as Creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.’CHAPTER VI
ABOUT ATHENS
For the first time in my life, I realize the fact that the Mediterranean is a lake – calm and blue as the eyes we love. What astonishes me is the absence of life in these waters. All is barren as that dreary sail across the Indian Ocean from Ceylon to West Australia. Really, if it were not for the photographers, who are always at work on board, we should be rather dull. It is really wonderful the number of amateur photographers who have come out in the Midnight Sun, and are daily having recourse to their art; and sometimes the consequences are ludicrous. For instance, we have a considerable number of respectable married people on board. Amongst them are a young couple whose experience of matrimonial felicity has been, I suspect, somewhat of the shortest. One morning they were ‘far from the madding crowd,’ indulging in little familiarities, such as leaning on one another’s shoulders – quite proper, as we must all admit, but rather suited for private than public life. Well, a photographer had his eye on them, and straightway made them his victims. There they were, large and fully recognisable. His praiseworthy attempt was greeted with a roar of laughter, of which the victims, far away (the artist was on the upper deck), had not the remotest idea. Let me add the moral: let me beg the newly-married ones to beware of the photographers. More numerous than the photographers are the ladies and gentlemen who spend their mornings in writing their diaries – if with a view to publication, a sad look-out.
In due time we reach Attica, and are landed at the Piræus, which is busy now as when Themistocles planned the harbour and Pericles planted its walls, five miles in length. The town has quite a modern look; nothing of its ancient glory remains. Its modern history dates from 1834. A modern lighthouse marks the site of the tomb of Themistocles. A railway, made in 1869, now connects the Piræus with Athens, and it grows apace. In old times there was rarely to be seen any boat in the harbour. In 1871 the population was only 11,000; in 1890 it had grown to 36,000, About 6,000 vessels of over two and a half millions of tonnage, one half of which is in Greek bottoms, enter the harbour annually. As a town, it consists chiefly of commercial buildings and unpretending private residences. It has, however, an arsenal, a military and naval school, several handsome churches for the orthodox members of the Greek Church, an interesting museum of antiquities, and a gymnasium. Trains run to Athens through the whole day until midnight. We land in a homely quarter of the town. ‘It is in the spring,’ writes Edmond About, ‘one sees Attica in her glory, when the air is so clear and transparent that it seems as if one had only to put forth one’s hand to touch the furthest mountains; when it carries sounds so faithfully that one can hear the bleating of flocks half a mile away, and the cries of great eagles, which are lost to sight in the immensity of the skies.’
I find Athens hot and dusty – a fine white dust, which makes everything look desolate. I get hold of a plan of Athens, showing me how to make the most of six days, but as I have not that time to spare, one’s first thoughts turn naturally to the Acropolis, a rocky plateau of crystallized limestone, rising to about 200 feet. Romans, Goths, Byzantines, and Turks have done their best to make Athens a heap of ruins. It was well that Lord Elgin did so much to preserve some of the choicest relics of Athens by bringing them to England and sending them to the British Museum. Had he not done so, they would have been inevitably destroyed by the unspeakable Turk, a fact deeply to be deplored.
One night we had an amusing illustration of the qualification of the fair sex for the right to rule over man. There was a concert in the smoking-room, the finest apartment in the ship. Amongst the performers were some ladies, and a good many were auditors. Suddenly a large rat made its appearance, when all the ladies, shrieking, fled. I may not be equal to the New Woman – of course she is far above me – but, at any rate, I am not afraid to face a rat. Fancy a rat appearing in the House of Commons with a lady speaker on her legs, and a Government of ladies seated gracefully and in the loveliest of toilettes! The result would be appalling and disastrous.
The country through which we passed was quite dried up, and quite prepared me for the tasteless beef and skinny fowl of which I was to partake afterwards at the Hôtel Grand Bretagne, where they charged me two francs for a cigar; and where, when I remonstrated, I was told that the taxes were so high that they could not afford to let me have one for less. There are a great many trees about, but they have all a dwarfed and dried-up appearance. Far off rises the great Acropolis; you may see it from the steps of the hotel, and the ruins on its top. The life of the streets amuses me. It is incessant and ever varying. The soldier is conspicuous, as he is everywhere on the Continent; priests in black robes and peculiar black hats are plentiful, grave and black-bearded, though I am told that in reality they have little hold on the people of Athens. I have been in one of the churches, very dark, and with a lot of ornamentation; and quite a number of people – very old ones – came and crossed themselves, after the Greek fashion, before a picture just inside the door. Ladies are to be seen, few of them with any particular personal charm, but all in the latest fashions of Paris; and there come the girls with pigtails. I see one of the French illustrated newspapers everywhere. Among the daily papers published in Athens are the Ora (Hour), the Plinghensia (Regeneration), Neai Ideai (New Idea), Aion (Era), Toia (Morning), and Telegrafui (The Telegram). The most curious people you see are the men from the country, with black waistcoats, white petticoats – I can give them no other name – dark hose, and antique-looking shoes turned up at the toes and decorated – why, I know not – with enormous tufts. The living objects I most pity are the forlorn, half-starved donkeys, loaded fore and aft with luggage, while in the centre, on his saddle, is seated his hard-hearted proprietor. Some of the shops are fine, but few of the houses are lofty – the most striking being modern buildings, built on the plan to admit as much air as possible, and to exclude the light. But you see no beggars in the streets, and that is a good sign. Greece has, as you know, the most democratic Government of any. The King, who is not very popular, reigns, but does not govern. The real power is in the hands of the Legislative Chamber – there is no Upper House – consisting of 150 members, all paid for their services, and elected by means of universal suffrage and the ballot every four years. The population of Athens is about 160,000, with the addition of 3,000 Armenian refugees who have found there a city of refuge. Education is free and compulsory, reaching from the lowest strata to the University, so that every lad of talent has a chance. If democracy can make a people happy and content and prosperous, the Greeks ought to be content. There must be a good many wealthy men at Athens, however, whom the democracy have wisely spared. It is not right to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as is desired by some of our Socialists.
Modern Greece, with the exception of America, is the most republican Government in existence; at any rate, it is ahead of England in this respect. We want, or, rather, some people do, who do not know any better, to agitate for payment of members. I object because I have seen the mischief of paid members in all our colonies, and because when I part with my scanty cash I like to have value for my money; and as I know the average M.P., I think he is dear at any price. The men in office are bitterly opposed by the men who languish in the cold shade of Opposition, and that really seems the only line of cleavage. For instance, if a Minister proposes that a certain work should be done by a certain number of horses, the Opposition argue that oxen should be used, and so the battle rages, for the modern Greek, degenerate though he is, is still as fond of talk and windy declamation as any long-winded and ambitious M.P. at home. Ministers, though appointed by the King, are amenable to the Chamber, but under this system we do not hear of the great Parliament, such as we have at home or in Italy or France.
For administrative purposes Greece is divided into sixteen monarchies, governed by municipalities, who alone have the power to levy rates and taxes. These monarchies are divided into eparchies and domarchies, the later under the control of the mayor, elected by the people. Thus in Greece alone, in the Old World, we have government of the people and for the people. For purposes of justice there are local courts; five Courts of Appeal, and a Supreme Court at Athens. In matters of education, again, Greece is far ahead of us. We want to connect the people with the Universities, so that the poorest lad may have his chance. In Greece
