The new governor-general--Mehmet Ali, the Prussian (in subsequent years murdered in Albania)--was an amiable, just, and intelligent man, who would have saved the position if he had been there in the beginning, but now there was nothing to be done.

When he learned that I intended to go to Omalos he decided, with a more friendly impulse than any governor of Crete had ever shown towards me, to join me there and make the visit pleasant for me.

He preceded me, in fact, and I found the posts all warned to show me the customary honors, and when I reached the plain I found his tent ready to entertain me.

The most sumptuous dinner his resources afforded was served in his audience tent; we had a grand acrobatic and dramatic entertainment of the soldiers and a torchlight _retraite_, and he gave me rugs to cover me, without which I must have suffered severely, for, though in June, it was bitterly cold at Omalos, and I had brought only one rug to sleep on.

We returned together next day after I had visited the great ravine of Agios Rumeli, the most magnificent gorge I have ever seen, never taken from the Cretans by an enemy until this betrayal; and, as we went back, we discussed the condition of the island.