“Here I am, in poor Vyner’s quarters: but short as the time is since my arrival, it has taught me that there is nothing, or next to nothing, to be learned. The amount of lying here beats Banagher—indeed all Ireland. However, I will try and make a résumé of the question that will be readable and, if I can, interesting.
“I am a good deal fagged, but not worse for my journey, and, on the whole, stronger than when I started.
“I thought I should have had some letter from you here, but possibly there has not been time.
“If Lord Carnarvon knew of my direct source of information it would be of great use; for the Legation and Finlay, whom I have seen, are simply men defending a thesis, and so far not to be relied on.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Athens, June 17,1870.
“I send you a hurried line to catch F. O. messenger, who is just leaving. I want merely to say that I have got together a considerable number of facts about brigandage altogether, and the late misfortune in particular, and only wait till I get back to put them into shape. Keep me a corner, then, not for next No. but August, and I hope I shall send something readable.
“I have met much courtesy and civility here, but I am dying to get home. My palpitations still trouble me, and if I don’t actually faint, I suppose it is that I don’t know how.
“I have been anxiously looking out for letters from you, and now I am off to Corinth, and shall work my way back through the islands.
“Do you know that if any of the blunders had failed, these poor fellows would now have been alive! and even with the concurring mistakes of [? ], Erskine, and [? ], they would not have succeeded if the rains had not swollen the streams and made them unfordable. It is the saddest story of cross-purposes and stupidities I ever listened to in my life.”