The Turkish inhabitants of Larissa are charged by the Greeks with peculiar ferocity of disposition, and hostility to the Romaic language, they are characterized as Μισοχριστοι εἰς ακρο, και θηριωδεις: haters of Christ to the highest degree, and brutal; and the same ill repute I have frequently heard extended to them in conversation with Greeks of the country. With some exaggeration, there probably is a certain degree of truth in this; the irregularity of the internal goverment in Turkey giving rise to local varieties, which would ohterwise seem imrpobable from the uniformity of the Turkish character. I had myself the opportunity of observing in part the terror in which Turks of Larissa are held by the Greek inhabitants of the place. The house of the Archbishop Polycarp resembled a prison, or a place of secret refuge; the gates conducting to it were always opened with a sort of suspicious anxiety, and an impression of alarm and distrust was ever visible among the inhabitants of this mansion. The Archbishop himself very rarely quits its precincts, influenced by the apprehension of insult if the streets of the city. On the second day of our abode in his house, while sitting with him in his apartment, a Turk of surly and forbidding aspect, and evidently of the lower class, entered the room, seated himself unceremoniously on the sofa, filled his pipe, and took coffee from the attendants.
