The Kentucky Gazette

Monsieur Savary, in his letters on Greece, describing the island of Rhodes, concludes with the following description of the NATIONAL CHARACTER of its inhabitants.

The island enjoys the happiest temperature, and its air is pure and salubrious. No epidemical disorders are known, but what are imported from other countries. The westerly winds, which prevail for nine months in the year, moderate the heats of summer; and, in the winter, ice, snow, and even hoar frosts, are unknown. In the dullest day, the sun dispels the clouds, and shows himself at least for some hours; through the whole year he enlightens the island with his beneficent rays, fertilizes the earth, and purifies the air, which is naturally humid. Tiberius, says Suetonius, 'made a stay for some time at Rhodes, enchanted with the beauty and salubrious climate of the island.' So fine a sky, so delightful a temperature, have a manifest influence on the inhabitants. The Turks born in the island are of a milder disposition, and possess more politeness and urbanity, than in the other provinces of the empire. Less exposed than the Greeks, to the rapacity of the great, and peaceably enjoying their property, they here lead a happy life in the bosom of their families and among them we meet with cheerfulness, integrity, and social manners. The Greeks live under the same sky: but accustomed perpetually to crouch beneath the proud sceptre that crushes them, they become hypocritical, deceitful, and dishonest. The proudest of mankind in prosperity, they are equally mean and cringing in misfortune. They are infected with all the vices which are the consequence of servitude yet compelled, as it were by the force of climate, they sometimes indulge in merriment. Their joy however, is not the mild tranquil joy of the Turks; but a clamorous and irrational mirth; the festivity, in short, of slaves, who, forgetting, for a moment, their wretched condition, dance amid their chains.