between the brigands and the police of modern Hellas.
Brigandage was becoming a safe and almost a respectable Greek
industry. "Why not make it quite respectable and regular?"
said About. "Why does not some brigand chief, with a good
connection, convert his business into a properly registered
joint-stock company?" So he produced, in 1856, one of the most
delightful of satirical novels, "The King of the Mountains."
Edmond About died on January 17, 1885, shortly after his
election to the French Academy.


_I.--The Brigand and His Business_


I am no coward; still, I have some regard for my life. It is a present I
received from my parents, and I wish to preserve it as long as possible
in remembrance of them. So, on my arrival at Athens, in April, 1856, I
refrained from going into the country.

Had the director of the Hamburg Botanical Gardens said to me when I left
Germany: "My dear Hermann Schultz, I want you to go to Greece and draw
up a report on the remarkable system of brigandage obtaining in that
land," I might bravely have begun by going for a ride outside Athens, as
my American friends, John Harris and William Lobster, did. But I had
merely been sent, at a salary of £10 a month, to collect the rarer
specimens of the flora of Greece. I therefore began by studying the
native plants in the royal gardens; and put off the work of searching
for new species and varieties.

John Harris and William Lobster, who lodged with me at the shop of the