Chapter XII: Part V: Greece (1)

XV FROM CORFU TO CORINTH

A little narrow-gauge railway runs across the kingdom of Greece from Patras to the town of Corinth, hugging the Gulf of Corinth, and then, crossing a ridge that divides the isthmus, follows the shore of the Saronic Gulf to Athens. There are altogether about six hundred miles of railroad under operation in Greece, and about three hundred miles abandoned. You can find the track of the latter in various parts of the country, but the most important of the abandoned routes was to run up through Thessaly, the northern part of the kingdom, to the Turkish frontier. A little more patience and a little more money would have carried it through and made a splendid thing for the entire country, because the people of southern Greece do not raise food enough to supply their own wants, while in northern Greece there is a good deal to spare. The difference in the price of bread in the Peloponnesus and in Thessaly is unnaturally great, for the Thessalians have few markets and the Peloponnesians have few farms. This railroad was expected to equalize things, but unfortunately it has not been completed and the rails lie rusting until they are stolen for old iron.

Brindisi is the gateway to the East. The steamers for India, China and Japan touch there coming and going, to leave and take passengers for and from Paris, London, Berlin and other parts of Europe, who can thus save the long voyage of seven or eight days from Bremen and Hamburg and five and six days from London and Havre, and cross Europe by rail. Special trains with dining-cars and sleepers are run in connection with the steamers which carry the mails also, making Paris and Berlin in thirty-six hours from Brindisi and London in forty-eight.

When you leave Brindisi going east you enter Hellenic ground. The Adriatic, like some other beauties, has an uncertain temper and behaves badly sometimes. It is called “the blue Adriatic,” “the gem of seas,” “the sapphire sea,” and by other poetic names, but it is also “the stormy Adriatic,” and an old seaman told me that “it could kick up more sea than the Atlantic Ocean on the slightest provocation.” The steamers for Greece generally leave Brindisi at midnight, so as to reach the opposite coast early in the morning, and there, when you awaken, if you please, you can see the sun rise upon masses of solid snow that crown the mountains of the Albanian coast of Turkey. The land of mythology is before you. Every island, every mountain, every valley was the scene of some fable, the abode of some god, or a battlefield that you read about in the Greek classics when you were in college. The places and the names of ancient history are brought home in a familiar way, and as you gaze from the deck of the steamer upon them they look like the real thing.

At Corfu, a beautiful little island lying off the Turkish coast, you get your first view of oriental life and customs, and a girl with a kodak is kept busy taking snap-shots of the queer things she sees. There is a temptation to photograph all the ruins, because they remind you of the warriors, heroes and philosophers you studied about when a boy, and Greece is full of them. The island of Ithaca excites vivid recollections, and the Phæacian ship which brought Ulysses home lies in the harbor of Corfu, turned to stone. It is now occupied by a monastery of Greek monks and called by the humiliating name of Mouse Island. According to the Odyssey, after he was wrecked, Ulysses landed at Corfu, swimming to the shore. He made up a bed of dead leaves on the rocks as a precaution against rheumatism, and, worn out by excitement, peril and fatigue, sank into a dreamless sleep. There he was discovered by Nausicaa, a beautiful princess, upon whose charms Homer loves to linger. She was the daughter of King Alcinous, and when Ulysses awoke she led him to her father’s palace, with its exquisite gardens and luscious fruits. The local guides, who endeavor to adjust their moral consciousness to the curiosity of visitors, and the topography of the island to the demands made upon them, show the exact place where Ulysses swam ashore, and tell you that the garden of the King Alcinous is now occupied by the country palace of King George of Greece, one of the most democratic and considerate of monarchs, who loves to have the people enjoy everything that belongs to him. He opens his gates to strangers and subjects alike. Nobody is required to pay a fee or even to ask permission, although the proper thing to do is to leave a card at the porter’s lodge and a word of appreciation, which that official takes entirely to himself. One of the streets in Corfu is named in honor of King Alcinous, and Ulysses is considered a sort of stepson of whom the community is exceedingly proud.

Corfu has been the scene of many exciting events both in modern and mythological times. When we arrived the people were more or less excited over the action of the government in expelling the late Mahmoud Damad Pasha, brother-in-law of the Sultan of Turkey, and Hadji Kadri and Siret, two other Turkish exiles, who were accused of sedition and conspiracy, and, having fled from Constantinople, took refuge upon the beautiful Greek island, where they were received with warm sympathy and treated with distinguished respect. The government of Greece, however, could not very well furnish an asylum to Turkish fugitives of such eminent notoriety. The relations between the two countries have been cordial since the close of the war four years ago, and the Grecian ministry considered it prudent not to offer any new cause of offense. So the Sultan’s brother-in-law and his companions were requested to leave Corfu and go to Switzerland, which is the most hospitable country in Europe to political exiles.

Corfu hates the Turks. No people on the earth’s surface hates them more, not even the Bulgarians or Macedonians, although more than two centuries have passed since the wrongs of which they complain were committed. From 1815 to 1863, with the other Ionian islands, Corfu was occupied by the English, and in the latter year, upon the accession of the present King George to the throne, Mr. Gladstone persuaded Queen Victoria to give them back to Greece. That accounts for a statue of Mr. Gladstone, before the university in Athens, erected by the students a few years ago.

Fortunately for those who go to Corfu to enjoy the climate--and it is a favorite winter resort for people with weak lungs, and other invalids--the English administration built a fine system of roads which are still kept in comparatively good repair, although the modern Greeks will never be celebrated for road-building. You can drive from one end of the island to the other and, during the spring and autumn, it is as near paradise as any place on earth. The late Empress of Austria had a beautiful villa on the outskirts of the city. It was proposed to bring the late Czar of Russia to Corfu in the hope that his life might be saved, and numerous other famous invalids have sought health and strength in its glorious sunshine and soft, but invigorating air.

The island embraces about 277 square miles, and is thickly settled, having more than 115,000 inhabitants Most of the surface is covered with olive groves. It is estimated that there are more than 4,000,000 trees, which are allowed to grow without pruning and develop a beauty and attain a size unparalleled elsewhere. The manufacture and export of preserved olives and olive oil is the chief occupation of the people, but they raise a good deal of other fruit and wine, and their cheese made from goat’s milk is famous in the London and Paris markets.

To the beauty of the scenery and the delightful climate is added the charm that always attends the mysteries of mythology, and besides the romance of Ulysses many other stories of ancient days were located there. Near the base of a picturesque old citadel with twin towers is a low, circular structure dating back to the sixth or seventh century before Christ, but the inscription is still decipherable and records that this monument was erected to Menerates, son of Tlasias, who lost his life by drowning. Near by are two or three monuments erected in honor of officials of the British government who distinguished themselves during the occupation.

Sailing toward Patras, the steamer from Corfu soon passes the Ambracian Gulf, where Octavius laid the foundation of his influence in Rome by a victory over the fleet of his rival, Mark Antony, and a little farther down is the island of Leucas, where, according to the ancient story-tellers, Sappho plunged into the sea because Phaon did not return her love. A little farther on is Ithaca, whose connection with the Odyssey has made it familiar to every student of Greek, for the wanderings and misfortunes, the sufferings and the fortitude of Ulysses, the king of this island, have been handed down to us in one of the most fascinating stories of adventure. His descendants occupy Ithaca to-day, and are distinguished for their bold seamanship, their love of home, their hospitality and their courage, and their mercantile instincts have made them rich. The most important product of the island is a strong aromatic wine. They show you where Homer lived in the town of Stavros, and an ancient staircase cut in the rock leads past a Greek church to a rectangular forum hewn in the side of the mountain. It is surrounded by seats and looks like an ancient place of worship, but is claimed to be the place where Homer had a school.

Nearly every natural phenomenon upon the island is described in the Odyssey--even a stalactite cave to which any boy in town will lead you through a vineyard and over stony goat pastures. The entrance is narrow, and it is hard work for fat men to squeeze through, but with a little effort you can enter a damp chamber about fifty feet in diameter and thirty feet in height, from the roof of which hang numerous stalactites like those to be seen in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. If you want to know how it looks, read Book XIII of the Odyssey, where Homer describes the grotto of the nymphs.

The suitors of Penelope waited for the return of Telemachus upon a little island on the east of Ithaca, and on the island of Zante, from which we get so many currants and raisins, the fishermen still collect pitch to calk their boats from a spring mentioned by Herodotus.

Patras is one of the most enterprising commercial towns of Greece, and one of the oldest. It is second to Athens in population and has one-third of all the commerce of the country. In some respects it is the most modern of Grecian towns, but its history can be traced back at least seven centuries before Christ. Patras was also one of the first centers of Christian teaching, and, according to local tradition, the Apostle Andrew was crucified and buried there. He is the patron saint of the town and the cathedral is dedicated to his memory.

Near by is a curious spring, to which is attached a superstition that has kept its hold upon the people since the age of mythology, when, as now, sick people looked upon their reflections in the water and by their appearance judged as to the probability of recovery. The effect appears to be a matter of light. If the sun is obscured by clouds or happens to be in a certain part of the heavens every face reflected in the water shows a deathlike pallor. With a clear sky and at high noon the reflection is always full and ruddy with color.

From Patras to Corinth, along the edge of the gulf, through olive groves and currant plantations, with a range of snow-clad mountains on one side and picturesque hills on the other, is a delightful journey. The culture of currants seems to absorb the greatest degree of attention. They tell me that toothsome little fruit was formerly called “corenth,” taking its name from the historic city. The currant trade is the largest and the most profitable in Greece, and a considerable part of the cultivated area is planted like the vineyards of Italy, in rows about three feet apart, with single stalks, which are trimmed down every fall in order to strengthen the roots. New shoots spring out with the sunshine in March and April, and, by August, are loaded with large light and dark currants unlike those grown in America. You can buy them in boxes at any grocery store for mince pies, fruit-cake, plum pudding or that sort of thing. The development of this industry has been gradual. In 1830, after the independence of Greece was established, the crop amounted to only about 1,900 tons. In 1899 it was 153,500 tons, and it was a poor year. The average for the last ten years has been about 170,000 tons, and the value of the currants exported annually has reached nearly $8,000,000. The largest quantity goes to England and France. The United States takes 10,000 tons, which, you must appreciate, is an enormous quantity of dried currants. The French wine-growers use them for toning up their wine.

While currant-culture is profitable, there is a good deal of risk in it. The crop is easily affected both by drought and excessive rains. Severe wind-storms may blow the fruit off the bushes, and the hills surrounding the Gulf of Corinth, which is the most productive section of the country, are exposed to storms which at any day may convert a good crop into a poor one.

Olive oil is also a source of wealth, and the beautiful silver-leaved trees are one of the pleasantest features of the landscape. Olive trees live to a great age. It is asserted by some who delight to entertain travelers that groves are now standing which bore fruit in the days of Socrates and Demosthenes, and near Eleusis, trees are pointed out which may have been standing for 2,800 years. The trunks are enormous and are perforated with holes, new bark having grown around the wounds made by decay. Most of the olives are consumed in the country. Much of the oil is sent to France.

Owing to the infrequent and irregular rains, irrigation is necessary everywhere in Greece; and every farmer has a simple and limited irrigation system of his own. The water is pumped up from wells by blindfolded mules, horses or oxen, and pours into cement reservoirs set at such an elevation as will give a natural flow into the fields. Windmills are not used.

At every railway station were crowds of people, many of them in the picturesque native costume, which is a cross between that of a ballet-dancer and a Highland chieftain. The kilts are white cotton, accordion-plaited, and worn over white woolen tights, with black garters below the knee. The shoe or slipper is without a heel, curling up over the toe like an old-fashioned skate, and having a large rosette or pompon of silk or black cotton upon the tip. The jacket is beautifully embroidered in gold or silver braid, sleeveless and open in front. The shirt sleeves of cotton are full and flowing, and the front of the shirt is plaited. The collar is a stiff circlet, embroidered with gold thread or braid; the girdle is often of leather or sometimes a sort of sash. A Greek gentleman in full dress or a servant in complete livery will wear a pistol and two or three daggers stuck in between his belt and his shirt-front in a handy sort of way. The peasant wears a leathern belt, with a sheathed dagger or a pouch over the pit of his stomach, from which the handles of a knife and a revolver usually protrude. The Greek still wears the red Phrygian cap upon his head, and the tassel dangles down upon his shoulder in an artistic way.

A “well-greaved Greek” is the most picturesque looking object in Europe. No other costume will compare with his; but, like all national peculiarities, it is gradually becoming obsolete. You see it in the country and towns of the interior, but in the cities few people wear it. The aristocracy dress their servants in that way, which has made it unpopular among the mechanics and the working classes generally. They fear people will mistake them for household servants.

In the rural districts, however, those objections do not prevail, and almost all the natives at the railway stations and the few men who were digging in the fields were in native dress. Their picturesqueness would be greatly enhanced if they were a little neater about their persons. At first acquaintance the modern Greek does not inspire either admiration or confidence. He is very dirty as to his garments, as to his habits and as to his house, and, I grieve to say, judging from appearances, that he lets his wife and sisters carry more than their share of the load. Most of the labor in the fields, as we passed through on the railroads, was being done by women. We saw women staggering along the highways under heavy cargoes, which they carried upon their heads, and clambering down from the mountains with big bundles of fagots upon their backs. In fact, the men seemed to have selected the easy jobs. None of them had burdens upon their heads or backs, and very few were toiling in the fields. They were driving carts and watching the sheep, goats and swine while their wives and daughters were swinging the hoe.

“As beautiful as a Greek shepherd” used to be a favorite phrase with writers of romance, but I doubt if those who used it had ever seen one, for the ideal Greek shepherd is not visible to the ordinary eye. The men who tend the flocks are stupid, filthy-looking fellows, with blank faces, matted beards and clothing that apparently has never seen a laundry. The ancient Greek knew all about statuary and architecture. That we know by evidences that have been found under the soil of his country; but the modern Greek of the working class lives in a house that is comfortless, unclean and dismal, with no evidences of beauty or taste or culture. He needs whitewash, chloride of lime and carbolic acid, although it is claimed by many that his intellect is as strong and active as those of his prototype who lived twenty centuries ago.

In passing through the railway towns of the “currant country” nature alone is lovely. Everything else seems stricken with poverty and neglect. The men who hang around the railway stations seem to be indifferent to their condition and do not inspire either respect or admiration, although their conversational powers seem to be well developed, and nearly every one of them carried a string of beads--not to count his prayers, but to occupy his hands while talking. Beads are aids to conversation. Members of parliament use them when making speeches. I never learned that Demosthenes required any such auxiliary to eloquence, but am assured that the activity of the brain and the fluency of tongue are increased by fingering them.

Modern Corinth, which stands at the head of the gulf, is a town of four thousand inhabitants, having been founded only forty years ago, after the last houses of the ancient town had been overturned by an earthquake. During recent years its prosperity has been considerably revived by the completion of a ship-canal, cut through the clay ridge that divides the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf, which shortens the journey for ships by two hundred and two miles. The idea of cutting a canal through that isthmus was proposed by the ancients and was undertaken by Caesar, Hadrian and Nero. Traces of the work of Nero still exist. The present canal was built by a French company and opened in 1893. It is three miles and a half in length, one hundred feet in breadth, and can accommodate vessels drawing twenty-six feet of water. There are no locks or sluices, but it is on the tidewater level, with breakwaters to protect the entrances.

Old Corinth, that St. Paul visited three times and possibly four, and which was one of the most important, populous, immoral and enterprising cities of his day, is dead and buried. Buttercups and dandelions are growing upon its grave, as bright and cheerful as those that decorate the prairies of Kansas or the dooryards of New England. The Grecian buttercup is not so large nor so beautiful as that we found in Norway, but it gives one a home feeling to find it everywhere--a universal flower. New Corinth resembles Santa Fé and other of the adobe towns of New Mexico and Arizona. It is surrounded by clay cliffs, weatherworn into fantastic shapes like those of the Rio Grande valley, and the dust is deep in the unpaved streets. The same lean cattle, mangy dogs and half-naked children playing in the sunshine; the same diminutive donkeys, the modern “Greek slaves,” bearing burdens that hide their bodies and leave only their legs and ears exposed; the same mud fences and adobe walls that are found in New Mexico; the same bake-ovens beside the cabins, and women of similar features, wearing similar garments, picking the live stock out of the children’s hair. Crowds of men are sitting at tables in front of the cafés, drinking coffee and talking politics, and the same dilapidated vehicles that you see in the old Spanish-American settlements were waiting for our arrival at the railway station.

The town has a beautiful site, at the head of the gulf. The water has a deep-blue color, with opalescent tints upon the surface. It receded in ancient times and left a sandy beach upon which goats were browsing among old barrel-hoops, piles of rubbish and struggling weeds, and fishermen were leisurely mending their nets beside their boats, or in the shade of the little shanties in which they keep their implements. Modern Corinth is surrounded by mighty hills upon which shepherds were guarding sheep and cattle, and when storms come upon them they find shelter in the caves that the wind and the rain have burrowed in the clay cliffs. At the top of the highest hill, the Acro-Corinth, as it is called, is a medieval fortress erected by the Venetians when they possessed the country. It is surrounded by ruins of houses and temples from which the material to build the fort was taken. The view from the peak, famous even in antiquity, embraces a great part of the mountainous district on both sides of the Gulf of Corinth, which is spread out like a map around the observer. In ancient times a watch was always kept there to signal the approach of an enemy to the people of the towns and the farmers in the valley below.

The traveler who enters Greece from the west has a continuous view of Parnassus, which rears its snow-clad summit among less famous mountains upon the opposite side of the gulf, and beside it is the beautiful Helicon, the haunt of the Muses. In clear weather the Acropolis of Athens is visible, the pillars of the Parthenon and the glistening marble walls of the royal palace.

Near the base of Acro-Corinth is the remarkable spring of Pirene, which, according to mythology, gushed forth at a stroke of the hoof of Pegasus, and was bestowed on Sisyphus by the river god Asopus, in return for his having revealed the hiding-place of the owner’s daughter, Aegina, who had been carried off by Zeus. Near by are ruins of a barracks and several dismounted cannon.

In the golden age, four hundred years before Christ, old Corinth was the most splendid, luxurious and wealthy, the most frivolous and wicked of all the cities of Greece. It was a commercial metropolis, the Chicago of that period, a center and focus of financial affairs, and stood upon a plateau about six miles from the sea, upon the side of the hill called Acro-Corinth, looking down upon a narrow and beautiful inlet of blue water, between two ranges of mountains. The Gulf of Corinth is often compared to the fjords of Norway, but its surroundings are mild and modest beside their rugged grandeur. It bears a closer resemblance to the Bosphorus and to the Inland Sea of Japan.

The road which leads from the railway station at new Corinth to the ruins of the old city is exceptionally good for Greece. It rises with an almost imperceptible grade toward a group of seven majestic columns, the earliest examples of the Doric school of architecture extant, and one of the oldest and most precious monuments of the art, scholarship and religion of ancient Greece. They are deeply fluted monoliths, twenty-three and one-half feet high, five feet and eight inches in diameter at the base and four feet and three inches at the top, with projecting capitals and heavy entablature. They were once covered with enamel. Five of them are nearly perfect. The other two have been broken and the pieces are now held together by iron bands. All have been gnawed more or less by the tooth of time and show curious wounds, which look as if they had been cut with a chisel. These pillars are all that remain of the famous Temple of Apollo, the ideal of Doric architecture, the noblest, simplest and most natural of all the schools.

Unconscious of their artistic and archeological advantages, which students travel four thousand miles to enjoy, the Grecian peasants continue to plow the adjacent fields, and, the day that we rode through, groups of women with tucked-up skirts were breaking the earth with heavy hoes and heaping it around the roots of the currant bushes. Fields of winter wheat were vivid with tender shoots of green, and a fodder plant that resembles alfalfa was growing bravely on the other side of formidable fences built with stones stolen from the ruins of the old metropolis. Here and there is an old-fashioned threshing-floor, almost as venerable as the pillars of the temple, a circle thirty or forty feet in diameter, paved with smooth stones, upon which, after the harvest, the grain is separated from the stalk by driving hoofed cattle over it. In his Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul recalled to them that pious injunction in Deuteronomy, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn,” but he might have appealed to them also in behalf of the blindfolded donkeys that patiently follow the treadmills to fill the irrigation reservoirs so that the plants may live when the earth is dry.

Women were washing at the reservoirs and spreading the garments out upon the grass and cobble-stones to dry, and little children were amusing themselves with the same simple games that absorb the attention of childhood in America.

Before reaching the site of the old city we passed a cross-roads where a troop of young Corinthians was rushing out of an unpainted adobe schoolhouse. Nearly all of them were clothed in tunics made of blue and white checked gingham, the favorite pattern for aprons among New England housewives. It was the noonday recess, and, notwithstanding their traditional eagerness for intellectual culture, it is evident that the schoolboys of Greece feel more amiable when coming away from the schoolhouse than when they are following their noses in the other direction. They were playing pranks upon one another, and we stopped the carriage to see the result of an amateur wrestling match. In the adjoining lot was a boy about twelve years old, clad in a similar tunic, herding a drove of pigs. He looked as if he felt his humiliating situation, and we silently extended our sympathy to him. I felt like reminding the youngster, for his encouragement and consolation, that one of the noblest and the greatest of the popes was a pig-driver when he was a boy, and that that also was the occupation of Pizarro, the _conquistador_ of Peru, before he entered the Spanish army.

Where this schoolhouse stands was once a suburb of Corinth, known as Kraneion, which, about 2,300 years ago, was the abode of an old crank named Diogenes; perhaps not the first, and I am certain not the last, of the cynics. He was born and brought up in the town of Sinope, where his father was a money-changer, and the old man, being deficient in the moral perception and the cunning of some of the modern Greeks, was detected in the adulteration of coin. He died in prison, and the disgrace seems to have soured the life of his son, who wandered about telling people what fools they were to waste their time in enjoyment; and, to practice what he preached, he discarded all earthly possessions except a cloak, a wallet in which he carried bread, and a wooden bowl. He threw the last away some time after, when he saw a boy drinking out of the hollow of his hand--at least that is the story as I remember it from my college days, when for a time I knew Diogenes and other famous Greeks quite intimately.

When Diogenes finally reached Corinth he found that prosperous and luxurious city a fine field for a cynic to work in, and took lodgings and office-room in a large jar that was made to hold wine but had been thrown away as leaky and useless. He used to make fun of the rich and vain Corinthians, and although he ate nothing but scraps that the cooks threw at him, he lived to a very old age, and became so famous that Alexander the Great came to visit him. After a memorable interview, when the emperor arose to take his departure, with a gracious impulse he told the old cynic that he would grant him any favor that he desired to ask. Diogenes looked up with a twinkle in his eye, and requested him to get out of his light.

Diogenes died from the bite of a dog, and his last request to the neighbors was that they throw his body into the alley for the dogs to eat; but they refused to do so, and gave him a noble funeral and erected a monument in his honor, upon which was carved the figure of a dog--the symbol of his life.

A little village of fifty or sixty houses, with a store or two, a post-office and a café, occupies the site of the old city. Part of the lands about have been purchased by the American Archeological Institute. Its representatives from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have been engaged for several years in making excavations, and have laid bare a considerable portion of old Corinth, including the forum, the market-place, the temple of justice, three fountains, baths hewn in the solid rock, and several dwellings and buildings that were occupied for business purposes. The work is being extended gradually as fast as the limited funds of the society will allow, and the disclosures are of great classical interest and importance to historians and students. It will be continued until all the important ruins are disclosed. Near by, upon a convenient roadway, a warehouse has been erected to preserve the statues, the inscriptions and other small articles of interest that are found in the excavations.

Excavated by the American School at Athens]

Unfortunately for us, the laws of Greece prohibit the exportation of these relics. The government is very strict about such matters. No excavations can be made without a permit from the authorities, who designate an inspector to supervise them, and he keeps a careful watch upon all that is done. Everything must go to the museum at Athens unless the owner of the property is willing to erect a building for the public exhibition of whatever he may find. In this way some of the old cities and the little towns of Greece have secured local museums which possess a certain advantage in enabling students to study archeology upon the ground, but this scarcely offsets many disadvantages, for most of them are difficult of access. The most important articles discovered at Corinth have been sent by the American school to the National Museum at Athens.

At a shop in the village a few fragments of indifferent value from the excavations are for sale, and they are no doubt genuine. Bogus antiquities are manufactured in large quantities, but most of them are more expensive than the genuine. Although the Romans carried away from Greece the choicest works of art to embellish their palaces and temples, and vandals have been following their example ever since, the earth is still full of marble, pottery and bronzes, which are being uncovered daily. But most of the work is done by foreigners. The Greek government is so poor that it can afford to do but little, and the citizens have other uses for their money.

Near the excavations, in front of a low adobe hut, sat an aged man in the native costume, smoking his pipe and rocking the cradle of a child. He might have posed for a portrait of Diogenes.

In the center of the village is an enormous plane-tree, which shades a triangular market-place. Several men were sipping coffee at little tables and babbling children were playing around them who evidently did not realize the historical sanctity of their surroundings.

Old Corinth has as much interest for religious people as for archeologists and historians, for it is closely associated with the missionary work of St. Paul. In the year 51, in company with Luke the Evangelist, he visited Macedonia--where Miss Stone was captured by brigands. At Philippi he was scourged, imprisoned and put into the stocks. There was an earthquake while he was in prison and he converted the jailer. Having frightened the officials by telling them that he was a Roman, they permitted him to depart, and he sailed to Athens, where he preached an eloquent sermon from Mars Hill. Then he came to Corinth, lodged at the house of Gaius, and found Aquila and Priscilla, and there Silas and Timotheus joined him. He lived at Corinth a year and a half, and there wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians, which he sent by the hand of Timotheus. He was then brought before Gallio, the proconsul, a brother of Seneca, the great philosopher, who was prime minister for the Emperor Nero, at Rome, at that time. After this he “tarried there yet a good while” before returning to Syria and Jerusalem. Six years later he visited Corinth again, “and there abode three months” at the house of Gaius, where he wrote his epistles to the Romans and Galatians, after which he returned again to Jerusalem and then made his fatal journey to Rome.

Timotheus was left in charge of the church at Corinth, and when Paul sent him there he said: “Let no man despise him.” It would be interesting to know the places in Corinth where Paul lived and preached, and perhaps American shovels may yet discover some evidences of his life there, although beyond his own testimony we know nothing about it. The lintel of the Jewish synagogue has been found already by the American excavations.

XVI MODERN ATHENS

Modern Athens is a city of marble. Many of the dwellings and business houses and nearly all the public edifices are of that material, and even the sidewalks on some of the streets are paved with it. Upon the bosom of Mount Pentelikos are two great gashes which can be seen for many miles. One of them is the quarry from which was hewn the marble for the Parthenon, the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Theseus and other famous structures of ancient Athens. The other wound was made in modern times, and shows the source of the material of which the present city of Athens was built. The authorities have protected the old quarry for historical and archeological reasons, and nothing has been taken from it for several centuries. The other quarry is just as good. The stone is easily cut and removed, and, although the grain is not so fine as the Parian marble from the quarries in southern Greece, it is equal to that from the famous Carrara quarries of Italy, and costs much less. I was wondering why some enterprising American did not build a railway to the quarry from Piræus, the seaport of Athens, so as to export the marble, for none is exported now. It need be only about eighteen miles long, not counting the curves necessary to make the grade, and it could be run on the gravity principle.

The use of marble and white stucco gives modern Athens an appearance of neatness and beauty which there is no soot to deface. The dust is very bad, however, when the wind blows. The streets are unpaved and the soil is a clay that moistens into mud or dries into dust very readily, and a waiter always stands at the door of the hotel with a feather duster to brush off your boots. One of the streets is named in honor of Æolus, the god of the winds, but he does not confine his attentions to that thoroughfare. In the old part of Athens is a well-preserved octagonal structure of marble called the Tower of the Winds, and one might suppose that it was the place where they originated, but the name seems to have been given merely because it was surmounted by a weather-vane. The tower was built about a hundred years before Christ by Andronicus of Syria, so an inscription tells us, as a compliment to the city of Athens, and was adorned with a sun-dial and a clock that was run by water-power in some ingenious manner; but the exact plan of its operation is not understood by modern mortals. An aqueduct supplied a cistern and the cistern fed machinery too complicated for modern horologists to comprehend.

The streets leading east from the Tower of the Winds enter a depression in the side of a hill, inclosed by a wall which was formerly the site of a school called the Diogeneion, supposed to have been founded by Diogenes, the famous cynic in the third century before Christ.

The palace of the king is an ugly modern structure, of which a nation with the taste of the Greeks ought to be ashamed. It looks like a factory, but the other public buildings are so imposing and appropriate, particularly a group of three--the university, the Academy of Sciences and the library--that they more than offset the atrocity in which the king resides. I doubt if there is a more beautiful combination of buildings in all the world. The academy, designed by a Vienna architect, is asserted to be the purest example of the classic school that has arisen in modern times. The surroundings are appropriate, and the entire street, called University Street, is worthy of the artistic traditions of the Athenians, as well as the spirit of modern enterprise.

A pretty park adjoins the palace grounds in the center of the city, and several of the residence streets are lined with pepper-trees, but there is no other shade in Athens--except the awnings stretched across the sidewalks in the business section to shelter show-windows and politicians who sit at little tables in front of the cafés. The gleam of the white marble is painful to the eyes. The architecture of most of the houses in the new quarter of the town is pure Greek; simple, dignified and stately; a striking contrast to the picturesque squalor and dilapidation of Constantinople and the ornate embellishment of the Italian cities. Some critics complain that the architecture of Athens is monotonous, but it is the monotony of pure and simple taste, and none can deny the beauty of the residences. Most of them are constructed upon modern plans, especially the interiors, to meet the demand for conveniences, and I am sure that the private buildings of Athens to-day are more comfortable and beautiful than in the days of Pericles and Phidias. The mountain Pentelikos can furnish all the marble that is necessary to meet the demands of the builders for twenty-five more centuries.

In the old part of the city the streets are narrow, dirty, and the odors rise to heaven. The modern Greek peasant is not a tidy person, nor is his wife, and the street that passes his dwelling, the house in which he lives and all his surroundings are repulsive to the eye, the nostrils and the sense of propriety.

There are three theaters in Athens, one of them a stately marble building of classic design, at which original plays in Greek are produced to encourage native literary genius. An opera company comes over from Italy for two or three weeks every winter, but otherwise there is very little music in Athens. Nor is there any modern art. The museum is not attractive to ordinary visitors, but it is a fountain of joy and never-ending bliss to archeologists, being filled with broken statuary and pottery, old bronzes and tablets bearing inscriptions that are half-effaced, leaving just enough to excite curiosity and controversy among students.

The classic spirit still prevails in Greece. It even pervades the common council of Athens, or whoever has the duty of naming the streets, for they are nearly all called in honor of the ancient gods, philosophers and poets of the golden age. The Boulevard of the University and the Boulevard of the Academy are the broadest and the finest avenues in the residence portion of the city, while the principal business street is named in honor of Mercury. Other streets are called after Solon, Æsculapius, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Thucydides, Pericles, Sophocles, Menander, Venus, Pan, Hebe, Apollo, Jupiter, Theseus, Philip, Constantine and most of the holy apostles. One of the principal hotels is the Minerva, and it is the fashion to christen shops in honor of the great men of the past. Classic names are also usual in baptizing children. You frequently hear of Hermes, Alcibiades and Homer, and the Athens city directory reads like the muster-roll of the army of Agamemnon, which you will find in the early part of Homer. Achilles, Ajax, Menelaus, Miltiades, Leonidas, Themistocles, and other names equally familiar to students of Greek, are in daily use among the people.

Greece is a true democracy. No other country in Europe, not even Norway, is so subject to the will of the people, and the democratic spirit is often shown in ways that are disagreeable. The feeling of equality is general, and there is an undisguised jealousy against one man rising above another. That is one of the great obstacles to progress--a sort of dead-line which no man can cross without being made the target of every selfish and dissatisfied citizen who construes the superiority of his neighbor as a personal grievance and an offense against the individual and the state. The king is a foreigner. Were he not a foreigner he might not be king. Those who know the Greek character best declare that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Greeks to permit one of their own citizens to rule over them. The king is democratic enough to suit their tastes. He mingles freely with the people, and while he maintains beyond criticism the dignity that becomes his position, he is nevertheless simple in his habits, unostentatious in his exercise of power and loves nothing so well as to be considered one of the Greeks. There have been no scandals or intrigues at his court. The scepter has not been wielded to the injury of any one. He treats everybody alike and perhaps goes a little too far that way, because the exercise of more severe discipline might do something to suppress crime. The king’s example is followed by his sons, his ministers and the attachés of the court, and therefore is imitated by the people. The children have inherited the spirit. The common schools of Athens are attended by boys and girls of all grades of society, the children of laborers sitting beside those of the ministers of state, reading from the same books and engaging in the same games.

Travelers in the country sometimes complain that the democratic spirit is offensive; that the “common people” sometimes are too aggressive and independent. I heard an English gentleman relate his experience with the villagers of the interior, which was evidence that they considered themselves quite as good as he, and he declared that such things could never have occurred in England, or in the United States, for that matter. A gentleman who has lived many years in Greece explained that the peasants did not intend to be impertinent, but were simply exercising what they believed to be their privileges, and demonstrating that a practical democracy was in working order. There is no lack of discipline among the servant class, but they assert their rights like the servant-girls of New England.

Athenian society is divided into sets, as it is everywhere; first, the court set, made up of the higher officials, members of the diplomatic corps, officers of the army and navy, rich residents both foreign and native who entertain extensively, and others who are honored with a personal acquaintance with the royal family. This set is more or less exclusive, and includes only a small fraction of those who are entitled to invitations to court functions. The king’s balls and receptions are very much like those at the White House in Washington, and people with shabby clothes and muddy boots are often present, because their political influence, if not their social position entitles them to invitations. There are no orders of nobility in Greece. There is only one order of knighthood--the Order of the Savior, which is conferred by the king for distinguished services of any character. About one-half of the honors go to the army and navy; the next in number are to those who have distinguished themselves in the service of the state, either as executives, legislators or members of the diplomatic corps, and after them come the scientists, who esteem the ribbon very highly. Some of the descendants of the ancient nobility try to retain their titles, but are laughed at. Men whose ancestors played a conspicuous part in patriotic movements are much more admired and envied, but even they have to give way to learning, for scholars stand higher in Greece to-day than any other class of the community, and learning is considered of more value than great riches.

The education of women is gradually reaching a level with that of men. There are still certain social restraints, due to tradition and the influence of the neighboring countries of Europe, and the old-fashioned method of contracting marriages between families still prevails; but, speaking generally, the women of Greece are to-day quite as independent, quite as influential and quite as well educated as any on the continent, south of Sweden, and it is gratifying to know that the queen herself has been one of the most active and influential agents in bringing about the emancipation of her sex.

Athens has more than her share of newspapers, dailies, weeklies and those of occasional publication, which are not intended for news purposes, but to express the opinions of the different owners or editors upon public affairs. Even these are not sufficient, however, and the politicians and the editors visit the cafés every evening, and often in the afternoon, in order to proclaim their views to whomsoever it may concern. Coffee-houses have taken the place of the ancient forums, and one of the largest in Athens is called “Public Opinion Coffee-house.” Instead of referring to a man as a demagogue or a pot-house politician, over here they call him a coffee-house politician, and nowhere in the country is there such an abundance of oratorical talent and public sentiment as in these institutions. They are the resort of would-be leaders who cannot afford to maintain newspapers and are reduced to the necessity of communicating their thoughts by word of mouth. The newspapers contain very little news--a few brief telegrams from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Constantinople, relating to the most important events of the day; a report of the proceedings of parliament; a review of the decisions of the courts; a few paragraphs of local news; personal items concerning the royal family and prominent citizens; half a column of market quotations, an installment of a continued story, and a few miscellaneous items clipped from other European newspapers. The remainder of the sheet is filled with editorials and communications upon political topics, which are discussed with the greatest freedom, for in Greece the liberty of the press is not abridged. Both editors and correspondents seem to feel as much at liberty as in the United States to criticise or condemn the policy of the government, the extravagance of the officials, the inefficiency of the army, the corruption of parliament, and even the personal habits of public men.

Visitors to Greece are always amazed at the criminal statistics, particularly at the number of murders, and can scarcely believe them to be accurate, because the number seems to be so much in excess of that of any other country in Europe. Ordinary crimes--dishonesty and the vices that prevail in other countries--are not general, but murders occur almost daily, and the frequent attempts at murder and the number of mysterious deaths are shocking in the stage of civilization to which Greece has attained. In the province in which Athens is located homicides average annually almost one to 1,000 of population. It is not without significance that the province of Attica should be the scene of many homicides, for it is the center of learning and education, the seat of the government and the headquarters of the national police. The causes lie mostly in politics. The government has forbidden the carrying of concealed weapons, but the law is not enforced. A pouch or sheath for a knife and a revolver is a part of the national costume, and both are worn openly. You see them upon almost every Greek who wears the old-fashioned garments of his race, and those who have adopted the modern dress have hip pockets.

When two Greeks quarrel the first act is to draw their knives, and unless they are separated instantly there is either a homicide or a case for the hospital, and the hospitals of Athens, which are extensive and up-to-date, are abundantly supplied with patients, especially during periods of political excitement. If a man is killed in a controversy it usually begins a feud which does not end until several graves are filled, because the unwritten law requires a life for a life, and the Greeks adhere to the vendetta as do the Corsicans and the people of Sicily.

In the provinces of Arcadia, which is a synonym of peace and happiness, and in Laconia, the southernmost section of the Grecian peninsula, the vendetta is as strictly observed as it ever was in Corsica. One murder is usually followed by half a dozen, and sometimes they continue until families are extinct. If there are no sons to take revenge, the duty passes to the nearest relative, and the code is understood by children. Singularly enough the obligation to kill ceases when the offending person leaves the province. The code prohibits attacks upon enemies when they remove to another part of the country. The cause of this extraordinary condition can be traced to the days of Turkish domination, when murder and other crimes committed upon Christians were allowed to remain unpunished. The Turkish officials took no notice of injuries suffered by unbelievers and never attempted to punish the perpetrators.

The indifference of the government down to the present day has encouraged murder. Capital punishment is seldom inflicted, and the verdict of a court is generally acquittal. Those who happen to be convicted are soon pardoned through political influence.

Politics is the influential factor in this problem. When a man is arrested for murder, his friends and family naturally use every effort to secure his acquittal, and appeal to their representatives in the chamber of deputies and other officials of the government who are supposed to have a “pull” with the courts, and skill in convincing juries. If the defendants are convicted and sent to prison their confinement must be made as short and as easy as possible. Hence members of the Greek parliament are kept quite as busy looking after constituents who have committed homicides as the members of our Congress are in getting an increase of pensions for old soldiers.