THE author of this volume spent a year at Athens, for the prosecution of special studies, and traveled extensively, both in Peloponnesus and in Northern Greece. During repeated tours, nearly every site famous in the ancient history of the country was visited, together with those places which have figured prominently in more recent transactions. The following pages are the result of observations noted at the time, although, for various reasons, the form of a diary has not been retained throughout.
Several chapters have been devoted to the literature of Modern Greece-à subject to which little attention has been given, out of that country itself. The manners and customs, politics, religion and religious festivals, and the state of popular education, have been made the topics of separate examination. The author has taken great satisfaction in chronicling the unexampled progress of the Greek race in civilization and intelligence; and, while advocating no particular theory as to its origin, has felt that sufficient interest and sympathy have not been entertained in Christian Europe and America for the struggles of that race to free itself from the trammels of tyranny-political, religious, and intellectual—with which so many centuries of barbarism had invested it.