I cannot understand how it is that the government pays so little attention to institutions which are established for sanitary purposes and which the poor cannot avoid.  They must suffer more privation here than at home; they cannot have any hot meals, for the landlord, who is not restricted in his prices, charges five or six times the value.  Several artizans who had come by the vessel were put into the same room with a servant-girl.  These people had no hot food the twelve days; they lived entirely upon bread, cheese, and dried figs.  The girl, after a few days, begged me to let her come into my room, as the people had not behaved properly to her.  In what a position the poor girl would have been placed if there had not happened to be a woman among the passengers, or if I had refused to receive her!

Are such arrangements worthy of a public institution?  Why are there not a few rooms fitted up at the expense of government for the poor?  Why cannot they have a plain hot meal once in the day for a moderate price?  The poor surely suffer enough by not being able to earn anything for so long a time, without being deprived of their hard earnings in such a shameful manner!

On the second day the court-yard was opened, and we were permitted to walk about in an inclosed space a hundred and fifty paces wide, on the sea-shore.  The view was very beautiful; the whole of the Cyclades lay before us:  small, mountainous islands, mostly uninhabited and covered over with woods.  Probably they were formerly a part of the mainland, and were separated by some violent convulsion of nature.

On the fourth day our range was extended, we were allowed to walk as far as the hills surrounding the lazaretto under the care of a guard.  The remains of a temple stand upon these hills, fragments of a wall, and a very much decayed column.  The latter, which consisted of a single piece of stone, was fluted, and, judging from the circumference, had been very high.  These ruins are said to be those of the remarkably fine temple of Jupiter.

21st October.  This was the day we were set at liberty.  We had ordered a small vessel the evening before which was to take us to Athens early in the morning.  But my fellow-travellers would insist upon first celebrating their freedom at a tavern, and from this reason it was 11 o’clock before we started.  I availed myself of this time to look about the town and its environs.  It is very small and contains no handsome buildings.  The only remains of antiquity which I found were traces of the floor of a room in Mosaic work of coloured stones.  From what I could see of the island of AEgina, it appeared extremely barren and naked, and it does not show any indications of having been once a flourishing seat of art and commerce.

AEgina is a Greek island, about two square miles in extent, it was formerly a separate state, and is said to have received the name of AEgina from the daughter of AEsop.  It is supposed that the first money of Greece was coined in this island.