before the Revolution broke out in 1821. It is a period dear to the hearts of all Greeks; for it prepared and trained the men who, during the terrible nine years of the Revolution, were to stand up against and defeat the enormous armies of Turkey.
It is a period unique in the history of any nation, a period full of grandeur of individual achievement, and it has been immortalized in Laïk poetry. I do not believe that there is a Greek to-day who does not know at least some of these long poems, composed by the Armateloi themselves, put to music by themselves, and transmitted to us by word of mouth, from father to son.
As the brigand at the spit went on with his song, it was taken up like an anthem by others, who began to swarm out of little cubby-holes in the sides of the cave, which were hidden from view by hanging sheep-skins. They squatted around the roasting lamb, or stretched themselves on the ground, and snatched at the song, here, there, anywhere; and the fumes of the meat mingled with the song, and the song became part of the meat; and all blended with the vaulted room, and the glorious white fustanella gleaming in the firelight.
One must be born under an alien yoke to understand what the love of one's fatherland is. Until the last year the Greeks may have gained little in the estimation of the world,
