EDITOR'S NOTICE. "A MORE accurate description of this inland tract is ardently desired; but it is no where to be found." Such is the remark inscribed by the illustrious D'Anville on that part of his map of ancient Greece which comprehends Epirus. With what avidity, then, would he not have availed himself of the various information, assembled and given to the public since his time, relative to Epirus and other highly interesting portions of the north of Greece. Greatly, indeed, are the geographer, the historian, the antiquary, indebted to the gentlemen of our own and other countries, who have, of late years, communicated to the world the results of their learned and adventurous personal researches, in a country so peculiarly interesting as Greece, in the comprehensive sense of the name. So has it happened, however, that, from particular circumstances, the author of the work from which the contents of the following pages have been extracted, has been enabled to survey a much greater portion of EPIRUS and ALBANIA, of MACEDONIA and THESSALY, and that with much more deliberation and much greater advantages than any other person, without any exception, whose name is known in the world. " Dr. Pouqueville, a corresponding member of the class of antiqui ties in the Royal Institute of France, was selected as one of the men of science and learning to accompany the French expedition to Egypt. On his voyage back to Europe he was captured, and long detained at Constantinople. In 1805, after his return to France, he published "Travels in the Morea, Albania," &c. a work which gratified as it excited the public curiosity. In the autumn of the same year, Dr. P. was appointed consul-general for France at the court, and within the territories under the authority of Aly Pasha of Janina. In that character he acted for ten years, in the course of which period he traversed and examined many regions and places to which no stranger could possibly have access, who was not, as Dr. P., furnished with the special permission and protection of the ruler of the country. The original work extends to five full octavo volumes, to be illustrated by maps, plans, &c. from original materials collected by the Author, and arranged by M. Barbier du Bocage, the well-known Geographer of the "Travels of Anacharsis." In preparing the present publication it has become necessary to deviate, in various cases, from the arrangement adopted by the learned and accurate Author. The observations collected in the course of several different tours, performed at distant epochs, are here collected and condensed into one continued narrative. The person to whom the condensation has been intrusted never personally visited Greece, but he has long made the ancient military history and topography of the north of Greece the objects of his particular study, those operations, especially, in which Cæsar and Pompey were concerned; the subject is, therefore, not new to him. On the whole, the Editor would felicitate the geographer, the antiquary, particularly the military antiquary, on the acquisition of so rich a fund of genuine topographic information, as will be found to be compressed within the very narrow limits of the present publication. It will serve as the TRAVELLING COMPANION, the VADEMECUM of the traveller for information, whenever he shall visit the venerable source of science and art. It will call back to his remembrance many an event, many an operation, recorded in voluminous works, ancient and modern, which he cannot be expected to carry with him, nor to find in those quarters to which his researches may be directed. The French original is not yet completely published; but the Editor is desirous to gratify the eagerness of public curiosity, with regard to the important work of Dr. Pouqueville, by producing, in the first instance, what relates to the greater portion of the north of Greece. As soon as the remainder shall appear, which he understands may be expected in January, the Editor will hasten to lay before the readers of this Journal Dr. P.'s equally elaborate remarks on the southern parts of Greece. An Atlas of Plates being promised, on the completion of the original work, the embellishments of the second part of this publication may be expected to be strikingly splendid. London, 15th Dec. 1820. Voyage from Ancona to Ragusa. IN September 1805, I received an order to return to Greece, together with M. Julian Bessières, who was instructed by government to introduce me as consul-general of France, to reside at the court of the Vizier Aly, Pasha of Janina. The hardships I had formerly undergone, during my captivity in Turkey of three years duration, and the character I had heard of the personage in whose capital and presence I was to reside, had so deeply affected my mind, that nothing less powerful than the prospect of being able to visit Greece and the adjoining regions, with the advantages resulting from my official situation, and from the special commands of government, could have overcome my reluctancy to engage in such a busi ness. Leaving Paris on the 21st of October, I overtook M. Bessières in Milan, then, as all the north of Italy, in great agitation. A French army of only twenty-two thousand men, under Massena, encamped on the river Adige, would, it was feared, be driven back; and the British and Russian forces, landed in the kingdom of Naples, had roused a spirit throughout the country, by which our journey to Ancona, where we purposed to embark for Greece, might probably be frustrated. Our apprehensions were however vain, for we reached that port without interruption; and after some delay on account of contrary winds, on the 16th of November we sailed for Ragusa, a course of eighty marine leagues, in the brig Fortunate, in company with two other Ragusan vessels. Light but fair breezes, aided by the currents, carried us forward to the coast of Dalmatia, till the 20th, when, the wind turning against us, VOYAGES and TRAVELS, No. 4. Vol. IV. B we put into Cavo Sesto, in Sclavonia, a port east by north forty leagues from Ancona. We were indeed but ill prepared to keep the sea; for the vessel was loaded with corn very imperfectly stowed, and our crew too weak. On the other hand, the land was occupied by the Austrians, who might not perhaps respect the neutral flag of Ragusa. Scarcely had we come to anchor in the road, when we were joined by an Austrian convoy of twenty-five sail; but being bound for Trieste, they weighed again on the 21st without noticing us. The road of Cavo (or Cao) Sesto, between Sebennico and Spalatro, is one of the best in the Adriatic, in the midst of a long tract of bare limestone rocky coast. The entrance of the port is divided into two passes by an island, a quarter of a mile long from north to south. Ships from the northward stand in south-east by the north pass: the south pass, with twenty-three English fathoms water, shows by the green weeds a shoal at the south end of the island. Going on shore, the town brought to my recollection the dirt and poverty of those I had formerly seen in Turkey; but it was defended by walls, and therefore possessed a high-toned society of antique gentry, for its members were enrolled in the celebrated golden book of Venice. Nor, indeed, could the remote date of the noblesse be questioned, after beholding the specimens which came under our eyes. For we met in our walk a gentleman in an enormous peruque, clothed in laced velvet, dragging a rapier of formidable length, and having on his arm a lady swelled out with two overgrown hoops. Being supposed to belong to the Venetian government, the nobles of Saint Mark, we found the townsfolks kindly disposed towards us, but eager to say all the ill possible of their new masters. For the Austrians exercised sufficient rigour on both land and water; and a superior imperial officer was hourly expected, to raise troops in the town and environs, and to make a survey of the coast. Our alarm on this information was greatly increased by the arrival of another convoy, protected by a Russian sloop of war. Fortunately, however, on the following morning, the 23d of November, the wind sprung up from the north, and we put to sea, in the hope of reaching Ragusa the day following, a distance of at least forty marine leagues over the chart. Wind and sea favoured us till near sun-set, when clouds began to assemble in the west on the coast of Italy; a sure sign of a change of weather. The crew had sung the evening-service to Saint Blaise, the patron of the ship and of the republic of Ragusa, and we had quitted the deck for the cabin, when we were alarmed by the trumpet of the captain calling out to another ship to bear up; but in vain, for she fell on board of us with prodigious force. Hurrying on deck we found both captain and crew in despair on their knees, waiting with imploring hands till we should go down. The man at the helm, the only one of the crew who seemed to preserve his faculties, put the tiller in my hands, and running below to examine the vessel, called out that all was well, and that she took in no water; on which the crew instantly hastened to their posts. She had, nevertheless, suffered so much by the shock, that it became necessary to throw overboard the guns, cables, part of the anchors, &c. At day-break we found ourselves on a very dangerous part of the coast, at the entrance of the strait of Narenta; and at noon we prepared to run the vessel ashore on the island of Lissa. The gale, however, abating, we righted the ship, and stood on with easy weather to Ragusa, where we arrived on the 27th. Our passports being examined, and the regulations of quarantine complied with, we landed, and our seamen hastened to discharge, in the church of our Lady of Grace, the vows they had poured out to her in their distress, CHAPTER II, RAGUSA, a sea-port, situated on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, in north lat. 42 deg. 35 min. and long. 18 deg. 20 min. east from Greenwich, was founded by the remaining inhabitants of Epidaurus, overthrown by the Goths in the reign of the Roman Emperor Valerian, in the middle of the third century. The site of Epidaurus is pointed out at Ragusa Vecchia (old Ragusa) six miles south-east from the present Ragusa, on the opposite side of the bay. Attacked by the Moors, harassed by the Venetians, and by the chiefs of the Bosnians, in the interior of the country, the Ragusans were indebted for their independence to the protection of Orchan, son of Othoman, Emperor of the Turks, early in the fourteenth century. Hearing of the success of Orchan against the degenerate Caesars of Constantinople, the Ragusans requested, by a deputation of their principal citizens, the favour of the conqueror. A treaty of amity and commercial intercourse with the Othoman was brought back, characteristically ratified by the impression of his hand dipped in the ink. By this act was the independent constitution of Ragusa established; an independence universally respected until 1815, an epoch fatal to all the free republics of the old continent. For then Ragusa and Venice, Genoa and Lucca, Geneva and the |