The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1901-01-05

have you in their power; for very rev 60
round to the Piraeus, a distance almost
as much further as that from Brindisi,
while the time required on the scarcely
psrcep.ibly moving express trains to
Athens Is only eight or nine hours. AL
though there is said to be no Cook agent
. at Petras, Cook is greatly IL evidence,
ostensibly to protect you from the willy
Greek; tut as in all Eastern countries,
you have TO protect yourself much more
from Cook than you do from the people
themselves, so that you are often glad to
call the natives In as umpire, since the
so-nalled Cook agent means to absorb
every body. Accordingly yon are taken
bodily and landed by Cooks boatmen on
his own terms and after going though
with perfunctory examination at the
custom houGe you are at last glad to lind
yourself seated on the Corinth-Athens
train.
Petras lie the connecting point between
the Ionian Sea and the route to Corinth,
! and Athens, and such a dividing line as
you would be glad to reckon among the
missing links of the evolution system for
the city is wholly uninteresting, with Its
great, bare houses, which, unlike the rest
of Greece, are built IN high, overlooking
the harbor and you have a strange, weird,
| long forgotten feeling which is not exactly
like that arout anything else-the sensa-
tion OF finding yourself in land across
the waters which you have never bsfore
visited, and among people entirely
strange to you, in habits, customs and
speech. But things would soon straighten
cut except for the language. Here for
the first time In your life you are like
| deaf ard dumb man for no matter how
much ancient Greek you can read, or how
many words OF conversational modern
Greek you have learned, you might as
we'll undertake to speak in Chinese or
Choctaw since II you give the slightest
mispronuncistion or wrong accent, it is
not recognized by this natives as their
own language, and since the Greeks are
accustomed to seeing comparatively few
strangers they are not quick at catching
sounds, Fanu you have to depend largely
upon signs for they understand little
French, less German, few words CT
Italian and no English.
After the train starts you soon get ao-
oustomed to the strange, weird faces peer
ing out OF the third GLASS compartments,
and you begin to notice directly some
curious looking individuals with full
white skirts not unlike those worn by
ballet dancers. These are set on by long
white stockings under high boots or very
pointed slippers, tipped with tAsseis at
the toes. The costume is completed by a
kind OF Elton jacket or a looss coat over
white, full-sleeved blouse. This queer
specimen stands around at all the sta
lions, and is also seen on the country
roads, where yuu are inclined to take
him for q brigand, though that class In
Greece is now extinct, except in the very
northern section near Mount Olympus.
These fantastic creatures proved TO be
Albanian men, whom the descendants OF
the Doric Greek stock hold in great oon-
tempt and do not often allow them to In
tsrmarry with their families. But you
soon forget all the commonplace features
of the Journey In gazing at the Gulf Of
Corinth, along which the route runs.
This is beautiful shest of water of deep
blue color, and occasionally sail Is seen
In The distance. On the Peloponnesiar
side the country in many places seems
composed OF sand mountains, the dust
from which is tsrribie In dry seasons. Al
first ths country il monotonous, but soor
the mountains payond stretch down q
ths ses, the Aetollan group first APPEAR