Stadium, and muttering some ancient words, to the effect that Fate
may send them a handsome young man, return home, and long for the
fulfilment of the charm. On mentioning this circumstance to the
travellers, one of them informed me, that above the spot where these
offerings are made, a statue of Venus, according to Pausanias,
formerly stood. It is, therefore, highly probable that what is now a
superstitious, was anciently a religious rite.

At this period my fellow-passengers were full of their adventures in
Albania. The country was new, and the inhabitants had appeared to
them a bold and singular race. In addition to the characteristic
descriptions which I have extracted from Lord Byron's notes, as well
as Mr Hobhouse's travels, I am indebted to them, as well as to
others, for a number of memoranda obtained in conversation, which
they have themselves neglected to record, but which probably became
unconsciously mingled with the recollections of both; at least, I can
discern traces of them in different parts of the poet's works.

The Albanians are a race of mountaineers, and it has been often
remarked that mountaineers, more than any other people, are attached
to their native land, while no other have so strong a thirst of
adventure. The affection which they cherish for the scenes of their
youth tends, perhaps, to excite their migratory spirit. For the
motive of their adventures is to procure the means of subsisting in
ease at home.

This migratory humour is not, however, universal to the Albanians,
but applies only to those who go in quest of rural employment, and
who are found in a state of servitude among even the Greeks. It
deserves, however, to be noticed, that with the Greeks they rarely
ever mix or intermarry, and that they retain both their own national
dress and manners unchanged among them. Several of their customs are
singular. It is, for example, in vain to ask a light or any fire
from the houses of the Albanians after sunset, if the husband or head
of the family be still afield; a custom in which there is more of
police regulation than of superstition, as it interdicts a plausible
pretext for entering the cottages in the obscurity of twilight, when
the women are defenceless by the absence of the men.

Some of their usages, with respect to births, baptisms, and burials,
are also curious. When the mother feels the fulness of time at hand,
the priestess of Lucina, the midwife, is duly summoned, a