The Indianapolis journal., 1902-07-20

over and forever gone, If this were not
emphatically banknote world, they would
still be masters Of the world, for below all
the thin veneer of modern artiflciality there
still lies unquenched that fervent love of
country so dear to each Greek heart. Moth
ing can ever wean the Greek from his
country. He may take up his abode in for
eign cities for the commercial advantages
to be gained therefrom, but, as a rule, for
eign travel does not lessen his attachment
TO his native land, and the temperance of
the Grecian cliffs is blssful a view to
him as il was TO the wandering Telem-
achus. Even those who do not return 10
Greece-their interests and associations be-
ing bound up in the foreign land where
they have reared their families and
cumulated their fortunes-do not forget
her No people are more sensitive of the
national honor and shame than the cult-
waited Greeks of Athens; they never cease
to bemoan the condition of things that has
brought their kingdom TO its present low
state but they likewise seem incapable of
rising above the inertia which time has
fastened upon them and to suggest or
adopt some measures that will defect the
tide of adversity that is slowly overtahng
them.
THE VILLAGE LIFE.
The most delightful of Athenian days,
however. are those when one takes a car
riage and drives into the country. The
horses are harnessed in the Grecian fashion,
with jangling bells and streaming ribbons;
the brigandish-looking driver sits erect
upon the box. his gaudy turban a-tilt, not
a crease in his short Spartan Jacket over
the hard, tree-lined road the tough little
beasts scamper and you lean back against
the cushion, smoke a cigarette. and absorb
some of the lazy Incidence of the country.
while the quaint PASTORAL diorama sweeps
before your eyes in one long, never-ending
bizarre canvas. II would be impossible to
imagine a more restful or pleasant picture,
the beautiful country swarming with life
and movement, few hazy vapors hardly
worthy the dignity of clouds, resting upon
the extremes of the landscape, and through
their medium the sun cutting an oblique
and dewy ray. toning down and covering
with a dreamy veil of gauze the vari-
colored crazy quilt of nature.
The quaint villages have a single street
the houses each a single story. Women are
washing in the streams. strings of meek
hammered donkeys come and go, the bells
around their necks reverberating through
the hills in a constant diapason; goats.
pigs, gypsy girls dancing by the wayside,
soldiers, beggars, a hoary-headed patriarch
doing in the sun; beyond it all, 10 COM
piete the picture, lie the green rolling hills
tufted with brown olive trees, and the
majestic ruins of the immortal gods out
lined against the blue sky in solemn array
as If asserting the rights of the ancient
civilization for which they stand over the
frivolity of modern life. And as one tolls
back at sunset ever and anon the eye rests
on merry groups of peasants returning TO
their simple homes; sturdy, stout-limbed,
bare-chested and laughing-eyed gods and
goddesses of the present. singing they
go and calling to each other from over the
hills. while the women are milking goats
before the wickets of their cottages and
preparing their simple country fare.
And as one closes the mind to matter
of-fact shortcomings, and from her noun
tain heights views Athens nesting in her
green bed, like some precious cameo
dimpled in sheeny vapor of emerald hue,
one feels that in spite of the blighting hand
of time that the dreamy old city is not un-
worthy of the language of Milton:
ION the Aegean shore d city stands,
Built noby. pure and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece"
WILLIAM JAMESON REID.