dark picture has a