The Express.
London, England, 1853-07-26 00:00:00

MODERS CORINTH AND ITS PEOPLE.

The modern town of Corinth is more completely
miserable than even • good stout serviceable imagination,
alreayc ready when =Bed upon, can conceive. It is lite-
rally imbedded in filth and mad all sorts. The people,
squalid and half starving, are half naked ; the houses are
all one story high, and all tumbling down. Hungry dogs
howl and fight for offal over the ruined baths of Hadrian.
The hotel appeared a mere refuge for destitute vermin, for
It is alive with them. They swarmed over the seats of the
chairs, and played at leap-frog with your feet upon the
crowded door. They were upon the walls, the window sills,
the curtains, the tablecloth even, and appeared quite wild
with delight at the arrival of a fresh and tender stranger ; a
Greek skin being impervious to their attacks, or of indif-
ferent flavour should they succeed in penetrating it. The
bread, however, looked clean when the crust was cut off;
and fortunately our lively little friends could not get into
the eggs, so that we managed to appease our hunger, which
was extremely sharpened by the mountain air and brisk
motion after the confinement of a steamer. We found it
quite as well to keep our eyes off the landlady when she
came in, is order to enjoy our bread and eggs ; for a more
revolting old person it would be hard to find. When she
brought in a thick glutinous mess, which was stated by
Polychronopulos to be coffee, we were too glad to take his
word for the fact, and to drink at a little fountain water
from the palms of our hands instead. The modern Greeks
are still a fine race of men, straight, upright, and well-
grown; and in the cleans removed a little from absolute
beggary, the national costume—gay and flowing adds con-
siderably to their personal attractions. But the women I
saw were without exception, fet and unoomely. They
were braid where they ought to be slim, and narrow where
they ought to be fell is figure. Their trample:ions are
oily, and their hair coarse and ill•arranged; their eyes
small, and their hands and feet large and clumsy. Not
even the grace of their national dress ern conceal a certain
waddl.ng awkwardness of gait. They seem to be born to
show how ugly it is possible to be with faultless features;
(or they have nearly all the Greek profile, the straight nose,
the delicate lip. They appear to enarry while quite chil-
dren. Some of the men had, I think, the worst and most
dangerous expression I ever saw in a human face : at once
dark and powerful—the cunning to conceive crime, and the
unswerving firmness to go through with it.—/fickens's
lloosaahold Words."

SALMON IN TIRE CREE.—The take of this king of
fish continues unabated in the Cree. Instead of the men,

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u ususl after a night of toil, carrying home a solitary basket
on their shoulders, they are now frequently to be seen
wheeling them home in a barrow, three or four baskets in a
morning. Still the price is undiminished, owing to the
high rates of butchers' meat, which, as yet, has kept the
demand tqual to the supply. Salmon is selling at Bd. per
pound, and grilse and trout at 64.1.—Ayr Advertiser.

• - • -
THE NEXT OVERLAND MAIL, which will bo due
on the 31st inst., and telegraphic notice of which from
Trieste may be daily expected, will bring the first Austra-
lian mail by the north-eastern route. The Australian
dates should be Sydney, May 20 ; Port Phillip, 23 ; and
Adelaide, 26. This mail is eznected to bring replies te cor-
respondence despatched from London on the Ath of March
last, thus making the amuse of post between London and
Sydney 146 days.
Tan RUSSIAN OOVERNMENT is about to have
measured the degrees of the meridian from the North Cape,
in 721 deg. north latitude, to the mouth of the Danube, in
45i deg. of the same latitude—that is, on a has which tra-
verses Europe in its whole length, and forms about a
fourteenth part of the entire circumference of the earth.
This measurement will exceed by three degrees the largest
ever before executed—that which the English carried from
the 'limiters to the southern point of British India.

TRADE OF THE AFRICAN COAST.—Thoestablishment
of the mail packet communication between England and
the west coast of Africa. is likely to develop. an immense
trade with that rand Africa, particularly in palm oil. A
steamer ill about to be sent oat to ply on one of the princi-
pal riven ea the neat, is a feeder to the English mail
pekoe.