On my return to Athens I found Russie limping from the effects of a heavy fall he had had during my absence, and to which no attention had been paid, though it gave him continual pain.  I called in the leading Greek physician, who, on examination, pronounced it rheumatism, and prescribed exercise and walks.  I took the child on all the excursions I made, to Marathon and other of the local points of interest, for he was a great reader, and interested in Greek history and archeology already, passing most of his time with me in my work on the Acropolis.  He limped painfully over all the sites we visited, and presently we accepted an invitation to Aegina, to the home of the Tricoupis, the parents of the well-known premier of later years.  We spent some days there, fishing and exploring and photographing the ruins, but Mrs. Tricoupi recognized in Russie’s lameness the beginning of hip disease, and, returning to Athens, I had a council on him, when it was placed beyond doubt that that deadly disease was established, aided largely by the false diagnosis that substituted severe exercise for the absolute quiet which the malady required.  He was at once put in plaster bandages and we were ordered home.  Home!  But how?  I had not money enough to pay a single passage even to England, and had no friends from whom I could ask the means to get home.  In despair I went to the Turkish minister—­Photiades Pasha—­and told him of the promise of A’ali Pasha to pay me for my time and expenses while waiting at Constantinople, asking him to remind the pasha that I had not been paid, as he probably supposed, possibly through the dishonesty of the messenger.  A’ali made inquiry, and, finding it to be the case, sent me, through Photiades, a hundred Turkish pounds, with which I was enabled to pay all local debts and reach London, more grateful to the Turkish sense of justice than to that of my own government.

It only wanted for the diversity of my career that I should have served a term as a demi-official of the Turkish government I had served to undermine.  For A’ali Pasha I retain the respect due to the most remarkable ability, honesty, and patriotism combined I have ever known in a man in his position, a most difficult one, surrounded by corruption, venality, and treason as probably the ruler of no other state has been in our day.  He was free from prejudice, fanaticism, and political passion, and had he been seconded by his colleagues and administrators, as he should have been, I am convinced that he might have restored the prosperity of his country.  But, so far as I know, he stood alone in the government.  He was a just and impartial minister where ministers are notoriously unjust, corrupt, and partisan, and, of my past failures, I regret none so much as that I was unable to coöperate with him in restoring peace to Crete.