Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu

Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a whole, for the young nation, I have but one feeling – namely, admiration. The country, escaping at last from its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting war, had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There was no agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a small population; there were no roads, no schools, no industries or trades, and few men of education. (I quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) The Greeks have done much, and under the most unfavorable conditions. They will do more. The struggle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people is deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals especially to Americans, because the country, in spite of its form of government, is a democracy.

When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I ought therefore to bring these slight records to a close. But it was the same blue water, after all, that was washing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf beyond, and the impression produced by its pure, early-world tint, lasts as far as Corinth; here one turns inland, and the next crested waves which one meets are Ægean. They rouse other sensations.

There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On the morning when we made the transit there was given to us for our sole use a saloon on wheels, which was much larger than the compartments of an English railway carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. In its centre was a long table, and a cushioned bench ran round its four sides; broad windows gave us a wide view of the landscape as we rolled (rather slowly) along. The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and we passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not think of currants here; they had been left behind at Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to think of, and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head above the other snow-clad summits. "The prophetess of Delphi was hypnotized, of course." This sudden incursion of modernity was due no doubt to the mode of our progress through this sacred country. We ought to have been crossing the gulf in a Phæacian boat, which needs no pilot, or, at the very least, in a bark with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track, through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends again when the second peak becomes visible at the eastern end of the bay.

"Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee,But where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea – "

How many times, in lands far from here, had I read these lines for their mere beauty, without hope of more!

And now before my eyes was Helicon itself.

THE END