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172.

of the Board of Foreign Missions to the last. He lived to an advan-
ced age and he made a last visit to America in a year that a
general convention of the Episcopal Church met either in Philadelphia
or New York. This was about 1870. During some public proceedings of
the two Houses it was announced that that veteran missionary the
Rev Mr Hill was present, either on the platform of a hall or in the chancel
of a church, and being too old and weak to address the audience he
stepped forward so as to be well seen by everyone. He was well received
by the assembled people, which proved how generally he was known.

The steamer left the Piraeus in the course of the after-
noon and the next morning early we were at anchor before the town
of Syra, the principal city of the island of the same name. It belonged
to Greece, and since it has been wrested from Turkish rule, had become
an important point on the highway to Constantinople. The town was
a curious one to observe from our anchorage, as it consisted of a group
of houses occupying the top of a cone-shaped hill and a vacant
space between these and the new town below on the edge of the water.
The explanation of this unbuilt space was that during the existence
of piracy in the Egean Sea, which had lasted until those waters
became frequented by the allied fleets of France and England engaged
in the war with Russia, it was unsafe for a city to be located near
the water; hence the position of the old city on the top of a hill. When
possession became vested in the Greek government, it was sufficiently
powerful to keep off the sea rovers, although they still abounded and
continued to depredate upon the islands which Turkey retained,
and then it became safe for business houses and other buildings
required by the commerce of the place to be erected lower down.

After Syra we steamed direct for Smyrna which we reached
in a few hours and where we remained at anchor for 24 hours.
I went on shore but did not remain long, as the town consisted of a
labyrinth of muddy alleys which made my first view of a Turkish
city somewhat unprepossessing. I saw too for the first time a veiled
woman after the Eastern fashion, and on the steamer there were al-
ready mussulmen of both sexes, the first class passengers of whom
went through their devotions regularly at stated hours during the
day and on the upper deck using the well known eastern rug
for the purpose, upon which they knelt and bowed their fore-
heads to the floor. As new passengers came on board bound for
Constantinople I conversed with several at meals. One of them, a
Sardinian by birth, but who had lived in the Levant for years, had
been in Smyrna when Kosta was rescued from the Austrian frigate
by Capt Ingraham, in command of a little American sloop of war.
It is an historical event which occurred about the year 1850, and
need not be detailed here. Austria was cordially defeated by all
of the nationalities bordering upon the eastern Meditterranean,
and when the frigate was bullied into surrendering a prisoner
by a much smaller vessel which moved to a position very close
to her, intending to shoot if refusal was persisted in, great was