Of Janina much has been said and written. Its site and surrounding objects are as familiar to all as descriptions and sketches can make them. Its history, society, and government have all received due notice; antiquities it has none. The city certainly, perhaps even its lake, is but a few centuries old. The place now possesses less interest than was recently the case, and has fallen into comparative decay with the fortunes of Ali Pasha, its late extraordinary master.

A few steps lead us from the palace of Ali to his grave. It is a simple tomb of white stone, shrouded over with some wild plants growing above it. It affords a striking evidence of the vanity and emptiness of all the eulogies which have been lavished upon the political prudence and sagacity of this Napoleon of Greece. They would indeed have been worth something, could he, while domineering far and wide from this his citadel, have foreseen this one event, which most concerned himself,-that the result and end of the system he was then pursuing with all his ingenuity and power would be, that his headless body would in a few years lie under a plain plastered slab, in his own courtyard!

There is a Mosque near the tomb, which commands a fine view of the lake over which it stands. The traveller is permitted to enter it when he has taken off his shoes. It is a plain square room, daubed over with paint. Sentences from the Koran we suppose-are inscribed in vermilion upon the walls. A narrow pulpit is attached to the east end. Inserted in the wall near this rostrum is what may be called the cynosure of a Turkish mosque, namely, the Kebla, or window through which the eye of the

Faithful is directed toward the holy city. In the centre of the interior is a lustre of glass lamps, from which some ears of corn are hanging. Above the passage at the entrance is a gallery.

Not far from the mosque is a Tomb, which now attracts more attention than that of the late Pasha. It is carefully enclosed with palisades, through which the by-standers look, some in attitudes of devotion. It contains the body of a Turkish saint of high reputation, and has therefore the privilege of being painted green, which is, as is well known, the sacred colour of the Turks, and suggests the question here, whether this may not be one of the many indications discoverable in that religion, that Mahometanism is equally partial in its origin and application; that as it was born in, so it was adapted particularly to, a parched, sandy, and brown country, where verdure would be

WHERE WAS DODONA?

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most refreshing to the eye, and a green surface would be looked upon with a feeling of pleasure, approaching to devotion.

To ascertain the site of DODONA would seem now to require a response from the ORACLE itself. The former dwelling of the The kings, generals,

spirit, which once guided half the world, is lost. and statesmen, who came from the extreme coasts of Greece, from all the countries stretching between AMPHIPOLIS on the east, and APOLLONIA on the west, and from the shores of Asia and Italy, to consult it, would have been spared much trouble, and many long and weary journeys, could they have foreseen this; but, for us, even the uncertainty of its site is not without its interest.

Still, we do not believe that the search for Dodona is hopeless. There must be something peculiar and distinct in the remains of so remarkable a place. The ruins of a large capital are easily distinguished from those of a dependent city; the ruins of a city again from those of a mere fortress; but the ruins of an oracular city will have something very different from both.

What has perplexed the investigation of this question is, as it appears to us, not the paucity of identifying data, but their multitude and variety. There are so many conditions to be satisfied, that to satisfy them all is impossible. A lake, a high mountain, a hundred springs, a miraculous fountain which extinguishes lights and then rekindles them; a forest of oaks and beeches, a wide plain of excellent pasturage: these characteristics are all put together, as in the hue-and-cry description of a military deserter; these are the attributes and features by which Dodona is first to be recognised,

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THE SEARCH FOR DODONA.

and then brought back to the post which it has deserted in the maps of Greece.

But has not this varied description been sketched without due discrimination? Regarding Dodona as a city only, and not as a country, we observe that it was the most remarkable in this district; indeed, it was the only one

of any consideration within a circuit of many miles. Its importance also, from its sacred character, is not to be neglected. Now, supposing a traveller in this part of Greece, but not in the immediate neighbourhood of the oracle itself, to have met with a phosphoric fountain, for instance, which he found to extinguish and then to ignite any inflammable substance, if he were asked on his return home where this spring was to be found, what answer would he have made but this," he had seen it near DODONA!" and thus a cluster of wonders would soon group themselves about that place, as the best and almost the only point for their adhesion and support; and so these phenomena, though really detached, but connected with it by association, would soon be assumed to be the features of the oracle itself.

But Dodona was not a city merely; it was, we believe, a country also. Its dimensions may be presumed to have been of sufficient extent to comprise within their general range, all those characteristic features which are now crowded into the immediate neighbourhood, and almost into the sacred precincts of the oracular shrine.

It has been alleged that, because some authors place Dodona in MOLOSSIA and

others in THESPROTIA, it must, therefore, have been upon the borders of both. But this inference must be received with certain limitations. In earlier times Dodona was in Thesprotia; in later ages it was in Molossia; simply because the greater part of Thesprotia itself became Molossian by the southward encroachments of the latter power, which, in the Peloponnesian war, reached nearly to the shores of the Ambracian gulf. Again, in that important datum for determining the position of Dodona, namely, its distance of four days' journey from BUTHROTUM, at the mouth of the river of the modern DELVINO, and of two from

Ambracia, the present Arta, it must be remembered that the latter journey would be with, and the former against, the grain of the hard mountain ranges which

stretch from north to south, between the Pindus and the Ionian sea.

These considerations are suggested by the sight of an ancient city, whose ruins have deservedly attracted much attention. In our way towards them we proceed from Janina in a south-westerly direction, and in an hour's time from that place pass by the village of Grapsista on our left, then turn to the right up a mountain pass, whence we descend, having a church called ECCLESIA BODISTA on the left, into an extensive plain, which lies below the eastern slopes of Mount Olitza. The ruins, which are situated in the middle of this plain, are about eleven miles to the south-west of Janina. They are known by the name of the Kastro, or ancient citadel, of DRAMISUS.

KK