1803. A:D prepared to make a last effort for existence; they descended the mountain in three divisions, the women and the wounded in the centre of each, and in the front the captains and soldiers, who with one hand led on their children, and with the other clasped their swords. They traversed the camp of the enemy, and after a furious struggle succeeded in gaining the valley; but their escape was but temporary, the Turks, dispersing in their pursuit, the greater number perished in their flight; and mothers, during that fearful night, are said to have stifled their children in order to prevent their cries from attracting the enemy to their hidingplace. Of 800, who left Tzalongo, scarcely 150 succeeded in reaching Parga; and a like number, being sent prisoners to Joannina, were permitted to retire to Vourgareli, a village at the foot of Mount Djumerca, between the rivers Arta and Aspropotamo, (the Aracthus and Achelous,) whither a large body of their countrymen had repaired some time before with the intention of passing into the mountains of Ætolia, and joining the Armatoli of Palæopoulo.* From Tzalongo the Pacha's forces were con * Perevos, v. ii. p. 41. Bartholdy, v. ii. p. 289. Hughes, v. ii. p. 167. Carrel, p. 227. Fauriel, v. ii. p. 277. Villemain, p. 251. 1803. ducted by Youseph the Arab, to Reniassa, A.D. where the widows and children of about twenty families had retired on the destruction of Suli. They commenced the slaughter of the defenceless creatures without mercy or delay, nor did they meet with even a show of resistance save from one heroic woman, Despo, the widow of a Suliot called Botzis, who, with her daughters and grand-children, defended themselves in a tower called the Kula of Dimula.* Their fate, however, was inevitable: she called her family around her, and proposed to them the alternative of submitting to the enemy or dying by their own hands. They unanimously chose the latter, and Despo, ranging them in a circle round a case of gunpowder, applied the match with her own hand, and completed the holocaust of her children.† There now remained only the refugees of *The party consisted of Despo the mother, her two daughters Taso and Kitzia, Sofo and Panagio the widows of her sons, and six children, three of whom were girls. Perevos, v. ii. p. 43. + Perevos, v. ii. p. 42. Dufey, v. i. p. 164. Fauriel, v. i. p. 279. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 207. Hughes, v. ii. p. 168. This heroism of Despo has been celebrated in the songs of the Suliots. One in the collection of M. Fauriel records it with dramatic minuteness. ̓Αχὸς βαρὺς, ἀκούεται, πολλὰ τουφέκια πεφτουν, &c. VOL. II. 2 I v. i. p. 102. 1803. 1804. Jan. A.D. Vourgareli, and thither the arms of the Pacha were promptly directed. These, however, on the first news of the affair of Reniassa, had retired, by the advice of Kitzo Botzaris, who had joined them after the defeat at Tzalongo, to a monastery named Seltzo, on the banks of the Achelous, about eight hours distant from their first position. Here they were attacked A.D. in the spring of 1804 by an army of 7000 men, chosen, to sharpen their cruelty, from the friends and relations of those who had fallen in the wars of Suli, and commanded by two of Ali's most ferocious lieutenants, Hago Muchardar and Bekir Tziogaduri.* Offensive measures were, however, still ineffectual even against the scattered remnants of this warlike race; the Turks were worsted in every encounter, and it was only after a siege of three months that they succeeded in expelling them from their quarters, and bringing the matter to a decisive issue. On the 20th of April, o. s. they came to a general engagement on the heights above the Achelous; the Turks had possession of the rising ground, and their impetuous onset soon threw the Suliots into disorder. They were but 1000 in number, and of these only 300 were capable of bearing arms, the remainder consisting of women and May * Giocatore, so surnamed from his addiction to play. little children. Of the entire, only fifty-five, amongst whom was Kitzo Botzaris, succeeded in escaping, and made their way to Parga;* These, and the other Suliots who had previously taken refuge at Parga, passed over, after a little delay, to Corfu, where they were hospitably received by the Russians, and quartered at the town of Lefkimo and the island of Paxo. But deprived of their wonted pursuits, and possessed of no trades or professions whereby to gain a livelihood, they were for a length of time beset by all the miseries of indigence and disease. Towards the close of the year 1804 they were invited by Hassan Tzapari, of Margariti, to return to Epirus, and lend their assistance in a war which he and some of the neighbouring Beys were about to commence against their old enemy Ali Pacha. They complied on the terms of being first assisted by him in recovering Suli, but in this they were deceived: Hassan led them to the conquest, not of their native mountains, but of his own villages, which had been wrested from him by the Pacha; and disgusted with their treatment, and finding all chance of recapturing Suli hopeless, they abandoned his service, and withdrew to Parga. In 1805 they were again invited to the Ionian Islands by the Russian General Anrep, and with about 500 other Greeks formed into a corps of light chasseurs, in which the distinguished Suliots were appointed commissioned officers. Tzavellas and his mother, Mosco, were both enrolled, the one as Major, the other as a Captain, but they shortly after resigned, and Photo, having passed over to Joannina, made the pookuvηois,† or act of submission, to Ali, and received the command of a body of Armatoli, in + See vol. i. of this History, c. xi. p. 419. A.D. 1804. 1804. A.D. the others, hemmed in by the river, were butchered by the Turks, with the exception of about 200, who cut their own throats, in which service he died, in 1809, at the age of thirty-six. In 1806, during the rupture between Russia and France, the Albanian regiment accompanied the former to Naples, and after the peace of Tilsit, in 1807, it was transferred to the French, who took possession of Corfu, and was placed under the orders of Colonel Minot. Finally, when the English had got possession of the Republic of the Seven Islands, its leaders swore allegiance to his Britannic Majesty, but made a reservation in favour of Russia as the only country against which they would never serve. The chief command was then transferred to Colonel Church, an officer whose name will ever be honourably associated with the history of Modern Greece; and Chrestaky, a Chimariot, and Theodore Colocotroni, the Moreot Kleft, held commissions as Majors. The corps continued in existence till 1814, when it was disbanded by Sir Thomas Maitland, Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian republic. The officers and soldiers received each one year's pay, and the latter, accustomed to no other profession than that of arms, were induced to pass over into Epirus and enter into the service of Ali, who, already trembling for the security of his dominions, in consequence of the determination of the Sultan Mahmoud to destroy all the powerful Pachas of his empire, was now as anxious to conciliate as he had once been to Chaïdo, sister to Tzavellas, was attached to the expedition of the Russian Admiral Siniavin, and acted with distinguished bravery at the attack on Tenedos, in 1807. Rizo, |