LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
IN ARGOLIS 
 

'- 
 
 .. . * 
 
 HERE STOOD* TtfE TETVIPLE'WHETIE* DEMOSTHENES DIED 
 
IN ARGOLIS 
 
 BY GEORGE HORTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE TEMPTING OF FATHER 
 ANTHONY," "LIKE ANOTHER HELEN," "MOD- 
 ERN ATHENS." WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 BY DR. EBEN ALEXANDER, LATE UNITED 
 STATES MINISTER TO GREECE.ILLUSTRATED 
 FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND J |\ COMPANY, LONDON 
 MDCCClL^CCIII 
 
Copyright, 1902, by A. C. McClurg 6f Company 
 Published September 20, 1 902 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ? <,* 
 
 * 0<| 
 
 * o 
 
 . * , 
 
 Z>. i?. Updike, the Merrymount Press, Boston 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 HERE STOOD THE TEMPLE WHERE DEMOSTHENES 
 
 DIED FRONTISPIECE 
 
 A VILLAGE STREET faci ng page 6 
 
 DOORWAY IN VILLAGE HOUSE I 8 
 
 GARLIC MERCHANT 26 
 
 CAIQUE 40 
 
 FUNERAL PROCESSION PASSING OVER STRAIT IN 
 
 BOATS 58 
 
 FUNERAL PROCESSION LANDED FROM BOATS 60 
 
 BREAD MERCHANT PRIEST PASSING 68 
 
 POROS 86 
 
 WAITING FOR BRIDAL PROCESSION 94 
 
 RESTING I38 
 
 FUNERAL PROCESSION PASSING THROUGH A VIL- 
 LAGE STREET I52 
 
 TAKING A SMOKE BY THE VILLAGE FOUNTAIN I 54 
 
 HAULING IN THE FISH-NET I 74 
 
 STREET SCENE I 80 
 
 HIS HONOR THE DEMARCH 224 
 
 222803 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE Intro- 
 
 Average persons (how many of us there are!) know dudtory 
 rather more about the Greece of Pericles than about 
 the Greece of King George. This ignorance is not 
 due to lack of interest. Most persons of a reasonable 
 degree of culture usually have in their hearts an in- 
 terest almost affectionate in the little country whose 
 people once did so much to make the world wiser and 
 better and pleas anter to live in, by creating and per- 
 fecting a literature and an art which are as beauti- 
 ful and full of life to-day as they were thousands of 
 years ago. There are some good things that never 
 grow old. 
 
 The world sometimes remembers ', too, that it was 
 the Greeks who drove back the barbarians of the East, 
 and made civilized life possible for the rest of Europe. 
 
 But Greece is far away, and not many of us see 
 it for ourselves, almost none of us long and inti- 
 mately enough to know truly the land and the people. 
 One stays a week in Athens, makes hurried visits 
 to Marathon, Eleusis, Corinth, Mycence, Delphi, 
 Olympia, and writes a book. People read it, and 
 
 vn 
 
Intro- learn some things about these places that they already 
 du6tory j inew fairly well. They perhaps learn other things, 
 as that Greece contains almost exactly the same 
 number of square miles as West Virginia; that hotels 
 in the cities are surprisingly good, while the village 
 inns are often deplorably bad; that the national debt 
 is extremely large for a country so small; and that 
 the main crop is currants. It will be a pity if they 
 do not learn also that our latest tariff law imposed an 
 import duty of about one hundred per cent ad valorem 
 on these currants, for the protection of the raisin- 
 growers of California. 
 
 One of the many good things about Mr. Hortons 
 "In Argolis" is its lack of the usual statistics. The 
 only figures in it are those used in numbering the pages. 
 And the reader will wish for more of these. 
 
 It is hard to see how any other barbarian could 
 have written this book, not even the thirty-first 
 chapter, in which Kyrios Douzinas buys a fish. The 
 author knows Greece, the country itself its glorious 
 history, its splendid literature, its language old and 
 new, its people and their ways of life. He has, very 
 
 Vlll 
 
wisely, refrained from attempting to cover the whole Intro- 
 ground in this one book, choosing rather to describe ductory 
 the simple life of lovely Poros, where the divine sea 
 sparkles at one's feet, and the air is sweet with blos- 
 soms of orange and of lemon; where nightingales are 
 always singing, and groves of age do lives give classic 
 dignity to f elds gay with poppies and anemones. 
 
 The poet of"Aphroessa " chose this place naturally 
 and rightly. It was at Poros, the ancient Calauria, 
 that Demosthenes killed himself. It must have been 
 hard for him to leave forever a spot so beautiful in 
 Poseidon s temple. If he had been spending some time 
 at one of the village inns of to-day, he might have 
 given up life with some degree of cheerfulness. 
 
 In quiet places like Poros, where day-dreams are 
 not interrupted by the rush of modern life, one may 
 almost bring back the ancient time. In Athens, this 
 is not so easy. Still, it is possible, as one looks down 
 on the city from Lykabettos at twilight. Or if he gets 
 away from the new city, and stands in the road that 
 runs along the southern side of the Acropolis, with 
 the soft moonlight healing the scars of ruined build- 
 
 IX 
 
Intro- ings 9 a good dreamer can summon the shades. Near 
 du&ory ^ are tfc p r j son of Socrates, the Pnyx, the Areopa- 
 gus (why do we ever call it Mars* Hill'? Mars 
 never had anything to do with it, and it is not a hill, 
 it is the Rock of Ares J, the Acropolis with its stately 
 Propylcea, the little Nike temple, and the Parthenon; 
 and yonder is the theatre of Dionysus. At such a 
 time the shades may come, Socrates, Phidias, De- 
 mosthenes, St. Paul, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Pericles, 
 and countless others. Aristophanes and Lucian are 
 very fond of coming; and I think that Menander 
 might be there too, but our letters of introduction 
 are lost. 
 
 But our dream here may be rudely interrupted, 
 and memory recalled to the immediate present, by the 
 necessity of jumping out of the way of an automobile. 
 The country and people of King George are worth 
 knowing for what they are and are doing, as well as 
 for what the old Greeks were and did. No nation has 
 ever made such marvellous progress, and under so 
 many disadvantages. We should remember that it is 
 only about seventy years since Greece freed herself 
 
from four hundred years of awful slavery, in com- Intro- 
 parison with which slavery as known in the United <^ toi 7 
 States was freedom itself Schools were quickly estab- 
 lished. There is an excellent system of education, from 
 primary school to university; there are many miles 
 of railroads, built and building; lighthouses, pro- 
 testing a coast-line twelve times as long, in proportion 
 to the areas of the two countries, as that of France; 
 the Corinth Canal; public roads, better than in most 
 of our States, from Thessaly to Sparta ; a form of 
 government perfectly adapted to the people, who have 
 never in all their history taken kindly to being governed 
 at all; a literature that makes it worth while to learn 
 Greek, at least for those who will not be disappointed 
 to find that writers of to-day do not equal those of the 
 time of Pericles; hospitals, reform schools, and other 
 charitable institutions, under the wise supervision of 
 good Queen Olga; the best-arranged museums to be 
 found anywhere in Europe, to which, in their pride, 
 the authorities do not allow admission fees to be charged. 
 Greece is very much alive. All these things, and 
 more, have been done by a people who are desperately 
 
 XI 
 
Intro- poor, and out of whose poverty almost every nation 
 
 dudtory j n Europe makes more or less money. 
 
 Scholars who visit Greece have no difficulty in 
 reading the newspapers, but do not at once understand 
 the spoken language, partly because their training 
 has been confined to reading, partly because of the 
 artificial system of pronunciation in use almost every- 
 where. They conclude, therefore, that there are two 
 distinct languages, the written and the spoken. To 
 some extent, this is true of all languages. London 
 cabmen do not always talk as the editor of "The 
 Times " writes. Nor does the editor himself To illus- 
 trate how nearly alike modern and ancient Greek are: 
 I read the other day a letter, written by a Greek to 
 his brother who is spending some time in prison for 
 taking into his own hands the free and unlimited coin- 
 age of silver. The writer was almost illiterate. His 
 grammar was untidy, and most of the words were 
 misspelled. A Greek word misspelled has a funny 
 appearance, like a bishop in a clown s clothes. It 
 was a long letter, but there were only three words in it 
 that Xenophon could have failed to recognize, while 
 
 XI 1 
 
St* Paul would probably have known all but one. Intro- 
 That was o-68a-(f)dov y which is good American. oudtory 
 
 But "In Argolis " awaits the Gentle Reader. Even 
 the gentlest of readers may grow impatient. 
 
 Eben Alexander, 
 Late U. S. Minister to Greece. 
 
IN ARGOLIS. I In 
 
 1H A VE often thought that the simple history Argolts 
 of any family, if properly told, would be as in- 
 teresting as a romance. For one thing, such dis- 
 tantly connected and seemingly irrelevant causes 
 combine to produce results! These, united with 
 the consequent mental effedts, lead us to decide, 
 for example, whether or not we shall give up the 
 grocery business and study theology ; whether we 
 shall buy a farm and get married, or invest in pro- 
 visions and set out for the Klondike ; whether we 
 shall continue in the insurance business, or start 
 a weekly paper in Oklahoma and perhaps turn 
 up after a few years in the United States Senate. 
 
 The unravelling of causes is a most fascinating 
 amusement, which can be extended backward at 
 pleasure, and branches off in all directions like 
 a genealogical tree. 
 
 The two immediate causes which sent us to 
 Poros, the first week in March, 1898, were 
 William McKinley, President of the United 
 States, and an innocent three-months-old baby, 
 known to the Greek servants as "the Baby- 
 coula." Now what two things could be more 
 dissimilar in every way? And yet they united to 
 produce just this result. 
 
In Mr. McKinley, exercising his indisputable right, 
 
 Argolis removed the father from office at a time when 
 the Babycoula was unable to cross the Atlan- 
 tic; Poros was near to Athens; a good house 
 was obtainable there, and the wild flowers and 
 blossoming trees heralded the approach of early 
 spring. After a family council, in which the 
 Babycoula unconsciously took part by figuring 
 as the chief consideration in every discussion, we 
 decided to leave the Piraeus on a little steamer 
 advertised to sail the next day at two o'clock in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 Early in the morning, two villainous look- 
 ing Greeks appeared before the Consulate. Each 
 was the proprietor of a ramshackle wagon of the 
 dachshund type, with long thills, at the extreme 
 end of which a framework of bones bearing some 
 resemblance to a horse was attached by a com- 
 plicated combination of ropes and straps. The 
 fa<5l that the animals each had four legs, " one on 
 each corner" as the schoolboy expressed it in his 
 essay, was all that kept them from falling over. 
 The loading of a motley assortment of furni- 
 ture and bedding began immediately and con- 
 tinued noisily and profanely until noon. And 
 right here a word may be admissible as to the 
 
V 
 
 charafter of Greek profanity. It has nothing in In 
 it like the short sulphurous thunder-clap of the drgolis 
 Anglo-Saxon " Damn," neither is it capable of 
 the picturesque effedts and imaginative flights 
 attainable in English; but for hair-raising blas- 
 phemy, Greek profanity is unapproachable. The 
 commonest oaths of the Greek Christian are in- 
 sults to Divinity such as captains on the Erie 
 Canal never use when their lines cross; they are 
 hideous outrages of speech such as a Nevada 
 sheep-herder could not use without expefting 
 the earth to open and swallow him. 
 
 The ramshackle wagons were finally loaded 
 to an immense height, and the equine skeletons 
 were set in motion; their owners accomplishing 
 this seemingly impossible task by walking in 
 front of the beasts and holding a wisp of hay a 
 short distance ahead of their noses. It was a clas- 
 sical expedient, no doubt borrowed from the 
 myth of Tantalus. Hunger being stronger than 
 weariness, the poor things advanced. Moreover, 
 from Athens to Piraeus is down-hill. 
 
 The wagons were loaded in true Greek style. 
 On the pinnacle of one perched precariously a 
 dry-goods box that had been metamorphosed into 
 a temporary poultry-coop. A partition through 
 
 3 
 
In the middle separated ten little chickens from 
 
 Argolis eleven little ducks, each brood presided over by 
 an anxious hen. 
 
 Before the departure of the caravan, I made 
 an earnest and persistent effort to induce my two 
 desperadoes to give me some idea of what they 
 considered to be the pecuniary value of their 
 services. 
 
 " What do you want for taking these goods 
 to the Piraeus?" 
 
 "Whatever your honor's generosity prompts 
 you to give." 
 
 "But I may give too little!" 
 
 " Impossible ! " with low bows. " We have per- 
 fe6t confidence in your excellency." 
 
 " But I want to know beforehand, so that there 
 will be no dispute." 
 
 " Dispute, your highness ! Whatever you give, 
 there will be no dispute. The honor of serving 
 your highness is in itself enough. Addio, addio. 
 You will be satisfied, and we shall be deeply 
 grateful. Addio" 
 
 "But hold on a minute " 
 
 "Addio! We are delighted to serve your emi- 
 nence. Let not the question of money arise be- 
 tween us. It grieves us." 
 
 4 
 
I preceded them by rail, accompanied by Maria In 
 Berseres, the cook, who was to take an inven- Argolis 
 tory of the goods as they were put on board the 
 steamer. 
 
 Maria wore a hat top-heavy with red feathers, 
 and carried under her arm the good genius of 
 the house, an enormous red rooster, familiarly 
 known as Abrocomas. He was a fierce-looking 
 biped, with spurs like those worn by climbers 
 of telegraph poles; yet he was in reality the gen- 
 tlest cock that ever crew. Wonder not, reader, 
 that Chanticleer was especially guarded by the 
 queen of the kitchen, nor deem that such care 
 had any reference to future pot-pies. The rooster 
 in Greece is considered a bird of good omen, and 
 his cheery matutinal chant is supposed to exor- 
 cise the Iskios and other malignant spirits that 
 lurk about hallways o' dark nights. Perhaps some 
 learned man can give us reasons for the potency 
 of the common barn-yard fowl. The speech of 
 dying Socrates is to the point; and a Chinaman 
 tells truth only when sworn by the blood of a 
 chicken. 
 
 The cat also is a lucky animal among the 
 modern Greeks, and every Christian of them 
 knows why. A certain famous bishop was admin- 
 
 5 
 
In istering the Sacrament; a mouse ran across the 
 
 Argolis table, and was about to jump into the holy wine, 
 when puss miraculously appeared and caught the 
 tiny heathen. Ever since then, cats have been 
 considered clean animals, and their presence in 
 churches has been looked upon with approval. 
 A dog, on the other hand, is supposed to dese- 
 crate the holy edifice, and woe to the canine 
 who follows his master into church! Everybody 
 within reach kicks at the poor brute, and I have 
 often seen a howling dog come flying like a foot- 
 ball out of the church door. 
 
 Our Thomas cat, Canellas, should have ac- 
 companied Abrocomas to Poros; but, true to 
 feline instinft, the same the world over, he dis- 
 appeared as soon as the first preparations to move 
 began, and did not reappear until several days 
 after my successor in office had become thor- 
 oughly installed. 
 
 My two desperadoes did not reach Piraeus un- 
 til two hours after the departure of the steamer 
 "iEgina." Being greatly fatigued with their la- 
 bors of the morning, they had halted at several 
 convenient khans to rest and refresh themselves. 
 Maria, Abrocomas, and I finally lost patience 
 standing on the wharf, and repaired to a restau- 
 6 
 
w 
 
 w 
 
1 
 
rant. We seated ourselves, and established leg In 
 connection between Abrocomas and the table, Argolis 
 by means of a string, politely furnished by the 
 waiter. 
 
 We were in the middle of our piece de resis- 
 tance^ a huge goat's head, when the dilatory des- 
 peradoes arrived, accompanied by half a dozen 
 boatmen. The latter surrounded the table and 
 began shouting at the top of their voices, each 
 urging his claim to the right of putting my things 
 on board another steamer that lay in the harbor 
 and that would set sail early next morning. One 
 was an Athenian by birth, and had known my 
 predecessor in the Consulate. Another had once 
 taken the American Minister over to the island 
 of iEgina. A third had a cousin who kept a fruit- 
 stand in Chicago. The fourth had aCtually landed 
 my eminence when I arrived from America, and 
 I had remained delighted with his services. 
 
 I finally selected one, and the rest withdrew. 
 Then thewagon-owningdesperadoes began. Five 
 drachmas a load is the regular price given for 
 bringing goods from Athens to the Piraus. I of- 
 fered them ten, and five extra for upourboire. The 
 arch-brigand laid the money on the table, and 
 smiled pityingly. 
 
 7 
 
In "What is the matter?" I asked. 
 
 Argolis "You are surely jesting with us." 
 
 "But you said you would accept gratefully 
 whatever I offered you." 
 
 " We never dreamed it would be anything so 
 niggardly as this." 
 
 I left the money on the table, and continued 
 the discussion of the goathead. Seeing that I paid 
 no further attention to them, they began to beg, 
 and finally to revile. Maria and Abrocomas, being 
 Greeks, knew the proper course to pursue. They 
 paid no more attention to the brigands than if 
 the latter had not existed. I followed suit. By the 
 time coffee was reached, they were willing to 
 compromise for five drachmas each more than I 
 had offered them. When I imperturbably lighted 
 my cigarette, one of them picked up the money, 
 and said: 
 
 " Come, Effendi, we said we would n't quarrel, 
 and we'll not. Give us two drachmas more to 
 get a glass of wine, and we'll drink your health." 
 
 " Not a pendara " (sou) . 
 
 At this they recommenced such a hullabaloo 
 that the proprietor of the place came forward, 
 and said that the row must be stopped. 
 
 " It 's only about one drachma," explained the 
 8 ' 
 
arch-desperado, fluently. " We have done some In 
 work for my lord here, and we want him to give Argolis 
 us one drachma to drink his health." 
 
 Greeks always combine against the foreigner, 
 when their interests are not prejudiced thereby. 
 
 "A drachma is a small matter/' protested the 
 proprietor, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 " Very well, then," I replied, " give it to them 
 yourself. In the meantime, give me a small bottle 
 of export beer." 
 
 This lordly order settled the matter, and the 
 proprietor hustled my tormentors out of the place. 
 They came over to the wharf later on, shook 
 hands with us enthusiastically, wished us a pleas- 
 ant voyage, and hoped that I would prefer them 
 to everybody else when I returned to Athens 
 with my goods. In looking over the things they 
 had transported, I found that a plaster relief 
 worth ten dollars had been smashed into half a 
 dozen pieces, and that an indispensable iron in 
 a bed imported from London was missing. As 
 the iron could not be replaced in Athens, the 
 bed was useless. 
 
 Our Lares and Penates were finally stowed 
 away upon the boat, and Abrocomas was left in 
 charge, tied to an iron ring on the deck. He was 
 
 9 
 
In not destined to be lonely, as a flour-sack con- 
 Argolis taining an invisible pig tumbled about in his 
 neighborhood in a spasmodic and aimless man- 
 ner, while a kid tied to an adjacent ring wearied 
 the air with plaintive cries. Maria Berseres and 
 I returned to Athens for the night. 
 
 II 
 
 NEXT morning, the entire household took 
 an early train for the Pirasus. We consisted 
 of the Mother of the Family, the Father of the 
 Family, the Family (aged three months), the 
 CookorMagerissa,the Paramana,and the Dada. 
 The two last-named individuals were satellites 
 revolving about the Family, the foster-mother 
 and the nurse. 
 
 The profession of wet-nurse is an ancient and 
 honorable calling, as Homer himself testifies. 
 The old paramana Eurycleia was the first per- 
 son to recognize Odysseus on his return to his 
 native land, as every schoolboy will remember. 
 She is described by Penelope as "an old woman 
 of an understanding heart, who diligently nursed 
 that hapless man, my lord, and cherished him, 
 and took him in her arms in the hour when his 
 10 
 
mother bare him." There is no doubt that Eury- In 
 cleia was a paramana in the modern sense, for Argolis 
 Odysseus said to her: "It was thou that didst 
 nurse me there at thine own breast." Let us hope 
 for Odysseus' mother's sake that Eurycleia was 
 not such a pestiferous nuisance as her modern 
 representative knows so well how to be. 
 
 In the glorious days of Greece, the strong and 
 buxom women of Sparta were in great demand 
 as foster-mothers. They were celebrated for 
 their healthy condition and fine physique, and 
 their milk was supposed to impart that courage 
 for which the Spartans were so famed. To-day 
 the wet-nurses of Andros and Tenos are highly 
 prized. Many peasant girls in those islands marry 
 for the sole purpose of becoming paramanas, or 
 wet-nurses. As soon as the young mother is ready 
 to ply her vocation, she goes on to Athens, where 
 she is snapped up, as we say in America, "like 
 a hot cake." In such demand are the Andriote 
 women, that groups of Athenian gentlemen can 
 frequently be seen on the wharf at Laurium, 
 waiting for the little steamer, that they may 
 have the first pick of new arrivals. That modern 
 Herod, the nursing-bottle, is almost unknown 
 in Greece; while the paramana, or assistant mo- 
 il 
 
In ther, is a matter of course in all but the poorest 
 
 Argolis families. 
 
 Our own Eurycleia hailed from the Plaka, a 
 poor district in Athens. 
 
 We reached the boat all right this time, and 
 by half-past seven were steaming slowly past the 
 island of Salamis. 
 
 Just when poor Abrocomas met his horrible 
 fate, I am not quite certain. The Family was giv- 
 ing an operatic selection in crescendo at the mo- 
 ment of embarkation, to the complete distrac- 
 tion of the "Kyria" her mother, the "EfFendi" 
 her father, and the two satellites. I am sure, 
 however, that I looked at Abrocomas, and that 
 he was all right at that time. When we arrived 
 at Poros, he was nowhere to be seen ; nor was the 
 mystery of his disappearance explained, until 
 a box of hardware, weighing nearly a thousand 
 pounds, had been slowly raised from the deck by 
 means of the hoisting engine. Poor Abrocomas 
 was found beneath, perfeft as to outline, but 
 otherwise, oh, how changed ! He was nearly two 
 feet in diameter, and as thin as a school geog- 
 raphy. He had been pressed like a flower in a 
 book. 
 
 12 
 
Ill In 
 
 WE were no strangers in Poros, as we had Ar Z olts 
 already passed three summers there. The 
 whole town assembled on the wharf to welcome 
 us, the dodtor, the druggist, the postmaster, 
 the mayor, the constable; and a throng of sturdy 
 old fellows in island costume, red fez, blue 
 knee-breeches incredibly voluminous in the seat, 
 high stockings, wide leather belt containing in- 
 numerable pockets and room for a long knife or 
 two. We were greeted on all sides by " Ka/os 
 oreesate! " (Welcome !) , " Tee kamnete ? " (How do 
 you do?), "Kala Eesai? Eesai kala?" (Well, are 
 you ? Are you well?), and a continual chorus of 
 "Ka/a, kala, kala, kala," meaning well, well, well, 
 well, and signifying, even before we had a chance 
 to ask, that our questioners were themselves in 
 good health. 
 
 Few looked at the Family, for fear of giving 
 her the evil eye. But whenever curiosity over- 
 came good manners, the one looking invariably 
 pretended to spit on the Babycoula, and ex- 
 claimed: u Na meen avoskothees!" (May you not 
 take the eye!). 
 
 Infants are especially subjeft to the evil eye, 
 because they are, to a peculiar extent, objefts of 
 
 *3 
 
In admiration, and it is the admiring glance which 
 
 Argolis i s most dangerous. But of this we shall hear more 
 further on. 
 
 The paramana's simple mind was more power- 
 fully impressed by the voluminous breeches than 
 by any other feature of the new town. They car- 
 ried her back to the days of her childhood, when 
 her father, an Andriote, used to wear a similar 
 costume. 
 
 After the household goods had been piled high 
 upon two row-boats, which so disappeared from 
 view that their cargoes seemed to be moving 
 across the calm bay of their own free will, we 
 all entered a third boat and followed in the wake. 
 Then it was that the paramana gave us a learned 
 discourse on the subjeft of island breeches. Be- 
 fore recapitulating the principal points of this 
 discourse, it is necessary that we should get a 
 clearer idea of this remarkable garment. Imagine 
 a pair of ordinary knickerbockers made of blue 
 homespun, rather loose in the leg; take those 
 knickerbockers, stretch, pull out and extend the 
 seat till it barely clears the ground and protrudes 
 behind like the bay-window of a house, and you 
 have the " vrachi " or unmentionables of a Greek 
 islander. As he walks, the rear protuberance 
 
gracefully oscillates, with a lateral movement like In 
 like nothing else in the world. Argolis 
 
 "These trousers, besides being very beautiful 
 and graceful," as Katina explained to us, "are 
 also extremely convenient. The capacious seat 
 is nothing less than a huge pocket, capable of 
 holding as much as a thousand ordinary pockets. 
 Father used often to take a kid to market in 
 the seat of his pantaloons, and bring back pota- 
 toes, bread, flour, or whatever the family might 
 need. 
 
 " I remember well the last time he wore vrachi. 
 For several years after we came to Athens, he 
 continued to wear the island costume. Perhaps 
 on your way to Phaleron, during the summer, 
 you have noticed poles stuck in the ground, over 
 which shawls, coats, and other garments were 
 hung, forming a screen between the railroad 
 and the sea? Well, it is the custom for many 
 Athenian families to camp out on the beach for 
 a few days during the hot weather and do their 
 annual bathing. My family take seven baths each 
 year, during the month of August. On the oc- 
 casion of which I spoke, my father wished to 
 go in. I remember perfectly well: he had made 
 his third bath, and wished to make his fourth. 
 
 IS 
 
In But there were many strangers hanging about, 
 
 Argolis anc i he had no bathing suit. So he concluded to 
 go in wearing his vrachi. He waded out and 
 out, and then he swam a little way. I remember 
 we were laughing, because, as he swam, the air 
 drew into his breeches about his waist till they 
 swelled up like a huge balloon. All at once, 
 Holy Virgin! he gave a gurgling scream, and 
 his head went under. There he was, upside down. 
 All that could be seen was the big blue balloon, 
 and a pair of feet dancing about on top of it. We 
 all rushed in and pulled him out, and he swore 
 never to wear vrachi again." 
 
 One can easily believe that Mr. Petropoulos's 
 experience did not seem at all funny to him, 
 however ludicrous a spectacle he may have fur- 
 nished for others. His real danger lay in the fa6l 
 that the cloth in his breeches, as well as every 
 other stitch of clothing upon his person, was 
 home-made. The thread had been spun on a hand- 
 distaff, and the cloth woven on a hand-loom. It 
 was therefore tremendously strong, and almost 
 impervious to air. 
 
 Homespun is much used by the country peo- 
 ple of Greece, and the women are kept busy, 
 during every moment otherwise unoccupied, 
 16 
 
with the distaff. They walk about with a long In 
 stick growing from the waist. The upper end is Argolis 
 crotched, and blossoms in a fluff of snowy wool 
 or cotton, which the nimble fingers twist into 
 yarn or thread by means of a pendulous whorl. 
 With Greek peasant women, the distaff and spin- 
 ning-whorl are emblems of industry, as the knit- 
 ting-needles continue to be in the country dis- 
 tricts of America. 
 
 I fancy that the distaff is one of the things 
 that connefit modern with ancient Greece; one 
 of the imperishable forms, ideas, customs, that 
 have persisted among the homely folk of coun- 
 try regions. Spinning-whorls are found in great 
 quantities among the ruins of prehistoric cities, 
 and it was a distaff which Theocritus sent to 
 Theugenis of the beautiful ankles, Theugenis 
 the deft spinner. 
 
 " Great is the joy of giving , although the gift be small \ 
 And trifles from a friend \ we prize them one and all" 
 
 The elegant ladies of Greece no longer use 
 the distaff, but it is by no means extinft. 
 
 *7 
 
In IV 
 
 Argohs /vur country house stood on the sea, oppo- 
 V^/ site to Poros, and about a mile away. The 
 restless waves washed the stone foundations of 
 the balcony, and their light ripple or, if the 
 wind was blowing, their rhythmic plash was 
 audible at all hours. 
 
 The first evening we were there, I went out 
 on the balcony and looked up at the sky. In the 
 west was the silver bow of Diana, and a bright 
 star seemed the tip of an arrow that sped away 
 into the dim forests of a distant hill. The world 
 was pervaded by vague, uncertain light, as when 
 some inexplicable emotion, some sad, indefinite 
 yearning, floods the soul. The sea rippled infi- 
 nitely, but its tiny wavelets gleamed with a wan, 
 unearthly sheen, like the waters of Acheron. 
 
 The stars were there, the old familiar con- 
 stellations; but who ever received any real com- 
 fort from the stars? Many a lonely mariner upon 
 the sea, many a traveller in the wide desert, has 
 looked up at them, and they have said to him: 
 "We are twinkling above the home of your 
 childhood; we are shining upon your happy 
 friends in a distant land; but we are as far from 
 them as from you. We are like the gods. You 
 18 
 
-> -5 ) 
 
may see us, but we cannot see you. You are too In 
 small for us." Argolis 
 
 Now and then a fitful gust brought to my ears 
 the faint sound of a distant church-bell, tolled 
 doubtless by some lonely old priest in a windy 
 church-tower. 
 
 THE next day, we put up the stove. 
 No genuine Greek house has a stovepipe 
 hole in it, and very few have any provision for 
 fire. There is some pretty cold weather in this 
 country during the winter, and many very damp 
 and disagreeable days ; but the colder the weather 
 out of doors, the greater dread the Greeks have 
 of heated rooms. There is a theory, held by all 
 classes, that it is extremely dangerous to go from 
 the warm house into the cold air. This theory 
 is one of those queer little national beliefs or 
 prejudices that distinguish one people from an- 
 other. A Greek will never draw up cheerfully by 
 your stove or your fireplace. He will, on the 
 contrary, move off to a distant corner, or will ask 
 you to receive him in some other room; and he 
 invariably entertains you with an excited homily 
 
 19 
 
In on the dangers of having a fire in the house. 
 
 Argolis " You do very wrong, indeed you do. You are 
 warm in here; then you go out of doors, and you 
 catch a dreadful cold. You must pardon me, but 
 I would not dare stay in a warm room. I should 
 consider that I was risking my life." 
 
 We northern races know that it does us good 
 to get thoroughly warmed through, heart and 
 all. The memory of the cheerful fire at home, 
 and of the group around it, has kept many a man 
 warm. 
 
 I remember being invited to a Greek house 
 at Athens to take a cup of tea one afternoon. 
 Hymettus, Parnes, and Penteles were covered 
 with snow, and a wind was sweeping down over 
 the town that almost froze the marrow in one's 
 bones. I hung up my heavy overcoat in the hall, 
 and went into the drawing-room. There sat the 
 three daughters in state, beautiful girls, all 
 dressed in white. Pitying heavens ! how cold they 
 were ! Their lips were white and their noses blue. 
 I took a bonbon from the table and a glass of 
 cognac, and got away as soon as politeness per- 
 mitted. 
 
 Statistics show that phthisis is the prevailing 
 fatal disease in Greece. The houses are all made 
 
 20 
 
of stone, cemented together with immense quan- In 
 tities of mortar, and the walls are very thick. Argolis 
 These walls become damp in winter, and the 
 interior of a fireless Greek house in January or 
 February is as dangerous a dwelling-place as the 
 interior of a vault or a cellar. 
 
 Any derangement of the human system, of 
 whatever nature, is attributed by the Greeks to 
 cold; and the sovereign remedy for all ills is a 
 dose of castor-oil, followed by quinine. If you 
 say to a Greek, " My head aches," he replies, 
 " You have caught cold in your head." Or if you 
 remark, " I have a severe pain in my stomach," 
 he promptly rejoins, "Ah, you have caught cold 
 in your stomach." 
 
 When I was a boy the good mothers of Mich- 
 igan were crazy on the subjeft of the liver. Any 
 physical complaint of whatsoever nature made 
 by a member of the family was promptly met 
 with, "Young man [or young lady, as the case 
 might be], your liver is out of order. I'll bring 
 you a dose of potaphleen [podophyllin] imme- 
 diately." I have passed through severe " fits of 
 sickness " without betraying myself, to avoid this 
 horrible drug and its effe&s. 
 
 In a similar manner, the whole of Greece has 
 
 21 
 
In a mania on the subjedt of colds, castor-oil, and 
 
 Argolis quinine. 
 
 As there was no stovepipe hole, the stove was 
 put up in genuine Greek fashion; that is, a win- 
 dow-light was taken out, and a sheet of tin, prop- 
 erly pierced for the pipe, was put in its place. The 
 pipe ran through this, and then, taking a sudden 
 turn, it shot high into the air. A queer little cap 
 was set on the top to keep out the rain and pre- 
 vent the wind from swooping in too vigorously. 
 
 Greeks who formerly lived in Paris or Lon- 
 don, and who have built fine houses on Academy 
 Street or the Kephissia Road in Athens, set up 
 stoves and let the smoke out through chimneys. 
 Genuine, unadulterated, and uncontaminated 
 Greeks do not warm their houses except by the 
 physician's order, and then they run the stove- 
 pipe out through a window-pane. 
 
 This method is followed by queer results; at 
 least it was in our case. The draught, which was 
 of the violent and roaring kind, worked from the 
 outside inward, or vice versa, in each instance, 
 according to the way it happened to start. If the 
 air commenced to blow up the pipe, it continued 
 to do so, and we had a beautiful fire ; if, on the 
 other hand, it flowed down, the stove snorted 
 
 22 
 
smoke and flames like a stage dragon. At such In 
 times there was no alternative save to throw the drgolis 
 house wide open and to fish out the burning 
 wood with a pair of tongs and throw it into the 
 sea. 
 
 The stove's decision on each occasion was en- 
 tirely beyond human influence or control. The 
 two satellites therefore made the sign of the cross 
 before the lighting of each fire, and left the result 
 to Providence. I infer that they were sometimes 
 lacking in faith. 
 
 A memorable event marked our first full day 
 in Poros, a social call from our landlord's wife. 
 She was extremely corpulent, after the style of 
 the majority of Greek women over twenty-five 
 years of age. She had arrayed herself for the occa- 
 sion in a black silk dress, as befitted the wife of 
 a wealthy landowner; her black hair was neatly 
 plastered over her ears, and she wore about her 
 temples a snuff-colored kerchief, adorned with 
 gorgeous red flowers with blue leaves. 
 
 Her first and greatest interest centred in the 
 Babycoula, whom she admired with all manner 
 of extravagant expressions, dutifully offsetting 
 each with the formula "Nameen avoskothees!" 
 (May you not take the evil eye!). 
 
 23 
 
In The pleasure derived from this amiable lady's 
 
 Argolis ca ll was somewhat modified by the faft that she 
 
 had been eating garlic, and, as the rooms of our 
 
 house were small, her presence became a trifle 
 
 oppressive. 
 
 The Greek people are excessively fond of gar- 
 lic. They eat it at all seasons of the year, and 
 add it as a relish to every kind of food. The 
 farmers of different localities pride themselves 
 on the excellence of their skordo (garlic), just as 
 they did in ancient times. No doubt to their 
 great fondness for garlic is attributable the fa<5t 
 that a foreigner finds it difficult to get anything 
 he can eat in the small country towns of Greece. 
 A man coming hungry and tired into a neat, 
 prosperous-looking village, in the midst of a rich 
 agricultural region, would expeft to find fresh 
 milk, butter, fruits, and in fa<5t an abundance of 
 good cheer. In the majority of cases it is impos- 
 sible to get anything to eat except sour cheese, 
 garlic, bread, and bitter wine. Even the wild 
 blackberries that grow in such profusion on the 
 bushes are not picked, but are allowed to dry up 
 and go to waste. But you say: " Eat eggs, boiled 
 eggs. One can get along quite comfortably with 
 plenty of them." The suggestion makes me smile, 
 24 
 
for I have tried the expedient and found it futile. In 
 The hens eat the leavings from the tables, and Argolis 
 the eggs contain concentrated essence of garlic. 
 
 During fasting-time the atmosphere of Greece 
 is most heavily laden with the aroma of garlic, 
 for then the inhabitants devour it with prodi- 
 gious avidity, both cooked and raw. During Holy 
 Week the houses reek with the smell. Yet garlic 
 is a good thing, after all. Rubbed on a salad dish, 
 it imparts a delicious flavor to the salad. There 
 is a sure way, too, of becoming unconscious of 
 its disagreeable odor: by eating plenty of it, one 
 can surround himself with an impenetrable at- 
 mosphere of his own. 
 
 Garlic is a phylaftery against the evil eye, 
 an important thing to know in a country where 
 this evil is so prevalent. A kernel of it, worn on 
 a ribbon tied about the neck of a child or a goat, 
 is most efficacious. 
 
 The landlady brought the Babycoula a piece 
 of white lace, which is the proper thing to do 
 when visiting a child for the first time. Any- 
 thing white will do, even an egg, the usual 
 gift, as it insures the child a pure white com- 
 plexion. 
 
 *5 
 
In VI 
 
 Argohs -w^ was sn owing sea-gulls and pear-blossoms 
 X this morning when I went out on the bal- 
 cony in my pyjamas and looked up and down the 
 bay. The early sun was shining brightly on the 
 rippling sea. The splintered light blazed like 
 shivered glass. As far as eye could reach, the 
 peaceful coast was lined with lemon orchards. 
 The fruit was ready for the picking, and the 
 yellow globes were so infinite in number, and 
 hung so big and bright among the small green 
 leaves, that I could not realize for the moment 
 that I was looking at any ordinary orchard, 
 planted and tended for the sake of gain. 
 
 I believe many people have had the same sen- 
 sation, on seeing for the first time an orange or 
 lemon grove in full fruit. The first glance is so 
 different from anything you had ever dreamed 
 of, that you are surprised into momentary in- 
 credulity and want of faith in the reality of the 
 spectacle. A fleeting reminiscence of childhood 
 comes over you, and of a beautiful fairy-land, 
 where every shrub is a Christmas tree, hung 
 with millions and millions of presents tied up 
 in yellow and gold tissue-paper. 
 
 Then, as the truth really dawns upon you that 
 16 
 
GARLIC MERCHANT 
 
I C Ctt I 
 
 fee. f f 
 
these are real trees and that those beautiful yellow In 
 globes are fruit, the slumbering poet awakens in Argolis 
 your soul, and you forget all about how much 
 they bring a thousand and the cost of packing and 
 transportation. You fall a-dreaming, rather, of 
 the Garden of the Hesperides; of stolen kisses in 
 the shade of a Portuguese nunnery; of a planter's 
 daughter and a guitar on a Florida bayou; of old 
 castle gardens and the song of the nightingale. 
 
 They were picking the fruit this morning, 
 and at a dozen piers along the coast caiques were 
 anchored. Row-boats were plying to and fro be- 
 tween them and the shore, where the lemons lay 
 in piles. Every few moments dark-eyed peasant- 
 girls came out into the sunlight from the shady 
 orchard aisles, bearing baskets of yellow lemons 
 on one shoulder. A light breeze was blowing, 
 and a faint delicious aroma came to my nostrils. 
 A loaded caique near by was just spreading its 
 wings and shaking out its feathers, getting ready 
 to flit away to far Stamboul. 
 
 Here and there among the green and yellow 
 of the lemon groves, peach, almond, and apricot 
 trees were in bloom, great fleeces of pink and 
 virgin white, whose perfume mingled delicately 
 with the tropic odor of the lemons. 
 
 27 
 
In A little higher up on the foot-hills were the 
 
 Argolis p a l e green olive groves, and the mountains them- 
 selves were overrun with the bright yellow of 
 the flowering thorn. The world was full of blos- 
 soms, fruit, and sunshine. Even the gulls, that 
 fluttered, fell, and drifted on the water, seemed 
 the petals of some unseen tree. 
 
 A fisher-boy sailed slowly by in a little boat, 
 straight before the wind. He was lying on his 
 back in the stern, gazing silently up into the 
 deep blue sky. My soul swam out and lolled be- 
 side him, and we sailed away together. We had 
 drifted through the little strait, and were rip- 
 pling away to the Phaeacian isles over a wine- 
 dark sea, when a light step aroused me from my 
 revery. I looked at the Kyria inquiringly. 
 
 "The little darling will grow like a mush- 
 room in this nice warm weather," she said. 
 
 I found out afterwards that the boy in the boat 
 was on his way to market with a load of clams. 
 
 VII 
 
 WE were, as I have said, in the midst of the 
 long Easter fast, when the Greeks live 
 mostly on deep-sea fruit. Forty days and forty 
 28 
 
nights they fast, with a grimness and despera- In 
 tion incomprehensible to us poor heathen of the drgolis 
 Western world. 
 
 I do not believe that any other people on the 
 globe starve themselves for their souls' sake so 
 persistently as do the Greeks. Besides the long 
 Easter fast, they have fifty fast-days before Christ- 
 mas, fifteen in the month of August for the death 
 of the Virgin, and about one or two in every 
 week throughout the remainder of the year. A 
 Greek may know nothing at all of the life of our 
 Saviour, and less of the Sermon on the Mount; 
 but there is no Greek living who has not a suffi- 
 cient knowledge of the sayings and doings of 
 an interminable line of saints and saintesses to 
 make a liberal education, were the information of 
 a more useful nature. The common people know 
 Christ chiefly as the Virgin's son an infant in 
 arms. The Virgin is the all-powerful goddess, 
 the worker of miracles, the answerer of prayer. 
 As Athena was the tutelary goddess of ancient 
 Athens, so Mary is the deity par excellence of 
 modern Greece, uniting in her person all the 
 attributes of the various heathen goddesses. In 
 the litanies of the Church and the services of 
 the priests, God and Christ are invoked, and the 
 
 29 
 
In number three controls all repetitions, as symboli- 
 
 Argolis ca l of the Holy Trinity; but the only vital con- 
 ception in the mind of the peasant is that of the 
 Virgin Mary. 
 
 I once asked an ignorant Greek woman whom 
 she honored most, Christ or Mary. 
 
 " Mary, of course," she replied, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation. " Does not everyone consider 
 a mother worthy of more respedt than her son? " 
 
 When a Greek is sick, he does not ask the 
 Virgin to intercede for him, but he cries: "P ana- 
 yea, save me!" 
 
 The religious centre of the church is the island 
 of Tenos, where the "wonder-working" Virgin 
 dwells. There, twice a year, in March and Au- 
 gust, the afflicted go from all parts of the world 
 to pray for a miraculous cure, and those who 
 have made vows go to hang up silver and gold 
 offerings in the church. 
 
 The accuracy of the knowledge which the 
 Greeks possess concerning all the details of the 
 Virgin's life, with the exaft dates, is little less 
 than marvellous. Even the day of her death is 
 set down in the calendar. On the other hand, the 
 knowledge which the uneducated people have 
 of the manhood of our Saviour consists almost 
 
 30 
 
entirely of a collection of anecdotes, tales of In 
 wide vogue and uncertain origin, such as go to Argolis 
 make up the folk-lore of a country. For instance, 
 one of the satellites was telling the Kyria that 
 Christ and the devil consulted together over the 
 building of the first boat. They finally agreed 
 that his satanic majesty was to build as much as 
 he pleased, and was to have the management 
 of all the parts of the structure invented and 
 fashioned by himself: the Lord was to add one 
 finishing touch. Satan built, therefore, a beauti- 
 ful boat, and, putting the oars in the locks, took 
 his place in the seat and looked at the Saviour 
 with a smile of derisive inquiry. What was his 
 disgust when the latter seated himself in the 
 stern, and, causing a rudder to appear, seized 
 the tiller and told the devil to pull away! Thus 
 we learn from the Greek peasant that the devil 
 invented oars and Christ the rudder. 
 
 It is wonderful, too, how Greeks who cannot 
 read keep track of the innumerable fast-days and 
 the food which is permitted on each. To-day 
 they eat fish; to-morrow, the lower orders of 
 marine life, such as clams, sea-urchins, oftopods, 
 mussels. One day it is food cooked in oil; another 
 day, no oil is permitted. And there is no appar- 
 
 3i 
 
In ent sense or reason in it all, because on the days 
 
 Argolis when olive oil is not permitted, olives are freely 
 
 eaten. Some days they cannot eat fish, yet they 
 
 are permitted to eat caviare, or fish eggs. Garlic 
 
 is at all times admissible. 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest annoyances con- 
 nected with housekeeping in Greece is the fast- 
 ing of the servants. You make provision for the 
 day, and sufficient good wholesome food goes 
 down into the kitchen to feed all hands. A couple 
 of hours after dinner the cook, or your wife's 
 maid, or the doorkeeper, asks to see the Kyria. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 "What shall we eat? We cannot work with- 
 out food. Your honor has made no provision for 
 us all day, and we are faint from hunger." 
 
 "But, merciful heavens! Enough food went 
 down into the kitchen to feed a regiment." 
 
 " Oh, yes, but no Christian eats anything of 
 that kind to-day." 
 
 "What day is this?" asks the Kyria, wearily. 
 
 "This is John the Baptist's day" (for exam- 
 ple), and the information is always conveyed in a 
 manner that makes one feel as though he were the 
 most incorrigible heathen alive. The food sent 
 down for the servants is ascetically scraped into 
 
 3* 
 
the garbage-box by the cook, and the master of In 
 the house must produce two or three drachmas ^rgolis 
 more to buy a more religious provender. 
 
 While speaking of religious matters, we must 
 not forget to mention a curious phrase that one 
 hears very frequently in this country. When it 
 rains, the Greek usually says, c O eog fipex^ 
 which, translated into English, does not convey 
 any clear idea. What modern would ever think 
 of saying "God rains" ? Have we not here rather 
 a survival of the pagan conception which apothe- 
 osized the forces of nature the Jupiter Pluvius 
 of the Romans? The ancient Greeks made Zeus 
 the subjeft of many verbs relating to meteoric 
 phenomena Zeus rains, Zeus snows, Zeus thun- 
 ders, etc. Perhaps "God rains" is one of those 
 very ancient pagan survivals a sort of philo- 
 logical spinning-whorl. 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE Kyria and I go to market every morn- 
 ing. I carry the empty basket over to town, 
 and we come back in a sail-boat. Formerly we 
 had employed a boatman named Loukas to come 
 in the morning and stay all day. For this ser- 
 
 33 
 
In vice we paid him sixty-five drachmas a month 
 
 Argolis an d his dinner at night. The wages were not a 
 serious matter, something like thirty cents a 
 day, American money; but the dinners nearly 
 bankrupted us, and were the reason of our finally 
 discharging him. 
 
 The Greek peasant eats bread and cheese for 
 breakfast, cheese and bread for supper. If he hasn't 
 the necessary penny to buy a meal, he passes it 
 over and does not consider that he has suffered 
 any particular hardship. No regular meals are 
 got ready at home by the women-folks. In many 
 Greek families a fire is not lighted for weeks at 
 a time. There is generally some little talk about 
 boiling a pot of greens along in the middle of the 
 afternoon; but the mistress of the house usually 
 puts it off till another day, with the phrase, 
 "It's evening now. We'll get along." If one of 
 the children cries for food, he is given a hunk 
 of dry bread. Butter is unknown. In two or three 
 of the larger cities they make a whitish, unsalted 
 substance, with which bread may be lubricated; 
 but it resembles butter no more than it does 
 vaseline nor half so much. The avidity with 
 which human beings eat large hunks of dry bread 
 in this country is little short of pitiful. 
 
 34 
 
But to return to Loukas. While he dined with In 
 us, he ate nothing at all during the day. From the drgolis 
 standpoint of a Greek peasant, a man who is to 
 eat at another's expense in the evening would 
 be guilty of incomprehensible idiocy if he squan- 
 dered a halfpenny of his own on food in the 
 meantime. Loukas was broad and short, with 
 arms that reached quite to his knees. He had a 
 slight forward bend at the hips, and a semicir- 
 cular upper lip. We called him affeftionately 
 "our gorilla." He could row a heavy sail-boat 
 with ten persons in it, for hours against a howl- 
 ing wind, without showing the least symptom 
 of fatigue. When he worked for us, he was up at 
 half-past four in the morning, to do the chores 
 about his mother's house; then he sailed or rowed 
 across, and was plying about on the water pretty 
 much all day, until eight in the evening, when 
 we fed him. We at first gave him the same meat 
 that we bought for ourselves, beef and lamb; but 
 he always cleaned the entire kitchen out, so we 
 finally had a separate dinner cooked for him, of 
 goat meat, which he preferred. Every night he 
 ate a whole hind-quarter of a good-sized goat, as 
 apiece de resistance^ with accessories and "trim- 
 mins" sufficient to satisfy a dozen American 
 
 35 
 
In laborers. I understand that he is talking even yet 
 
 Argolis f those goat dinners. It was the one opportu- 
 nity of his life, and he was not found wanting. 
 We concluded, therefore, not to hire a boat- 
 man this year. 
 
 IX 
 
 OUR daily walk to market led through the 
 lemon orchard to the back gate of the gar- 
 den, whence a narrow lane conducted us to the 
 little town of Galata, where one crosses over to 
 Poros in a row-boat. It was scarcely a mile; but 
 we were fully two hours walking it the first day, 
 the wild flowers made such children of us. It 
 was in early March, when the air is soft in Greece, 
 and the fields are fresh and green. The gardeners 
 were digging up the fresh earth, and were set- 
 ting out tomato and lettuce plants; not the little 
 stringy heads of lettuce that we eat in America 
 with sugar and vinegar, but a tall crisp variety 
 that you break off leaf by leaf and crunch like 
 asparagus. The punishment of Nebuchadnezzar 
 would have no terrors for me if I were turned 
 loose in a patch of Greek lettuce. 
 
 I wonder what it is that is so delicious about 
 
 36 
 
the smell of fresh earth and the ploughing and In 
 digging of springtime. We stopped again and ^rgolis 
 again to sniff it, while a dozen joyous reminis- 
 cences stole over our senses, like the effeft of 
 one of those exquisite perfumes which are made 
 by mixing several odors. If I were asked what 
 perfumes were used in compounding "New- 
 ploughed Earth," I should say "Bloom of a 
 Thousand Flowers," "Memories of Childhood," 
 and "Hope of Resurrection." 
 
 The garden path was lined with peach, pear, 
 almond, and apricot trees; and these were all in 
 bloom. One young tree especially delighted us. 
 It was slender and graceful as a young girl, and 
 its leaves were completely hidden under im- 
 mense snowy blossoms which, when you looked 
 close, betrayed a delicate tinge of pink. We 
 named it "The Bride." 
 
 The bees too were at work. Who calls them 
 when the flowers are ready? But Tennyson has 
 told us about the bees. They play the same lyre 
 in Greece as in England; and they strum its 
 drowsy strings to-day just as they did thousands 
 of years ago, when they flew about the lips of 
 sleeping Cupid, looking for honey. 
 
 37 
 
In " CT^hrough a shady forest going, 
 
 Argolis **- Found we Cupid, all alone ; 
 
 And his cheeks, so smoothly glowing, 
 Like to golden apples shone. 
 
 "He had not his quiver by him, 
 
 Nor his bow well-bent and strung; 
 But we soon espied them nigh him, 
 'Midst the leafy branches hung. 
 
 "Chains of sleep his limbs encumbered, 
 While among the flowers he lay ; 
 Smiling, even when he slumbered, 
 In his cruel, roguish way. 
 
 "Swarms of tawny bees came flying 
 All about his waxen lip, 
 Often thus one sees them trying 
 Flowers that with honey drip" 
 
 "The murmur of innumerable bees!" If 
 our Tennyson were to share Sappho's fate, pos- 
 terity could still imagine the supreme artist by 
 a random-quoted phrase. Here is the real quality 
 of poetry; not always the ability of continued 
 flight in high regions of thought, but the instinft 
 that unites words, common enough in them- 
 selves, into phrases that somehow conjure up 
 the phantom of immortal Beauty. 
 
 38 
 
The shortest fragments of Sappho are like tiny In 
 bits of a broken statue: from their exquisite finish drgolis 
 we can easily imagine the beauty of the whole. 
 In this supreme instin<5t in the association of 
 words Tennyson resembles the Lesbian; and the 
 final arbiter in such matters is the poetic ear. 
 Tennyson used to smoke pipe after pipe over a 
 single line, and every now and then he would 
 repeat the result of his meditations aloud. When 
 his ear approved, he wrote the line down 
 "The murmur of innumerable bees!" 
 
 The "Arcadian Mixture" was an old story 
 when Mr. Barrie's friends discovered it. Tenny- 
 son filled his pipe with the same olibanum. 
 
 Greece is the bees' revelling ground. We had 
 been in the country three years before we learned 
 how to procure Hymettus honey ad libitum, al- 
 though we had tested the genuine article after 
 a week's residence in Athens. It happened thus: 
 As I was walking along the street one day, I 
 met a shepherd carrying a pine limb to which 
 was attached a huge triangular comb of yellow 
 honey. I bought it from him, and took it trium- 
 phantly home. I gave the man I forget how many 
 drachmas, and he went away nursing that keen 
 delight which the feeling of having cheated 
 
 39 
 
In some one causes an Oriental. Had he known 
 
 Argolis how much I cheated him, he would have been 
 unhappy all the rest of his life. That first taste 
 of real Hymettus honey was worth dollars in- 
 stead of drachmas to me. It was exquisitely good 
 in itself, and it had, besides, a flavor of Hesiod 
 and Theocritus about it, and of sweet girl grad- 
 uates all in white, while the bees hummed in 
 the honeysuckle about the high-school window. 
 Ah, love and honey are both sweet, and are both 
 associated with stings. 
 
 " T ove, the thief \ chanced on a day 
 *-** Near the bees to linger \ 
 When a naughty one, they say, 
 Stung him on the finger. 
 
 "Oh, the wound, it hurt him so! 
 How he blew and shook it I 
 How he stamped and danced with woe, 
 'Then to mother took it. 
 
 "Spreading all his fingers, he 
 Sobbed to Aphrodite: 
 'Mother, little is the bee, 
 But its sting is mighty /' 
 
 " Then the Queen of Passion smiled, 
 And she answered merely : 
 40 
 
CAIQUE 
 
'You are small yourself , my child \ In 
 
 But you wound severely!" Argolis 
 
 Did Theocritus write that, after all, I wonder? 
 The riper our judgment becomes, the less it 
 sounds like him. As for the idea, Sappho has 
 said it once for all in that immortal compound- 
 adjeftive of hers, Y\vkvttlkpov, bitter-sweet; and 
 in the expression dyeXo-i'Swpos, giver of pain. The 
 mind continually reverts to Sappho, in this land 
 of roses and memories. 
 
 "This is the home of Sappho, the dawn-hringer 
 Of lyric splendor brighter than its day ; 
 Eos of passion poesy ; word-winger 
 
 Of sighs that linger in the world for aye ; 
 
 Tenth Muse, and, best of all, the woman singer 
 
 Whose roses last while nations fade away" 
 
 For two years after meeting that shepherd, the 
 Kyria and I used to watch the silver slopes of old 
 Hymettus and wonder where the famous honey 
 came from in the ancient days. I explained to 
 her frequently that trees grew there more thickly 
 then than now, and that in consequence many 
 small streams formerly trickled down ravines 
 that have long since become dry. Often I drew 
 in fancy a pi&ure of numerous little villages 
 
 4i 
 
In with long lines of neat bee-hives in all the back 
 
 Argolis yards. In proof of this theory, I pointed out the 
 fat that the Ilissos, once a poetic stream and 
 the haunt of water-nymphs, no longer murmurs 
 sweetly on summer eves. The bed is there, but, 
 like too many other landmarks of ancient Greece, 
 it is but the grave of a long-silent voice. "The 
 bees, too, are gone," I said; and this idea was 
 corroborated by our frequent attempts to buy 
 Hymettus honey in the shops, nicely put up in 
 tins. We were told that a firm in Piraus had the 
 monopoly of the real product, and sold it to the 
 English ships. I bought a tin, but it was no more 
 like the neftar of my triangle of the pine bough 
 than "golden drips" resembles maple syrup. 
 
 Again, we were informed that one Merlin of 
 Athens had bought the entire crop, which he 
 sold in small tins at an enormous price. One trial 
 was sufficient; all the rest was left for the inno- 
 cent tourists, who paid the belated wizard a large 
 profit on his ingenious outlay. 
 
 It remained for an angry bee to enlighten me, 
 and to teach me that Greece of the bucolic poets 
 is not yet entirely dead. One May evening we 
 were hurrying across a wild-thyme field, at the 
 foot of Mount Hymettus, to catch the car for 
 42 
 
town, when a bee suddenly fastened his stinger In 
 in my eyelid, and hung there buzzing. Of course drgolis 
 I was angry at the time; but after the wound 
 ceased aching, I began to think, with the result 
 that we made another trip in the same direction 
 a day or two afterwards. A little inquiry brought 
 us to the bee-country proper. We found rows 
 and rows of hives at the foot of a cliff on the 
 mountain-side, and a dozen or so rustic villagers 
 on guard. These hives we had seen a hundred 
 times before, but had not recognized them, as 
 they were simply conical baskets, and looked 
 at a little distance for all the world like rocks. 
 From the countrymen we learned that there are 
 thousands of acres of wild thyme all about the 
 mountain. 
 
 I have never seen such bee-hives in America. 
 The conical willow baskets are set on the point, 
 and are propped up by means of stones. Sticks 
 are laid across the top for the bees to hang their 
 comb from, and the whole is covered over with 
 straw and litter. The bees go in and out through 
 a small opening in the side of the basket. When 
 the honey is to be gathered, they are first stupe- 
 fied by smoke. We bought about thirty pounds 
 direft from the hives, and I have no hesitation 
 
 43 
 
In in declaring it the best and most wholesome 
 Argolis honey in the world. There is no way of describing 
 the taste of it, save to say that it tastes exactly as 
 wild thyme smells. The whole crop of this honey 
 is bought up by Athenian families, who know 
 when it is harvested, and take it on the spot. 
 
 The sun was setting that day as we left the 
 hives and cut across to the main road through 
 the wild-thyme fields. The bees were just com- 
 ing home, and we soon found ourselves in the 
 centre of a cloud of them. The air was utterly 
 still, but they drifted obliquely by, as though 
 floating on a gentle breeze. One of the country- 
 men shouted, "Don't move, and they won't 
 touch you ! " So we stood still and watched them. 
 I do not know whether the little insefts them- 
 selves were so yellow, or whether it was the set- 
 ting sun that shone through the long cloud as it 
 drifted by; but I could not help thinking of the 
 line in the Anthology: " Swarms of tawny bees." 
 But all this is about Mount Hymettus and its 
 famous honey; and we have clean forgot that 
 we are down in the Peloponnesus by the sea- 
 shore, and on our way through a lemon grove 
 to the Poros market. 
 
 44 
 
X In 
 
 AS we strolled slowly along toward the market, ^ r g" 5 
 l\ the Kyria and I, we stopped now and then 
 to listen to the bass-viol boom of some large iri- 
 descent green beetles. Only a few of these were in 
 the air, but I knew that they were the advance- 
 guard of a great host that would come with the 
 summer and would pounce destructively upon 
 the ripe fruit, eating great holes into everything 
 sweet and juicy that should not be covered with 
 nets. Greek children make pets of these great 
 beetles. They tie a string about the body under 
 the wings, and let the inseft fly about at the 
 end of this tether. The ladies also wear them as 
 jewelry, and it is quite the proper thing for a 
 swain to present a bug to his lady-love. In that 
 case a jeweller is commissioned to weld a tiny 
 gold band about the inseft, to which a fine chain 
 of the same metal may be attached. 
 
 The poppies, too, were blazing with their 
 reddest flame, plashing the green wheat with 
 frequent patches of blood-red. A tiny beetle 
 buzzed in every poppy's heart. I say "every," 
 because we looked and looked, without find- 
 ing a single exception. These bugs were dusted 
 thick with the yellow pollen, and they buzzed 
 
 45 
 
In fiercely in the satin cups, as though they had 
 Argolis much to do and but little time. This was doubt- 
 less the truth, for a day or two afterwards we 
 searched for them again, and they were all 
 gone. 
 
 While speaking of poppies, I must mention 
 that their favorite assembling-place is of course 
 among the grass or grain; and the greener the 
 background, the more brilliant is the hue of 
 these gorgeous flowers. In the early flush and 
 triumph of the Greek spring, the green of the 
 wheat is so vivid, and the red of the poppies so 
 fiery, that the peaceful hillsides seem to have 
 arrayed themselves for the time in barbaric 
 splendor. In March the poppies begin to bloom, 
 and they are in full revel by the middle of April. 
 Then you see them everywhere, in the fields 
 and country lanes, and even atop of the mud 
 fences, where they have gallantly leaped in their 
 onward march. 
 
 But I do not think one gains most pleasure in 
 Greece from the poppies, splendid as they are. 
 The anemones hold rival sway in that land. Who- 
 ever sowed the poppy seeds mixed therewith an 
 equal quantity of delicately tinted wind-flowers. 
 And of all places in Greece, or perhaps in the 
 46 
 
world, they grow thickest on the field of Mara- In 
 thon. Argolis 
 
 * Tfach springs on Marathon's immortal plain , 
 -*-^ Revels the purple-pied Anemone 
 In fairy bumpers that so generous be 
 The fragrant zephyrs tilt the cups in vain ; 
 See where the dregs have left a tell-tale stain ! 
 Then, as in sudden fear, they pale and flee; 
 And conquering poppies, even to the sea, 
 Invade the vines and swarm amid the grain ; 
 To throng the earth and to oblivion speed 
 So human generations have their day ; 
 The poppies' fate has been for them decreed; 
 Like frail anemones they pass away. 
 Only the memory of a glorious deed 
 Lingers behind, unchanged and fresh for aye. 
 
 "There stood the Athenians' long and sparse array; 
 Their crested helmets blazing down the line, 
 And all their weapons twinkling in the shine 
 Of Freedom's fullest and most radiant day. 
 Oh, firmly poised and lean of limb were they, 
 With steely sinews tempered sure and fine, 
 Those men who held the human form divine, 
 And crowned its beauty with Olympian bay. 
 And toward them the myriad starry flash 
 Of spear-tips in a cloud of tunics came ; 
 A sombre billow, stained with frequent plash 
 
 47 
 
In Of Tyrian purple and Phoenician flame. 
 
 Argolis O men of Athens I Short and sharp the dash 
 'That leads you to a deed of deathless fame I 
 
 " They buried them whom Death alone could tame 
 Midway betwixt the mountains and the wave, 
 And heaped this monument above their grave 
 For high reproof and everlasting blame 
 Of all whom cowardice or meanness claim ; 
 And She 1 stood near, whose land they died to save. 
 In r every of woe above her brave, 
 And noble grief, too deep for words to frame. 
 We ask their names, but History is still. 
 Grieve not, brave men I We know you, every one ; 
 Who standeth on this mound must feel the thrill 
 Of sudden valor. Who would meanly shun 
 To share with you, beneath this little hill, 
 Such comradeship in great Oblivion?" 
 
 There are many tiny wild flowers, too, in 
 Greece, that hide among the grass, and are so 
 exquisitely beautiful that one understands why 
 they could not have been larger without sacri- 
 ficing something of their daintiness. I think we 
 were most pleased, on that first trip to market, 
 by certain tiny four-pointed stars of dark blue, 
 with a yellow eye in the centre. There were 
 
 1 Athena suggested by the famous statue known as " The Mourning 
 Athene:' 
 
 48 
 
millions of these, and all among them other stars In 
 of the same shape and size, terra cotta in color; Argolis 
 besides these, dandelions, buttercups, white dai- 
 sies, and occasionally patches of great yellow 
 daisies yellow and gold. 
 
 And through all this flowery walk we heard 
 in the distance the moan of a long well-sweep, 
 at the end of which a patient horse, blindfolded 
 so that he should not become dizzy, trotted round 
 and round. We knew very well that as the horse 
 went round, a great wheel rimmed with earthen 
 jars revolved slowly, and a stream of clear cool 
 water gushed out of a pipe and bubbled merrily 
 away to a reservoir. But no thought of the horse 
 arose in our minds when we heard the moan of 
 the distant well-sweep. We had heard it two 
 summers before, many a drowsy afternoon, and 
 had found a name for it. So the Kyria smiled, 
 and said to me: "There's our great golden bee 
 again." For those well-sweeps sound exaftly like 
 the drone of a monstrous bee, and the "golden" 
 I suppose was an unconscious effort to express 
 the melodious quality of the sound. 
 
 All of these gardens along the sea-coast, for 
 miles and miles, are watered by means of old- 
 fashioned wells worked by horses or mules. The 
 
 49 
 
In water that gushes out of the coast-range moun- 
 
 Argolis tains sinks into the earth and flows to the sea in 
 the form of underground rivers. As the wind 
 blows every day here, one would expert to find 
 more windmills than in Holland itself; and in 
 three thousand years more, when Greece catches 
 up with the rest of the world and stops using 
 Mycenaean spinning-whorls, such will be the 
 case. But what a loss that will be from the artistic 
 standpoint! Most of these old wells are trellised 
 over, and are shaded in summer by a roof of 
 grape-vines which is thickly hung in autumn 
 with huge clusters of the purple fruit. These 
 wells are looked upon by the Greek farmers as 
 the very latest thing in agriculture; and, com- 
 paratively speaking, they are. In many parts of 
 the country the plough described by Hesiod is 
 in use, and it is still drawn by oxen. 
 
 XI 
 
 EMERGING from the lemon orchard, we 
 came upon a long narrow lane, formed by 
 the mud walls of the gardens along the route, 
 and overlooked by the houses of proprietors and 
 their tenants. Houses are so cheap in this coun- 
 
 5 
 
try that everybody sleeps under his own roof. The In 
 materials stone and sticky mud are every- Argolis 
 where to be found; and labor can be had almost 
 for the asking. 
 
 We did not find very comfortable walking 
 in the lane, because it formed too convenient a 
 dumping-place for stones and refuse from the 
 gardens. Doubtless the peasants, for whose con- 
 venience chiefly it existed, found it a very good 
 road indeed. Every few moments they overtook 
 and passed us: first three old women in home- 
 spun, with bundles of unsplit wood upon their 
 backs; then a corpulent Greek in red fez and 
 wide breeches, seated sidewise upon a very small 
 donkey; then a boy riding astride a donkey's 
 tail, while the animal trotted along between two 
 enormous baskets filled with garden produce; 
 then a little girl driving a donkey laden with 
 half a dozen sacks filled with lambs. The heads 
 alone of the little animals were visible, three 
 projecting from each sack, and giving the im- 
 pression, somehow, of museum freaks, or three- 
 headed animals. 
 
 Who says that ancient Greek is not spoken 
 in this country still? Just as we emerged from 
 the lane, I heard a chorus of voices shouting an 
 
 5i 
 
In immortal line from Aristophanes. I stopped and 
 
 Argolis listened, with the same feeling of pleasure that 
 
 one might experience in unexpectedly hearing 
 
 the voice of an old friend in a strange land. Yes, 
 
 there they were! 
 
 "Kek 9 kck,kek 9 koaxT 
 
 There was no chance to dispute the pronun- 
 ciation, or to doubt for one moment its genuine- 
 ness. The throats were Greek, and older than 
 Aristophanes himself; pre-Mycenaean, pre-Pelas- 
 gian,pre-anything that the archaeologists wot of. 
 I do not know why they said 
 
 "Kek, kek, kek, koax!" 
 
 nor what they meant by it, whether it is a 
 prophecy, a song, or a curse; but I do know that 
 these voices have been repeating it, insisting 
 upon it, chattering about it, ever since the Seven 
 fell before Thebes, and long ere that. 
 
 I crept through the tall wheat to the shaft 
 of an old well, and peeped down. Haifa dozen 
 feet below me, three or four frogs were floating 
 buoyantly, their hind legs trailing listlessly be- 
 hind them, their heads raised to the sky. Even 
 as I looked, one of them began his " Kek, kek, 
 
 52 
 
&e&" and two or three interrupted him with a In 
 raucous and derisive "Koax!" Argolis 
 
 I looked sharply into their big bulging eyes, 
 and I fancied I detected there a faint gleam of 
 amusement, perhaps of derision. If so, I think 
 I understood. At any rate, I have stuck pretty 
 faithfully to my Greek for a layman, and per- 
 haps I am entitled to an opinion. 
 
 There they were, in a marsh or a puddle, 
 while tall Achilles was driving his maddened 
 horses about Troy and the limp corse of beauti- 
 ful Heftor bounded through the dust, and they 
 knew that a coward's arrow would smite him 
 in the heel; there they were when proud King 
 Agamemnon walked to his palace-gates on car- 
 pets, lest the earth defile his victorious feet, and 
 they knew that he was a cuckold and that a 
 shameful death awaited him within; there they 
 were while Pericles and Phidias were supreme 
 in Athens, and they knew that the most of those 
 divine works of art would melt away in barba- 
 rian or Christian lime-kilns, and that a Venetian 
 bomb would wreck the Parthenon; there they 
 were when ^Eschylus was fighting with the Greek 
 navy at Salamis, and they knew that the filthy 
 Turk would defile the soil of Hellas with slavery 
 
 53 
 
In and moral degradation for hundreds of years. 
 
 Argolis And they looked on all the time out of bulging, 
 humorous eyes, and cried 
 
 "Kek, kek y kek, koax!" 
 
 Away with your Pindars, your Miltons, your 
 Tennysons, your Gibbons, your Ciceros, your 
 Websters! We take ourselves too seriously, we 
 mortals, with our little ephemeral dynasties, re- 
 ligions, civilizations! The voice of the frogs 
 outlives them all; and what other voice so ex- 
 pressively sums up the whole matter as these 
 that cry 
 
 "Kek, hk, kek, koax!" 
 
 XII 
 
 ASPHODEL! acres and acres of it, on the 
 ii hillside. We walked among it hand in hand, 
 and imagined ourselves happy shades, far from all 
 the cares and anxieties of life, the heartburns, the 
 bitter memories, the disappointed hopes. Waist- 
 deep in asphodel, that swayed gently in a breeze 
 from the near-by sea, we waded. Pale pink were 
 the waxen flowers we plucked, and without per- 
 fume, like a beautiful body without a soul. 
 
 54 
 
This is a stately plant, as befits the symbol of In 
 death; for it stands up tall and straight, with Argolis 
 stalks that branch out symmetrically from the 
 main stem. The plain where it grows seems a 
 great table, set with many silver candelabra. 
 
 "Thus I spoke, and the soul of swift-footed Achilles 
 Strode to and fro , stepping high in the meadow of asphodel, 
 Much excited to hear that his son had grown famous I " 
 
 Is not this a sublime pidture, this of the soul 
 of Achilles? Pagan though it be, it is more com- 
 forting than those words of Job "His sons come 
 to honor, and he knoweth it not." But then, we 
 must not forget that it is hard to believe in any- 
 thing when one has the blues as Job had them. 
 
 It is pleasant, nevertheless, to compare this 
 paternal thrill of Achilles with his words uttered 
 earlier in the same dialogue: 
 
 "Palliate not death to me, illustrious Odysseus; 
 I *d rather be serf to a humble man and poor, 
 So I might live again, 
 Than reign high king o'er all the piteous dead!" 
 
 These lines have saddened countless generations. 
 Let us forget them, and think only of Achilles 
 walking excitedly forward and back, taking long 
 
 55 
 
In steps in the asphodel. They are not utterly deso- 
 Argolis l a te who can rejoice when their dear ones come 
 to honor. 
 
 We came suddenly at the farther side of a little 
 knoll, into a field all life and light and color: a 
 lawn of grass, closely cropped and brilliantly in- 
 terwoven with white and yellow daisies, blue- 
 bells, and poppies. 
 
 "Hear the bees!" cried the Kyria. I was sur- 
 prised at this exclamation, for the Kyria is musi- 
 cal, while I am not; and the humming that we 
 heard was an o<5tave lower than that usually made 
 by bees. Stooping down, I found that every 
 blossom was held by a buzzing inseft, tawny it 
 is true, but with sickle-shaped extensions that 
 crossed behind, like the tips of a swallow's wings. 
 
 How easy it must have been for the ancient 
 Greeks to think in poetry! Paganism adapted 
 itself so easily to the impressions of nature and 
 to the imaginings of aesthetic and susceptible 
 minds. Coming over that little knoll, I felt like 
 Orpheus when he emerged from Hades and stood 
 for a moment blinking at the sunny world. 
 
 Does a field of unripe wheat, billowing down 
 a hillside to the sea, need any addition to its 
 beauty? Surelynot; and yet certain graceful vines 
 
 56 
 
that hung the green wall near us with purple In 
 flowers caused us to part the stalks and look Argolis 
 farther. Behold, the purple hue of the grain was 
 due to the wild pea, which was delicately trail- 
 ing and clambering everywhere, and it was all 
 in bloom! 
 
 This is the month when new-born kids and 
 donkeys abound along the highways, and one 
 can never decide which are the more ridiculous, 
 uncouth, and captivating. There is no use in 
 chasing after specimens of either, however irre- 
 sistible may be the desire to gather them up. 
 The long clumsy legs acquire great agility almost 
 immediately after birth, and young donkeys and 
 kids have an instinctive horror of promiscuous 
 affe&ion. 
 
 We crossed over to Poros in a row-boat, the 
 only means of going from the mainland to the 
 town. This primitive ferry system is conducted 
 mostly by old men of the sea, a surprisingly large 
 percentage of whom have lived thirty or forty 
 years in America, or have served a good lifetime 
 on some American vessel. 
 
 A curious history these old fellows have had: 
 boyhood in the little Greek town, during which 
 they played with their boy friends along the 
 
 57 
 
In wharf, and went in swimming from the big rock 
 Argolis by the little church at the strait. Then the magic 
 name of America started the dream of adventure, 
 freedom, and fortune. The opportunity came, 
 and Yanne or Spiro waved a laughing adieu to 
 his friends from the deck of a sailing ship. 
 
 That was thirty years ago, and the young exile 
 has become an old man, in a country still strange 
 to him, while the beautiful white town by the 
 sea, with its fishing-boats and the boys playing by 
 the wharf, is just as vivid in his mind as though 
 he had left it yesterday. So one eve at sunset he 
 sails into port on a little coasting steamer, and 
 his old heart throbs to suffocation when he sees 
 the boys at play and the white-winged boats 
 flitting to and fro. Nothing seems changed; even 
 the plane tree by the village fountain is still 
 there. But when he steps briskly ashore, nobody 
 knows him. Perhaps of all his boyhood friends, 
 he finds two left. One, who had planned to enter 
 the army, become a great general, and retake 
 Constantinople, is a hunchbacked little cobbler; 
 and another, who had firmly decided to become 
 a sea-captain and win avast fortune by fair means 
 or foul, is a boatman, rowing people across the 
 strait at a halfpenny per head. 
 
 5 
 
< 
 
 h 
 
 CO 
 
 aJ 
 W 
 L> 
 O 
 
 O 
 2: 
 
 CO 
 CO 
 
 O 
 
 CO 
 CO 
 
 W 
 
 o 
 
So here he is himself, pulling his boat slowly In 
 back and forth; and it seems as though he had drgolis 
 always been here. The thirty years in America 
 are a mere episode, a transient dream. The lan- 
 guage of his youth comes back to him in a month, 
 and in six he has almost entirely forgotten his 
 English. 
 
 The ferry is perhaps the most pifturesque 
 thing about Poros. Donkeys, laden with moun- 
 tains of hay, brushwood, or garden produce, are 
 driven, without unloading, into the little boats, 
 and rowed to the other shore. Sometimes a coun- 
 tryman in fustanellas, or a village priest in all 
 the pomp of high hat and lifted umbrella, forces 
 his cautious little animal to step into a skiff, and 
 is pulled across without dismounting. 
 
 I once saw a funeral cortege taken over the 
 strait in small boats. A prominent grocer of 
 Galata had died, whose forefathers were sleep- 
 ing in the Poros burying-ground. So one bright 
 Sunday afternoon a long line of skiffs, reaching 
 from one shore to the other, crept slowly across 
 the shimmering sea. First came the musicians 
 by themselves, playing a solemn funeral march, 
 slow as the measured dip of the paddles; then 
 the acolytes, lifting high the banners and sacred 
 
 59 
 
In symbols of the Church ; then a man holding ereft 
 
 Argolis the coffin-lid, and with him three or four priests, 
 majestic in tall hats and flowing robes of black; 
 then the poor lump of clay, the cause and objeft 
 of all this pageant, with hands crossed upon the 
 breast and face uncovered to the sky; and after 
 this, boat after boat filled with stalwart coun- 
 trymen in fustanellas and red fez, and country- 
 women with colored handkerchiefs drawn de- 
 cently about their serious faces. Never before had 
 I so fully realized the impressiveness, grandeur, 
 and pomp of which the Greek Church is capa- 
 ble. Here was a miserable little country village, 
 niggardly from every other human aspeft, pro- 
 ducing a spectacle worthy of Venice or ancient 
 Egypt. As I looked, the majesty and solemnity 
 of the spectacle overwhelmed me and swept into 
 complete forgetfulness any latent Puritan objec- 
 tions to pomp and display in church ceremonial. 
 The procession seemed worthy of the mountains, 
 of the sea, and of the awful mystery of death. 
 
 I forgot that this man had been a grocer, 
 I remembered only that a human being was 
 crossing over to his last long resting-place in 
 the land of eternal shadows. I envied that grocer 
 his funeral. In some such manner the ancient 
 60 
 
Kings of Egypt floated slowly across the Nile In 
 
 to the island of tombs and the sepulchres of the drgolis 
 
 mighty dead. 
 
 XIII 
 
 IT takes so much longer to describe impres- 
 sions than to receive them! And how irrel- 
 evantly we do rattle on when once we get to 
 talking! One thing leads to another, in very 
 much the same manner that a swallow chases 
 a fleet-winged inseft for half a mile, and dashes 
 aside at the last moment to catch a clumsy bug. 
 We lose so much, we Anglo-Saxons, and grow 
 so stupid, through our relentless adhesion to 
 relevancy. Why pass by a rose in the garden of 
 thought, simply because we had hoped to find 
 a daisy? The swallow is much more sensible. 
 The moment the beetle appears in sight, he darts 
 off after it at right angles, and forgets all about 
 the nimble sand-fly of his previous quest. I too 
 am just flitting about, in an irrelevant and incon- 
 sequential manner. 
 
 When the Kyria and I finally got to market, 
 we found a tempting display of Lenten food in 
 all the groceries, ready for the fast which was 
 
 61 
 
In about to begin in earnest. We went straight to 
 
 Argolis our own grocer, Andreas. His real name was 
 Andreas Kondopoulos; but every Greek is called 
 by his more familiar title. Andreas had just 
 opened a fresh barrel oi halva ^ which task he had 
 accomplished by setting the barrel on end and 
 sawing off a ring an inch or two from the top, 
 thus exposing to view a portion of the white, 
 adhesive paste. Halva is compounded mainly of 
 ground sesame and honey or sugar. It cuts with 
 a grain, is sweet and oily, and has a sort of grav- 
 elly feel between the teeth. If putty were sweet, 
 and mixed with a small quantity of fine sand, 
 the result would give a fair idea of halva. It is 
 a universal delicacy among the Greeks, and is a 
 great favorite at fasting-time, because it can be 
 eaten on the most sacred days, and a small piece 
 of it will lubricate the mastication of a huge 
 quantity of bread. During fasting-time, the larger 
 grocers have a special man at the halva barrel, 
 who is kept busy cutting off halfpenny slabs of 
 the article. 
 
 Andreas had also opened a new barrel oitarama^ 
 
 or red caviare, manufactured in Missolonghi. It 
 
 tastes as a stale fish smells, and contests first place 
 
 with halva as a holy food and as an efficacious 
 
 62 
 
bread lubricator. The huge cask of black olives In 
 which Andreas had imported only a few days Argolis 
 previously was now half emptied. Olives are a fa- 
 vorite article of diet in Greece among the poorer 
 classes. Five lepta worth of bread and the same 
 amount of olives very frequently constitute the 
 laborer's midday meal. 
 
 In the middle of the floor lay a great pile of 
 salt codfish, not the fat, white-meated kind 
 that we know in America, but lean and sallow 
 specimens, imported from somewhere in Eu- 
 rope. On the day of the Annunciation, everybody 
 in Greece eats codfish, why, the Holy Virgin 
 alone knows. The heads of families go out the 
 day before to seleft their fish, and every gentle- 
 man you meet has one by the tail, swinging like 
 a pendulum or firmly grasped like a tennis rac- 
 quet. If he looks upon you as a Christian and a 
 brother, he will stop you and tell you where he 
 bought it, how many dozens he picked over be- 
 fore he found this really beautiful fish, how much 
 the grocer wanted for it, the scorn with which 
 he treated the demand, and the price actually 
 paid. Codfish in cream and codfish balls are un- 
 known in Greece. 
 
 The Kyria once made a large number of the 
 
 63 
 
In latter with her own hands, and we ate heartily 
 
 Argolis of them and imagined ourselves back under the 
 starry flag of liberty. In the goodness of our 
 hearts, we sent fifteen or twenty of them down 
 to the kitchen and told the inferior gods to eat 
 and make merry. They, however, scraped the 
 precious codfish balls into the refuse box, and 
 made their dinner on dry bread. 
 
 The Greeks make codfish into a sort of stew, 
 in which the fish appears in large, salty, and in- 
 digestible chunks. It is needless to say that this 
 attractive mess is highly flavored with garlic. 
 That is what makes it so good. 
 
 The market in and about Andreas's place 
 presented a very lively and pifturesque appear- 
 ance. The store was filled with tall stalwart shep- 
 herds, whose legs were tightly encased in knee- 
 breeches and woollen stockings. Each man wore 
 a long dirty blouse belted in about the waist. 
 Their heads were turbaned with colored hand- 
 kerchiefs in such a way that the ends dangled 
 behind; and they carried long crooks. These 
 gentlemen seemed well supplied with money, 
 and they drank the grocer's bitter wine, with 
 much clinking of glasses, as fast as two boys 
 could bring it. 
 
 6 4 
 
Much wine is consumed in Greece, but habit- In 
 ual drunkards are rare. By the way, how ancient Argolis 
 a beverage is resinated wine? Did old Homer 
 drink it? Judging from modern analogies, we 
 should say "No" if he lived in Asia Minor, as 
 its use is principally confined to-day to the main- 
 land. That this method of preparing wine is 
 ancient, and may perhaps go back to the dim 
 beginnings of things, is evident to anyone who 
 takes pains to look up the references; and the fa- 
 mous statue of the boy with the bunch of grapes 
 and the pine cone is also thought to be signifi- 
 cant. So you see the modern Greeks had a long 
 time in which to acquire a taste for this favorite 
 beverage, which in reality resembles cough- 
 mixture in flavor. They call it " resinato " now, a 
 word which reminds us of the vinum resinatum 
 of the Latins, but in the ancient writers it is 
 retinetes (pqrCvrjrqs oivo<;). 
 
 Just outside the door of Andreas's shop the 
 wood-women and the women who dealt in wild 
 greens had their stand, for the most part, 
 shrewd, hard-faced old hags, squatted beside 
 heaps of dry limbs and bags of greens. From far 
 up in the hills they come, their burdens strapped 
 to their backs. If they are successful, and sell 
 
 65 
 
In their loads at a good price, they gain about fif- 
 
 Argolis teen cents for a full day's work, and are amply 
 satisfied. The impression on one who sees for the 
 first time an old woman trudging along, bent 
 far down under a load of wood fully as big as 
 herself, is decidedly unpleasant. 
 
 One gets used to such sights, however, in the 
 Orient, and even in other parts of the world. In 
 Germany the peasant often hitches his wife and 
 his dog together to draw a cart. Only in the 
 United States is woman estimated at her true 
 value, and treated with that chivalrous devotion 
 which brings out the best qualities in both the 
 sexes. 
 
 Despite the loads which these Greek peasant 
 women have brought into town, about every 
 other one of them has a baby with her. They 
 carry their infants for miles, in cradles slung 
 over their shoulders. Patient little things they 
 are, blinking at you from great dark eyes, while 
 their mothers march up and down on the wharf, 
 or stand together in groups, exchanging gossip 
 of the mountain hamlet and the sheep-camp. 
 These portable cradles are an invention of that 
 state of society where babies and work are ever 
 present and contemporaneous necessities. They 
 66 
 
enable the mother to hang her latest-born up in a In 
 tree, while she is toiling in the vineyard; or, if no Argolis 
 tree be present, to carry him all day upon her back. 
 
 XIV 
 
 WE had a typical experience with our " meat 
 man " the very first day after our arrival. As 
 we passed by the little alley devoted to butcher 
 shops, our old friend on the corner hailed us and 
 bade us an enthusiastic welcome. He told us, 
 among other things, that the whole population 
 was rejoicing at our advent, and that no one was 
 gladder to see us back than himself. This, he 
 said, was partly because our Philhellenic senti- 
 ments had endeared us to the whole Greek na- 
 tion, and partly because the continued residence 
 of such distinguished foreigners in their little 
 town gave their place a respedtable standing 
 among the most noted watering-places. Inci- 
 dentally, he mentioned that he had just killed 
 a fine lamb, and if we happened to need any- 
 thing of the kind 
 
 " If it really is lamb," said the Kyria, " and 
 not goat, I '11 take a piece." 
 
 "Oh, po! po! po! Do you think I would sell 
 
 6 7 
 
In your honor goat? It is lamb, young sheep. Have 
 
 Argolis perfect confidence in me, and you will always 
 remain satisfied." 
 
 I insisted that the mortal remains before us 
 had once belonged to the animal sacred to the 
 tragic muse, a certain stony Clytemnestrian 
 glare in the eye, and the bloodshot CEdipian 
 bulge thereof, conducing to this belief. 
 
 The butcher swore to the contrary, by his 
 father's soul and the life of his favorite child. 
 Finally, "I'll tell you what I'll do," said the 
 Kyria; " I '11 buy this piece of meat, and if it turns 
 out to be lamb, we'll patronize you steadily. If, 
 on the other hand, we find it to be goat, we '11 
 never come near your place again." 
 
 "Agreed!" cried the butcher. "And now, to 
 prove to your eminence how much these suspi- 
 cions wrong me, I'll show you the animal's pelt." 
 
 With that he produced from inside the shop 
 a beautiful white sheepskin, which he held tri- 
 umphantly on high. That, of course, settled the 
 matter. We ordered an oke of the meat, and he 
 seized his axe and hacked it out. 
 
 " Didn't that skin seem too large for this ani- 
 mal ? " asked the Kyria, a few moments afterwards. 
 
 " Certainly," I replied; " that is his stock skin, 
 68 " 
 
BREAD MERCHANT -PRIEST PASSING 
 
p e r < 
 c i c ( 
 
 C c 
 
his decoy, with which he catches innocents like In 
 us." Argolis 
 
 Immediate inquiry proved that no lambs had 
 been brought into the market that morning; 
 and the subsequent cooking of the purchase left 
 no doubt whatever as to its character. 
 
 A few days afterwards the butcher hailed us 
 and begged that we would again favor him with 
 our trade, as the unfortunate event which had 
 displeased us had happened by accident. 
 
 This story is typical, because it illustrates an 
 almost universal trait in the Greek's character. 
 In his desire to overreach, and to make a small 
 immediate profit, he underestimates the intelli- 
 gence of his viftim. 
 
 By the way, speaking of butchers, a very prim- 
 itive method of cutting up animals prevails in 
 this country. The butcher admits no choice of 
 cuts, but with an axe chops out a chunk of any 
 desired size. Meat is meat, and the whole carcass 
 is sold except the skin. A grand row always takes 
 place between buyer and seller, the latter trying 
 to get rid of as much as possible of the poorer 
 portions, the former insisting upon a special cut. 
 A compromise is usually effected, by the pur- 
 chaser's taking a little of both. 
 
 6 9 
 
In XV 
 
 Argolis TTTg called in Papa-Yanne this morning, to 
 VV perform an "agiasmo," or to "bless the 
 house." As this ceremony was performed for the 
 special benefit of the Babycoula, we selefted 
 her room as the principal seat of operations. We 
 brought Papa-Yanne over from the market-place 
 with us in a little sail-boat. We had found him 
 sitting under a tree by the village fountain, wait- 
 ing for us. Our priest was a grand figure, over six 
 feet tall in his stockings. His hat added another 
 foot to his height, and his robes, that reached to 
 his feet and fluttered voluminously back from his 
 arms and shoulders when he walked, completed 
 an effe6t that was little less than sublime. 
 
 But alas for human grandeur! When the wind 
 occasionally lifted his black skirts from his well- 
 polished shoes, a pair of checked breeches of loud 
 pattern fluttered for a moment into view, and as 
 quickly disappeared. Dear old Papa-Yanne! We 
 forgive you the checker-board trousers: perhaps 
 you had no others. Moreover, the missionary 
 spirit is not in us. We suspeft that there be min- 
 isters of the Word at home, in high stock and 
 seemly black, who, figuratively speaking, wear 
 the gay breeches of worldly pride in their hearts. 
 70 
 
Papa-Yanne is a wonderfully handsome man, In 
 with florid cheeks, and beard like a lion's mane. Argolis 
 He had been a hotel-keeper, and is still playfully 
 called the fo/oSoxo? or landlord. He felt, how- 
 ever, that a man of such fine presence and with 
 such beautiful hair was wasting his God-given 
 talents by renting out beds at two drachmas a 
 night. So he became a priest, and his immediate 
 popularity justified the change. 
 
 On arriving at the house, Papa-Yanne imme- 
 diately called for a basin of water and a little livani, 
 or incense gum. While these were being brought, 
 he removed his tall hat, passed the strings of his 
 gold-embroidered apron over his head, and re- 
 moved the pins from his back hair. Oh, that hair 
 of Papa-Yanne! It was a silky brown, with a 
 reddish tinge like old gold. It was wonderfully 
 profuse, slightly wavy, and fell to the waist. As 
 he shook it out, an admiring "Ah ! " escaped from 
 the throats of Maria and the two satellites. Even 
 the Kyria gave vent to an envious sigh. Papa- 
 Yanne's hair is worth hundreds of drachmas a 
 year to him, and I strongly suspeft that it had 
 much to do with the Kyria's choice of him as 
 our own special family priest. 
 
 The basin of water was set upon the Baby- 
 
 7i 
 
In coula's dressing-table and blessed ; Maria brought 
 Argolis her own eiion, and a piece of charcoal to light 
 the pungent gum, and all was ready. A convex 
 bit of broken water-jug served as a censer. As the 
 bluish smoke curled to the ceiling and filled 
 the room with its auspicious odor, the supersti- 
 tious Greeks sniffed it with half-smothered ex- 
 clamations of joy. I almost fancied I could see 
 the evil spirits, whom our heathen occupancy 
 had invited to the house, sneak out of windows 
 and doors, holding their noses with skeleton 
 fingers as they went. Holy incense is as disgust- 
 ing to an evil spirit as sulphur to an angel. 
 
 Papa-Yanne stood with cross upraised, chant- 
 ing with mellifluous voice the appropriate ser- 
 vice. The early sun added its glory to his hair, 
 fell in a flood upon the wall, and kissed the 
 painted face of the poor cheap Virgin to a golden 
 blush. Very distinctly and impressively the priest 
 chanted the beautiful Greek words, holding his 
 book at a proper distance before his eyes, the 
 wide sleeve falling voluminously from his hairy 
 wrist. The shadow of the arm and the uplifted 
 cross flickered in the sunlight, fantastic and 
 fickle. 
 
 I was impressed; I could not help it. Even my 
 72 
 
knowledge of the fa6t that the priest could not In 
 read was for the moment forgotten, and did not Argolis 
 rise up with an accusation of theatrical effeft. 
 
 Turning toward the nurse, Elene, he beck- 
 oned to her. The woman held the Babycoula at 
 arm's-length before him, and the priest, throw- 
 ing his splendid apron over the dear fuzzy little 
 head, signed with the cross, and invoked the 
 special protedtion of the Virgin. I stooped and 
 looked under the apron. Two blue eyes blinked 
 at me from a wee comical face, and the rosebud 
 mouth blossomed into a mischievous smile. Oh, 
 the little infidel! 
 
 Papa-Yanne's voice was very tender now, and 
 brought tears into the Kyria's eyes. He has nine 
 children of his own. 
 
 Then he dipped his olive bough into the holy 
 water, and, going from room to room, sprinkled 
 right and left. 
 
 When it was all over, the priest skilfully did 
 up his back hair, thrusting hair-pins through 
 the Psyche knot with feminine dexterity, and 
 accepted our invitation to take a cup of Turkish 
 coffee. 
 
 "They take the evil eye very easily, you 
 know," he said, pointing to the Babycoula in the 
 
 73 
 
In Kyria's lap, and daintily sipping his coffee from 
 
 Argolis the tiny cup. 
 
 "The Panageia is our helper!" piously ex- 
 claimed the nurse, crossing herself. Panageia is 
 the Greek title for the Virgin. It is the word that 
 one hears more frequently than all others, and 
 * means the "All-Holy One." 
 
 " Our church has prayers for averting and lift- 
 ing the evil eye. It is very common in this coun- 
 try. I always advise the mothers of my flock to 
 call in a priest immediately when anything goes 
 wrong with the children." 
 
 " In America," replied the Kyria, " we call in 
 the do&or." 
 
 "And you do very well," said Papa-Yanne. 
 "But you should call in the priest first. In nine 
 cases out of ten, the child has nothing but the 
 evil eye, which a simple exorcism would cure 
 immediately." 
 
 This was interesting to me. I had often been 
 told that the Greek priests encouraged the be- 
 lief in the evil eye, for the sake of the fees. I had 
 never before had confirmation of the faft from 
 the lips of a priest. I must say, for Papa-Yanne's 
 credit, however, that he simply and implicitly 
 believes in this ancient superstition. Like many 
 
 74 
 
other of the Greek priests who pass all their In 
 lives in little island villages, some of them able drgolis 
 neither to read nor write, he has not been in- 
 formed that the world contains people who do 
 not believe in it. If told that such people existed, 
 he would be incredulous, or would set them 
 down as ignorant barbarians, dwelling some- 
 where in the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 "What charms does she wear for the eye?" 
 asked the priest, seriously. 
 
 The Kyria guiltily acknowledged that she 
 had not taken any precaution whatever of this 
 nature. 
 
 "I can recommend several things to you," 
 said Papa-Yanne. "The heart of a garlic is good, 
 as is also a string of blue beads. Many people 
 pin their faith to a piece of crooked coral. I have 
 at home certain pieces of crystal which have al- 
 ways proved a sovereign remedy. I '11 send you 
 a piece. I have also a piece of the true cross. You 
 see, I come from the Kourmondouriotes family, 
 a very ancient family, as you know. Well, 
 some of my ancestors lived back in those early 
 times when pieces of the true cross were much 
 commoner and easier to get than now, and, be- 
 ing intelligent men, and knowing how much 
 
 75 
 
In rarer the thing would become in time, they took 
 
 Argolis pains to obtain a piece, which has descended 
 through the family, and which I now have. 
 You can easily see that it is a marvellous sort of 
 wood. It is so hard that you cannot cut it with 
 a knife." 
 
 It would have been cruel to tell Papa-Yanne 
 that fragments of the true cross are much com- 
 moner now than they were in the days of his an- 
 cestors. There is enough of the "priceless wood" 
 in the monasteries and churches of Europe to 
 have made crosses for all the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees in Pontius Pilate's time. The true cross has 
 multiplied and grown like a branch of coral. 
 But let poor Papa-Yanne have his precious relic. 
 It is as genuine as the rest of them, and it does 
 him just as much good as though it had once 
 actually trembled to the hammer that impaled 
 the Saviour's hands and feet. 
 
 Dear old Papa-Yanne! I used to call you a 
 hocus-pocus. But I know better now. I wronged 
 you. You are as ignorant and simple as a babe, 
 and as superstitious as a negro. And you and 
 your kin are the teachers and counsellors of a 
 Christian nation; you are their public school, 
 their college of physicians, their clergy; their 
 
 7 6 
 
first and last resort on questions pertaining to In 
 this world and the next; the only advisers to Argolis 
 whom they really listen. It is safe to say that no 
 Greek is ever sincerely converted away from the 
 religion of his church. He cannot be, and he has 
 no need to be. If he remains ignorant, supersti- 
 tion and the ignorant clergy have him in their 
 clutches. If he becomes educated, he finds that 
 he can remain a consistent Greek Christian and 
 relinquish the superstition. 
 
 What a splendid opportunity for doing good 
 an educated and intelligent Greek priesthood 
 would have! I can think of no other way in 
 which an enlightened and patriotic Greek could 
 better serve his country than by becoming a 
 clergyman. But alas! the clergy get small sala- 
 ries, or none at all, and they live from the super- 
 stitions of their flock. This one superstition of 
 the evil eye pays better than any salaries the 
 government would ever be willing or able to 
 grant. It is continual, it is ever-present. If any 
 misfortune happens to any possession of a lower- 
 class Greek, his first thought is of the evil eye. 
 If you admire anything he has, his wine, his 
 goat, his dog, or his baby, he performs an in- 
 cantation as soon as he gets home; and if by 
 
 77 
 
In chance the admired objet really suffers any mis- 
 
 Argolis h a p 5 he runs for the priest. 
 
 The worst feature about this plaguy evil eye 
 is that friends may inflift it as well as enemies. 
 There is no confidence to be placed in anyone. 
 After Papa-Yanne had sailed away in the bright 
 track of the morning sun, with his five drachmas 
 in his pocket, the servants performed an incan- 
 tation over the Babycoula. " She is so pretty," 
 they said, "he could not help admiring her." 
 
 In fat, every time she is washed they smut 
 her behind one of the ears with charcoal. That 
 is a splendid thing they say for evil eye, which 
 detracts from her beauty, and keeps people from 
 admiring her. The Kyria made a vigorous pro- 
 test the first time she saw this done, but when 
 she heard the reason she was conquered. She 
 could not resist the implied compliment. 
 
 But enough of the evil eye at present. We 
 shall have more to say of it further on. 
 
 XVI 
 
 THERE was no moon at all last night, only 
 stars and stars. The sea was a black pur- 
 ple, hieroglyphed with millions of trembling 
 
 73 
 
star-trails. One saw with a light which made In 
 him forget the existence of the sun and moon. Argolis 
 The ripplets plashed softly on the gray beach, 
 and a thousand nightingales made fairy music 
 in the lemon groves. 
 
 Nightingales, they say, sing best on moonless 
 nights. I do not know how true the statement 
 is, but it accords with my observation. 
 
 I went down into the grove, and, walking far 
 up a dim lane, plunged into the utter blackness 
 of the trees. I went on tiptoe in order not to dis- 
 turb them; but the precaution was unnecessary. 
 The birds were all stark mad with joy and poesy. 
 The lemon trees were blooming with the prom- 
 ise of a new crop, although much unpicked fruit 
 was still hanging on the branches. The still night 
 air was heavy with the perfume of the ripe fruit 
 and the bridal blossoms. 
 
 I sat down upon a couch of new-cut hay, and 
 listened to the nightingales. As I have said, the 
 lemon orchards stretch for miles along the sea- 
 coast in this part of Greece; and every tree is 
 vocal. I shall attempt no pitiful description of 
 the nightingale's song. The hour and the time 
 have much to do with its influence. Keats has ap- 
 proached the subject in the only proper way, by 
 
 79 
 
In imitation of the effeft. The bird is a lyric poet, 
 
 Argolis unutterably shy, exquisite and impassioned. If a 
 man has poetry in his soul, if he is romantic, 
 visionary, chivalrous, unsordid; if he is a dreamer 
 and capable of a grand passion in love, he can 
 understand the nightingales. The Greeks have 
 a legend that the nightingale sings sweetest with 
 its eyes put out. Perhaps so. The same thing was 
 true of Milton and Homer. It may be true that 
 the utter delirium of poesy is possible only to 
 the heart that is not stained by the glare of this 
 common world; that the light that never was 
 on land or sea exists for those only who forget 
 the sun and moon. 
 
 But I have no desire to hear a blind night- 
 ingale, nor to see the man cruel enough to 
 put out one's eyes. In the meantime, I prefer to 
 imagine that such men do not exist. 
 
 I first heard the nightingale in the King's gar- 
 den at Athens. I had often listened for the bird, 
 and several times supposed that I heard him; 
 but at last, when he did sing, I knew his voice. 
 
 " Tn the fair garden of an Eastern king 
 * We wandered many a dim, moon-deluged night, 
 'To hear the bird of whom old "poets write 
 Sweetest despair, he doth so matchless sing. 
 
 80 
 
" Often we heard exquisite twittering In 
 
 Of little birds that slept, but could not quite Argolis 
 
 Forget their loves and the intense delight 
 Of utter freedom and their life a-wing. 
 
 "Sometimes, "That is the nightingale,' we thought; 
 Or, 'Now he sings,' or 'Now' But when indeed 
 That clear, seraphic, melancholy throat 
 
 "Discoursed the one pure song to ear Mings taught 
 We quite forgot the singer : our one heed 
 Was not to miss a single heavenly note. 
 
 "Lyrist of old romances I What dost know 
 Of stolen try stings and the sudden bliss 
 Of close embraces ? What of many a kiss 
 Pressed on the dear, dead lips of long ago ? 
 
 " Thou singe st while the Pleiads fall like snow> 
 And melt in seas that shall forever miss 
 The face of dying Sappho; nights like this 
 Bewitched Dan Chaucer and Boccaccio. 
 
 " Dweller in ancient gardens, overrun 
 With the lush rose and long-neglecled vine ; 
 Ghost of some bird that, when the moon 's above, 
 
 "Doth think it still is singing to the Sun; 
 Oh, to give words to reveries like thine, 
 Thou haunting Voice of long-forgotten love!" 
 
 81 
 
In XVII 
 
 Argolis rpHE servants to-day are eating thalassina, or 
 A sea-food. I don't know what day it is, and 
 I don't care. We long ago gave up all hopes of 
 keeping track of the niceties of their most gas- 
 tronomic religion. Enough for us, that on this 
 particular day the faithful eat only animals that 
 "have no blood. " So they express it, and so they 
 believe. The fishermen have been out all night, 
 therefore, combing the bottom of the sea for oc- 
 topods, mussels, clams, sea-urchins, and ink-fish. 
 The market resembles the curiosity department 
 of a public aquarium: hideous, creepy, slimy 
 devilfish writhing in shallow baskets; round, 
 prickly echini in piles; heaps of mossy mussels; 
 pale masses of mucous cuttlefish, befouled with 
 an inky secretion; all ecclesiastical delicacies 
 to the Greek Christian, however revolting they 
 may appear to the barbarian foreigner. 
 
 And the pinnas, we must not forget them, 
 nor how they look lying in rows upon the wharf; 
 narrow clams two feet in length, whose shells 
 resemble a negro banjoist's comic winging shoes. 
 They are great frauds, these pinnas, for each one 
 looks as though it might contain food for a dozen 
 men ; but pry them apart, and all you find is half 
 82 
 
a tcacupful of "in'ards" mixed with black mud. In 
 They are a great delicacy. A foreigner naturally Argolis 
 wonders what purpose is served by this immense 
 disproportion of shell to vital machinery. The 
 Greek, however, has solved the problem, and re- 
 gards the disproportion as a special dispensation 
 of Providence. The pinna merchant chips a little 
 piece out of one shell without opening it, and 
 empties into the receptacle thus formed the con- 
 tents of as many other shells as the purchaser 
 desires. The latter then seizes the grotesque 
 objeft by the hinge, and, holding it daintily at 
 arm's-length, strolls away home, immersed in 
 speculations as to how he will have the mess 
 cooked. 
 
 06lopodia were created by the devil. Such, 
 at least, is the theory of Brother Zaraphonides, 
 Greek-American missionary in the island of An- 
 dros; and I am inclined to think that the good 
 brother is correft. I should also like to suggest, 
 if Brother Zaraphonides will pardon the pre- 
 sumption, that his satanic majesty caught his 
 idea during a nightmare. But we must drop the 
 subjeft of the devil. The Greeks avoid all refer- 
 ence to that exalted personage, because he is 
 pleased when he hears himself spoken of on 
 
 83 
 
In earth, regarding each repetition of his name as 
 
 Argolis proof of his popularity. And what Christian 
 wishes to please the devil? He is invariably re- 
 ferred to, when reference is absolutely necessary, 
 by a euphemistic phrase which means in trans- 
 lation " The-Old-Get-Away-From-Here." 
 
 I cannot think of anything to compare 06I0- 
 podia with. The horrid animal consists of a 
 small body with a disproportionate number of 
 long muscular legs, lined on the under side with 
 round suckers, exadtly like those toys which 
 boys attach to the ends of strings and stick to 
 smooth surfaces. The legs of a devilfish are as 
 strong and wriggly as black snakes. Whatever 
 they touch, they choke into like a hangman's 
 noose, and the suckers stick like so many chattel 
 mortgages. When the suckers come away, the 
 flesh comes with them. And then, one after an- 
 other the dreadfully hideous arms twine about 
 the viftim and press it leisurely against the cold 
 filthy mouth; the pi<5ture is too frightful to 
 dwell on. 
 
 When I arrived in town this morning, a stal- 
 wart Greek had just speared a fair-sized devil- 
 fish and pulled him out on the wharf. The dread- 
 ful animal was making spidery, sprawly, snaky 
 84 
 
squirmings and convulsions toward the water, In 
 and the Greek was holding the spear with one drgolis 
 hand and thrusting at him viciously with a long 
 knife held in the other. At every thrust the 
 unfortunate monster emitted a sort of squeak, 
 strange and creepy, but unmistakably a cry of 
 agony. 
 
 I looked on, fascinated with horror, sick with 
 qualms and a goose-flesh chill. The surround- 
 ing Greeks were eyeing the operation with glee, 
 their mouths watering in anticipation of the 
 coming feast. At last the spear was withdrawn, 
 and the captor seized the animal by a safe and 
 dextrous hold, and, swinging the sprawling mass 
 high above his head, slapped it viciously upon 
 the stone pier. This move was repeated again and 
 again, and at every slap the squeak of agony grew 
 fainter. When I went away, the man was rhyth- 
 mically bending, swinging, slapping. When I 
 returned, two hours afterwards, he was doing the 
 same thing, regular as an automaton. I then no- 
 ticed that a slight quiver of life still showed in 
 the snake-like arms. How long it took to kill the 
 devilfish, I do not know; but I do know that the 
 man kept slapping it upon the stones for a couple 
 of hours after its death, to make it tender. 
 
 5 
 
In In telling the above story, I know that I lay 
 
 Argolis myself open to the unjust criticism which is 
 
 often infli<5ted upon the realistic painter. 
 
 A distinguished artist and myself were once 
 looking at a marvellous, incredible sunset. Said 
 
 I, " D , were you to paint this as it is now, 
 
 nobody would believe you. What would you do 
 in such a case?" 
 
 " I would tell the truth," he said, " and let 
 the critics go to Texas." 
 
 Echini are a trifle smaller than a base-ball, 
 and are perfectly round. They are either brown 
 or a very dark blue in color, and are covered 
 with spines about an inch long, as sharp as cam- 
 bric needles. Dr. Rufus B. Richardson, Direftor 
 of the American School at Athens, thinks these 
 spines are poisonous; he stepped on an echinus 
 one day when he was in bathing. The echinus has 
 a tiny round mouth, with four projecting teeth 
 on one side, and he is filled with sea-water, mud, 
 and lines of yellow fish-eggs that ray from a sin- 
 gle point like the arching rafters of a dome. He 
 walks on his spines, rolling as he advances. If 
 you wish to eat a sea-urchin, you cut him in two, 
 drop in a little lemon-juice, and scoop up the 
 contents with a piece of dry bread. I was tempted 
 86 
 
POROS 
 
t t c 
 
once to try the experiment, for the simple rea- In 
 son that these curious animals are classical food. Argolis 
 I could deteft no taste, save that of mingled 
 lemon-juice and sea-water. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 LOUKAS married his sister yesterday. I am 
 j afraid that this statement, without an ex- 
 planation, would convey a wrong impression. 
 Loukas (with the accent sharply on the last 
 syllable) was our former boatman, the same 
 who distinguished himself by starving from four 
 o'clock in the morning and then eating half a 
 goat at seven in the evening. He had two sisters, 
 and, as he was the only money-making member 
 of his family, those girls meant a responsibility 
 to him that could hardly be comprehended by 
 an American brother. It became his duty a 
 matter of the tenderest family honor, in faft 
 to see that they were married. 
 
 Now it is next to impossible for a Greek girl 
 to marry without a prceka^ or dot^ ready money, 
 or property of some kind, clothing, bedding, 
 furniture, household utensils. Every girl, as soon 
 as she is able to hold a needle, begins to work on 
 
 87 
 
In her prceka^ and to stow away needful articles for 
 
 Argolis her future home. From the day of a daughter's 
 birth, father and mother begin saving and setting 
 aside money for her future husband. The larger 
 the prceka^ the more desirable are the suitors 
 who present themselves. One can well imagine 
 that girls are not welcome to Greek fathers. 
 
 So it was necessary for Loukas, before he could 
 think of matrimony himself, to provide prcekas 
 for his two sisters. He began as a ferryman at the 
 age of sixteen, and by the time he was twenty- 
 eight he had, by the most desperate economy, 
 saved up fifteen hundred drachmas. A fellow- 
 ferryman agreed to accept this, together with the 
 elder sister; and thus a marriage was arranged. 
 
 The wedding took place in the afternoon at 
 four, and the pr&kika or prceka things were 
 carried to the groom's house at nine in the morn- 
 ing of the same day. I assisted at the latter in- 
 teresting ceremony. 
 
 Arriving at the house a few moments before 
 the hour, I found the prcekika laid out in state 
 in the humble sitting-room. They consisted of 
 an iron bed with brass knobs, a cherry-colored 
 bureau ornamented with white flowers, bedding, 
 numerous pillows in embroidered silk cases, cop- 
 88 
 
per kettles and other kitchen implements, and In 
 a trunk filled with the embroidered underwear Argolis 
 and handkerchiefs on which the bride had been 
 working since her earliest childhood. All these 
 articles were decorated with colored ribbons, 
 which the mother enjoined on the friends of 
 Loukas not to lose for their souls' sakes, as they 
 had been borrowed from the neighbors. But the 
 most picturesque objefts of the prcekika were 
 the copper implements, polished like cymbals, 
 and of all sizes and shapes, from a huge wash- 
 boiler to a set of long-handled brikas for boiling 
 coffee. 
 
 Two long poles had been bound to the bureau 
 by means of ropes, to facilitate transportation. 
 
 The friends of Loukas arrived at half-past 
 nine, headed by two musicians with guitar and 
 mandolin. The players had been hired, soul and 
 body, from Friday night till Tuesday morning; 
 and they thrummed the strings incessantly. 
 
 The friends burst riotously into the house, 
 and a noisy but playful fight over the various 
 articles ensued, each member of the party trying 
 to evince greater zeal than the others. At last 
 the bureau started down the steep whitewashed 
 steps, four men holding the poles; after it came 
 
 89 
 
In a lubberly boy, triumphantly bearing the wash- 
 Argolis boiler, that outgleamed the morning sun; then 
 an indiscriminate mob with pillows, portions 
 of the bed, crockery, more copper implements, 
 and whatever else they could lay their hands on. 
 They knew exactly what to take, for the groom's 
 best man {coumbaros) had been over the night 
 before with the catalogue, and had checked off 
 the things, from the big bureau down to the 
 bride's last embroidered handkerchief. This list 
 had been agreed to by both sides at the time of 
 the matrimonial negotiations; and Loukas and 
 his mother would have been disgraced had a 
 single article been missing. 
 
 Down the steep, crooked, narrow streets, the 
 queer procession filed, headed by the music and 
 followed by all the boys in Poros. From white 
 houses perched on the sides of overhanging 
 rocks, confetti rained upon their heads; laugh- 
 ing women crowded little balconies and looked 
 down at them; sailors, sitting in tavern doors in 
 the shade of huge wine-tuns, reviled them mer- 
 rily ; and an old Greek in a red fez, who sat smok- 
 ing a narghile under an arbor of vines, tapped 
 merrily on his table with the mouthpiece of his 
 pipe, and hummed the tune of the guitar. They 
 90 
 
had played that same music fifty years ago, when In 
 he was married. Argolis 
 
 The upper story of Loukas's house overlooked 
 the roof of the house below. Sitting on his rickety 
 balcony, one saw the tiled roofs descending to 
 the sea like the steps in a giant stairway. The site 
 of the town is shaped like a sugar-loaf, and there 
 is not a house in it but commands a stretch of 
 glimmering water and the distant mountains. 
 The streets are crooked, stony, and unspeakably 
 filthy; and numerous narrow alleys and unoccu- 
 pied yards form convenient dumping-places for 
 dead animals and refuse. And yet vines trail over 
 the rickety balconies, and in every window care- 
 fully tended flowers bloom in red earthen pots. 
 Strange people! Strange mixture of a love of the 
 pure and beautiful in nature with utter insen- 
 sibility to the ugliness of filth and stench! A 
 Greek cannot live without his vine or his flower- 
 pot and his view of the sea, but he cares nothing 
 for the condition of his back alley; he will come 
 out upon his balcony in his nightgown every 
 morning in summer, in time to watch the sun 
 rise; but he will notice nothing incongruous in 
 the mortal remains of a cat, slowly evaporating 
 on a rock ten feet below his nose. Greek island 
 
 9i 
 
In towns are painted white, and they look very 
 
 Argolis beautiful across the shimmering sea, with their 
 background of cypress and olive trees and silver- 
 gray and purple hills. They impress one sailing 
 past with the idea of cleanliness, pastoral inno- 
 cence, and poetic charm. But what a disillusion 
 they harbor for the one who comes within nosing 
 distance of them! 
 
 Loukas's sister, the bride, sat on an old-fash- 
 ioned sofa, with high back and ends. She was at- 
 tired in a yellow silk dress, and wore a yellow ker- 
 chief embroidered with white flowers. The latter 
 was tied in such a manner that it enframed her 
 heavy, stupidly shrewd face, and was folded over 
 her shoulders in a triangle that came to a point in 
 the middle of her broad back. A gold pin with 
 a round head held the triangle in place. Her feet 
 were encased in thick leather shoes, with pointed 
 toes and enormously high heels. They were a 
 produft of the village shoe-shop, and were sup- 
 posed to be imitations of the latest Parisian style. 
 As the poor girl had passed most of her time bare- 
 foot, her feet were very broad, and the abrupt 
 curving of the shoes toward the point gave them 
 a circular appearance. Her large calloused hands 
 were covered with white cotton gloves. 
 92 
 
All the chairs in the house had been set about In 
 the room close up against the wall, and a dozen or drgolis 
 more of the bride's female friends flanked her on 
 either side. All the faces were squarely framed in 
 colored kerchiefs, and the embroidered triangle 
 adorned every fair back. The women looked 
 clean and neat; but the men, who slouched in 
 and seated themselves awkwardly on the edges 
 of the chairs, with hands on knees, were uncouth 
 and gawky, and did not remove their soft hats. 
 
 At each new arrival a tray was passed around, 
 containing a fruit-jar filled with mastiche paste, 
 several small glasses of cognac and larger ones 
 of water, and a pile of teaspoons. Each guest is 
 expe&ed to take a clean spoon and gouge out 
 a mouthful of the paste, after eating which he 
 drops the spoon into a glass of water and takes 
 a drink. This outfit, with infinite possible sub- 
 stitutions for the mastiche paste, is the universal 
 expression of hospitality in Greece. It corre- 
 sponds with the bread and salt of the Arabs. 
 
 Finally a great uproar was heard out of doors. 
 A hundred little boys shouted v Epx" at > "Epxerau 
 (He comes! He comes!), and the cry was taken 
 up by the women on the balconies and in the 
 windows. I looked down. In a moment a tiny 
 
 93 
 
In boy turned the corner and walked solemnly up 
 
 Argolis the hill in the middle of the street. With out- 
 stretched arms he bore an immense tray, one 
 side of which rested against his stomach. On the 
 tray were two bridal wreaths of white orange- 
 blossoms, and two immense ornamental candles 
 of white wax, tied with satin ribbons. The boy 
 felt the importance of his trust, and walked with 
 as much dignity and solemnity as though he had 
 been the Metropolitan himself at Easter service. 
 Behind him at a fitting distance came the groom 
 with his party. They followed the wreaths and 
 candles up the whitewashed steps into the house. 
 The little sitting-room, already stiflingly full, 
 was packed like a street-car in "rush" hours. 
 Officious friends seized the groom by the shoul- 
 ders, and backed and jammed him through the 
 room to the divan where the bride was sitting. 
 He took his place beside her, and there they sat 
 for fifteen or twenty minutes, hot and uncom- 
 fortable, and trying to appear like perfeft stran- 
 gers as very possibly they were. Every woman 
 present kissed the groom and stuffed a silk hand- 
 kerchief into his pocket. 
 
 As soon as everybody was ready, we all started 
 for the church in two parties, the groom and 
 
 94 
 
WAITING FOR BRIDAL PROCESSION 
 
\ 
 
his friends keeping themselves separate from the In 
 bride and hers. After the ceremony in the little Argolis 
 church on the top of the hill, we all went to the 
 groom's house together. A pomegranate was ly- 
 ing on the threshold, upon which the bride duti- 
 fully stepped, crushing the seeds out of it as an.-., 
 indication of desired fruitfulness. What a thrill 
 of delight that one little aft, so appropriate to 
 this land, gave me! The great gods have turned 
 pale and faded away before the fierce sun of 
 Christianity, like the stars at the coming of day; 
 yet many of the old, sweet echoes linger to woo 
 the heart that cannot quite forget its pagan yearn- 
 ings. There was a pomegranate in the hand of 
 the gold-and-ivory statue of Hera, the goddess 
 of fertility, by Polycleitus, at Argos. 
 
 As the couple entered the house, the groom's 
 mother tied them arm to arm with a handker- 
 chief, and offered them a cup of wine, out of 
 which both drank. After this, they sat side by 
 side upon their own sofa, receiving the congratu- 
 lations of friends. 
 
 95 
 
In XIX 
 
 Argolis | OUKAS slept downstairs on the kitchen floor 
 JL-/ last night. We had been over to town to a 
 Punch and Judy show, and he brought us home. 
 Our old friends Punch and Judy, by the way, 
 
 re very popular in Greece, where they go under 
 te alias of Perikle and Phasoles. 
 F It was eleven o'clock when we arrived home. 
 There was no moon, and the stars shone with a 
 ghostly light. So Loukas tied his boat to the 
 stone pier, and humbly begged that we allow 
 him to sleep in the house. As there was no half- 
 goat involved, I granted the request; for I knew 
 what was on his mind. The distance from our 
 house to town was only twenty minutes, yet 
 nothing could have induced the poor fellow to 
 go alone: he was afraid of the Nereids. 
 
 One has been seen in these parts of late, and 
 who knows where and when she may turn up 
 again, or what harm she may do? Macaulay (or 
 was it Gibbon, or Carlyle, or perhaps Mark 
 Twain?) was not absolutely correct when he said, 
 " The immortal gods are all dead." Many of them 
 are still stalking about on the sacred soil of Hellas, 
 in the white light of Christianity. Clothed in 
 the garbs of the Christian saints, they retain 
 
 9 6 
 
their old pagan attributes. They have been re- In 
 christened, but not converted. Argolis 
 
 The Nereids, however, have come down to us 
 through all the ages of Byzantine iconoclasm, 
 Venetian insolence, Slav brutality, Turkish de- 
 gradation, as rosy and bright as they were in the 
 heyday of the beautiful gods; and they have not 
 even changed their names. They hide away in 
 dim forests and in lonely places of the sea, or 
 lurk in classic river or in woodland fount. The 
 Greek peasant frankly calls them Nereids, and 
 he believes in them as simply and as firmly as he 
 does in Christ or the Virgin. One reads of this in 
 a book of travels, and it does not make much im- 
 pression upon him. He feels as though he were 
 being told of some superstition that became ex- 
 tinct ages ago, or as though the traveller had 
 been misled in some way. 
 
 The sensation is quite different when your 
 boatman, your priest, or your wife's sewing-girl 
 tells you a tale of Nereids that have been aftually 
 seen and heard. The hand of time seems to turn 
 back a couple of thousands of years on the great 
 dial, and you realize that you are hearing and 
 speaking the Greek tongue. Nereid women are 
 very beautiful, and the modern Greeks believe 
 that they live a thousand years. 97 
 
In The ancients determined the age attained by 
 
 Argoiis nymphs, by means of a sliding scale, invented by 
 Hesiod, and referred to by several later writers 
 Plutarch among others. Here it is: 
 
 ivvia tol a>L yeveas Xaicipv^a Kopcovrj 
 av8pa>v rjfiwvTajv e\a<f)o<; Se re rerpaKopoivos' 
 Tpeis S' i\d(f)0vs 6 Kopa yrjpa<TKTai avrdp 6 <J)Olvl 
 ivvia tov<z KopaKas' Se/ca ' i^eis tovs (froivucas 
 vvfJL(j>aL iv 7rXo/ca/xoi, tcovpai Aios atytd^oio. 
 
 As this is an important bit of natural history, 
 the non-classical reader will perhaps pardon me 
 for translating it: 
 
 The crow doth live and sing his raucous song 
 Nine mortal lives : the stag four times as long 
 As doth the crow, yet short of days is he ; 
 The raven multiplies those years by three ! 
 The Phoenix doth frequent the light of day 
 Till nine successive ravens pass away ; 
 And to us nymphs, fair daughters of dread Jove, 
 Ten Phoenix 1 lives are given for joy and love ! 
 
 One naturally asks himself, Did the Greek chil- 
 dren of old-time learn that lingo as our own do 
 "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and 
 November," or the rhymed catalogue of the 
 English Kings? Very possibly. There have been 
 98 
 
mean old men in all ages who have studied up In 
 things for poor little children to learn! Argolis 
 
 Nereids sometimes show themselves to sim- 
 ple countrymen, who fall in love with them. 
 They have the power of becoming invisible, and 
 they wear magic veils from which they derive 
 their superhuman attributes. Whoever snatches 
 a Nereid's veil becomes the creature's lord and 
 master. She will follow him thereafter and do his 
 every bidding. As they are pagan spirits, they are 
 of course terrified by the sign of the cross, and 
 are immediately rendered incapable of mischief 
 thereby. 
 
 The comely and adventurous Condouriotes, 
 shipwrecked upon the coast of Greece, captured 
 a not unwilling Nereid, and descendants of their 
 union still exist and are proud of their super- 
 human origin. A well-known Athenian family 
 boasts of a Nereid great-grandmother. In both 
 these cases, as in all similar ones, the Nereid 
 finally vanished, and was nevermore heard of, 
 or seen by mortal eyes. 
 
 These strange creatures are capable of assum- 
 ing any form they desire. They inspire terror in 
 the beholder, or fascinate him with their beauty. 
 The ardent shepherd who creeps up behind one 
 
 99 
 
In and seizes her finds himself struggling for one 
 
 Argolis moment with a bear, and the next with a lion. 
 But if his heart be stout and he do not let go, he 
 holds at length a beautiful golden-haired maiden 
 in his arms, her cheeks blushing with shame, 
 her heart fluttering from the violence of the 
 struggle. 
 
 Although most Greeks are dark, golden locks 
 and blue eyes are still the poetical dream of no- 
 bility in that classic land, as Greek literature 
 abundantly testifies that they have been from 
 earliest times. 
 
 Nereids enjoy music and dancing. As all gods 
 are of human invention, so these ancient sprites 
 of fountain and forest have suffered certain modi- 
 fications of character and habit as times and ideas 
 have changed. 
 
 A certain shepherd, belated of a moonlight 
 night, heard above him in the air songs and 
 laughter, and the sweet strumming of a guitar. 
 Looking up, he saw, floating by, a bridal pro- 
 cession of beautiful youths and maidens. Being 
 a good Christian, he uttered a hasty prayer to 
 the Virgin, took aim at the ethereal bridegroom, 
 and fired. Instantly he heard a shriek of pain; 
 the fair bride in orange wreath and gaudy gar- 
 ioo 
 
> > > ) 1 
 
 ments floating in the moon, the slender rosy In 
 groom, the musicians, and all the merry rout, drgolis 
 vanished; and a wail of many voices tapered and 
 died down the wafting wind. 
 
 Three Nereid sisters live in the Kephissos 
 River, near Patissia. Two of them are beautiful, 
 kind-hearted creatures, very fond of small chil- 
 dren. The other is lame and ugly. Now along 
 the Kephissos, two or three miles from Athens, 
 are numerous small gardens, irrigated by the 
 water from the river, upon which are situated 
 the houses of the owners. These latter are simple 
 children of nature, most of whom can neither 
 read nor write, but who have almost daily en- 
 counters with the three Nereid sisters. Any of 
 the gardeners along the Kephissos will tell you 
 of personal or hearsay adventures with them. 
 When I say "you," of course I mean under cer- 
 tain restrictions. Students of folk-lore are aware 
 of the strange shyness which prevents the peas- 
 ants of any country from opening their hearts. 
 You must speak the language, you must win 
 their confidence, you must make them think that 
 you also are a believer and are one of them. 
 
 The Kyria's sewing-girl, Margarita, passed 
 her childhood in a lonely cabin on the banks of 
 
 IOI 
 
In the Kephissos. She has never seen any of the 
 
 Argolis Nereids face to face, but she has frequently heard 
 them laughing and singing in the rushes. But 
 she has stronger proof even than this of their 
 existence, as she has often told the Kyria, volubly 
 and with many signings of the cross. She knows 
 personally neighbors whose children have been 
 stolen away for hours at a time to play with the 
 Nereids. On such occasions, the lame sister, who 
 it seems is a sort of servant and drudge of the 
 other two, is sent to take the baby home. If it 
 is a beautiful child, she is apt to be jealous of 
 it, being herself ugly; and she pinches and other- 
 wise maltreats it on the way home. Small chil- 
 dren living along the Kephissos have a whole- 
 some fear of the Nereids, and stay close about 
 the house after nightfall. Margarita has often 
 seen a black-and-blue spot left by the vicious 
 blows and pinches of the lame sister. 
 
 If any of my readers still doubt that such 
 beings exist, I have only to cite the experience 
 of Kyr' Deinas, who keeps a rustic cafe by the 
 bridge at Kephissia. 
 
 Kyr' Deinas heard some curious, inexplicable 
 noises, one summer night, and he went out on 
 the bridge in his night-robe, when, whiz! a rude 
 
 I02 
 
blast of cold wind struck him and a sudden puff In 
 of dust swirled by. There was something about drgolis 
 this experience which convinced Kyr' Deinas 
 that an angry Nereid had just passed him. He 
 does not know exaftly what gave him the im- 
 pression, but he has not a doubt as to the cor- 
 rectness of his surmise, and his neighbors one 
 and all believe as he does. He saved himself 
 from injury, of course, by the talismanic sign 
 of the cross. All Greeks learn to make this sign 
 in infancy, and they make it mechanically, often 
 unconsciously; and a good thing it is too, as it 
 frequently saves them from harm as witness 
 the case of Kyr' Deinas. 
 
 Margarita's story of her great-grandfather and 
 the Nereid is a tradition in the family. But that, 
 perhaps, is worthy of being put into a separate 
 chapter. The reader must judge for himself. 
 
 XX 
 
 "A JfY great-grandfather," said Margarita, 
 1VX "was a priest in the island of Naxos. 
 One day he was going home from a farm-house 
 where he had been to perform an agiasmo [bless- 
 ing]. He was riding a little donkey, and, as the 
 
 103 
 
In day was hot, was carrying an umbrella over his 
 
 Argolis head. So he was jogging along, almost asleep, 
 for he was a good and just man, and had noth- 
 ing on his conscience to keep him awake. All at 
 once, when he was come to a very lonely part of 
 the road, he heard a little child crying. At first 
 he thought he had been dreaming; for though he 
 stopped his donkey and looked around, he saw 
 nothing at all. But when he started the donkey 
 again, he heard the same cry a second time, % Wa ! 
 wa ! wa ! Don't leave me, don't leave me ! ' and 
 there behind a bush lay a very little girl, a mere 
 baby, too small to talk. This, somehow, did not 
 occur to my great-grandfather, who was a kind- 
 hearted man, and very fond of children, young 
 as he was about thirty. Besides, the babe was 
 very beautiful, with cheeks like roses and the 
 bluest eyes. 
 
 " ' What 's the matter, little one, and why do 
 you cry ? ' he asked her. 
 
 " ' My mamma has gone off and left me all 
 alone, and I 'm afraid.' 
 
 "'Don't cry; she'll come back again.' 
 
 " c No, she won't. She said she would n't ever 
 come back.' 
 
 "My great-grandfather didn't believe it pos- 
 104 
 
sible that any mother could desert so pretty a In 
 child, but at the same time he thought it dan- Argolis 
 gerous for the little thing to be left there alone 
 in the woods. 
 
 " ' Which way did your mamma go ? ' he asked. 
 She pointed toward town, the very way that 
 he was going. ' I '11 take her up before me/ he 
 thought. ' Perhaps we '11 overtake her mother/ 
 
 "So he closed his umbrella, got down, and 
 picked the baby up; then, holding her in his 
 arms, he climbed back on the donkey. But he 
 had no sooner started than she began to grow 
 and grow, and before he realized what was hap- 
 pening, he was holding in his arms a very lovely 
 young woman, with lips like pomegranate blos- 
 soms and hair like ripe wheat. He was a young 
 man my great-grandfather was at that time 
 and very handsome; and though a priest, he was 
 of course human, like other men. She leaned 
 her head back upon his shoulder, and looked up 
 at him, half laughing, half crying. Her yellow 
 hair slipped over his arm and fell nearly to the 
 ground. He wanted to bend down and kiss her 
 pomegranate lips. Then the idea occurred to 
 him, 'Holy Virgin! Suppose anyone should see 
 me! Why, I should be ruined!' 
 
 105 
 
In "He reached into his robes and took out his 
 
 Argolis style, which he used for writing down his ap- 
 pointments, and he made the sign of the cross 
 on her brow. When he did this, she gave a great 
 scream, and turned white even to the lips 
 white as snow. So he knew that she was a Nereid, 
 * and that, having made the sign of the cross on 
 her, he had her in his power. He took her home 
 with him, and kept her in his house for many, 
 many years, where she worked as a servant. In 
 fa6l, she stayed there until my great-grandfather's 
 death." 
 
 "How did she finally come to leave?" asked 
 the Kyria, much interested. 
 
 " Why, when my great-grandfather became 
 an old man, he was taken sick, and Joanna 
 that was the name he gave her came into his 
 room and said to him, c You are going to die/ 
 
 " ' Poh ! Poh ! Poh ! ' said my great-grandfather; 
 C I am good for twenty years yet.' 
 
 "'No,' said Joanna, * you're going to die 
 now,' and she repeated it so solemnly that he 
 believed it. 
 
 " ' I want to ask one favor of you before you 
 go. I have always served you well and honestly, 
 because I loved you. But now you are going 
 1 06 
 
away, and I shall be left here alone with the In 
 Papadia [priest's wife], who hates me. She will Argolis 
 put crosses on all the bread, and I shall starve 
 to death.' She had grown old with the family, 
 just like the rest. But now as she talked she 
 suddenly grew young again, with yellow hair 
 and pomegranate lips, just as she was that day 
 when my great-grandfather came so near kissing 
 her." 
 
 "What did she mean," asked the Kyria, "by 
 putting crosses on all the bread?" 
 
 "Why, you see," explained Margarita, "in a 
 priest's family a cross is marked on every loaf 
 before it is put into the oven. Of course a Nereid 
 could not eat bread that had been marked with 
 
 a cross." 
 
 " No, of course not," interrupted the Kyria. 
 
 " And so my great-grandfather used at every 
 baking to see that a special loaf was put in for 
 Joanna, without any cross on it. Well, my great- 
 grandfather saw the justice of her plea, and he 
 rose, sick as he was, and went and gathered some 
 very powerful herbs,and boiled them, and dipped 
 his finger in the tea, and made some signs on her 
 forehead, and said some words that he knew of, 
 to take away the cross; and all of a sudden, tail 
 
 107 
 
In she vanished. Then he went back to bed and 
 
 Jrgolis died." 
 
 "Do many people know about this?" asked 
 the Kyria. 
 
 "Pah! thousands; and, besides, there is no 
 doubt about it, because the Nereid, before she 
 , went, made my great-grandfather promise that 
 he would never allow any member of his family 
 to be called John or Joanna. 'That was the name 
 you gave me/ she said, c and I shall be jealous of 
 any other members of your family ever called by* 
 it, and I will take vengeance on them. They shall 
 be deaf or dumb, lame or deformed in some way ! ' 
 Na! There's my uncle John, who has a club-foot!" 
 
 XXI 
 
 THE Kyria feels like a murderess. The gar- 
 dener's baby died this morning, and its 
 mother and all her friends accuse the Kyria of 
 having cast the evil eye upon the little one. It 
 was a beautiful child, four months old, with 
 wonderful big brown eyes. It had a look of rare 
 cherubic intelligence too, and smiled in the most 
 captivating way. The parents feel the loss more 
 keenly because it was a little boy. 
 1 08 
 
Two or three days ago the Kyria stopped the In 
 gardener's wife and went into various feminine Argolis 
 ecstasies over the baby. 
 
 " How beautiful it is ! " she exclaimed ; " what 
 lovely eyes! And see it smile! Oh, you dear little 
 thing! " etc., etc., as women will. As these ecsta- 
 sies were given vent in Greek, the poor mother 
 knew that her child was being admired. She 
 was not frightened at the time, because she was 
 pleased and flattered; but that very evening her 
 child was taken sick, and then, of course, she 
 knew what the matter was. There was no doubt 
 whatever in her mind. She was as clear about 
 the cause and efFeft as a doftor is when a patient 
 has taken poison. They performed incantations 
 all night; that we knew because they sent over 
 in great haste to borrow a handful of cloves of 
 Katina, and the latter went in person to assist, 
 and to try the merits of a certain magic formula 
 of which she is the sole possessor. 
 
 I tried one day to persuade Katina to com- 
 municate this formula to me; but nothing would 
 induce her, not even the promise of a new dress. 
 
 " These words were told to me," she said, " by 
 an old woman who is now dead. If anyone hears 
 them, they will lose their force till after my 
 
 109 
 
In death. Just before I die, I shall tell them to some- 
 
 Argolis body else, who can use them after I am gone." 
 
 There are many women in Greece who pos- 
 sess these valuable secrets, which seem to vary in 
 potency according to their own intrinsic merit, 
 and perhaps according to the individuality of the 
 person for the time being in possession of them. 
 
 When Katina arrived at the gardener's cabin, 
 she found the poor little babe quite sick indeed, 
 and moaning piteously. A cradle had been im- 
 provised for it from the lid of a trunk, which, 
 being convex, could be rocked very well. 
 
 "Doxa tou theou!" (Glory to God!) cried the 
 mother, as Katina entered with the cloves. They 
 began the incantation at once. First, Katina took 
 the cloves between her finger and thumb and 
 made the sign of the cross three times over the 
 child. Then she stuck a pin into the head of one 
 and lit the stem in the blaze of the candle. As 
 the clove burned, she again made the sacred sign 
 thrice over the child, mumbling rapidly and in- 
 distinctly, so that no one present might hear the 
 words of her mystic formula. While this was 
 going on, the others present crossed themselves 
 again and again with solemn bows and a long 
 sweeping movement of the arm, repeating, " In 
 no 
 
the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy In 
 Ghost." Whenever the clove popped, they cried, Argolis 
 with joy and relief, " Glory to God, it 's leaving, 
 it's leaving! " The snapping of the clove is con- 
 sidered a sign that the Eye is being lifted. 
 
 The three cloves were burned, and the mo- 
 ther's face was wreathed in smiles, while tears of 
 gratitude flowed from her eyes. Strange to say, 
 however, the child got no better. This was not 
 due to want of potency in the charm. It was be- 
 cause the Kyria had admired the baby exces- 
 sively, and had no doubt been jealous of it as 
 more beautiful than her own. Therefore the Eye 
 had a strong, a fearful hold. 
 
 At four o'clock in the morning Katina heard 
 a tapping at the window. Looking out, she saw 
 the gardener's wife standing in the dim light, 
 pale and troubled. 
 
 " My baby is worse," she said. " Will you not 
 come and do another incantation ? " She went ; but 
 even this one failed. To the horror of the women, 
 none of the cloves popped. At eight o'clock, when 
 the Kyria went downstairs, she found the Para- 
 mana awaiting her. 
 
 " Will you not go and spit on the gardener's 
 child?" the latter asked. 
 
 m 
 
In " Spit on the gardener's child? Merciful sakes! 
 
 Argolis No, of course not. Why should I spit on the 
 gardener's child?" 
 
 " Because they fear you have cast the evil eye 
 on it, when you said it was a beautiful baby three 
 days ago. If you spit on it, maybe the Eye will 
 go away." 
 
 "What makes them think I have cast the 
 evil eye on it? Why, it's a dear little thing. I 
 wouldn't hurt it for the world." 
 
 " But you can cast the evil eye without wish- 
 ing to. All that is necessary is to think that a 
 thing is beautiful. Besides, the baby has been 
 sick all night, and is worse." 
 
 The Kyria posted off immediately after the 
 best dodtor in town, whom she had at the cabin 
 inside of an hour. 
 
 "Pneumonia," he said. "One chance in five 
 to save the child if they do as I tell them. Had 
 I been called in immediately, the cure would 
 have been easier. They have been sleeping out 
 on the damp ground in the garden, the child 
 with them." 
 
 He left directions for treatment, and a pre- 
 scription which the Kyria had filled and took 
 herself to the cabin. The parents threw away 
 112 
 
the medicine, and called in a priest, who read In 
 the service for lifting the evil eye. Argolis 
 
 To-day the child died. That is why the Kyria 
 feels like a murderess. 
 
 If some archaeologist with plenty of money 
 were to come over here and invest in a lot of 
 these incantation formulas, he might unearth a 
 few having a very antique flavor. The evil eye 
 itself is one of the most ancient of superstitions. 
 It dates back, but I am resolved not to be 
 learned. As for the archaeologist, I would advise 
 him not to be jubilant over his results, for the 
 peasants would probably take his money and 
 then tell him some hocus-pocus or other that 
 they never thought of using. 
 
 At any rate, these incantations are a strange 
 mixture of Christian influence and paganism. 
 The continual use of the number three symbol- 
 izes Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Chris- 
 tian cross has superseded the lynx, 1 but the idea 
 of the potency of an incantation is in itself es- 
 sentially pagan. 
 
 1 The lynx, generally supposed to be the wryneck, a bird which an- 
 cient sorcerers tied to the magic wheel. See Second Idyll of Theocritus, 
 where a woman performs an incantation. 
 
 "3 
 
In XXII 
 
 Argohs rpHE Babycoula is as white as fresh goat's 
 
 J. milk and as red as a winter rose, and she 
 
 hasn't a freckle on her, despite the fa<5t that she 
 
 is out in the lemon orchard every day from 
 
 morning till night. 
 
 Do you know why her complexion is perfedt? 
 Simply because the Dada and the Paramana at- 
 tended to her " Marti." On the first of March 
 they tied a red ribbon around the chubby little 
 wrist, to aft as a charm against the raw winds 
 of that month. Such a piece of ribbon is called a 
 " Marti," and it is a sure talisman against freckles 
 and sunburn. As they tied it somewhat tight, it 
 almost disappeared before the thirty-one days 
 were completed, and the Kyria became anxious 
 about the circulation of the blood. In faft, the 
 nights of the twenty-ninth and thirtieth she 
 awoke me several times to ask if I thought there 
 was any danger that the little darling's hand 
 would drop off, and to assure me that in the 
 morning she would remove that ribbon whether 
 or no. The Dada and the Paramana made such 
 a firm stand, however, that she was obliged to 
 yield. They pointed triumphantly to Babycoula's 
 perfect complexion, and asked the Kyria if 
 114 
 
she wished to interfere with such work as that. In 
 
 The Kyria heard the servants leaving the ^rgolis 
 house very early on the morning of the first of 
 April; they went out on tiptoe to escape atten- 
 tion, for they had been ordered never to take the 
 Babycoula out of the house before ten o'clock. 
 A triumphant, joyous squeal betrayed the cul- 
 prits, and the sun was not yet up! 
 
 It must have been standing at that moment on 
 the very door-sill of the world; for by the time 
 the Kyria got down into the garden, its great 
 disk stood edgewise on the sea. She hastened up 
 the path, wrath in her eye; for fever lurks in 
 these Greek gardens in the early morning. She 
 was quite disarmed by the sight of the Babycoula 
 returning down a vista of full-blown lemon trees, 
 in company with her two devoted tirewomen. 
 The little one was attired in her best white dress; 
 and two long-stemmed April roses, red as blood, 
 swayed and nodded in her cap. 
 
 The dew on trees and bushes was all afire, the 
 birds were singing, and the Babycoula laughed 
 and jumped when she saw the Kyria. 
 
 "We have been up hanging her Marti in a 
 rose bush," explained the Paramana. 
 
 "But why did you go so early?" 
 
 "5 
 
In " Ah, you must hang it up while the dew is still 
 
 Argolis on the bush, before the sun is up. Then Baby- 
 coula will be cool all summer and fresh as dew." 
 This was a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished. What right-minded mother could ob- 
 ject to such praiseworthy zeal? 
 
 Greek women make devoted nurses, for the 
 reason that the Greek people in general are pas- 
 sionately fond of children. They have a proverb 
 that "A house without a child in it is a cold 
 house"; and another, "A baby is a nightingale 
 in the house." 
 
 When a man becomes a father in Greece, he 
 acquires immediately a certain standing in the 
 community, a footing of respedt, as it were, a 
 dignity and importance which the childless man 
 never enjoys. His neighbors take off their hats 
 to him with greater reverence than before, and 
 people with whom he had not even a speaking ac- 
 quaintance cross the road and ask him about the 
 baby with genuine interest. If the little one is ill, 
 the whole community is aroused ready to help 
 and to sympathize. If it dies which Heaven 
 forbid ! men weep who have never seen it. The 
 ordinary Greek word for baby is "a joy." Child- 
 less couples are supposed to be ineligible to the 
 116 
 
joys of Paradise. For this reason it is difficult for In 
 a priest to get a church before he becomes a Argolis 
 father. Though no church canon exists to this 
 effect, yet there is a strong unwritten law in force 
 among the lower orders. " How can a man be 
 permitted to handle the Holy Symbols and ad- 
 minister the Sacrament," they argue, " who him- 
 self cannot go to Paradise?" 
 
 A woman who bears a child is blessed, there- 
 fore, especially if it be a boy, and one who bears 
 two is twice blessed; but do not suppose that we 
 have hereby established a plain line of arithmet- 
 ical reasoning. Triplets are viewed with horror, 
 and the woman who gives birth to them is, by 
 public opinion, adjudged guilty of blasphemy. 
 There are three persons in the Holy Trinity, and 
 no human being is allowed to encroach on the 
 use of that sacred number. The common people 
 believe that the marriage tie should be dissolved 
 on account of the birth of triplets, and I have 
 heard it stated time and again that the Metro- 
 politan actually does annul marriages for that 
 reason. I have not investigated the rumor, be- 
 cause it sounds incredible. The actual canons and 
 creed of the Greek Church are too sensible. 
 
 117 
 
In XXIII 
 
 Argolis t^- ATIN A, the Paramana, cannot believe that 
 XV. we did not set out a table for the Three 
 Fates, the third night after the Babycoula was 
 born. 
 
 "Are you not afraid they will be angry," she 
 asked, "and bring her bad luck in some way?" 
 The Kyria poh-poh'd the idea, for she doesn't 
 believe at all in the Fates; but she would feel 
 easier in her mind, all the same, had she set out 
 a table for them. When you live in a country 
 where supernatural beings are so innocently and 
 frankly believed in, when you meet people every 
 day who have seen and heard those beings, an 
 uncanny feeling comes over you at last, and you 
 conclude there is no harm in being on the safe 
 side. 
 
 And who can say with absolute certainty that 
 the Three Fates and the Nereids do not exist? 
 Who can say it of any god or supernatural being 
 that is, or has been, believed in by men? If super- 
 natural intelligences exist at all, why should they 
 not do so under one conception as well as under 
 another? 
 
 So many people in Greece have seen or heard 
 the Three Fates! For me, it is as easy to believe 
 118 
 
in them as it is to believe that the Virgin of In 
 Lourdes appeared to a shepherdess. Argolis 
 
 " I was so poor when my little boy came," said 
 the Paramana, " that I could n't set them out any- 
 thing to eat or drink. So I put on the table a pen, 
 a bottle of ink, and some paper. I hoped that 
 they would see that I hadn't forgotten them, 
 and would take pity on us, and would fate my 
 boy to be a secretary and earn his living in an 
 office." 
 
 Now wasn't that pathetic, pagan though it 
 was? Poor Katina's husband had run away from 
 her at this time, and her only resource for her- 
 self and her children was her needle, by which 
 she earned about fifteen cents a day. Now that she 
 was in bed she was depending upon the charity 
 of the neighbors for bread and cheese. To her 
 mind, a young man who was earning twelve dol- 
 lars a month writing in a government office was 
 a bloated aristocrat. 
 
 That was the grand destiny which she, lying 
 there, weak, ignorant, half-starved, was praying 
 the Three Fates to mete out to the tiny baby at 
 her breast. May her prayer be referred to the 
 right department, and may her hopes be realized 
 a hundred times! 
 
 119 
 
In "Ah," she continued, "you who are so wealthy 
 
 Argolis could have spread a beautiful white table-cloth, 
 and could have set out Syrian loukoumi^ Samos 
 wine, oranges, and cakes, and all in splendid 
 dishes. Who knows how fortunately your Baby- 
 coula might have been fated!" 
 
 For the Three Fates come on the third night 
 and decide what the child's lot in life shall be. 
 Are they not worth propitiating with the best 
 banquet possible? 
 
 Katina, by the way, is a treasure-house of use- 
 ful information on the subject of raising babies. 
 Here are some of the points which she has given 
 the Kyria: 
 
 If anybody holds the baby before a mirror, 
 there will be an addition to the family within 
 a year. 
 
 It is very bad to mention any disease before 
 either mother or child during the first forty days 
 after birth; such mention is almost certain to 
 invite the appearance of the disease. 
 
 Neither must any animal be spoken of during 
 this time, as the baby may acquire some of the 
 evil characteristics of that animal. 
 
 Do not kiss the baby on the back of the neck; 
 if you do, it will have a violent temper. 
 1 20 
 
If you kiss its feet, it will not learn to walk In 
 quickly. Argolis 
 
 If the upper teeth come through first, baby 
 will be a grief to its parents. 
 
 Do not ride on a donkey with the baby, before 
 its teeth come through. If you do, it will have 
 donkey teeth, large and prominent. 
 
 The people upon whom the baby calls for the 
 first time will run and get something white and 
 present to it, if they are thoughtful people and 
 posted in Greek etiquette. This ensures the little 
 one a fair complexion, and is a precaution es- 
 pecially to be observed in the case of girls. 
 
 The first time baby puts its toe in its mouth, 
 you know that it has eaten a touloumi (sack made 
 of goat's skin) of milk. 
 
 If you notice that your hair comes out easily, 
 that is a sure sign that baby has recognized you. 
 
 If baby's hair grows first and most luxuriously 
 in the back of the neck, the next one will be 
 a boy. 
 
 This, and much more of a similar nature, is 
 all gospel to every Greek mother. 
 
 121 
 
In XXIV 
 
 Argohs j-p VEN as I write, Katina is singing the Baby- 
 Hj coula asleep in the next room, with an in- 
 terminable drowsy drone, interspersed with the 
 oft-repeated chorus, "Nani, Nani, Babycoula 
 mou-ou-ou-ou," the last "ou" always ejacu- 
 lated, as though the singer had been unexpect- 
 edly slapped between the shoulders. 
 
 I wonder who the original Mother Goose 
 was? She must have appeared on earth long be- 
 fore the tower of Babel fell, and even perhaps 
 while fig-leaves were yet in fashion. There is a 
 thread of common origin running through the 
 child-songs of all tongues, that seems to string 
 them together, and connedts them with that 
 early time which the comparative philologists 
 are so fond of speculating about. In each coun- 
 try, of course, the objects and personages that 
 figure in the babies' lyrics are things familiar to 
 the little listeners. In Greece, for instance, priests 
 take the place of Jack and Jill, and papa is always 
 coming home with loukoumi in a paper sack. The 
 ever-present and picturesque priest cuts a large 
 figure in the metaphorical language of the peas- 
 ant. Warts are "priests," and so are toes pro- 
 truding through holes in the stocking. A boil on 
 
 122 
 
any part of the body is also a "priest." A child In 
 that in America is whipped within an inch of Argolis 
 its life, is in Greece "given such a cuff that the 
 priest looks like a spinning-whorl." 
 
 "Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man," 
 there was no baker in Eve's day, but it is almost 
 certain that the mother of us all taught Cain and 
 Abel to beat their little palms together, and that 
 she said something sweet and foolish to them 
 meanwhile. Here is what the Greek mothers 
 sing: 
 
 IlaXa/jKXfaa Trai^ere, 
 
 6 7ra,7ras crov ep^rcn, 
 
 0a (TOV (f)prjKaTLTL 
 
 XovKovfjudicia 'oto ^aprt. 
 
 Which means something like 
 
 Palamakia, play it nice; 
 Papas coming in a trice \ 
 And he y ll bring loukoumi back 
 In a little paper sack. 
 
 How is this for "Jack and Jill went up the 
 hill"? 
 
 'Two little monks 
 
 Go along the road y the road; 
 
 One goes for water y 
 
 The other goes for mush ; 
 
 123 
 
In And they wrangle and they fight \ 
 
 Argolis And they kill each other. 
 
 "The two little monks" are baby's chubby 
 feet, that fly back and forth for a moment or so 
 as they lie in mother's lap, and then become 
 quiet again. 
 
 "Creep, mousie; creep, mousie" masquerades 
 in Greece in a rabbit skin, that crawls up to 
 baby's neck on the tips of mother's fingers just 
 as shyly, and produces just as loud a squeal of 
 mimic fright, as the English mousie. 
 
 Go, rabbit; go, rabbit; 
 Go, rabbit, to get a drink 
 At the little baby's neck. 
 
 How little of art, and how much of genuine 
 motherhood, is in these songs! One can see how 
 they must have come into the world without any 
 author at all, simply forced out of the mother- 
 heart like bird-lyrics. Given a happy woman 
 with a little stranger that must be amused, that 
 is doing wonderful new things every day, that 
 is looking at the world through innocent, in- 
 quiring eyes, and the result is poetry, imagi- 
 nation, love, beauty. What could be sweeter 
 than this? 
 
 124 
 
Steamer, little steamer In 
 
 Sailing smoothly, smoothly, Argolis 
 
 With the golden sail 
 And the silver cross, 
 Smoothly go and smoothly come 
 And don t forget the Babycoula! 
 
 " Trot, trot to Boston, to buy a loaf of bread " 
 would hardly recognize its Greek confrere, 
 
 to inreyLTre juas 0e\ei )(op6 
 koll ra yStoXia hep elv eSa>, 
 77109 iraei va ra (frepeL 
 eva roWepo 'crro X e P eL > 
 
 My little baby wants to dance, 
 And the fiddler's gone by chance; 
 Who will fetch him and will fay 
 Him a dollar bill to play ? 
 
 But whatever other songs are sung to the 
 Babycoula, not a day passes without frequent 
 repetition of the formula for the putting forth 
 of teeth. If nature sees fit to comply with it, the 
 little one will be getting teeth without know- 
 ing it. 
 
 Like the bride, like the bride, 
 Like the little bride, 
 Like the groom, like the groom 
 May the tooth come out in front I 
 
 125 
 
In The first three lines are spoken very slowly, 
 Argolis the last two quickly. May the tooth push up as 
 shyly and slowly as a bashful shepherd girl comes 
 for the first time to her husband's arms ; but when 
 it gets all ready, may it leap out like the groom 
 hastening to his bride! 
 
 XXV 
 
 WE have just passed through the Megale 
 Evdomas, or, as it is known in our lan- 
 guage, Holy Week. We went over to see the ser- 
 vices in commemoration of the descent from the 
 cross and the burial of Christ. All the churches 
 in town were filled to overflowing. The Kyria, 
 true to her feminine predileftions, went to Papa- 
 Yanne's church, where she was received with 
 great distinction and given place by the horns 
 of the altar. There are but few seats in a Greek 
 church. The interior was brilliantly and at the 
 same time softly illuminated; for all the candles 
 in the hanging chandeliers had been lighted, and 
 every worshipper carried a burning wax taper. 
 The glass pendants of the chandelier, and the 
 profuse gold paint on the eikons of the saints 
 with which the walls and dome were covered, 
 126 
 
glittered with a cheap, gaudy, and almost bar- In 
 baric splendor. On the middle of the screen, drgolis 
 hiding the holy of holies from vulgar eyes, St. 
 George, the patron of the church, wreaked taw- 
 dry vengeance on a bright green dragon. The 
 saint bestrode a horse of gigantic body and long 
 arching neck, with an incredibly small head that 
 reminded one of a serpent issuing from the fau- 
 cet hole of a barrel. George himself did not ap- 
 pear to be over twelve years of age, and he was 
 looking anywhere except at the fabulous mon- 
 ster whom he was destroying. As to the physical 
 attributes of a dragon, the artist seems to have 
 been wholly at sea, and pardonably so, for who 
 has ever seen a dragon? His ideas of fierceness 
 and terribleness were more distinct, however; 
 for the green alligator which he had portrayed 
 was snorting volumes of fire and smoke from 
 its vermilion nostrils. Greek churches are filled 
 with thousands of similar Byzantine master- 
 pieces, many of them of inestimable value. 
 
 Just before the door of the Hiereon, or Holy of 
 Holies, stood a black cross temporarily erefted. 
 There were the same trefoil ends that one sees 
 on the crosses in Greek cemeteries. To it was 
 nailed a crude image of the Saviour, sawed out 
 
 127 
 
In of a flat board on which was painted a face with 
 
 Argolis a long beard and the contour of the human form. 
 This compromise between an eikon and a carved 
 figure is the nearest approach to an image used 
 in the Greek. Church. It was a pitiful-looking 
 figure, and added no dignity to the idea which 
 it was intended to portray. 
 
 In the aisle stood a catafalque, with arched 
 roof decorated with roses and orange-blossoms 
 and lighted by dozens of candles. Papa-Yanne, 
 magnificent in a robe of brocaded silk and gold 
 embroidery, fastened at the waist with a huge 
 silver buckle, advanced to the cross, a coverlet 
 of silk lying across his outstretched arms. The 
 assistant priest, arrayed in a long white robe, 
 took down the image and handed it to Papa- 
 Yanne, who received it in his arms, wrapped it 
 carefully in the coverlet, and laid it reverently 
 on the catafalque. The candles were by this time 
 burning in a yellow haze of incense that poured 
 out from the silver censers, while the priest and 
 his assistant chanted interminably. 
 
 Immediately after laying the body of Christ 
 in the tomb, Papa-Yanne seized a silver sprin- 
 kler, resembling a pepper-box, but fortunately 
 containing Florida water, and passed playfully 
 128 
 
among the congregation, flirting hither and In 
 thither little jets of the perfume, and greeting Argolis 
 his parishioners with the witty badinage which 
 is one element of his popularity. 
 
 Then ensued a scramble to kiss the cloth en- 
 folding the body of Christ. The Kyria noticed 
 maliciously that the first to kiss very reverently 
 the winding-sheet, crossing himself devoutly at 
 the same time, was the butcher, whom I can see 
 even now in my mind's eye, as he stands in the 
 door of his little shop and holds up the fleece of 
 a lamb, swearing by his father's soul that he sells 
 no goat-meat in his place. 
 
 While the collection, inevitable in all churches 
 and all creeds, was being taken up, the boy-choir 
 separated into two divisions, which sang an- 
 tiphonally in a screechy nasal contest. There is 
 no such direful murder of sound in the world as 
 the so-called Byzantine music. The fadt that the 
 people endure it, that they do not thrust their 
 fingers in their ears and rush pell-mell from the 
 sacred edifice, would seem to prove in itself that 
 the Greeks are not a musical people. It must be 
 admitted to their credit, however, that all edu- 
 cated Greeks speak of their church music as 
 soul-harrowing, and that the newspapers inces- 
 
 129 
 
In santly ridicule it. Imagine a number of boys 
 
 Argolis humming through combs over which paper has 
 been stretched, and you have an idea of Greek 
 church music. 
 
 From the Kyria's viewpoint, she could see 
 the priests in the Holy of Holies as they counted 
 the large copper coins which were poured out on 
 a table before them by the usher. A careful note 
 was made of the sum by both priests, after which 
 Papa-Yanne locked it in a drawer and put the 
 key in his pocket. 
 
 Then came the Epitapheion, or funeral pro- 
 cession, with the body of Christ. From all parts 
 of the church, silken banners and sacred sym- 
 bols (colored lanterns at the ends of long poles) 
 moved toward the door, and, nodding at the 
 threshold, passed out into the night. The con- 
 gregation followed, with their tapers still burn- 
 ing. Soon a long serpent of flaming lights was 
 winding down the crooked streets to the quay, 
 where it joined itself to another and longer ser- 
 pent, the congregation of the Metropolitan 
 that had debouched but a moment before from 
 a parallel street. As there are seventeen churches 
 in little Poros, a stream of burning candles soon 
 fringed the little town with yellow light. To 
 130 
 
the solemn strains of a funeral march, the long In 
 procession wound through the principal streets. Argolis 
 Then each of the pitiful images was carried back 
 to its own church, where it was consigned to 
 another year's oblivion. 
 
 Across the strait, in the suburb of Galata, 
 there are two churches; and there another glit- 
 tering serpent uncoiled upon the quay, and then 
 crawled slowly over the summit of a distant hill 
 and disappeared. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 SATURDAY night we went to the Anastasis, 
 or ceremony commemorative of the resur- 
 rection of Christ. Time is reckoned in Greece by 
 reference to some church festival. For instance, 
 they say, " three weeks from next Resurrection," 
 "last Annunciation," or a month from "next 
 Transfiguration." These are grzaX. fetes, of course, 
 but nearly every day in the year has the name of 
 some saint tagged to it by which the day itself 
 is known. 
 
 As we went down the long lane leading to the 
 ferry, and up the narrow street on the other side 
 to the church, we heard in every house the sil- 
 
 *3* 
 
In very child-like bleat of imprisoned lambs. The 
 
 Argolis l on g f as t ends at midnight, when the priest at 
 the conclusion of the services raises his hand in 
 benediction and proclaims " Christ is risen! " At 
 that moment two millions and a half of Greeks 
 slip their hands into their pockets and break a 
 hard-boiled egg, after which they light candles 
 and hurry away to their homes. Great care is 
 taken lest the candle be extinguished en route; for 
 this is considered a bad omen, forecasting the 
 death of some member of the family during the 
 year. If it is still burning after home is reached, 
 the hanging lamp in front of the family eikon is 
 lighted from its flame. This latter must burn 
 forty days without being relighted, to ensure 
 good luck for the year. Before retiring, a soup 
 is partaken of, which is made from the head, 
 entrails, lungs, and feet of a lamb. It is supposed 
 to be very light, and to prepare the stomach for 
 the tremendous gorging of the following day. 
 The majority of the country people of Greece 
 eat meat but once a year. With the shepherds, 
 St. George's day takes the place of Easter; for 
 then they pull up stakes and move their flocks 
 higher into the mountains for the summer. 
 Such a roasting of lambs as we had in Poros 
 132 
 
on Sunday! In all the gardens, before the cafes , In 
 in the yards of private houses, festive groups drgolis 
 were gathered. The air was surfeited with the 
 smell of roasting meat, and every Greek we en- 
 countered greeted us with Xpio-rbs aviary] (Christ 
 is risen) ; to which the reply is 'Akrjdax; dvearr) 
 (Truly, he hath risen). 
 
 We roasted our lamb under the shade of a 
 full-blown lemon tree, and, to show the proper 
 Christian spirit, we invited the servants, together 
 with the gardener and his father, to partake 
 with us. 
 
 The old man, attired in holiday costume, 
 clean fustanellas and a new red fez, turned the 
 spit. We were fortunate in securing his services, 
 as he is famed for miles on account of his skill. 
 From ten in the morning until one, he sat upon 
 a low stool, slowly turning the fragrant carcass. 
 No amount of hungry importunities could in- 
 duce him to lift it from the fire one instant be- 
 fore his judgment pronounced it perfeft. Hour 
 after hour he sat there, anointing the meat with 
 a lemon dipped in lard, pulling a bone now and 
 then to see if the flesh were yet tender. 
 
 One concession only he made. The Dada 
 having declared that she could not possibly live 
 
 *33 
 
In until the feast was ready, he picked out one of 
 
 Argolis the eyes and handed it to her on the end of a 
 fork, which dainty morsel she swallowed with 
 the greatest satisfaction. After the lamb had been 
 eaten, the old man carefully scraped and cleaned 
 the right shoulder-blade, asking with much so- 
 lemnity if the animal had passed the night in 
 the house. 
 
 "What a shame!" he exclaimed, on being 
 answered in the negative; "because I know how 
 to read the bone; but if the lamb didn't pass a 
 night in the house, what would be the use? How 
 could it have learned the secrets of the family? " 
 We besought him to read it anyway; and with 
 much evident compunftion, as of one who feels 
 that he is making light of a serious and sacred 
 matter, he complied. Holding the triangular 
 scapula between his eyes and the sun, he gazed at 
 it long and earnestly. The result was highly sat- 
 isfactory. Along piece of gristle at the end prom- 
 ised money during the next twelve months ; and a 
 clear, oblong, transparent place, without spot or 
 blemish, argued tranquillity, freedom from sick- 
 ness or death, and general prosperity. Another 
 reason for locking the lambs in the house over- 
 night is because their cry is considered musical 
 
 134 
 
by the Greeks. Our servants besought us to bring In 
 our own viftim home alive. " Its voice sounds drgolis 
 so sweet ! " they said. 
 
 The Kyria and I could not see any beauty in 
 the voice of an animal that was to be slaughtered 
 at daybreak. If charm exist, it must be the sad 
 music of Antigone's lament. 
 
 The reading of lamb-bones is much practised 
 among the shepherds. In every community one 
 hears of some old man who is specially gifted in 
 the science. Many educated Greeks believe there 
 is "something in it," and the standard Greek 
 historians affirm that the shepherd soothsayers 
 made many truthful prediftions during the War 
 of Independence. 
 
 Have we here a survival of ancient augury? 
 Every schoolboy remembers how at Plataea the 
 Spartans refused to attack until the omens were 
 favorable. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 WE hanged Judas Iscariot to-day. Having 
 expressed our joy over the resurrection of 
 Christ by gorging ourselves with roast lamb and 
 bitter wine, by firing guns, rockets, and torpe- 
 
 *35 
 
In does, and by lighting bonfires, we gave vent to 
 
 Argolis our remaining enthusiasm in one grand burst of 
 mock vengeance directed against the unfortu- 
 nate mortal who was destined from the founda- 
 tion of the world to figure as a cat's-paw in the 
 plan of salvation. The burning took place in 
 front of a little church of the Virgin, situated 
 in the highest part of the city. 
 
 From a pole erefted before the door hung a 
 crude, wretched, melancholy figure, stuffed with 
 straw, and ridiculously suggesting the image of 
 a man. 
 
 A throng armed with pistols and muskets 
 filled the little square, and groups of laughing 
 women crowded all the windows and balconies 
 around. 
 
 Within the church, the priest was conduc- 
 ing the regular Sunday service. Every moment 
 bored worshippers came out, or some impatient 
 outsider went in to see how much longer the 
 service would last. 
 
 At last the doors were thrown wide open, and 
 the whole congregation gushed forth like water 
 from a broken dam, and immediately thereafter 
 every man and boy in the square was shooting 
 away at the effigy. Poor Judas whirled about and 
 136 
 
danced in the air as the bullets peppered him, In 
 and suddenly he burst into flames, a proper Argolis 
 thing for the betrayer of Christ to do, especially 
 if his carcass has been stuffed with powder and 
 Roman candles. 
 
 At the ignition of the scarecrow, the enthu- 
 siasm of the crowd reached an indescribable 
 pitch. They swung their guns and pistols, loaded 
 and cocked, about in each other's face in the 
 most reckless fashion, and kept up a continual 
 volley at the blazing figure and into the air. 
 
 I believe that the burning of Judas Iscariot is 
 not an official service of the Greek Church, but 
 it is 2ifete very dear to the hearts of the people, 
 principally, I presume, because it gives them 
 an opportunity to shoot off guns. 
 
 When a Greek feels particularly happy, or 
 wishes to express his enthusiasm, he produces 
 an old musket or pistol and discharges it. 
 
 Resurreftion day in Greece resembles the 
 Fourth of July in the United States. Wound- 
 ings and deaths are frequent; the only wonder is 
 that they are not more so. There are enough 
 volleys fired every year at the scarecrow mem- 
 ory of Judas Iscariot to kill all the Turks in 
 Constantinople. 
 
 137 
 
In XXVIII 
 
 Argolis rpO-DAYis the twenty-third of April, Greek 
 A style, a very important date for the shep- 
 herd people. They all pulled up stakes this morn- 
 ing, and tied their skins, their big copper kettles, 
 their chickens, and their extra clothing upon 
 the backs of donkeys. The men drove the goats 
 and sheep out of the round brush corrals, with 
 much shouting and barking of Molossian dogs; 
 the women slung their babies across their backs 
 in leathern hammocks, and took the census of 
 their tow-headed, dirty, sturdy, innumerable 
 youngsters. Then they all struck out for higher 
 regions, leaving behind them the desolate skele- 
 tons of their skin-covered huts, and the embers 
 of their great yearly lamb-roast. 
 
 For on St. George's day, warm or cold, rain 
 or shine, the shepherds move to their summer 
 pastures; and they all eat lamb before they go. 
 How important a day this is, and how eagerly it 
 is looked forward to by the innumerable young- 
 sters, can be surmised from the fadt that it is 
 the only occasion on which the Greek shepherd 
 tastes meat. This is not due to his poverty, but 
 to extreme parsimony; for the pastoral class of 
 this country arc well-to-do. Why does not the 
 
 138 
 
RESTING 
 

 
 
 
 
 i 
 
vegetarian proselyte cite the Greek shepherds In 
 as splendid examples of the efficacy of his regi- drgolis 
 men? There exists nowhere a sturdier hill-folk; 
 ereft, stout-legged, deep-chested, tough, they 
 liv^ the year round on coarse black bread and 
 what cheese and curds they cannot dispose of 
 for money. If they could sell their bread, it is 
 probable they would subsist on roots. They can 
 endure fatigue and exposure, too, that would kill 
 ordinary mortals. The winner of the Marathon 
 race was a shepherd. 
 
 Greek shepherds are picturesque and filthy, 
 two qualities, by the way, that often go to- 
 gether. They wear tight homespun leggings, and 
 colored kerchiefs instead of hats, and they carry 
 long crooks; but they only bathe twice in a life- 
 time, once when they are baptized, and once 
 on the day before they are married. As baptism 
 in the Orthodox Church means complete im- 
 mersion, a shepherd lad ten years of age is not 
 so dirty as one of fifteen, for example. 
 
 The shepherd's chief faftor of pifturesque- 
 ness is the capote, or heavy woollen cloak. The 
 owner of half a dozen goats and a moth-eaten 
 donkey throws his cloak across his shoulder with 
 all the free-born grace and dignity of a brigand 
 
 *39 
 
In chief. The garment has its efFeft, too, on the 
 Argolis man's mind; for though he be old and rheumatic 
 the moment before putting it on, he no sooner 
 feels its weight than he straightens up and strides 
 about the village wine-shop with as much dig- 
 nity as though he had just stepped from a comic 
 opera. 
 
 When I say these people only bathe twice in a 
 lifetime, I would wrong them did I not add that 
 they occasionally wash their faces. This they 
 do by filling the mouth with water, which they 
 blow out into the hands and then dash upon 
 the face, a method which I have often seen 
 employed in Greece by people who were not 
 shepherds. 
 
 Why they move on St. George's day, whether 
 the season be favorable or not, I do not know. It 
 is another example of the great influence which 
 saints have upon the Greek mind in general. 
 Perhaps the shepherds show St. George special 
 reverence because that worthy slew a dragon, 
 a fierce and terrible animal capable of render- 
 ing life on the mountains uncomfortable. More- 
 over, who knows but that the dragon might have 
 developed an appetite for sheep? 
 
 These saints, by the way, do not always pre- 
 140 
 
serve after death the mild and martyrsome dis- In 
 positions that characterized them during life. Argolis 
 
 The newspapers were full the other day of 
 the appearance of St. Andreas at Nauplia. The 
 apparition was robed in black, was of enormous 
 stature, and was terrible to behold. Three sol- 
 diers who beheld it were so frightened that they 
 died (fatf). I did not notice that any of the pa- 
 pers denied the report that some sort of super- 
 natural visitor had been seen. Like other matters 
 of this kind in Greece, the occurrence was proved 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt. One sheet, while 
 admitting the faft, ventured to doubt the pro- 
 priety of supposing that the spirit was a saint. 
 A spirit that was frightful in appearance, and 
 scared good Christians to death, must certainly 
 have been malignant. 
 
 From reading all the pros and cons, I was not 
 quite clear myself on what features the recogni- 
 tion was grounded. I was at last led to agree 
 with one journal, which seriously maintained 
 that if resemblance to the benign and patriarchal 
 Andreas actually existed, some evil spirit must 
 have been masquerading in his beard and halo! 
 
 But the case of the late Most Holy Germanos, 
 Metropolitan of Athens, leaves room for no such 
 
 141 
 
In charitable conclusion. The good man was found 
 
 Argolis i n his library, sitting at his table, stone-dead. The 
 circumstance caused considerable excitement 
 throughout Greece, as he was struck down in 
 the midst of seeming health and strength. There 
 he sat, looking straight before him with a cold 
 and sightless stare, his blue-veined hands hang- 
 ing limply at his sides, the venerable beard flow- 
 ing down his breast and upon the table. Heart 
 disease, the doctors said; but the people knew 
 better. Immediately, mysteriously, the rumor 
 was in everybody's mouth that blue marks of 
 violence had been found under that beard, and 
 that the Most Holy Germanos had been strangled 
 by St. Philip. 
 
 The Metropolitan had punished a priest a 
 short time before, for some infringement of dis- 
 cipline, by closing his church during a fixed 
 period. This church was under the patronage of 
 St. Philip; hence the vengeance. Let all suc- 
 ceeding Metropolitans take warning. To the 
 mind of a disbeliever, this affair presents one re- 
 markable feature. The angry priest might have 
 started the story about the strangling, but how 
 did he get it into the heads of all the unlearned 
 and unreading faithful simultaneously? 
 142 
 
More just, although more terrible, was the In 
 vengeance wreaked by the prophet Elias on the Argolis 
 Russians during the Greco-Turkish War. The 
 combined powers of Christian Europe the 
 "Great Powers" so called had sent an im- 
 mense armada of powerful battle-ships to little 
 Crete. They were there to cooperate with Islam, 
 and to uphold the arm of the " Unspeakable 
 Turk" against a handful of brave Christians. The 
 latter set their flag upon a Christian church, and 
 the invincible fleet opened fire upon the tiny edi- 
 fice with their tremendous engines of war. The 
 flag was knocked down, and the plucky insur- 
 gents set it up again. But that 's all history. 
 
 We are not discussing the " greatness " of the 
 powers involved. History will do that. Profane 
 history will not, however, mention the prophet 
 Elias in connection with this incident, although 
 the Greeks believe that a very terrible miracle 
 was worked soon after the bombardment. 
 
 The little church was under the special pat- 
 ronage of this saint, and bore his name. Russian 
 Christians turned their guns upon it. So did other 
 Christians; but they do not count. They were 
 not Orthodox. 
 
 Shortly after the outrage, as the Greeks and 
 
 143 
 
In some others called it, a big gun on the Russian 
 
 Argolis s hip exploded, causing great damage and kill- 
 ing fifteen men. In a few days all Greece was 
 billed with a crude woodcut representing the 
 prophet Elias galloping through the clouds in 
 a chariot, with a sheaf of thunderbolts in his 
 right hand. Below him was the ill-fated Russian 
 ship, piled with the dead and dying. This pic- 
 ture bore the legend, "The Miracle of the Pro- 
 phet Elias." An explanatory note described the 
 bombardment of the church, and explained that 
 numerous witnesses had seen the venerable saint, 
 as represented above, in the very aft of hurling 
 a celestial grenade at the sinning ship. 
 
 "The Lives of the Saints" has a steady sale in 
 Greece. Those who can read pore over it with the 
 greatest interest, and afterwards retail at second- 
 hand the anecdotes and incidents to those who 
 cannot. As a large proportion of the Greek peo- 
 ple cannot read, it results that various embel- 
 lishments are added to these tales as they travel 
 from mouth to mouth, until at last a collection 
 of legends resembling fairy stories has come into 
 existence, with the saints for heroes. Children 
 stand by open-mouthed while their elders re- 
 hearse the adventures of St. Anthony in the wil- 
 144 
 
derness, or tell how St. Irene talked for days In 
 after her head had been cut off. Argolis 
 
 Strangely enough, we find the idea quite 
 prevalent among the lower classes that filth and 
 sanftity go hand in hand. Only the other day, 
 Maria who is a religious fanatic, by the way 
 told us of a certain young man who returned 
 to his own home after a long absence, dressed in 
 rags, and in such wretched state that his own 
 mother did not know him. He had become a 
 saint! 
 
 He begged for water and bread, and then 
 passed the night in a pig-pen in one corner of 
 the garden. And there he lived for many, many 
 years, the kind woman bringing him bread and 
 water each day. As time went by he grew filthier 
 and filthier, raggeder and raggeder, and holier 
 and holier (the cook dilated on these features 
 with much unftion) . At last he felt his end draw- 
 ing near, and he sent for the woman of the house. 
 So she came and stood in the door of the pig- 
 pen, and lo! there was a great, blinding light 
 within, and there in the midst stood her son, 
 glorified; and she recognized him, and he said: 
 " Mother, do you know me now? " and then he 
 vanished. 
 
In Perhaps this is the story of some famous saint, 
 
 Argolis anc ] \ have got it all wrong. If so, so much the 
 better. I only tell the story to show the form it 
 had attained when it reached me. 
 
 It is interesting to me, however, because I 
 believe that this young man won his halo in the 
 Greek mind chiefly through his super-bestial 
 fllthiness. There is something reminiscent of the 
 old hermit days in such an idea. Those old fel- 
 lows who used to go out and wall themselves up 
 in caves, staying there all their lives, must have 
 grown terribly weary of themselves. 
 
 None of the trades will work on the day of its 
 patron saint: for this reason there is a religious 
 strike among one or another of them nearly every 
 day in the year. 
 
 A very pretty story is told of St. Philip. His 
 soul was greatly distressed on account of the suf- 
 ferings of the poor; but he had nothing to give 
 them save one cow, his only wealth in the world, 
 the sole barrier between himself and hunger. 
 
 At last, after many prayers and much hesita- 
 tion, he was seized with deep remorse. "What 
 right have I to a cow," he exclaimed, "while 
 my brother is starving?" 
 
 So he slaughtered the animal, and distributed 
 146 
 
it among the poor. Then he went to bed, his In 
 soul divided between grief and joy: regret for Argolis 
 the cow, which he had loved much, and deep 
 satisfaction because he had done the will of Him 
 who said, " Sell all thou hast and give unto the 
 poor." 
 
 In the morning, when he awoke, he heard a 
 familiar "Moo!" outside his humble door. He 
 sprang to his feet and looked out, and there, 
 behold! stood his own beloved cow, waiting to 
 be fed! 
 
 Thus St. Philip learned that the mercy of God 
 is infinite, and that he is always to be trusted. 
 
 A Greek may have faith in the potency of 
 some particular saint, but he will never allow 
 himself to draw any comparisons, for fear of call- 
 ing down upon his head the malicious envy of 
 the others. 
 
 A Greek was extolling the merits of St. An- 
 dreas to several of his friends. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, St. Andreas is very powerful 
 and beneficent," replied one of them; "an ex- 
 cellent saint indeed, but did you ever try St. 
 Spiridon of Corfu? Ah, there 's a saint! Though 
 I am saying nothing against Andreas. May he 
 also be my helper." 
 
 H7 
 
In "St. Spiridon of Corfu is indeed a powerful 
 
 Argolis ally/' assented a third, "and so is St. Andreas 
 both excellent saints, very excellent indeed. But 
 St. Epiphanius of Cyprus whew!" The last ex- 
 clamation ending in a prolonged whistle, accom- 
 panied by a corkscrew motion of the right hand, 
 the eyes and forefinger directed heavenward. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 DR. Zachariades of Poros, just across the 
 strait from our orchard, was asked to go to 
 Xerochori (Drytown) yesterday, to hold an in- 
 quest. A man had been knifed to death there 
 about a week ago, in a brawl, and had been 
 hurriedly buried. It was necessary to exhume 
 him and make a legal examination. The knife, 
 by the way, is the Greek's favorite weapon, and 
 he is sure to have one concealed somewhere 
 about his person. Don't come to fisticuffs with 
 a Greek. 
 
 Well, we set out together; and after about 
 three hours of donkey riding, we came to a 
 wretched little town on the top of a mountain. 
 It is rightly named, for the only water in the 
 place is brought a distance of three miles, in 
 148 
 
little barrels, slung two and two on donkeys. In In 
 any direction you look below you, you can see Argolis 
 old Ocean, glimmering away in the illimitable 
 distance, with islands swimming in it like flocks 
 of swans. It is cool, clean, refreshing down there; 
 but up here on top of the mountain is perpetual 
 dirt, squalor, and thirst. 
 
 The whole population desperate-looking 
 men in dirty fustanellas; barefooted, slatternly 
 women; unwashed, uncombed, tangle-headed 
 children escorted us to the grave, a mound 
 of red, fresh earth marked by a black cross. 
 
 The poor mangled lump of clay was dug up 
 out of the other clay, was hastily examined, and 
 was again lowered into the grave. Two citizens 
 of Dry town seized their shovels with a will, but 
 ere they had commenced their grewsome task, 
 a boy of ten, dressed in the blue voluminous 
 breeches of the country, leaped in front of them, 
 his hands spread in a trembling, imploring ges- 
 ture. " It is the dead man's son," explained the 
 doftor. 
 
 This relationship conveyed a certain author- 
 ity, for the men acquiesced to the boy's hurried 
 Albanian plea, and stepped back. 
 
 He ran off to the wine-shop of which his fa- 
 
 149 
 
In ther had been proprietor, and presently returned 
 
 Argolis w ith a bottle of resinato. 
 
 Standing by the edge of the grave, he rever- 
 ently sprinkled a few drops upon his father's 
 corpse, and then handed the bottle to the nearest 
 bystander, who took a swallow of the contents. 
 When it came my turn, I followed the example 
 of the others, and drank, saying earnestly: " God 
 forgive his sins!" 
 
 I did not understand the significance of the 
 wine ceremony, nor have I since learned it; yet 
 the prayer seemed to me to breathe the proper 
 Christian spirit, and I had no hesitation in join- 
 ing in it. 
 
 This same ceremony is a very common one at 
 funerals in Greece, a boy usually accompanying 
 the procession to the grave, with a bottle of wine. 
 The ceremony had been properly performed at 
 the original burial of the wounded man, but the 
 son evidently thought the exhuming might have 
 a nullifying effeft. Therefore he repeated it, to 
 be on the safe side. 
 
 No one present knew what the sprinkling 
 of the wine meant, and could offer no explana- 
 tion save that it was a "good thing to do." But 
 this poor, wretched, ignorant orphan, without a 
 150 
 
glimmer of theology or learning or reason in his In 
 benighted brain, was still able to give us all an Argolis 
 affecting lesson in filial love and duty. So the 
 most fragrant and beautiful flowers of human 
 nature sometimes spring amid superstition and 
 poverty. 
 
 A Greek funeral carries the idea of grief and 
 solemnity to such limits that it becomes terrible 
 in its impressiveness. The slow music, the priests 
 in their stately garb, the banners and symbols of 
 the Church, the uplifted coffin-lid, the exposed 
 corpse, with hands crossed and white face turned 
 to the sky, all these make a picture never to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 In some communities hired mourners are still 
 employed, who accompany the corpse, shriek- 
 ing and tearing their hair. This adds a certain 
 theatrical effect, but in Greece, as everywhere 
 else, true grief is too deep for words. 
 
 The real mourners, the mother, following 
 her strong, beautiful son to the grave, the bride, 
 gazing for the last time upon the face of her 
 young husband, what cry is adequate to their 
 sorrow? 
 
 This carrying of the corpses through the street 
 is very terrible to one not used to the sight. I 
 
 151 
 
In think I have been most harrowed by the little 
 
 Argolis dead babies going to the graveyard in this way; 
 they are so small upon the big stretcher, and in 
 the midst of all this pomp* the white wreath 
 about the brow, and the flowers heaped upon the 
 tiny form, are such a mockery! 
 
 People live to great ages in these quiet gar- 
 dens by the Mediterranean Sea, but they all die 
 at last. The other day, an old fellow of ninety 
 odd passed away, and we all followed him to 
 his last resting-place. He had been born here in 
 Poros, and had passed his whole life in the vil- 
 lage, seeing the same sights and doing the same 
 things every day for nearly a century. 
 
 He had a bosom friend, who had played with 
 him as a boy on the wharf here. These two had 
 each attended the other's wedding. Their chil- 
 dren had intermarried, their wives had died, their 
 sons had moved to distant parts of the world, and 
 still they lingered on. 
 
 Of the neighbors and friends of their early 
 youth, not one was left; but they had continued 
 to smoke their narghiles together every morning 
 under the great spreading tree by the village 
 fountain. Wrapped up in their ancient comrade- 
 ship, secure in the constancy of the old scenes and 
 152 
 
>>> 1 > 3 > ) 
 
 FUNERAL PROCESSION PJ^^NG ^LHROUGH 
 A VILLAGE STREET 
 
* O ( f 
 
places, they scarcely noticed that faces changed In 
 about them from year to year. As for distant Argolis 
 wars, the fall of thrones, the march of history, 
 they knew no more of these things than if they 
 had been living upon a distant star. Their exist- 
 ence was in the past, in the land of memory, out 
 of which they were two ancient travellers. 
 
 When they carried one of these old friends 
 to the grave, the other did not walk behind the 
 coffin, but, nearly doubled with age, he shuffled 
 along at the side of the corpse, looking steadily 
 into the sightless eyes. He seemed in a sort of 
 dream, totally unconscious of those about him. 
 Nervously wringing his bony hands, he mumbled 
 again and again the name of his boyhood friend, 
 the companion of his ninety years, "Meetso! 
 Meetso!" 
 
 The one who is left comes down now every 
 morning to his table by the village fountain. 
 They bring him his narghile^ and while he 
 pulls dreamily away at it, he talks and talks, and 
 those sitting by hear every now and then, "Eh, 
 Meetso?" or "Don't you remember, brother 
 Meetso?" 
 
 One usually gets very little satisfaction from 
 asking Greeks the reason for their curious ob- 
 
 *53 
 
In servances. The Kyria and I have often seen a 
 
 Argolis water-jug broken on the steps of a house from 
 which a corpse has that moment been carried, 
 and we have as often asked why it was done. But 
 we have never succeeded in soliciting any answer 
 other than etvai koXo (it's a good thing to do), 
 with a shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 In addition to the breaking of the water-jug, 
 the house is immediately swept after the removal 
 of the corpse, and all the neighbors of the af- 
 flicted family also sweep their houses. 
 
 As the procession passes by, doors of residences 
 and shops are hurriedly slammed shut. For this 
 aft a reason is given: "So that Charos may not 
 
 enter." 
 
 Is that our old friend the Ferryman? 
 
 Charos is indeed Charon, Zeus is dead, 
 Aphrodite is no more, Apollo has passed away, 
 and his golden harp is forever silent; but death 
 never dies. 
 
 If one were to judge by the language used by 
 the common people of Greece, he would come 
 to the conclusion that Charos is a very personal 
 conception with them. They hardly ever use 
 the word death. When a man is dying, he is 
 "wrestling with Charos"; in the folk-songs, 
 
 i54 
 
TAKING A SMOKE BY THE VILLAGE FOUNTAIN 
 
< i l < r 
 CC < e ' 
 
 i tcccc c c 
 
" God sends Charos to take the souls." The at- In 
 tributes of this terrible being are the same as Argolis 
 they have been in all ages of the world. Says 
 one song: 
 
 Charos has no judgment \ 
 Neither can he be trusted; 
 He takes the child at the breast \ 
 He does not spare the old. 
 
 And in another, 
 
 He takes the mother from the children, the children from 
 
 the father , 
 He tears asunder loving sisters y 
 He separates man and wife. 
 
 Nor do the rich and fortunate escape him. 
 Maria, while she is wrestling with the pots or 
 scaling fish, derives great comfort from singing, 
 in a mournful, monotonous tune, a song relating 
 the sad end that befell the beautiful Evangoula. 
 This lady, young, a bride, mistress of a lovely 
 house, surrounded by strong brothers and a dot- 
 ing husband, spoke slightingly of Charos, who 
 immediately laid her upon her death-bed: 
 
 Evangoula , young and fair ', to fortune was a debtor, 
 Until one evil day she cried that Charos could not get her. 
 
 155 
 
In "Brothers nine have I for guards, my man's another 
 
 Argolis warden, 
 
 Well-built and large our dwelling is, with courtyard and 
 with garden." 
 
 Some evil bird to Char os flies and tells him what she said; 
 He casts a dart that yellows soon her cheeks of white and 
 
 red: 
 He shoots a second, then a third she falls upon her bed I 
 
 This is stronger comfort for the poor even than 
 Horace's statement of exa<5t impartiality: Pal- 
 lida Mors cequo cumpede, etc. In the case of Evan- 
 goula, death seems to have preferred one to whom 
 life was a dream of love, delight, and ease. We 
 have the same idea in our proverb, " Death loves 
 a shining mark." 
 
 Here are the memorial services that are held 
 for the repose of a soul. I give the Paramana's 
 own words: 
 
 " On the third day you carry raw wheat and 
 a candle to the priest. He takes them and reads 
 some prayers. 
 
 " On the ninth day bake some bread, cut it up 
 into small pieces, and put it into baskets. Then 
 fry some fishes, and take it all to church during 
 service time. Give each person there a piece of 
 bread and a fish, and ask them all to pray for 
 
 i 5 6 
 
the dead man's soul. Those who are wealthy also In 
 pass around cheese. Argolis 
 
 "On the fortieth day invite your friends to a 
 memorial service at the church. Take wheat and 
 boil it. Put in pomegranate seeds, almonds, sugar, 
 oil, and spices. This mixture is the 'kollyba.' 
 Carry it to the church, together with five can- 
 dles. The priest lights the candles and reads. 
 Then all go to the grave. The priest lays the 
 kollyba on the grave and reads some more, after 
 which it is divided among the friends who eat 
 it and pray for the rest of the soul." 
 
 This is the impression which the memorial 
 services of the Greek Church made upon the 
 mind of an ignorant but devout woman. Will 
 the learned tell us how pomegranate seeds got 
 into the recipe for kollyba? 
 
 For the first three days after death, fresh water 
 is put night and morning into the room where 
 the person died. 
 
 It is believed that the soul changes into a but- 
 terfly, and remains about the scenes of its former 
 existence for forty days. During this time it is 
 often in the houses, where it eats, sleeps, and does 
 in general the accustomed things of its daily life. 
 The word for butterfly in vulgar Greek is the very 
 
 J 57 
 
In beautiful neTaXovSa (Petalouda). The ancient 
 
 Argolis word for butterfly also means soul. This modern 
 TTdvxn is invisible during the forty days that it 
 lingers about the house. At the end of that pe- 
 riod it flits away to heaven, where it is judged 
 according to the a<5ts done in the flesh. 
 
 The Greeks suppose that the dust of a right- 
 eous man is fragrant. Hence, logically, a man 
 whose dust is fragrant must be in heaven. It is 
 very polite, therefore, to say to a benefactor, or 
 to a person to whom one feels grateful: "May 
 your dust become myrrh!" We have the same 
 thing in the familiar English couplet: 
 
 "Only the attions of the just 
 Smell sweet and blossom in the dust*' 
 
 People who cannot afford to buy graves rent 
 them for a period of years, generally three. At 
 the end of the given time, the bones are taken 
 up, carefully scraped, washed in wine, put in a 
 bag, and laid away. A priest is usually present at 
 this ceremony, who often takes the responsibility 
 of divining from the condition of the bones the 
 soul's place of abode. If they are fragrant and per- 
 fectly white, the deceased has become a saint. If 
 considerable flesh still clings to the bones, the 
 soul is in purgatory. 
 i S 8 
 
Coffins are constructed with especial reference In 
 to sending as many souls to heaven as possible. In- drgolis 
 stead of solid bottoms, they have a few thin slats, 
 and the sides are only about three inches high. 
 When the cover is laid loosely on top of the body, 
 the earth is admitted into direct contact with the 
 latter, and decomposition is thus facilitated. 
 
 The body of a vampire does not decay. 
 
 XXX 
 
 MARGARITA was in just the other day, 
 big-eyed and voluble, with the story of 
 a supposed vampire at Damala. It seems that a 
 wealthy resident of that town committed suicide 
 about a year ago. This aft, uncanny in itself, gave 
 rise to much talk. A suicide, moreover, is not 
 buried in holy ground and does not go to heaven. 
 As often as the simple visitors saw the lonely 
 tomb that had been erefted by the dead man's 
 money, they shuddered and crossed themselves. 
 "Where is he now? " was a very natural inquiry. 
 Finally, nobody knows how, the rumor was 
 under full headway, and the belief firmly es- 
 tablished, that the late neighbor and citizen had 
 become a vampire. 
 
 159 
 
In It became absolutely necessary to the commu- 
 
 Argolis nity's peace of mind that the body should be dug 
 up. This was done, and, lo and behold! they had 
 all been wronging the poor man. The process of 
 decomposition was so far advanced, considering 
 the length of time, that he seemed well on the 
 way toward probable sainthood. 
 
 The telling of this incident led to a conversa- 
 tion about vampires in general, during the course 
 of which Margarita favored us with two other 
 stories. 
 
 The second one has a familiar sound, as if I 
 had read it in some collection of tales. Coming 
 from the lips of an ignorant girl, it is interesting 
 as proving conclusively that the Greek people 
 aftually believe in vampires. 
 
 " In my great-grandfather's village inNaxos," 
 said Margarita," the same great-grandfather who 
 was a priest and who found the Nereid by the 
 roadside, do you remember? there was a wo- 
 man married to a shoemaker named Loukas. He 
 was a kind husband, and she was a good and faith- 
 ful wife. So they lived happily together for sev- 
 eral years. But one day one of the neighbors asked 
 the woman, 'Do you know that Loukas is out 
 till all hours of the morning every Friday night? ' 
 1 60 
 
"And she replied, 'I do.' In 
 
 "'Well,' said the neighbor, 'where do you Argolis 
 suppose he is?' 
 
 "Now Mrs. Loukas had been stri&ly reared, 
 according to good old Eastern notions; and she 
 replied: 
 
 " ' I do not consider it my business to inquire. 
 My husband does as seems best to him.' 
 
 " But, womanlike, she fell to thinking about 
 the matter, and wondering. And the more she 
 wondered, the more she worried. 
 
 "So at last she spoke to some of her relations, 
 and they followed the man and watched him; 
 and where do you suppose he went every Fri- 
 day night, and what do you think he did? Why, 
 he went to the graveyard and sat on a tomb- 
 stone, and there he made children's shoes all 
 night. It seems he was married to a vampire wife, 
 by whom he had several children. For them he 
 was making the shoes. 
 
 " Well ! The relatives took a priest and they 
 went to the woman's grave, and the Papas read 
 the prayers for the laying of vampires, and they 
 could plainly hear the bones rattle together on 
 the bottom of the coffin. They said nothing to 
 Loukas about it, and pretended that they knew 
 
 161 
 
In nothing of his vampire wife. But the strangest 
 
 Argolis thing of all is, that from that moment he began 
 
 to pine away, and after a month or so he died." 
 
 "What do you suppose was the reason of 
 that? Was it for love of the vampire woman?" 
 asked the Kyria. 
 
 But Margarita shrugged her shoulders. " Ilotds 
 'fepei," (Who knows?) she said. 
 
 Margarita's second story was also located in 
 Naxos. 
 
 " A shepherd boy, going home late one night, 
 lay down to rest upon the ground, and fell asleep. 
 He was awakened by terrible groans and cries 
 of 'Let me out! Let me out!' The voice seemed 
 to come from beneath him, and had such a strange 
 unearthly sound that his hair rose on end from 
 terror. He lay perfectly still, not moving so much 
 as an eyelid. Presently he heard again that cry, 
 'Let me out! Let me out!' 
 
 "'Who are you?' asked Yanne, for that was 
 the shepherd's name. 
 
 "'Take the cross off my grave. I must come 
 out!' 
 
 " It seems that Yanne, in the darkness of the 
 night, had wandered into a graveyard and lain 
 down. He immediately perceived that he was 
 162 
 
lying on his back, with his arms thrown out so In 
 that they made a cross with his body. That a Argolis 
 vampire was calling to him, he had n't the least 
 doubt in the world. As long as he kept his pres- 
 ent position, he very well knew, the vampire 
 must stay where he was. He also realized that 
 it was impossible for him to lie there forever. 
 There was time for parley, but ultimately he 
 must yield. 
 
 " c If I let you out, will you swear solemnly 
 that you will not harm me in any way?' finally 
 asked Yanne. 
 
 "The vampire swore upon his winding-sheet, 
 and the shepherd rose from the grave. 
 
 "He had no sooner done so than a voice be- 
 hind him said, 'Take hold of one end of this rod 
 and come with me.' Yanne whirled around, and 
 there stood the vampire. It was so dark that he 
 could see nothing except a tall shape, dressed in 
 some kind of a loose robe, like a winding-sheet. 
 Yanne was so frightened that he did not know 
 what he was doing, so he reached out and grabbed 
 hold of a small rod held toward him by the other, 
 and in a minute he was lifted off his feet, above 
 the tombstones and the tall cypresses, and was 
 sailing through the air, that other one by his side. 
 
 163 
 
In " So they sailed and sailed till they came to a 
 
 Argolis castle on the top of a high rock. Round and 
 round this they whirled, till they came to an 
 open window, and in they went. There they 
 found a beautiful young girl sleeping on a bed. 
 The vampire tiptoed toward the bed with hands 
 stretched out. The shroud fell away from his 
 arms, and his long bony ringers opened and shut 
 like claws. 
 
 "IIai>ayeta owe /ic!" (Holy Virgin, save me!) 
 screamed the nurse, who was listening in the 
 next room. 
 
 " He seized the poor young girl by the throat 
 and strangled her," continued Margarita. "And 
 then, drawing a long knife from his shroud, he 
 cut her open and began eating the warm heart. 
 From time to time he offered pieces to Yanne, 
 
 say 
 
 ing: 
 
 " c Eat, Yanne, it 's delicious ! sweet as loukoumi? 
 
 " Now Yanne was afraid of offending the vam- 
 pire, so he pretended to eat, but in reality he 
 dropped the pieces inside his jacket. While they 
 were doing this, a rooster crowed outside. 
 
 "'What time is it?' asked the vampire, start- 
 ing for the window. 
 
 " ' Five o'clock,' answered Yanne, looking at 
 164 
 
his watch. It was in reality only two, but the In 
 rooster had been dreaming of something, and drgolis 
 made a mistake. 
 
 "'Well, I must be going back to my grave,' 
 said the vampire. 'Good morning.' 
 
 " Now Yanne understood in a minute that the 
 vampire intended leaving him there, so that 
 the people would accuse him of murdering the 
 young woman. So he sprang forward and caught 
 one end of the rod, just as the vampire was going 
 out of the window, and away they sailed to- 
 gether, back to the grave. 
 
 "You may believe that Yanne, just as soon 
 as he found himself alone, ran for a priest and 
 brought him to the grave, and had the service 
 for the laying of vampires read. Who knows 
 how many people that vampire may have killed 
 and eaten?" 
 
 Who knows indeed? 
 
 " It 's curious," suggested the Kyria, " that the 
 vampire, before leaving Yanne, did not make 
 him swear that he would say nothing about the 
 matter." 
 
 "So he did," said Margarita; "but he didn't 
 think an oath to a vampire was binding. At any 
 rate, the priest absolved him for breaking it." 
 
 i6 5 
 
In XXXI 
 
 Argolis j^-YRIOS Douzinas bought a fish this morn- 
 J\. ing that was a chef-d'oeuvre. The old gen- 
 tleman is living comfortably on a pension of five 
 hundred drachmas a month, and he can afford 
 to indulge in an occasional luxury. He marched 
 triumphantly into the platea (square) about eight 
 o'clock, followed by a small boy carrying the 
 prize a large red fish known as lithrini^ and 
 resembling an overgrown gold-fish. 
 
 Kyr' Douzinas ordered the boy to hang his 
 purchase on the spout of the village fountain. 
 Then he sat down at a wooden table under a 
 cool-leaved plantain tree, removed his broad 
 hat, and wiped his brow. That done, he called 
 loudly, " One coffee, from the unmixed, sweet 
 and heavy!" 
 
 You can shout for coffee anywhere you hap- 
 pen to be in Greece, on the top of a mountain 
 or in the midst of a wilderness, and a boy will 
 shortly appear, bringing you a cup of the muddy 
 but delicious variety known as " Turkish. " 
 
 The cobbler, pegging away on the sidewalk 
 
 under the awning of a distant grocery store, rose 
 
 slowly from his stool, brushed the scraps from 
 
 his leather apron, and came over to the fish. 
 
 1 66 
 
Locking his hands behind his back, he gazed at In 
 
 it critically. Argolis 
 
 " What did you pay for it? " he asked at length. 
 
 "One drachma sixty it's one oke heavy." 
 
 An officer, passing by along the quay, spied 
 the fish, and came and sat down at Kyr' Douzi- 
 nas' table. 
 
 "Is it fresh?" he asked. 
 
 "Living," replied the owner. 
 
 "How will you have it cooked?" 
 
 "Plaque." 
 
 "Bah! That's not the way to cook lithrini. 
 They don't do that way. Soup you must make 
 it into soup." 
 
 Kyr' Douzinas looked at his would-be Men- 
 tor severely. " Will you tell me how to cook a 
 lithrini?" he asked, "me, who have eaten them 
 before you were born?" 
 
 At this point the postmaster, a fat and impor- 
 tant personage, as befits a high public official, 
 came hurrying up, out of breath. He had heard 
 the news at the fish-market. 
 
 "How much does it weigh?" he puffed. 
 
 " One oke heavy." 
 
 "'T is n't an oie" 
 
 " I weighed it myself." 
 
 167 
 
In "Then the fish-scales are false. Spiro," to the 
 
 Argolis little boy, "run and bring the grocer's scales 
 here." 
 
 The grocer himself brought them, followed 
 by his neighbor the wine-merchant. The post- 
 master weighed the fish. Then he pried open 
 the gills with his finger and sniffed critically. 
 
 "Freshish," he declared, with hesitation. 
 
 "Living," affirmed Kyr' Douzinas, sipping 
 his coffee with emphasis. 
 
 "Not too fresh freshish," persisted the 
 postmaster. 
 
 Papa-Yanne now appeared, walking majesti- 
 cally and jingling a string of huge black beads 
 behind his back. 
 
 " Bravo ! " he cried ; " Bravo, Petro ! I had an 
 idea of buying lithrini myself this morning, but 
 you got ahead of me. Well, I bought a fine string 
 of barbounia [mullets], so I am well satisfied. I 
 shall have them made myrodato [fried], with a 
 brown sour sauce, with bay leaves and rosemary. 
 Put them in an earthen crock and eat them cold. 
 Lithrini is best that way." 
 
 " I shall have it plaque" (roasted in oil, with 
 parsley, onions, and garlic). 
 
 "Take Papa-Yanne's advice and have it my- 
 168 
 
rodato" said the butcher, coming up at this mo- In 
 ment, a long knife in his hand. " Do you know drgolis 
 how good it is that way ? Only last St. Januarios' 
 day I went to the monastery with Spiro Con- 
 dopoulos. He brought along a beautiful lithrini 
 myrodato. I was a little under the weather, but 
 so good it was that I ate it without wishing to 
 eat ate without wishing to eat I" 
 
 The butcher seemed to think this a very re- 
 markable circumstance, and he repeated it sev- 
 eral times with great solemnity. Kyr' Douzinas, 
 however, was not to be moved. After describing 
 at great length how he felt a desire for lithrini 
 the night before and had risen very early in 
 the morning, how he walked leisurely down the 
 wharf and hailed the first fishing-boat that he 
 saw, and how it had contained this lithrini^ 
 the only one brought in during the morning, 
 which he considered a mark of favor on the part 
 of his patron saint, Peter, he called the boy. 
 
 "Here, boy, take this fish to my house and 
 tell the Kyria that I want it plaque. She must 
 have plenty of oil in the sauce, and plenty of gar- 
 lic twice as much as she put in the last one." 
 
 The boy started off, the tail of the fish drag- 
 ging on the ground. 
 
 169 
 
In "Hey, boy ! tell her not to forget the parsley." 
 
 Argolis The gathered citizens watched the fish disap- 
 pear in the distance, and then the crowd slowly 
 melted away. 
 
 This pifture is not drawn because the lithrini 
 is a very rare fish. It is drawn because the inci- 
 dents actually happened, and is typical of life in 
 a Greek village, where the buying and cooking 
 of a three-pound fish is as important an event as 
 the sale of a million bushels of wheat would be 
 in New York. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 PERHAPS I ought to add that fish in gen- 
 eral are an undying subject of interest to the 
 Greek people. 
 
 In the coast towns, like Poros, the fish are 
 brought in twice a day, morning and evening, 
 in boats. One soon acquires the faculty of iden- 
 tifying these craft even at a great distance. They 
 are narrow and pointed at both ends, and are of 
 two kinds, large and small. 
 
 The small fish-boats are always run by two 
 very old men, who sit bent over amid a pile 
 of rusty-looking nets; a long spear lies in iron 
 170 
 
brackets at one side of the boat, and its three In 
 prongs projeft at the forward end like those of Argolis 
 Neptune's trident. Sometimes these old men 
 stand up and row, and then they face toward the 
 prow. This is the only test as to whether they 
 are standing up or sitting down, they are so bent 
 with long years at the oars. 
 
 The big boats are run by a crew of six or eight 
 sturdy fellows, bullied down and despotized by 
 a jaunty young Capitanyo. 
 
 These boats are high at the ends, with a scroll- 
 like projection at the prow, and remind one of 
 piftures of old Norse fighting-craft. When the 
 Capitanyo sits up straight on a high throne-like 
 seat in the stern, and his six rowers pull all to- 
 gether, rising in concert with each backward 
 sweep of the oar-blades, and falling upon the 
 benches like one man, then, I say, one realizes 
 for the first time the glory of dignity and power. 
 These fish-boats each have a terra-cotta sail, that, 
 when filled with wind, resembles half a balloon. 
 
 As each boat comes in, the entire male popu- 
 lation of the town collefts at the wharf and greets 
 its occupants with a chorus of questions. The 
 chief of police, who is usually an officer in the 
 regular army, presents himself with two or three 
 
 171 
 
In assistants, and follows the catch to the market. 
 
 Argolis Not till it is laid on the dealers' tables is it law- 
 ful to buy. This provision is to give every free- 
 born citizen an equal chance. Should it be learned 
 that somebody had intercepted a boat and picked 
 over the fish, the whole town would be up in 
 arms. 
 
 Whenever I see the people all stealing away to 
 the fish-market, I feel that I am indeed in Greece, 
 just as when I hear about Nereids, or see men lift 
 their eyebrows in Homeric dissent. There is an 
 ancient story of a fl ute-player, who was entertain- 
 ing a large audience in the public square, when 
 suddenly the bell rang announcing the opening 
 of the fish-market; and all his hearers left him, 
 save one. The flute-player finished his perform- 
 ance, and then, advancing to the one faithful 
 spectator, thanked him for his attention and con- 
 gratulated him upon his love of music. What was 
 his disgust to find that the man was stone-deaf! 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 THALASSA, thalassa! Accent it on the ante- 
 penult, say it a number of times in slow 
 repetition, and you will hear the voice of the 
 
 172 
 
sea as it whispered in endless monotony beneath In 
 our balcony in Argolis. The eternal monotony Argolis 
 of the sea, the same word that it said under 
 the keels of the Achaians at Troy. Odysseus heard 
 it all night when he lay awake in the grotto 
 of Calypso thinking of Penelope, and it whis- 
 pered to him of hope; blind Polyphemus heard 
 it, sitting on the rocks, and it came to him as a 
 voice of despair and derision out of the infinite 
 darkness. Some old Greek, in the dawn-time of 
 the world, when men were yet children and 
 had not learned many words, looked upon the 
 face of the sea and asked it, "What is your 
 name?" and it answered him, "Thalassa, tha- 
 lassa, thalassa." Our scholars very learnedly sug- 
 gest that the word is derived from aXs, salt. 
 Nonsense ! It is the sea's name for itself, and is 
 as onomatopoetic as our word "sea" caught from 
 the hiss of seething waves ; or as " ocean," which 
 booms like the surf. I love to rise before the sun 
 and step out upon the balcony into the hush and 
 wonder of the world. Mountains, stars, and sea ; 
 this is the place for a man to live. It is good to 
 be here, in God's temple, a fellow of the stars. 
 The fresh breath of the brine intoxicates me, 
 the society of the hills uplifts me. If I am early 
 
 173 
 
In enough, I step out into a world of steel-gray hills, 
 
 Argolis standing guard over a sea of ink. The stars glitter 
 like great drops of dew in a blue-gray sky, and the 
 little town across the strait is the color of ashes. 
 The sun rises from behind Poros; and long before 
 it is seen, the heavens above the town blush an 
 ineffable pink, like a great sea-shell. 
 
 The fishermen cast their net often at the side 
 of the porch, and I love to watch them pull it 
 in. The Capitanyo stands in the prow of his boat 
 with a long pole, ere<5t, jaunty as Hermes. The 
 men, three at each of the two lines, are bare- 
 legged to the hips. Two of them are always 
 leaning far to landward, throwing their entire 
 weight on the line, while a third is walking down 
 to the water to get a fresh hold. And as the coil 
 of wet rope on the shore grows bigger and the 
 net comes nearer, how the excitement increases! 
 Even the Capitanyo, despite his dignity, betrays 
 his emotion ; and yonder old man of the sea, 
 white polled and bearded, yet with the limbs of 
 a youth, strains at the net till his muscles rise 
 leanly about his neck. As Theocritus says, 
 
 " Like to a man doing his best, 
 You would say that the old man was fishing with all 
 the strength of his limbs, 
 
 J 74 
 
HAULING IN THE FISH-NET 
 
o r *, 
 
 
For the muscles were swollen everywhere about his neck In 
 Although he was a gray beard; and his strength would A r go lis 
 have done credit to youth." 
 
 Is there another business in the world that 
 keeps the child-heart in a man as fishing does ? 
 It's the monotony that makes us grow old. The 
 world is all very wonderful as long as it contains 
 new sights and new sensations. Childhood, and 
 even youth, are a progress through fairy-land. 
 The first time we see the moon, our first peach, 
 our first pocket-knife, our first party, the first 
 time we fall in love, these are keen emotions, 
 and they keep us fresh and eager. But after we 
 have done the same things a hundred times, 
 and there is no longer anything new under the 
 sun for us, after we have lost our taste for taffy 
 and kisses, and even for skittles and beer, what 
 a stale old joke this life becomes! The fisherman, 
 alone of men, escapes the monotony. He has al- 
 ways escaped it, from the earliest angler who sat 
 naked upon a rock and dropped his bone hook 
 into a swarming river, down to the " graybeard " 
 of Theocritus, " dragging his net for a great cast." 
 
 And these fishermen of mine, swaying at the 
 lines here in the early dawn, though they cast 
 the seine forty times a day they feel always the 
 
 175 
 
In same boyish excitement over the result. Who 
 
 Argolis knows what it will be? Whitebait, leaping 
 among the green seaweed and shining like silver 
 in the sun; long green herring, arrows of the 
 deep ; mullets, yellow as gold, most highly prized 
 of Mediterranean fish; noble lithrinia; soles, fit 
 for the dainty table of Lucullus. All these and 
 many more may become entangled in the fisher- 
 man's web; and then there is always the chance 
 of some great surprise, of taking an unusual catch. 
 Sometimes burly and joyous porpoises blunder 
 into the mesh, or great flat turtles become en- 
 tangled in it as they glide obliquely downward 
 through the deep Father Neptune's disci. And 
 there are shy creatures of the sea, of such outland- 
 ish shape or grotesque feature that very shame 
 makes them unwilling to be caught. There are 
 oftopods, whose writhing limbs and cruel beak 
 are evil incarnate, or the creation of a god in 
 delirium tremens; there are fish with great cold 
 mouths and goggle eyes, and fish that have been 
 caught beneath the whole weight of the sea and 
 pressed flat. 
 
 Inexhaustible are the secrets of the sea; her 
 breath is like wine, and her voice is a trumpet- 
 call to the soul. 
 176 
 
XXXIV In 
 
 THE Babycoula is beginning early. She was ^ r S^ s 
 born in December and here it is May. 
 She is therefore four or is it five? months 
 old. The Kyria knows, but I am afraid to ask her, 
 for ignorance as to the Family's age is an un- 
 pardonable sin. At any rate, the Babycoula has 
 a beau, and she is encouraging him most shame- 
 fully. He is Yanne, the gardener's ten-year-old 
 son. He is always sticking red April roses, or 
 the yellow Bankshire ones, into her cap; and she 
 kicks and crows with delight when she sees him 
 coming down the path. The other day he pre- 
 sented her with a shepherd's pipe, whittled by 
 himself out of a reed. She promptly put it in her 
 mouth whereat Yanne, the Kyria, and the 
 Paramana all declared in chorus that she will 
 become a great musician. I strongly suspeft that 
 she would have thrust any other objeft with 
 equal alacrity into the same receptacle, had she 
 been given the opportunity. 
 
 This morning Yanne cut her a red rose with 
 a long stem, and she held it swaying and nod- 
 ding in her chubby fist as though she were the 
 Queen of Fairy and the flower her sceptre. We 
 were going up to see how the washing was get- 
 
 177 
 
In ting along. The Dada {dahdah^ accented on the 
 
 Argolis l as t syllable) officiates as ply ntria corrupted in 
 the modern vernacular to ply stria. She takes the 
 clothes up the night before and soaks them with 
 lye. Then she goes up to the well before day- 
 light, builds a fire under an immense copper 
 kettle, and boils the entire bou-gah-dha^ or wash, 
 after which she lays the articles one by one on 
 a flat stone and beats them with a paddle. She 
 continues this process till she has pounded all 
 the dirt out of them and broken all the buttons; 
 which service being conscientiously performed, 
 she wrings the things out in cold water and 
 spreads them about on bushes and on the grass to 
 dry. We sat down under a grape arbor to watch 
 her, and Yanne brought us a heaping plate of 
 mousmoula, the earliest fruit to appear in the 
 Isles of Greece. Mousmoula are yellow in color, 
 and have four immense seeds as big as chestnuts, 
 over which the skin is tightly drawn, leaving 
 scant room for the pleasant juice which is their 
 raison d'etre. You can eat a bushel of them in 
 an absent-minded way. 
 
 It's pleasant up here at the well now, these 
 May mornings. The weather is getting warm 
 enough to make one realize that the gurgle of 
 178 
 
water is a delicious sound. The canopy of vines In 
 that entirely covers the mossy curb, and the Argolis 
 mule-path encircling it, is dense with leaves as 
 green as young frogs, and the numerous little 
 stalactites of grapes are a paler green, the ghost 
 of the other shade. As the patient mule trots 
 round and round, you hear the monotonous 
 "click, click, click" of the wheel, and the gush 
 and bubble of the water, cool and clear as crys- 
 tal. Wherever the sun can pierce the grape- 
 vines, it writes shadows on the trodden earth, 
 as distinft as charcoal-sketches. 
 
 The heyday of summer is almost upon us. The 
 pomegranate trees are in bloom, and there is 
 nothing in all the world so red as their trumpet- 
 shaped flowers, which are so fiercely bright that 
 they seem like jets of fire amid the more quiet 
 shades that surround them. Their contrast is that 
 of a cardinal in a throng of nuns, or a glowing 
 rent in the side of a volcano. They smite the eye 
 as a betrayal of the fire and passion at nature's 
 core. They are like a passionate glint in the eye 
 of a demure maiden. 
 
 The heliotrope is in bloom now, covering 
 fences and buildings, and making the air heavy 
 with the fragrance of delicate mauve flowers. 
 
 179 
 
In The little moth-eaten donkey that will turn the 
 
 Argolis well-sweep by and by, when the mule gets tired, 
 is eating his breakfast in a bower of heliotrope. 
 His shed is overrun with it. Nature here is like 
 a woman who comes into an unattractive house 
 and makes it beautiful. She has good taste, and 
 she is redolent of love. How daintily she has 
 hung ferns about the mouth of this old well, 
 and has laid mosses over the ugly stones! For 
 yonder dead tree she is weaving a covering of 
 wild poverty-vine, and it will soon be a tower, 
 snowed thick with pale blossoms, faintly and 
 exquisitely fragrant. 
 
 One entire side of the gardener's house is cov- 
 ered with Bankshire roses, small and yellow; and 
 the path from here to the sea is lined with April 
 roses, dark red, that have lingered into May. 
 The jasmine is everywhere, tossing its white and 
 yellow petals to the breeze, and mingling its fra- 
 grance with that of the heliotrope. 
 
 Elene, the Dada, is a handsome woman of the 
 lithe yet voluptuous type. Her movements are 
 as undulating and easy as those of a plump tigress. 
 She has a pile of soft brown hair that she " does 
 up" in a Psyche knot; her eyes are extraordi- 
 narily liquid and tender, and her teeth perfeft 
 1 80 
 
STREET SCENE 
 
c." * o 
 
 . 1 (. <- l 4 
 
and white as grains of rice. Her cheeks are as In 
 brown as partly-colored meerschaum, her hands drgolis 
 and feet are small. Elene is a typical Andriote, 
 the island famed, as was Sparta of old, for 
 wet-nurses. As she stands there now under the 
 trees beating the clothes, there is poetry in her 
 every attitude. Rhythmically she sways and bends 
 as she swings the paddle, and all the while she 
 is moving through a mesh of woven light and 
 shadow. The Paramana, who is a veritable trea- 
 sure-house of rhymed proverbs,distichs, and folk- 
 songs, rocks the baby to and fro and sings the 
 ballad of the Chiote maiden. It is a foolish, in- 
 nocent thing, with a refrain in which a girl is 
 compared alternately to a lemon tree and a bitter 
 
 orange tree. 
 
 " Chiote maidens and priests' daughters were 
 washing their clothes down by the sea-shore. 
 And one was a little maiden in the bloom of 
 youth, like a lemon tree. And she washed her 
 clothes, and she spread them out to dry, and she 
 played in the sand this dewy lemon tree. And a 
 sail passed by, golden, beautiful. It gleamed in the 
 sun, and the oars gleamed. And Boreas blew, a 
 northwest wind and a north; and Boreas blew, 
 and it lifted up her skirt, and her ankle was seen, 
 
 181 
 
In And the sea gleamed, and the whole world was 
 
 Argolis bright,and the sea gleamed little maiden,dewy 
 little lemon tree!" 
 
 What nonsense that is to us! yet it might 
 bring tears to the eyes of a Greek woman in 
 exile. Poetry appeals to the emotions and the 
 imagination, not to the reason. It has to do with 
 the associations of words rather than with their 
 meaning. To the exile Greek, that foolish song 
 might call up a picture of a long sea-reach, of a 
 white village on the hillside, and of one little 
 cottage dearer than all. It might sound like an 
 echo of voices silent forever, and arouse memo- 
 ries of lost love and youthful fellowship. 
 
 The Greek women wash by the sea-shore, 
 when fresh water is not convenient, and spread 
 the clothes out upon the sand to dry. Often you 
 will see yards and yards of snowy fustanellas 
 unfolded upon the beach. Voluminous as the 
 skirts of the Greek gentleman appear to be, the 
 amount of material in them is always a revela- 
 tion when one aftually beholds it pulled out into 
 a long strip. A Greek can soil his fustanellas in 
 ten minutes; and it takes his wife the better part 
 of three days to wash, starch, and iron them. 
 
 182 
 
XXXV In 
 
 NAUSICAA passed here yesterday, seated Ar K olls 
 astride of a donkey. She was neatly dressed 
 in blue homespun, and her sister sat behind her, 
 directly over the animal's legs. Her mother, a 
 wholesome-looking peasant woman, was walk- 
 ing, and driving another donkey, laden with a 
 great mountain of soiled linen and other wearing 
 apparel. An enormous copper kettle, bound to 
 one side of the mountain, blazed intolerably ex- 
 cept for its blackened bottom. The little caravan 
 was on its way to Heftamyloi, or Seven Mills, to 
 do a washing that had been collecting during 
 no one knows how long. There are many 
 gushing springs at Heftamyloi, which is situated 
 high up in the hills. These springs furnish power 
 for several old-fashioned water-mills, where the 
 farmers take their grain to be ground. 
 
 Every man has moments when he is discon- 
 tented with his lot, when he dreams that he 
 would like to be something as widely different 
 as possible from what he is, an Arab sheik, 
 for instance, dwelling in a tent in the desert; a 
 South-Sea trader, captain of a pearling vessel; or 
 the Grand Llama of Llassa. When I have the 
 blues, I sometimes wish I were the Sultan of 
 
 183 
 
In Sulu; and at other times that I were one of those 
 
 Argolis millers up there in the mountains of Argolis. 
 The air they drink is champagne of a most divine 
 blending sea breeze and mountain breeze. The 
 waters sing to them and work for them, so that 
 they have nothing to do but sit in the shade of 
 the great platane trees and look down upon the 
 rest of the world. Silver-white olive orchards, 
 red ploughed fields, molten gleaming seas, pur- 
 ple islands, are all spread out below them like 
 a mighty panorama. The miller sees the ships, 
 their sails no bigger than pocket handkerchiefs, 
 come into the harbor; he watches them open 
 their wings and fly away, but he asks not whence 
 they come or whither they go. He is as indiffer- 
 ent to the cares of men as were the happy gods. 
 There is room in his soul for no other voice than 
 the eternal pouring of the waters and the purring 
 of the millstones. 
 
 To this beautiful spot the maidens of the 
 surrounding country bring the family washing 
 every month or so, an expedition that is often 
 more of a picnic than a hard day's work. I never 
 see a mountain of soiled clothing trotting by on 
 the four legs of a donkey, that I do not think 
 of Nausicaa. Change the donkey into, a lofty 
 184 
 
chariot drawn by mules, and the peasant woman In 
 into a princess and her beautiful attendants, and drgolis 
 there you are. 
 
 I could spare any passage of equal length out 
 of the poets not even excepting the Farewell 
 in Antigone, or the fragment Hyperion rather 
 than that Homeric dream of the Phasacian isles. 
 What a glorious old socialist Homer must have 
 been at heart, despite the fafit that he made his 
 living by singing of the prowess of the nobility. 
 Was ever labor more ingenuously and more 
 heartfully glorified than in that incident of Nau- 
 sicaa? In Homer's ideal community, the King's 
 daughter helps with the family washing, as a 
 matter of course ; and she rej oices in her task. And 
 labor goes hand in hand with play to such an ex- 
 tent that you hardly realize when the work ends 
 and the sport begins. For after those beautiful 
 girls had put the garments into the tubs and had 
 trodden them clear with their white feet, they 
 spread them out upon the shining sands to dry. 
 Then they disported in the river like nymphs, 
 and anointed their fair limbs with oil, and ate 
 their lunch with much chattering, no doubt, 
 and no end of silvery laughter. After which they 
 played at ball, and Nausicaa led them in song. In 
 
 185 
 
In mentioning that game of ball, old Homer does not 
 Argolis f a il to speak of the participants as "white-armed" 
 and that one adjective brings the whole grace- 
 ful, lovely, aesthetic, joyous tableau up before us: 
 the princess, most beautiful where all are fair, the 
 flying draperies, the lithe movements and uncon- 
 scious classic poses; the little river, the sea-shore, 
 and the sea. 
 
 Speaking of springs on the mountain-side, and 
 of rivulets that turn mill-wheels, reminds me 
 that water plays an important role in the thought 
 and the figurative language of modern Greece. 
 It is one of the symbols of hospitality. After you 
 have been in a Greek's house five minutes, some 
 member of the family invariably appears with 
 a glass of water and a jar of preserved orange 
 leaves, masticha, or small bitter lemons, of which 
 you are expe&ed to take a teaspoonful; or a glass 
 of water and a little pile of Turkish delight, in 
 white and pink cubes; or a glass of water and a 
 cup of Eastern coffee. In a dry tropic land, where 
 rain does not fall for six months in the year, 
 where there are few streams of any size and not 
 too many smaller ones, water becomes a highly 
 prized and beautiful thing. Beauty is, after all, 
 only the inherent power to excite desire desire 
 186 
 
to have, to seek, to taste. We cannot hang the In 
 moon up in our drawing-room, yet how could drgolis 
 we get along without not her light but the 
 sheer loveliness of her? 
 
 "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, 
 so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul 
 thirsteth for God! " cries the Psalmist, in a rap- 
 ture of religious exaltation. I suppose no man 
 can properly appreciate the beauty of that figure 
 who has not been real dry once, chasing a 
 mirage of lying palms over a desert, for instance, 
 or shipwrecked on a barren rock. Whenever a 
 Greek speaks of his native village (he always re- 
 fers to his native village or island as irarpiha /llov, 
 my native land), he never fails of enthusiasm 
 over the beautiful water such water as does not 
 exist elsewhere in the world, "elaphro^ conevtiko ! " 
 (light, digestive) ; and probably this water really 
 possesses some wonderful curative properties, 
 which accounts for the old age to which many 
 of the villagers attain. A man who has acquired 
 a competence " drinks his cold water at his ease," 
 and the Greek lover calls his sweetheart " cold 
 water " more often than any other term of endear- 
 ment, not because she is chilling in her demeanor, 
 but rather that she is a lovely and desirable thing, 
 
 187 
 
In a thing that one thirsts after, and dies if he 
 Argolis does not get. In the popular distichs, of which 
 the peasantry know a whole literature, some of 
 them nonsensical and others genuinely poetical, 
 water is not forgotten. Here is a rough transla- 
 tion of one: 
 
 My little angel, sugar sweet, angelic honey maiden, 
 Oh, sweeter than cold water is, that angels drink in Aiden ! 
 
 In my little poem u Aphroessa," that I wrote 
 down here one summer, con tante, tante amore, I 
 attempted to translate the Oriental figure into 
 English. The shepherd says to the Nereid: 
 
 11 Tou are more sweet, 
 Tea, more delicious than cold water is 
 Found suddenly by one who raves for drink 
 In desert sands. So do I long for you, 
 So do I look and thirst, but cannot drink" 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 OUR slumbers had been disturbed for several 
 nights by the sound of stealthy and muffled 
 singing proceeding from the depths of the lemon 
 orchard; and at last I mentioned the matter to 
 our neighbor, Kyrios Alexandros Douzinas, pro- 
 prietor of the adjoining estate. 
 188 
 
"Einai e dada soul"'' (It's your nurse) he ex- In 
 claimed immediately, and with conviction. Argolts 
 
 "Why, no," I replied; "that's impossible, as 
 it's a man's voice." 
 
 "You don't understand," said Kyrios Alex- 
 andras, much amused at my simplicity. "Some 
 one is courting your nurse. He stands among the 
 trees and sings or looks up at her window. If 
 she wishes to encourage him, she appears some- 
 where, probably on the balcony, and looks down 
 at him." 
 
 "And how long do they stand thus, gazing at 
 each other?" 
 
 " Oh, all night, if they're very much in love. 
 If she goes back into the house, he will begin 
 to sing again." 
 
 It seems that the whole neighborhood, for 
 miles around, had known of the affair for some 
 time, but had been governed, so far as we were 
 concerned, by the etiquette which holds in the 
 case of deceived husbands. Everybody finds out 
 what is going on, except the husband. Meetso 
 is Elene's lover, a wild, harum-scarum lad, who 
 earns his livelihood by taking care of a garden. 
 He gets drunk frequently, and rides a mule at 
 breakneck speed down the narrow lane that 
 
 189 
 
In skirts the back end of our enclosure. At such 
 
 Argolis times his yells would do credit to a cowboy gone 
 amuck, and the stones scatter from the feet of his 
 mount like grasshoppers scurrying out of danger. 
 He tells Elene, says Kyrios Douzinas, that he 
 goes on these sprees to forget his love for her; 
 and she believes him, though he has been a no- 
 torious bibber and good-for-naught for years. 
 
 I was angry at first that my rest should be 
 disturbed in this way, and started home with 
 the intention of making a row; but the romantic 
 elements of the situation soon presented them- 
 selves to me, and I saw that Meetso had some 
 right on his side. Moonlight, lemon trees, night- 
 ingales, the Mediterranean, two great brown 
 eyes shining down through half-closed shutters, 
 why, certainly. The fellow would have been 
 a veritable clod had he not risen to the occasion. 
 As it is, he has made himself obnoxious to me 
 by his fervid devotion to the three most romantic 
 things on earth: wine, woman, and song. And 
 I have sometimes fancied myself a poet! Why, 
 could I do my part as well as this young Romeo, 
 this Cyrano, is doing his, I should be able to 
 idealize the aftors in our balcony scene, and pro- 
 duce a dainty and ethereal comedy. But, alas! 
 190 
 
I shall probably tell the Kyria what I have In 
 heard, and she will speak to Elene about the Argolis 
 matter. The Kyria would gladly put an end to 
 the muffled serenading, as she has an idea that 
 it penetrates the Family's slumbers and causes 
 that all-important personage to toss in her sleep. 
 
 Meetso has quite a large repertory; and the 
 boy sings well, too, for a Greek. He gave us " The 
 Shepherd's Daughter" the other night, as I ex- 
 pected he would. Nobody can live in this coun- 
 try six months without knowing *H fioaKoirovXov 
 by heart. It is sung and recited continually in the 
 theatres, and every peasant knows it. 
 
 " J ong since I loved a charming girl, she was a shep- 
 -* ' herd's daughter. 
 
 Oh, love to me was very sad, 
 
 For I was but a tiny lad 
 
 Of ten when my heart sought her. 
 
 " We sat among the flowers one day, in sweet idyllic 
 fashion ; 
 ' Mary, my dear, I love you so ! 
 Mary,' said I, 'you ought to know 
 Vm dying of this passion V 
 
 " She hugged me close, and kissed my lips oh, first and 
 best of kisses ! 
 c Fie, fie, y she laughed, 'you are too small, 
 
 191 
 
In Tou cannot comprehend at all 
 
 Argolis Love's torments or its blisses V 
 
 " When I grew big y and sought her hearty 'twas lost to 
 me forever ; 
 She has forgotten me ere this, 
 But F 11 forget that honeyed kiss 
 Among the flowers never I ' ' 
 
 Meetso has wailed out his passion in enough 
 distichs, too, to fill a book, which must give 
 him great prestige in Elene's estimation, for 
 wide knowledge of popular rhymes is a much- 
 prized accomplishment. I understand now how 
 the legends of Troy may have been handed down 
 from generation to generation before writing was 
 invented. In the same manner the folk-poetry 
 of Greece is being transmitted to-day among 
 peasantry who can neither read nor write. I have 
 made a confidante of the Paramana, and she has 
 told me a large number of couplets, which are 
 sung in a high monotonous key, with, it seems to 
 me, the frequent chorus of "Agape mou-ou-ou!" 
 (my love). But that may be Meetso's special 
 touch. These couplets are almost untranslatable. 
 I have been turning a few of them into English 
 rhyme, but I know the Greek well enough to 
 see that there is no real connection between my 
 192 
 
verses and the Greek. A translation of a poem In 
 bears, at best, about the same relation to the drgolis 
 original that a poorly executed statue bears to a 
 beautiful woman with a soul in her. But here 
 they are: 
 
 " T sent unto your sleeping-room some basil sweet and ' 
 * tender ; 
 
 And when you cut and smell of it, oh, think upon the 
 sender I 
 
 " If I should die at last of 'love ,my grave with basil cover, 
 And may you water it sometimes with tears for your 
 poor lover! 
 
 " Is't not a thing that's quite unjust, and shameful past 
 all telling, 
 That with such lovely neighbors I in loneliness am 
 dwelling ? 
 
 " I would the sky were paper and that ink filled full the sea, 
 That I might tell you, darling, how dear you are to me ! 
 
 "Awake, arise! for Love goes by, he'll crown you as he 
 passes, 
 Because you are in all the world the loveliest of lasses. 
 
 " Oh, if you were the very queen, 'twould not add to your 
 graces, 
 Chief pride of all the neighborhood, queen flower of 
 lovely faces I 
 
 *93 
 
In c< The daughter of the queen herself somehow your beauty 
 
 Argolis misses, 
 
 Who, if you would, for priceless pearls could trade 
 your dewy kisses. 
 
 " Now tell me how it profits you to torture me thus vainly, 
 Oh, lay aside your cruelty and speak your feelings 
 plainly. 
 
 " Vll take two and forty rowers and a boat both strong 
 and light, 
 And with sixty pallikaria Vll steal you some fine night I " 
 
 Through Meetso's intervention in the affairs 
 of our family, I have learned much of love- 
 making in modern Greece. Favorite terms of 
 endearment, for instance, are "my life, my love, 
 my heart, my soul, my little bird." In the dance 
 songs, which are the real demotic songs, a maiden 
 is often compared to a lemon tree, and her favors 
 to lemons. One popular ballad, which Meetso 
 regaled us with the other evening, is antiphonal. 
 The swain demands a lemon from the tree, which 
 of course is the most beautiful one in the gar- 
 den, and the lady replies that the effendi (and I 
 greatly fear that an absent husband is meant) has 
 them all counted. Finally the lover becomes in- 
 dignant, and exclaims: "May you grow old and 
 194 
 
yellow, and may your leaves fall, and may you In 
 dry up you, who have caused me to wither, drgolis 
 who have lost my wits for love of you!" 
 
 Of course Elene could not betray herself by 
 singing the woman's part, so Meetso changed his 
 voice at that place and made a very good female 
 impersonator. If it wasn't for the Babycoula, I 
 could hold my wife back until I obtained Meetso's 
 entire repertory. By the way, this comparison of 
 a woman to a tree has an antique flavor. In the 
 modern song 'tis a lady's favors that grow high 
 up and are plucked with difficulty; in Sappho 
 'tis the sweet creature herself who is the fruit: 
 
 iC T ike the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost 
 *-* bough, 
 A-top on the topmost twig which the pluckers forgot, 
 
 somehow, 
 Forgot it not, nay, hut got it not, for none could get it 
 
 till now. 
 
 " Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is 
 found, 
 Which the passing feet of the shepherds forever tear 
 
 and wound, 
 Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground" 
 
 Whenever I read those two unapproachable 
 stanzas, I resolve never to translate another bit 
 
 l 9S 
 
In of verse. I imagine that the first thing Sappho 
 
 Argolis did w hen she met Rossetti in heaven was to shake 
 
 him by the hand and say: 
 
 "Thanks, brother; that's exactly the way I 
 
 should have written it, had English been my 
 
 medium." 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 THE bright colors are fast withering before 
 the fierce eye of June. It is all a memory 
 now : the carnival of flowers and perfumes, begin- 
 ning in February when the almond trees shake 
 out their white handkerchiefs and fling their con- 
 fetti of scented leaves to the breeze; the revel 
 of anemones, tilting their myriad cups on the 
 plain; the vast invasion of fierce poppies; the 
 plots of tiny wild flowers, spread here and there 
 like Persian rugs upon the vivid grass. But the 
 oleander is with us, in brilliant sporadic clumps 
 that remind me again and again of Moses and 
 his burning bush, or choking the deep ravines 
 with a tumbled flood of pink and white blos- 
 soms. Standing at a distance and looking up one 
 of these narrow defiles, it seems to be pouring 
 down a freshet of wine. 
 196 
 
There is an oleander bush at our back door, In 
 and a sea-anemone clinging to the pier by our drgolis 
 porch. It is the most brilliant crimson imagina- 
 ble, and spreads out into a tremulous flower-like 
 shape, whose beauty of color and symmetry would 
 put a rose to shame. And, most wonderful of all, 
 this sea-anemone is alive; for if you approach too 
 near it with stick or finger, it shrinks suddenly 
 into a crevice of rock and disappears. Belong- 
 ing almost to the lowest order of animals, often 
 spoken of as a connecting link between the ani- 
 mal and plant kingdoms, I cannot help think- 
 ing that this strange creature is more worthy of 
 God's grace than some men. Like many men, 
 it knows nothing save to feed and be afraid, it 
 is true; but then it feeds harmlessly, taking no 
 more than it needs, and it is beautiful. I won- 
 der if it has a soul? Many people believe that 
 plants have souls, and such would surely not 
 deny a future existence to my sea-anemone. In 
 ancient times, as Ovid and other truthful writers 
 tell us, nymphs and humans were changed into 
 trees. In later days, sorcerers metamorphosed 
 people into trees, that revealed their identity by 
 groans and even by spoken words. Dante's grew- 
 some imagination has seized upon this idea to 
 
 197 
 
In construct an uncanny grove, whose branches 
 
 Argolis bl e d when they were broken off by the unwit- 
 ting passer-by. There were souls in all such trees, 
 of course. 
 
 There are star-fish, too, in the shallow sea 
 that washes our little stretch of beach, as per- 
 fect in shape as though they had dropped down 
 from heaven and shied with a little quenching 
 hiss to the bottom. The Kyria discovered the 
 first one, and came running into my writing- 
 room in great excitement. 
 
 "Come down!" she cried; "I will show you 
 the strangest thing." 
 
 I went down and followed her, where she 
 went tiptoeing over the shining sands with out- 
 stretched arm and pointing finger. At last the 
 arm slowly descended and the finger pointed to 
 a spot in the sea where the waters were as shal- 
 low as the edge of a thin wedge. I looked and 
 looked. 
 
 "Well?" I said at last. 
 
 " It was a star-fish," said the Kyria; " the most 
 beautiful star-fish that ever was. If you only 
 would come quick when anybody tells you to ! 
 Where do you suppose he is now?" 
 
 A few days later I solved the mystery of the 
 198 
 
disappearance of the star-fish. It seems they are In 
 always disappearing, as nearly as I can find out drgolis 
 by close and repeated observation. There lay one 
 upon a bed of sand, a hitherward shape out of 
 all the infinite variety that holds the life of the 
 sea; and as I looked, he gradually sank into the 
 level sand, so insidiously that he seemed to fade 
 away rather than to dig downward. First he was 
 a high, then a low, relief; then a painting, then 
 an etching; and lastly, but a memory. How he 
 did it, the men who know such things will have 
 to explain. All I know is that if you watched 
 him closely the sand seemed to boil all around 
 his edges, and that he went down into it. To 
 one standing a little way off he appeared to fade 
 from the floor of the sea as the star from the sky 
 at early dawn. 
 
 There's another curious denizen of the waters 
 that ripple and plash invitingly about our bath- 
 house. Occasionally in the morning we find the 
 floor of the sea covered with creatures that look 
 exactly like detached links of Frankfurter sau- 
 sage, some straight, some bent more or less. 
 The fa6l that they never move except as the 
 waves drift them sluggishly to and fro enhances 
 the resemblance. I have occasionally trod on 
 
 199 
 
In one, with no injury to the marine sausage or 
 
 Argolis myself; from which I should infer that they 
 were harmless. 
 
 These creatures apparently have no organs of 
 any kind, of perception or feeling. Like Shake- 
 speare's man in the last stage, they are "sans 
 everything." Yet take one out of its natural ele- 
 ment and lay it on the shore, and it will begin to 
 roll slowly toward the sea. Is not this a sublime, 
 a beautiful thing, this yearning after the in- 
 finite by a poor blind deaf and dumb creature? 
 I 'm not going to look up my sea-sausage in the 
 books of the men who know things. I don't care 
 what his Latin name is, nor his moral character. 
 He is my brother. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 WHEN Elene comes down from the well 
 these days, with the two-handled water- 
 jar (diota) upon her shoulder, there is sure to be 
 a sprig of myrtle tucked into the mouth of the 
 jug. Myrtle is greatly admired in Greece, as is 
 also basil. If you give a sprig of the former to 
 a member of the opposite sex, it is the equiva- 
 lent of saying, " I have loved you a long time." 
 200 
 
To present anyone with a bunch of basil means, In 
 " I am glad to see you." It is hard to find a Greek Argolis 
 house without one or more basil pots in it, and 
 it is the invariable custom to break off a sprig 
 and hand it to each welcome guest. Maidens 
 usually keep pots of this bushy, thickly growing, 
 aromatic herb in their bedrooms, a faft which 
 brings home to us the sad old tale of Isabella 
 and her basil pot, made into such melting poesy 
 by Keats. There are some pretty verses in mod- 
 ern Greek by the well-known poet George 
 Paraschos. They begin: 
 
 " Since you have given pleasure to a certain charming 
 maiden, 
 
 Among all -plants I love the best your leaves with per- 
 fume laden. 
 
 I kiss her photograph ; and then, to show how much I 
 love you, 
 
 I hold you sacred as her breath, and yet I 'm jealous 
 of you I " 
 
 Elene has voluntarily assumed the duties of 
 water-carrier, because the funftion reminds her 
 of her childhood home in the little village of 
 Batse, Andros. All the water which that town 
 uses is brought by the women from a distant well. 
 Elene is quite carried away, too, at the sight of 
 
 20I 
 
In the women cutting the grain out in our orchard. 
 
 Argolis There they are in a row, bending and rising all 
 together, while with crooked sickles they reap 
 the yellow wheat. Clad in blue blouses, their 
 bodies bend lithely, and they work with a happy 
 will. They are in shadow, and yet a clear, lumi- 
 nous shadow, that gives a sort of half-tone effedt, 
 and makes their forms very distinct, like a 
 painting by Millet. 
 
 This is a primitive mode of reaping, you will 
 say, more fitting the days of Boaz than the twen- 
 tieth century. But have I not said that Greece 
 is in the "Unchangeable East"? If you ask a 
 Greek when he is going to Europe, he will im- 
 mediately bridle, and protest, "Why, we are in 
 Europe now." But when the natives are talking 
 with each other, they always speak of going " to 
 Europe." 
 
 We even antedate the invention of flails by 
 a couple of thousand years, more or less, in this 
 country. There is a threshing-place in my neigh- 
 bor's garden, down by the sea-shore, a great circle 
 trod in the ground by the hoofs of many horses. 
 The farmers from far and near bring their grain 
 there upon donkeys, so completely covered and 
 laden that one sees only strings of wheat-stacks 
 101 
 
sliding along down all the country lanes toward In 
 the threshing-places. The thresher hitches up Argolis 
 six or eight horses abreast, and he attaches the 
 numerous team by means of a long rope to a peg. 
 Then, with much shouting and cracking of a 
 long whip, he drives them furiously round and 
 round until they are wound up; after which he 
 unwinds them again. "Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the ox when he treadeth out the corn," said 
 Moses, three thousand five hundred years ago, 
 more or less; and I am glad to say that these 
 horses are never muzzled, and that they occa- 
 sionally succeed in taking a mouthful of toll. 
 
 The grain will be winnowed, later on, by 
 simply tossing it in the air and letting the wind 
 blow away the straw and chaff. And it will not 
 all of it be ground by our happy friend up at 
 Heftamyloi, on the side of the mountain, nor by 
 the dusty yokels who run the old-fashioned wind- 
 mills that one sees here and there on a breeze- 
 swept plain or on the summit of a hill, beckon- 
 ing with long arms; much of it will be made 
 into flour by women sitting squat in gardens or in 
 the shade of their houses, gossiping and grind- 
 ing. When the day of judgment comes, they will 
 be there, all over the Orient, just as they were 
 
 203 
 
In in the Saviour's time; "and one shall be taken 
 
 Argolis and the other left." 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 IT is August, and the early mornings are pink, 
 the noons white, the long afternoons yellow, 
 the evenings purple. De Cou is down here now, 
 Herbert De Cou, Master of Arts, big philologi- 
 cal star, authority on Herasum bronzes. He and 
 I arise before sun-up, while the pink in the east- 
 ern sky is indescribably faint and delicate. As we 
 run out on the plank bridge that leads to the little 
 bath-house, a grateful chill strikes through our 
 cotton night-clothes. We were half awake when 
 we arose; now we are two-thirds awake. We 
 plunge into the cool sea, and the process is com- 
 plete. 
 
 We always remain in the water until the sun 
 slides up behind the white town and pours our 
 little world full of glory. Even then, De Cou 
 doesn't come in, but remains far out for an hour 
 or more, treading water, enjoying himself like 
 a troglodyte of the Nile, blissfully oblivious of 
 the fat that his semi-bald head is crammed to 
 bursting with Hebrew, Sanscrit, Greek, Finnish, 
 204 
 
Icelandic, and Gothic. I stand upon the balcony In 
 and watch him. His body is invisible. The water drgolis 
 decapitates him just below the chin, and his head 
 at this distance looks exaftly like a melon, roll- 
 ing upon the gentle waves. After our swim, we 
 have coffee; and then Loukas rows us across to 
 the market. 
 
 We are Lordi over in Poros. We engage in 
 no visible toil, we live in a fifteen-dollar-a-month 
 house, and we seem to have plenty of money. 
 
 Yesterday, as I was stepping out upon the 
 wharf, a tall shepherd with a red handkerchief 
 tied about his head and a long crook in his hand, 
 came and asked me, " Where is the court house? " 
 I started to tell him, but ere I could finish the 
 sentence an officious Poriote ran up in great 
 excitement and pushed the shepherd away, ex- 
 claiming, "Aei/ eT^at Si 9 ipcoTTJfJLaTa- ehai evas 
 7r\ouo-io9." (He's not a man to be questioned. 
 He's a rich man!) I wish I could describe with 
 what unftion and how lingeringly my officious 
 friend dwelt on the ov of the "7r\ovcrios." 
 
 Alas, the canker in the bud! For us this sweet 
 sea, these tender skies, these purple mountains, 
 these flocks of blessed islands floating like swans 
 side by side, are the boundaries and adornments 
 
 205 
 
In of our refuge from the sordid world. Here money 
 Argolis is never mentioned, except for the brief moments 
 when we are paying the butcher and baker. We 
 feel that we are far away from the swarms of 
 gold-blighted humanity, who devote their God- 
 given intellects to the getting of lucre, mil- 
 lions and millions of people all thinking about 
 money, talking about money, dreaming about 
 money; slaving for it, starving their souls for it, 
 writing for it, lying for it, preaching for it! 
 
 But our haven exists only in our own minds, 
 after all. These people who live here, with the 
 everlasting benediftion of all this beauty on 
 their souls, worship mammon too. They think a 
 soiled and ragged ten-drachma note more beau- 
 tiful than a bunch of fresh violets. It was all re- 
 vealed to me by the adoration in my officious 
 friend's voice. "He isn't to be questioned. He's 
 a rich man!" 
 
 The Vasilika, or royal figs, have come in, and 
 we usually find a heaping plateful of them ready 
 for us when we get back to the house, brought 
 in by some bucolic friend. They are black, heavy 
 as lead, and have a sort of oily skin. Some of 
 them are overful of honey, and ooze their deli- 
 cious dew from tiny rifts. 
 206 
 
We "work" till twelve o'clock. The Kyria In 
 plans the Babycoula's future, I write, and De Cou ^rgolis 
 stuffs his head with more Hebrew, Albanian, 
 Persian, and Icelandic. Then comes breakfast, 
 and after breakfast the siesta. Delicious siesta! 
 Up to the time the cigarettes are lighted, and 
 while you are still sipping the Turkish coffee, 
 conversation is brisk enough. And nobody says, 
 "Well, I guess I'll go and take a nap." The 
 downy, fanning wing of sleep is not heard at all. 
 The first man to be overpowered rises and steals 
 away, no matter who is talking; or he himself 
 stops in the middle of a sentence, unable to go 
 on, utterly forgetful of its beginning or subje6t. 
 One by one they seek their dim chambers and 
 the soothing of the cool sheets. And the cicadas 
 sing in the olive trees. 
 
 About four o'clock we all come to life again, 
 and usually go sailing with Loukas. Dinner is 
 eaten on the balcony, with the whispering and 
 lapping of the waves for music. Our candle- 
 flame is protected from the wind by means of a 
 little glass globe, which is also a merciful pro- 
 vision, as it saves the lives of the dainty soft-eyed 
 creatures who people the vast night and flit in 
 to visit us. The heavens are spattered thick with 
 
 207 
 
In stars, and the lights of the little town yonder 
 
 Argolis begem the darkness like a cluster of stars drifted 
 seaward. Along the pier are a dozen or more 
 street lamps whose long reflections in the water 
 look to us like spiles of light set in a row. Some- 
 where in the darkness there is a sound of pad- 
 dles, and the voice of a homing fisherman, sing- 
 ing a love song. 
 
 T?vening star, thou bringest home 
 *-* All that morning scattered wide ; 
 'To the fold the cattle come, 
 Children seek the mother s side. 
 
 And thou bringest back again, 
 Through the starlight wan and dim, 
 With a song the fisher swain 
 Where his sweetheart waits for him. 
 
 When the moon rises, the little town steals 
 from the blackness, and stands out very distinft 
 against the hillside, whitish gray in color, the 
 very ghost of a town. Anon, music comes float- 
 ing across the sea, and we get into our boat again 
 to sail over and hear the marine band, for Poros 
 is a naval station. We do not land, but lie in the 
 stern, gently rocked by the waves. And when 
 we go back, there is a soft breeze, just strong 
 208 
 
enough to lift the three-cornered sail out ahead In 
 of the prow and to round it like the breast of drgolis 
 a dove. We are rippling over a mirror of pale 
 silver, between two heavens full of stars. When- 
 ever Loukas dips his oar in the water, the phos- 
 phorescence glows as though he had thrust it 
 into a bed of coals. For many minutes we were 
 wafted through the silent yet ecstatic beauty of 
 the night, hearing no sound save the whispering 
 of the waters about the prow, our souls steeped 
 in poetry. As we approach the pier we can see 
 Elene standing by a pillar, holding a lamp high 
 above her head and peering into the darkness. 
 
 XL 
 
 ALL the world went to the monastery of 
 \. the Zoodochos Pege, or the " Life-giving 
 Fount," yesterday; and we went too. We should 
 have known that a festival was in progress, had 
 we not been already apprised of the faft, by the 
 boat-loads of furniture that went by the house 
 in the early morning, and even the night be- 
 fore. We took a long-boat the Kyria, myself, 
 the Family, and the servants with four bare- 
 legged rowers, who rose from the seat at each 
 
 209 
 
In dip of the oar, and threw the entire weight of 
 
 Argolis their bodies into the stroke. We skirted the town 
 as the people in a stage-boat slide by the houses 
 painted on the scenery. Through the narrow 
 mouth of the harbor we passed, and then we felt 
 beneath us the long strong stride of the open 
 sea. At our right was Leondari, an island that 
 looks precisely like a crouching lion; and at the 
 left, a little fleck of white in a crevice of the 
 pine-clad hills, is the ancient monastery. 
 
 As we approach the pier, we can see the bot- 
 tom of the ocean lifting slowly toward us, its 
 clear depths studded with waving branches of 
 sponge, with coral and rocks through which the 
 swirling waters have washed many an arch and 
 fantastic passageway. Up the dusty winding road 
 we climb, with the mountain rising like a wall 
 on one side, and the olive orchard of the monks 
 below us on the other. As we reach the little pla- 
 teau whereon the buildings stand, we see old bro- 
 ther Andreas sitting in the sun, clad in a rough 
 cassock of coarse woollen homespun, belted with 
 a dangling rope. He is considerably over a hun- 
 dred years of age, and he came here to live when 
 he was a boy. In his younger days, when the 
 monastery was rich in roaming flocks, this good 
 
 2IO 
 
brother's work was to tend sheep; and he still In 
 carries his crook. There it is, lying by his side. Argolis 
 His mind is almost a blank now, and there is 
 not much strength left in his body; yet he still 
 lingers on, in perfeft health and free from pain. 
 There is no chance for him to get sick here, 
 among the pines and at the lips of the sea; his vi- 
 tality has never been undermined by the canker 
 of ambition, or the haunting fear that his loved 
 ones might suffer privations of bread or of opera- 
 cloaks. In the old natural days, when men lived 
 in the open and killed game with clubs, the 
 superannuated were apt to linger on beyond all 
 reason, and until patience was exhausted. Un- 
 less they were knocked in the head when they 
 had carried the thing to extremes, there was no 
 good reason why they should ever die. There 
 were no draughty houses to kill them off, no bad 
 plumbing or whiskey, no tobacco, no bad busi- 
 ness years, no sentimental love. The monks of 
 Zoodochos Pege cannot give Father Andreas his 
 quietus; so the life must die out of him as the 
 flame from a lamp whose oil is exhausted, drop 
 by drop. 
 
 There is a two-story porch shading the cells 
 of this monastery, which all open upon the 
 
 211 
 
In court. You can see the monks in their long black 
 
 Argolis cassocks walking to and fro there any day; but, 
 alas! they are well-fed and portly gentlemen, 
 with crossed wrists reposing upon convenient 
 paunches. No pale scholar paces up and down, 
 with eager eyes burning into a book. 
 
 The monks' kitchen is a Homeric affair, their 
 cooking-range being a great cube of masonry on 
 the top of which a fire is built for roasting meats 
 and boiling the kettle that is hung upon a crane. 
 The smoke, when it rises, escapes through a hole 
 in the roof. 
 
 There is a deep ravine, ablaze with oleanders, 
 in front of the monastery, and on the other side 
 of it is the tiny plateau where the festival is held. 
 There, too, is the rock from which flows the 
 spring of cold water supposed to possess miracu- 
 lous powers of healing. Two great platane trees 
 shade the spot; steep mountains bristling with 
 pines rise all around it; and a tiny mirror of sea, 
 dazzlingly bright, gleams in the distance. 
 
 The festival was in full swing when we arrived, 
 Elene proudly carrying the Family, while Katina 
 and Loukas bore the hamper between them "in 
 the fear of God." 
 
 At little booths, men were selling resin wine, 
 
 212 
 
pieces of roast pig and of lamb a la pallikari^ In 
 cantaloupes, kourabiedhes (kite -shaped cakes Argolis 
 made very "short" with butter), and cups of 
 Turkish coffee; and all the afternoon we ate, 
 talked, sang, and danced. Some of us went over 
 to the monastery and listened to a liturgy, and 
 all of us sooner or later lighted a candle. 
 
 We ate prodigiously of young lamb, and we 
 attacked huge piles of salad Italian lettuce, 
 cucumbers, garlic with an avidity that might 
 make the ghost of Nebuchadnezzar envious. We 
 talked like children, with all their youthful volu- 
 bility and enthusiasm; and we drank the pure 
 genial wine till it set our hearts aglow. And we 
 danced all in a line, each taking hold of the 
 handkerchief and doing his stint with his lady's 
 eye upon him. How the leader leapt in the air 
 and whirled about, diving under his arm and the 
 handkerchief! What extraordinary steps he exe- 
 cuted, and how his face glowed at the bravos and 
 handslappings! The lad who made our music, 
 playing upon some sort of scrannel pipe of but 
 two or three stops, was fairly translated by the 
 frenzy of his genius. He puffed out his cheeks 
 till he seemed one of the Winds on an old relief; 
 he bent double, he straightened himself, he rose 
 
 213 
 
In tiptoe after the thin notes. And we sang, too, in 
 
 Argolis tune to the pipe, several of those songs which 
 
 custom licenses in connexion with the dance, 
 
 but which are a trifle indecorous under other 
 
 circumstances. 
 
 Not so very far from here, on this same island, 
 is the spot where the great Demosthenes died 
 by poison, self-administered. On a small plateau 
 that overlooks a tiny bay and the broad water- 
 way from Athens, sprinkled thick with islands, 
 are the ruins of Poseidon's temple. From that 
 eminence he could see the sails of his pursuers 
 approaching. By committing suicide he escaped 
 a disgraceful death, for failure is disgrace, and 
 success glory, according to the standards of this 
 world. Archaeologists love to speculate as to the 
 very spot where the orator lay as he gazed with 
 dimming eyes upon a world where it seemed 
 to him that liberty had failed forever. How it 
 would have comforted him could he but have 
 known that no honest blow for freedom ever 
 fails, and that his own Philippics are crying 
 "Beware!" adown the centuries. 
 
 We sailed home over the wide and affluent 
 sea with a following wind. We were racing with 
 another boat, that balanced one moment on the 
 214 
 
top of a wave and disappeared the next, leaving In 
 only the mast visible, with its white sail, as drgolis 
 though it had been stuck in the sand. 
 
 XLI 
 
 PURE wine is genial in its effefts. It pro- 
 motes the flow of wit, it makes good-fellow- 
 ship possible even between the wise and the fool- 
 ish, it draws the sting of the bore, it strengthens 
 faith and hope and charity, and is thereby an 
 ally of true religion. Moreover, it does not un- 
 joint the sutures of the cranium the next morn- 
 ing; neither does it leave the nerves in the con- 
 dition of white-hot wires. The Greeks have not 
 yet learned to adulterate their wines, and there 
 is less intoxication in this country than in pro- 
 hibition Kansas, oh, a great deal less. There 
 was a time when Greek vintages were famous 
 throughout the bibbing world, as are those of 
 France to-day; and that time is coming back 
 again, for the same grapes are still Warmed by the 
 same sun, and their blood is just as delicious as 
 it ever was. All the Greek wines need is proper 
 exploitation; and that they are beginning to get 
 at the hands of the Germans and of the natives 
 
 215 
 
In of the country themselves. An Irishman, lately 
 Argolis deceased, made a fortune out of vineyards in 
 Kephallenia, and the "Oinoi Tool" shade of 
 John Keats! are famous in Greece. Fancy 
 Ganymede offering Aphrodite a beaker of Tool 
 wine ! In Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, excellent 
 wines are made, much lighter than the black, 
 sweet sort which the wily wanderer took with 
 him when he went to the land of the Cyclops 
 "pleasant, pure, a divine drink, that gave out 
 an agreeable odor when poured into the cup." 
 (Odyssey, ix. 248.) Odysseus, when he went on 
 shore, took a goat-skin of it, a sort of receptacle 
 that is common in Greece to-day. In the vintage 
 season one can see long strings of carts driven 
 into Athens, laden with skins bulging with un- 
 fermented wine. It was such a skin as this that 
 Don Quixote, in a valiant moment, rove to the 
 chine. 
 
 They were good honest drinkers in the ancient 
 days, judging from the size of Nestor's loving- 
 cup: 
 
 "Scarce might another move it from the board 
 When full: but aged Nestor raised with ease. 
 In this, their goddess-like attendant first 
 A generous measure mixed of Pramnian wine" 
 216 
 
But oh, how tastes change in the long lapse of In 
 ages! For listen to this: Argolis 
 
 " 'Then with a brazen grater shredded o'er 
 The goafs-milk cheese^ and whitest barley meal. 
 And of the draught compounded bade them drink" 
 
 What sort of a conco<5tion was that? Aris- 
 tophanes says that the Athenians disliked the 
 harsh Pramnian wine which shrivelled the fea- 
 tures and obstructed the digestive organs. We 
 may take for granted that the Attic palate had 
 also outgrown the taste for grated goat's-milk 
 cheese and barley meal. The Greeks still mix 
 water with their wine, as they did in ancient 
 days; and some of the brands, notoriously that 
 of Solon, smell as though they were faintly per- 
 fumed. The wines of Greece were extensively 
 used in England in Plantagenet times, and King 
 James used to get disgustingly drunk on them. 
 Malmsey was a famous wine in mediaeval times. 
 The Italians characterized it as "manna to the 
 mouth and balsam to the brain." It was two- 
 pence a quart in England in the year in which 
 Columbus discovered America, cheap enough 
 to drown a man in, if he were a prince. 
 
 2 Murd. Look behind you, my lord. 
 
 217 
 
In i Murd. fake that, and that ; if all this will not do 
 
 Argolis (stabs him), / HI drown you in the Malmsey-butt within. 
 (Exit with the body.) 
 
 Malmsey was made by Cretan priests. At the 
 present day the King of Greece encourages the 
 wine industry, and his Chateau Decelie, made 
 from his vineyards at Dekeleia, where the Spar- 
 tans once lay in camp and whence they harassed 
 the Attic plain, is an excellent table beverage, 
 much esteemed in England. The red Decelie is 
 a pure claret; the white resembles an excellent 
 brand of Rhine wine, only much smoother. 
 Chateau La Tour, another delicious Greek table 
 wine, is a specialty of the Grand Hotel in Paris. 
 Among the dessert wines of Greece, the most 
 famous are Samos and Mavrodaphne. The latter 
 is a very sweet, heavy drink, well known in Ger- 
 many and America. It is possible that alcohol is 
 added to it before it is put in bottles for expor- 
 tation. At any rate, this wine is more responsible 
 than any other for the general impression that 
 the produfts of the Greek vineyards are heady 
 and intoxicating. Samos wine is chiefly famous 
 through the splendid lines written on it by Lord 
 Byron, in his poem on "The Isles of Greece": 
 
 218 
 
"Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! In 
 
 On Sulis rock and Parga's shore A r go lis 
 
 Exists the remnant of a line 
 
 Such as the Doric mothers bore; 
 
 And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, 
 
 The Heracleidon blood might own. 91 
 
 This is true especially with reference to the 
 Suliote women, who have a way of blowing 
 themselves up, or leaping, singing, from preci- 
 pices, when hard pressed. But it is doubtful if 
 any of these ever drew courage from bowls of 
 Samian wine. 
 
 Retsinato is the real vin ordinaire of the Greeks. 
 It is straw-colored or amber-colored, and is fla- 
 vored with resin, to obtain which the pine trees 
 are tapped, very much as we tap sugar-maple 
 trees in America. Retsinato is generally disgust- 
 ing to foreigners, but is greatly enjoyed by those 
 who have acquired the taste for it. After all, 
 when properly prepared it is no more bitter than 
 beer. Most Greek scholars and archaeologists 
 pretend that they like it, for it is believed that 
 the ancients flavored their wine with resin. 
 
 219 
 
In XLII 
 
 Argolis rpHE "iEgina" comes in at sunset. She is the 
 A little tramp steamer which plies between 
 Athens and Poros. Every morning she leaves 
 before sunrise, and her return is one of the mo- 
 mentous happenings of the Poriote's day. When 
 the yellow afternoon is drawing to a close, and 
 the hotel-keeper begins to take down the awn- 
 ing from over his tables, then the little boats put 
 out from the pier. The old men, too, leave their 
 dominoes and narghikdhes^ and come out from 
 the cafe to look up the strait, shading their eyes 
 with trembling hands. 
 
 Where the steamer emerges, a tongue of land 
 overlaps the mouth of the narrow waterway, 
 covering it completely and giving the appear- 
 ance of an unbroken mountain wall. The first 
 herald, therefore, of the steamer's approach is a 
 slender plume of smoke, tiptoeing toward us 
 over the distant hill-tops. Some keen-eyed boot- 
 black is sure to see it first, and he swings his box 
 as though it were a sling, and yells: "iEgina! 
 iEgina!" The vessel steals mysteriously into 
 sight, like a pifture thrown upon a screen. You 
 cannot see her debouch, yet as you stand strain- 
 ing your eyes you become aware all at once of 
 110 
 
a shadowy objeft, shaped like a ship, painted In 
 against the heathery gray background of the drgolis 
 hills. As she nears home, the little row-boats 
 huddle about her like a flock of children cling- 
 ing to their mother's skirts. 
 
 I do not know what the people of Poros would 
 do for excitement were it not for the "iEgina." 
 There is always the possibility that the grocer 
 or the shoemaker or the priest may get a letter, 
 that some stranger may come down to spend a 
 few days, or that the captain may have heard 
 some news. 
 
 On one memorable occasion, an upright piano 
 arrived, ordered by the young doftor, who had 
 just married fifty thousand drachmas. 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" cried some one; 
 and a crowd began to gather, each man demand- 
 ing of his neighbor, "What is it? Whose is it?" 
 At last some travelled person pronounced it a 
 " kleidhokymballon" which is the Greek word for 
 piano; and then the inquiries were reduced to, 
 "Whose is it?" 
 
 As the row-boat containing it approached the 
 wharf, the doftor stepped majestically down and 
 began to give orders: 
 
 "Hey there, stupid! don't scratch it! you, 
 
 221 
 
In Yanne, hold tighter to your end." 
 
 Argolis He was immediately surrounded by a throng. 
 "Is it yours?" "Why didn't you tell us?" 
 
 "Bah!" replied the do&or. "Is a little thing 
 like this to be spoken of? Does a gentleman have 
 the town crier announce it, every time he buys 
 a kleidhokymballon?" 
 
 That was the supreme triumph of his life. 
 The sun sets behind the "Sleeping Woman," 
 as we call a mountain mass, visible from our front 
 balcony, which looks weirdly like a great giant- 
 ess, asleep upon her back, with her knees drawn 
 up. Wonderfully noble and classic are thefeatures, 
 serene unto death, and yet with the intelligence 
 of life. We think of her as one who shall awaken 
 when the world is old, who went to sleep when the 
 dead gods were young. Through the dynasties of 
 Egypt she slumbered, through the snow-flake 
 years of Mycenas, Athens, and Rome, through 
 the mushroom growth and decay of Venice and 
 the Eastern Empire. She will be sleeping still 
 when Paris is a desolate marsh, and when Chinese 
 is spoken in Berlin. She will awake one day in the 
 darkness of the dead world, perhaps, and call for 
 Saturn and the Titans. But their names will have 
 been forgotten for a million years. 
 111 
 
As the sun stands upon Ortholithi, one of the In 
 peaks that compose this giant image, the sea drgolis 
 glows a blood red, and the windows in the white 
 town of Poros blaze as though the houses were 
 afire inside, or as though the doors of a hundred 
 furnaces had been thrown open. When the orb 
 slides behind the mountain, the fires go out all 
 together; the furnace doors are closed; the sea 
 becomes quicksilver, and the houses turn ashen 
 gray. But what a sublime glow illumines the face 
 of the " Sleeping Woman," as she lies there with 
 her head pillowed in the sunset! Right there, 
 where the sun is going down, was lighted the last 
 of the series of signal fires announcing the fall 
 of Troy the beacon which the watchman in 
 the "Agamemnon " sees, reclining on his elbows 
 on the roofs of the Atreidas, contemplating the 
 chorus of the stars; Ida, the Hermaeon promon- 
 tory of Lemnos; Athos, the watch-towers of 
 Macistus, of Messapios; the crag of Cithasron; 
 Mount /Egiplanctus; and from thence it passed 
 on, a mighty beard of flame, beyond the headland 
 that overlooks the Saronic estuary, and darted 
 down upon the Arachnaean height. 
 
 These are our last moments in Poros, and we 
 are looking at the little white town, the sea, and 
 
 223 
 
In the purple mountains, with moist eyes. Elene 
 
 Argolis an( j Maria are two tearful Niobes. They cannot 
 bear the idea of living the rest of their lives 
 without the Babycoula, the Kyria, and the Ef- 
 fendi. Katina, who is coming with us, is weep- 
 ing just as fluently at the prospeft of leaving her 
 native land. It is Katina's final decision to cross 
 the seas with us which has started us off. We 
 are entirely at her mercy, for the Babycoula de- 
 pends on her for the very breath of life. Yester- 
 day we packed up everything, and Loukas rowed 
 our belongings out to the "iEgina." The kindly 
 villagers have come down to the breakwater, 
 where we are taking our early coffee, to see us 
 off. Here is the Demarch, or Mayor, big and 
 florid, in snowy fustanellas; Alecko, our neigh- 
 bor, pressing my hand again and again, and ask- 
 ing me if I am not his brother; the doftor, in 
 latest European dress, saying cheerfully that we 
 shall meet at the Paris Exposition; old Mr. 
 Douzinas, reminding me that I promised to send 
 him some fly-paper and sweet-corn seeds from 
 America. And I cannot help glancing across the 
 strait, at our house in the lemon grove, deserted 
 but half an hour ago, yet as hopelessly sad as a 
 body which the soul has but just left. Oh, these 
 224 
 
HIS HONOR THE DEMARCH 
 
f e c c f c 
 
violent uprootings, what a wrench they give! In 
 And to think that the Babycoula, whose image ^rgolis 
 will always loom in the foreground of our beau- 
 tiful summer here, is not troubled by a single 
 misgiving or regret. She doesn't know whether 
 she is going to Stamboul, Pago-Pago, or Chicago ; 
 and she doesn't care. But there's the last call of 
 the whistle, we must go on board. "Addio, Kyr' 
 Demarche! Addio, Brother Alecko! Addio^ Iatre! 
 Addio, Cherite!" 
 
 They are pulling up the anchor. It is hard to 
 realize that we are not j ust running up to Athens, 
 to return in a few days. We have so loved this 
 place, its every feature has become so familiar 
 to us! We have dreamed such dreams here, the 
 Kyria and I, shall we not dream bravely to the 
 last? So I put my arm around her and whisper, 
 " We will make a lot of money and come back 
 here and stay as long as we please. We'll bring 
 the Babycoula back, and show her the place, 
 when she gets big." The Kyria smiles up bravely 
 at me. She's an excellent fellow-dreamer; in her 
 heart of hearts she knows I 'm no money-maker. 
 Besides, my soul has somehow fitted this place. 
 I have had everything I wanted here, the 
 beauty of the sea, the sublimity of the mountains, 
 
 225 
 
In the processions of the stars, love of wife, the 
 
 Argolis laughter of a babe, and yet I have not been 
 crying feebly to the titanic stretches of the earth 
 and the universe. The mountains have closed 
 around me in a loving circle, and my metropolis 
 has been a little town of simple folk. We are pass- 
 ing the house now, and the lemon grove our 
 lemon grove. I know what the Kyria is thinking 
 of, and she knows what is passing in my mind. 
 We will stand and watch that little house until 
 our ship passes through the narrow channel, 
 and the scene of the happiest summer of our lives 
 is shut out as though a curtain had been dropped 
 before it. 
 
 THE END 
 
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