The priest takes the money and goes away: war is over. The peasant tells
me that he has served in the campaign of 1716, and that he was at the
defence of Corfu. I compliment him, and ask him to find me a lodging and
a man able to prepare my meals. He answers that he will procure me a
whole house, that he will be my cook himself, but I must go up the hill.
No matter! He calls two stout fellows, one takes my bag, the other
shoulders my sheep, and forward! As we are walking along, I tell him,--

"My good man, I would like to have in my service twenty-four fellows like
these under military discipline. I would give each man twenty gazzette a
day, and you would have forty as my lieutenant."

"I will," says the old soldier, "raise for you this very day a body-guard
of which you will be proud."

We reach a very convenient house, containing on the ground floor three
rooms and a stable, which I immediately turned into a guard-room.

My lieutenant went to get what I wanted, and particularly a needlewoman
to make me some shirts. In the course of the day I had furniture,
bedding, kitchen utensils, a good dinner, twenty-four well-equipped
soldiers, a super-annuated sempstress and several young girls to make my
shirts. After supper, I found my position highly pleasant, being
surrounded with some thirty persons who looked upon me as their
sovereign, although they could not make out what had brought me to their
island. The only thing which struck me as disagreeable was that the young
girls could not speak Italian, and I did not know Greek enough to enable
me to make love to them.

The next morning my lieutenant had the guard relieved, and I could not