The troubles initiated at Gortyna increased until the eastern end of the island was drawn into them, and, as the Greek government at the same time began to agitate for the execution of those clauses in the Treaty of Berlin which compensated it for the advantages gained by the principalities through the war, I received orders to go to Athens and resume my correspondence with the “Times.”  Athens was in a ferment, and the discontent with the government for its inefficiency was universal; the ministry, as was perhaps not altogether unjustifiable under the circumstances past, allowed the King to bear his part of the responsibility, and discontent with him was even greater than that with Comoundouros, the prime minister, whose position became very difficult, for the King and his entourage opposed all energetic measures, and the people demanded the most energetic.  Excitement ran very high, and the ministry was carried along with the populace, which demanded war and the military occupation of the territory assigned to Greece.

Comoundouros was, on the whole, the most competent prime minister for Greece whom the country has had in my time.  Tricoupi, who was the chief of the opposition at the time, was an abler man, and a statesman of wider views,—­on the whole, the greatest statesman of modern Greece, me judice; but in intrigue and Odyssean craft, which is necessary in the Levant, Comoundouros was his master.  In 1868, when they were both in the ministry, they formed the most competent government Greece has known in her constitutional days, but it was betrayed by the King, who paid now in part for his defection, for no one placed the least confidence in him.  The diplomatic corps pressed for peace, and the nation demanded war, for which it was not in the least prepared.  The animosity towards the King was extreme.  I saw people who happened to be sitting in front of the cafés rise and turn their backs to him when he walked past, as he used to do without any attendant.  Comoundouros ran with the diplomats and hunted with the populace,—­I think he really meant to continue running and avoid hunting at any risk, but he talked on the other side.  I knew him well, and used continually to go to his house when he received all the world in the evening, in perfectly republican simplicity, as is the way in Athens, and he said to me one evening that the King prevented action, and impeded all steps to render the army efficient.

This was evidently the feeling of the populace, and public demonstrations took place which menaced revolution, and on one occasion shots were fired, and the demonstrators were dispersed by the cavalry.  I asked him on that occasion why the ministry did not let the revolution loose, and drive the King away.  “Ah! they think now that we have no stability,—­what would they think then? and what could we get better?” I find in a file of my letters of the time one which says:  “I am not surprised at Mrs. ——­’s