condition.

"The town within the wall," says Sir W. Gell, "is like all those in this
part of the world, encumbered with the fallen ruins of former habitations.
These have been generally constructed by the Turks, since the expulsion
of the Venetians; for it appears, that till the long continued habit of
possession had induced the Mahometans to live upon and cultivate their
estates in the country, and the power of the Venetian republic had been
consumed by a protracted peace, a law was enforced which compelled every
Turk to have a habitation in some one of the fortresses of the country.
But the habitatations," says our traveller, "present generally an
indiscriminate mass of ruins; they were originally erected in haste, and
being often cemented with mud instead of mortar, the rains of autumn,
penetrating between the outer and inner faces of the walls, swell the
earth, and soon effect the ruin of the whole"--it must be confessed, but
sorry structures for the _triple_ fires of an enemy. Sir William, on his
visit, found the commandant in a state of misery not exceeded by the lot
of his meanest fellow-citizens, except that his robes were somewhat in
better condition. He received him "very kindly in a dirty unfurnished
apartment," into which he "climbed by a tottering ladder from a court
strewed with ruins;" here he gave him "coffee," after which he took his
leave. What would a first lord of the Admiralty say to such a reception?
and it must have been somewhat uncourtly to our traveller.

The soil about Navarino is of a red colour, and is remarkable for the
production of an infinite quantity of squills, which are used in
medicine. The rocks, which show themselves in every direction through a
scanty but rich soil, are limestone, and present a general appearance of
unproductiveness round the castle of Navarino; and the absence of trees
is ill compensated by the profusion of sage, brooms, cistus, and other