army in France. Several had been wounded defending Old Glory.

That our present civilization is Western instead of Eastern we are indebted to the forefathers of these Greek citizens, who in turn now help us to maintain what we all hold dear.

I had read so much of Athens, could it be possible that I should see it on the morrow? Like a child on Christmas Eve, I could scarcely sleep that night. Indeed, my Greek friends did not retire at all, but kept vigil and conversation on deck under my port hole, much to our annoyance.

Into the Phaleron Bay we glided next morn. How calm and sweet the glorious scene appeared! I devoured the harbor with one glance; I was searching for the Acropolis; to me nothing else counted. Just then, suddenly, it swung into view like crystallized music suspended in the air and changed into stone. Miles away in the golden morning light the majestic Acropolis with the Parthenon, throned and sceptered, did not sit in ruins. But mellowed by the soft haze, and veiled by the slight silver mist, only the ancient glory was disclosed. For once I became a Greek sailor, homeward bound, and yonder all that I loved beckoned me.

We hurriedly disembarked at Piræus, the harbor of Athens, and in American autos are driven through the five miles to Athens proper. As one in a dream I am carried through the causeway where Pericles had the "wooden walls" extended all the distance from Athens to the sea. Remnants of those old walls are visible here and there. What a blending of old and new is seen in Piræus, as shop signs are printed sometimes half Eng

lish and half Greek. Down this very thoroughfare walked Socrates and Pericles and Xenophon and Plato and Demosthenes and Phidias. As if to awaken me from my reverie, tinkle, tinkle comes a line of loaded camels, each one tied to the preceding and all having little bells. The men who drive the camels and the donkeys are but poor specimens of the Greeks of classic days. Yonder, too, in the little shops that line the sides of the causeway, the keepers are but shadows of the great ones of other days. Were the immortal ten thousand that followed Xenophon through the labyrinthine perils of Persia, the first militant democracy that fought and sang and voted itself through the country of an enemy a thousand-fold more numerous than themselves-were they like these you and I see in the shops here in Greece to-day? No; these are more nearly like the ones who stayed at home and envied the others who, battle-scarred but triumphant, came back to Athens with the world in their hands! We behold the children of those who cared not that Socrates perished; that Pericles was sleepless through many nights for them; that Aristides was banished through envy as being too just; that Phidias shivered with cold through the long nights, wrapping his coat about his priceless clay! It was nothing to their fathers, "finished and finite clods untroubled by a spark," that the finer specimens of their race were pinched off by frosty fate, while they and their coarser breed endured. So here they are to this day. Now we enter Athens! Having only seven thousand inhabitants in 1872 when she gained her independence from Turkey, now she is a throbbing mighty city of half a million.

A

III

ATHENS AND HER HILLS OF GLORY

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!

Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!

-Byron.

RRIVED in Athens proper, we whirl through the streets, around sweeping circular driveways, through graceful and imposing arches, past public buildings, fountains, parks, and dramatic ruins throbbing with historic interest-for we cannot stop until we have visited first the Acropolis.

At length it bursts upon my ravished sight! I am the watcher of the skies into whose ken it swims like a new planet, to use Keats's figure. Before me and above is the queenly citadel of art and beauty weeping over her glorious past. No guide is needed to tell me that the majestic, many-pillared temple on yon summit is the Parthenon. Though in ruins-merely a skeleton-yet her spirit still survives and beckons me to her! Yonder, too, is Mars Hill, where Paul preached, and opposite is the Pnyx, where Demosthenes thundered against King Philip. Flanking all are Mount Hymettus, whose mellow honey sweetened ever the bitter Greek roots of my boyhood studies, and Mount Pentelicus, the sleeping Adam whose marble ribs yielded the matchless Eve that from her Acropoline throne has swayed the ages.

Pausing at the base of the Acropolis, we first inspect the temple of Theseus, whose battered and decaying

frame nestles beneath the very shadow of the sacred hill. This noble temple celebrated the mighty victories of Theseus, the legendary hero who killed the monster (Minotaur) that was devouring the fairest youth of Greece. Grateful Athens chiseled Theseus's deeds in unrivaled fresco and frieze and worshiped him in this temple. This building, were it not so close to the Acropolis, would stand out as a marvel of simplicity and grandeur itself. As it is, however, it must suffer in comparison with the peerless glories of the citadel.

THE MATCHLESS ACROPOLIS

The Acropolis rises abruptly about two hundred feet above the level upon which the present city of Athens stands. Originally this height was the impregnable fortress and refuge in time of war. About 500 B.C. it became the site of the glorious temples and statues whose relics make it still the mecca of all lovers of beauty or art. Up the western slope we climb the long winding flight of marble steps and approach the magnificently pillared gateway called the Propylæa. This gorgeous vestibule cost more than two million dollars. Demosthenes, standing on his bema on the lower adjacent Pnyx and pointing toward the Acropolis, said, "Yon Propylæa" and Cicero refers to it as “prophylaea nobilia." The Propylæa is a many-paneled, perfectly-balanced building with five huge doorways leading into the paradise within. Both Doric and Ionic pillars blend without confusion in the alcoves and wings. Such an imposing entrance must have made a powerful impression upon every visitor and worshiper of the halcyon days. On the right of

the Propylæa, on a bastion overlooking the sea, stands the beautiful Pentelic marble temple of "Wingless Victory." From this high pinnacle Ægeus, father of Theseus, leaped into the sea when he saw his son's ship returning with black sails from Crete and the battle with the Minotaur. In the joy of victory Theseus forgot to use white sails, as prearranged with his father; the latter, naturally supposing his son to be dead, refused to live any longer.

Inside the little temple stood the statue of Victory, originally with wings outspread. But an oracle said that Victory with wings might some day fly away from Athens. To avert this fate the Athenians promptly broke off the wings, and both goddess and temple were thereafter known as "Wingless Victory."

Standing near this temple with its battered columns, its heaps of carved bowlders and statues all about me, I looked off beyond Salamis and Marathon and thought of the Athenian ideals that are to-day the cherished possessions of all civilized nations. The wings of her Victory have spread to all lands. So long as men love freedom and foster beauty and art, Victory shall never leave Greece; albeit the lustre of her temples may be dimmed and the glory may be faded from her local shrines.

Next, we visit the Erectheum, thirteen years in building under the personal patronage of Pericles, more than four hundred years before Christ. Within this stately marble structure there were many statues, chiefly the ancient and original one of Athena, which "fell from heaven." On the south side is the exquisite porch of the maidens (Caryatides) featuring six life-size, womanly figures sup