Athens lies in a long and narrow plain between two rocky mountain ridges that run down from the north. The plain to-day is neither interesting nor particularly fertile, although it is still tilled with some success. Once when it was better watered by the Cephissus and Ilissus rivers, whose courses are still visible though in the main dry and rocky, it was doubtless better able to support the local population; but to-day it is rather a bare and unattractive intervale between mountains quite as bare—gray, rocky heights, covered with little vegetation save the sparse gorse and thyme. At that point in the plain where a lofty, isolated, and nearly oblong rock, with precipitous sides, invited the foundation of a citadel, Athens sprang into being. And there she stands to-day, having pivoted around the hoary Acropolis crag for centuries, first south, then west, then north, until the latter has become the final abiding place of the modern town, while the older sites to the southward and westward lie almost deserted save for the activities of the archÆologists and students, who have found them rich and interesting ground for exploration. Always, however, the Acropolis was the fulcrum or focus, and it was on this unique rock that Poseidon and Athena waged their immortal contest for the possession of the Attic plain. Tradition says that Poseidon smote with his trident and a salt spring gushed forth from the cleft rock, thus proving his power; but that the judgment of the gods was in favor of Athena, who made to spring up from the ground an olive tree. Wherefore the land was allotted to her, and from her the city took its name. Under the northern side of the towering rock and around to the east of it runs the thriving city of to-day, thence spreading off for perhaps two miles to the northward along the plain, first closely congested, then widening into more open modernized streets, and finally dwindling into scattered suburbs out in the countryside.

The growth of Athens has left its marks of progress in well-defined strata. The narrow, squalid, slummy streets of the quarter nearest the Acropolis belong to the older or Turkish period of the city’s renascent life. Beyond these one meets newer and broader highways, lined in many cases with neat modern shops, called into life by the city’s remarkable growth of the past two decades, which have raised Athens from the rank of a dirty village to a clean and attractive metropolis—in the better sense of that much abused word. Still farther away are seen the natural products of the overflow of a thriving modern town—suburbs clustering around isolated mills or wine-presses. The present population is not far from a hundred thousand persons, so that Athens to-day is not an inconsiderable place. The population is chiefly the native Greek, modified no doubt by long submission to Turkish rule and mingled with a good deal of Turkish blood, but still preserving the language, names, and traditions that bespeak a glorious past. Despite the persistence of such names as Aristeides, Miltiades, Themistocles, Socrates, and the like among the modern Athenians, it would no doubt be rashly unreasonable to expect to find in a population that was to all intents and purposes so long enslaved by Turkey very much that savors of the traditional Greek character as it stood in the days of Pericles. But there have not been wanting eminent scholars, who have insisted that our exalted ideas of the ancient Greeks are really derived from a comparatively few exceptional and shining examples, and that the ancient population may have resembled the present citizens more than we are prone to think, in traits and general ability.

On his native heath the modern Greek openly charges his own race with a lack of industry and love of idling too much in the coffee-houses, although it is an indictment which has never struck me as just, and one which, if coming from a foreigner, would doubtless be resented. It is true that the coffeehouses are seldom deserted, and the possession of an extra drachma or two is generally enough to tempt one to abandon his employ for the seclusion that the kaffeneion grants, there to sip slowly until the cups of syrupy coffee which the money will buy are gone. Nevertheless, one should be slow to say that the race is indolent by nature, especially in view of its climatic surroundings; for there are too many thousand thrifty and hard-working Hellenes in Greece and in America as well to refute any such accusation. The one vast trouble, no doubt, is the lack of any spur to industrial ambition at home, or of any very attractive or remunerative employment compared with the opportunities offered by the cities of the newer world. The strong set of the tide of emigration to American shores has tended largely to depopulate Greece; but it is not unlikely that the return of the natives, which is by no means uncommon, will in time work large benefit to Hellas herself, and the attraction of her sons to foreign lands thus prove a blessing rather than, as was once supposed, a curse.

This, however, is rather aside from any consideration of the modern city of Athens. Let it be said at the outset that one may go freely anywhere in the city and be quite unmolested either by malicious or mendicant persons. It is not improbable, of course, that the increasing inundation of Athens by foreign visitors will tend somewhat to increase the tendency to begging, as it has elsewhere; but it is due the Greek race to say that it is infinitely less lazy and infinitely less inclined to proletarianism, or to seeking to live without work, than the Italian. Small children, as in all countries, will be found occasionally begging a penny, especially if they have gone out of their way to render a fancied service, by ostentatiously opening a gate that already stood ajar. But there are few of the lame, halt, and blind, such as infest Naples and many smaller Mediterranean cities, seeking to extort money from sheer pity of unsightliness. Here and there in Athens one may indeed see a cripple patiently awaiting alms, but generally in a quiet and unobtrusive way. Neither is the visitor bothered by the importunities of carriage drivers, although the carriages are numerous enough and anxious for fares—a contrast that is welcome indeed to one newly come from Italy and fresh from the tireless pursuit of warring Neapolitan cabbies. The offset to this welcome peace is the fact that carriage fares in Athens are undoubtedly high compared with the astonishingly low charges produced in Naples by active and incessant competition of the vetturini. The sole dangers of Athenian streets are those incident to the fast driving of carriages over the unpaved roadways; for the pedestrian has his own way to make and his own safety to guard, as is largely true in Paris, and it is incumbent on him to stop, look, and listen before venturing into the highway.

The street venders of laces, sponges, flowers, and postal cards are perhaps the nearest to an importunate class, though they generally await invitation to the attack, and their efforts are invariably good-humored. The region of the “Syntagma” square is generally full of them, lining the curb and laden with their wares. Men will be seen with long strips of fascinating island lace over their shoulders, baskets on baskets of flowers, heaps of curiously shaped, marvelously attractive sponges, fresh and white from the near-by ocean, or packets of well-executed postal cards picturing the city’s classic remains, all offered for sale to whomsoever will exhibit the faintest trace of interest. Needless to say, the initial prices asked are inevitably excessive and yield to treatment with surprising revelations of latitude.

Athens is a clean city. Its streets, while unpaved, are still fairly hard. Its buildings are in the main of stone, covered with a stucco finish and given a white color, or a tint of buff or light blue. The prevailing tone is white, and in the glare of the brilliant sun it is often rather trying to the eyes. To relieve the whiteness there is always the feathery green of the pepper trees, and the contrast of the clambering vines and flowers that in their season go far to make the city so attractive. Most notable of all the contrasts in color is unquestionably the rich purple of the bougainvillea blooms splashed in great masses against the immaculate walls and porticoes of the more pretentious houses. The gardens are numerous and run riot with roses, iris, and hundreds of other fragrant and lovely blossoms. The sidewalks are broad and smooth. It is an easy town in which to stroll about, for the distances are not great and the street scenes are interesting and frequently unusual to a high degree, while vistas are constantly opening to give momentary views of the towering Acropolis. It is not a hilly city, but rather built on rolling ground, the prevailing slope of which is toward the west, gently down from the pointed Lycabettus to the ancient course of the Cephissus, along which once spread the famous grove of Academe. The lack of a sufficient water supply is unfortunate, for one misses the gushing of fountains which makes Rome so delightful, and the restricted volume available for domestic uses is sometimes far from pleasant.

The Athenians had a prodigious mine to draw upon for the naming of their streets, in the magnificent stretch of their history and in the fabulous wealth of mythology. And it is a fact worth remarking that the mythological gods and heroes appear to have decidedly the better of the famous mortals in the selection of street names to do them honor. For example, Pericles, the greatest Athenian in many ways, is recalled by the name of a decidedly poor thoroughfare—hardly more than an alley; while Pheidias, Pindar, Homer, Solon, and a score of others fare but little better. On the contrary, the great gods of high Olympus, Hermes, Athena, Æolus, and others, give their names to the finest, broadest, most magnificent streets of this city that likes to call herself a little Paris. The result of it all is a curious mental state, for by the time one gets out of Athens and into the highlands of Delphi or of the Peloponnesus, where every peak and vale is the scene of some godlike encounter or amour, one is more than half ready to accept those ancient deities as actually having lived and done the things that legend ascribes to them. They become fully as real to the mind as William Tell or Pocahontas. The same illusion is helped on by the classic names affected for the engines of the PirÆus-Athens-Peloponnesus Railroad, and by the time one has ridden for a day behind the “Hermes” or the “Hephaistos,” one is quite ready to expect to see Proteus rising from the sea, or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

It is at first a trifle perplexing to one not versed in the Greek language to find the streets all labeled in the genitive case, such as ?d?? ???? (othÒs ErmoÙ), “street of Hermes.” This soon becomes a matter of course, however. The main shopping district is confined to the greater highways of Hermes, Æolus, and Athena, and to Stadium Street—the latter so called because its length is about one kilometre, which is the modern “stadion,” instead of the lesser classic length of approximately six hundred feet. The name therefore has no reference to the magnificent athletic field of the city, in which the so-called modern “Olympic” games are occasionally held, and which in itself is a fine sight to see, as it lies in its natural amphitheatre east of the city, and brilliant in its newly built surfaces of purest marble. Stadium Street is perhaps the most modern and up-to-date street in Athens, lined with handsome stores, hotels, and cafÉs, thronged day and night, and perhaps even more gay and Parisian-looking by night, with its many lights and teeming life.

Athens at this writing has no system of trolley cars, but sticks obstinately to an old-fashioned and quite inadequate horse-railway, the several lines radiating from the Omonoia Square—pronounced much like "Ammonia"—which, being interpreted, means the same as Place de la Concorde. To master the intricacies of this tramway system requires a considerable acquaintance with Athens, but it is vastly less involved a problem than the omnibuses of London and Paris, and naturally so because of the smaller size of the town. Odd little carriages plying between stated points eke out the local transportation service, while the third-rail, semi-underground line to the PirÆus and the antiquated steam tram to New Phalerum give a suburban service that is not to be despised. In a very few years no doubt the trolley will invade Athens, for it already has a foothold in Greece at the thriving port of Patras; and when it does, one may whirl incongruously about the classic regions of the Acropolis as one now whirls about the Forum at Rome.

The admirable BÆdeker warns visitors to Hellas against assuming too hastily that Greece is a tropical land, merely because it is a southern Mediterranean country, and our own experiences have proved that even in April Athens can be as cold as in mid-winter, with snow capping Hymettus itself. But for the greater part of the year Athens is warm, and as in most southern cities business is practically at a standstill between the noon hour and two o'clock in the afternoon. In the summer months, which in Athens means the interval between May and late fall, this cessation is a practical necessity, owing to the heat and the glare of the noontide sun on the white streets and buildings. But the comparative compactness of the city makes it entirely possible to walk almost anywhere, even on a warm day, for the coolness of shade as compared with the heat of the sun is always noticeable. Thus the visitor who has plenty of time for his stay in the city is practically independent of cars and carriages. For those who find time pressing and who must cover the sites, or, as BÆdeker sometimes says, “overtake” the points of interest in short order, the ingenious device once employed by a friend similarly situated may not come amiss. Having limited facilities of speech in the native tongue, and being practically without other means of communication with the cabman, this resourceful traveler supplied himself with a full set of picture post-cards dealing with the more celebrated features of Athens, and by dint of showing these one after another to his Jehu, he managed to “do” Athens in half a day—if one could call it that. He was not the only one to see the ancient capital in such short order, but it remains true that any such cavalier disposition of so famous a place is unfortunate and wholly inadequate. Athens is no place for the hasty “tripper,” for not only are the ancient monuments worthy of long and thoughtful contemplation, but the modern city itself is abundantly worthy of intimate acquaintance.

It has been spoken of as a noisy city, and it is especially so after nightfall, when the streets are thronged with people until a late hour and the coffee-houses and open-air restaurants are in full swing. Long after the ordinary person has gone to bed, passing Athenians will be heard shouting or singing in merry bands of from three to a dozen, especially if it be election time. The Athenian takes his politics as he takes his coffee—in deliberate sips, making a little go a long way. The general election period usually extends over something like two weeks, during which time the blank walls of the city blossom with the portraits of candidates and the night is made vocal with the rallying cries of the free-born. “Rallying” carriages are employed much as our own practical politicians employ them, to convey the decrepit or the reluctant able-bodied voters to the polls, with the difference that the Athenian rallying conveyance is generally decorated with partisan banners and not infrequently bears on its box, beside the driver, a musical outfit consisting of a drum and penny whistle, with which imposing panoply the proud voter progresses grandly through the streets to the ballot box, attended by a shouting throng. Torchlight processions, which make up in noise for their lack of numbers, are common every night during the election. The Athenian, when he does make up his mind to shout for any aspirant, shouts with his whole being, and with a vigor that recalls the days of Stentor. Noisy enough at all times, Athens is more so than ever in days of political excitement or on high festivals—notably on the night before Easter, when the joy over the resurrection of the Lord is manifested in a whole-hearted outpouring of the spirit, finding vent in explosives, rockets, and other pyrotechnics. Religious anniversaries, such as the birthday of a saint, or the Nativity, or the final triumph of Jesus, are treated by the Greek with the same pomp and circumstance that we accord to the Fourth of July; and, indeed, the same is true of all Mediterranean countries. I have never experienced a night before Easter in Athens, but I have been told that this, one of the most sacred of the festivals of the Orthodox Church, is the one occasion when it is at all dangerous or disagreeable to be abroad in the streets of the capital, and it is so only because of the exuberant and genuine joy that the native feels in the thought of his salvation, the idea of which seems annually to be a perfectly new and hitherto unexpected one.

By day the chief tumult is from the ordinary press of traffic, with the unintelligible street-cries of itinerant peddlers offering fish, eggs, and divers vegetables, not to mention fire-wood. Nor should one omit the newsboys, for the Athenian has abandoned not a whit of his traditional eagerness to see or to hear some new thing, and has settled upon the daily paper as the best vehicle for purveying to that taste. Athens boasts perhaps half a dozen journals, fairly good though somewhat given to exaggeration, and it is a poor citizen indeed who does not read two or three of them as he drinks his coffee. Early morn and late evening are filled with the cries of the paper boys ringing clear and distinct over the general hubbub, and of all the street sounds their calls are by far the easiest to understand.

Most fascinating of all to the foreign visitor must always be the narrower and less ornate streets of the old quarter, leading off Hermes and Æolus streets, and paramount in attractiveness the little narrow lane of the red shoes, which is a perfect bazaar. It is a mere alley, lined from end to end with small open booths, or shops, and devoted almost exclusively to the sale of shoes, mostly of red leather and provided with red pompons, though soft, white leather boots are also to be had, and to the dealing in embroidered bags, coats, pouches, belts, and the like. The stock in trade of each is very similar to that of every neighbor, and the effect of the tout ensemble is highly curious and striking. To venture there once is to insure frequent visits, and one is absolutely certain sooner or later to buy. The wares seem rather Turkish than Greek in character. Of course, patience and tact are needful to enable one to avoid outrageous extortion. Nothing would surprise a shoe-lane dealer more, in all probability, than to find a foreigner willing and ready to accept his initial price as final. Chaffering is the order of the day, and after a sufficient amount of advancing and retreating, the intending purchaser is sure to succumb and return laden with souvenirs, from the inexpensive little embroidered bags to the coats heavy with gold lace, which are the festal gear of the peasant girls. The latter garments are mostly second-hand, and generally show the blemishes due to actual use. They are sleeveless over-garments made of heavy felt but gay with red and green cloth, on which, as a border, gold braid and tracery have been lavished without stint until they are splendid to see. Needless to say, they are the most expensive things in shoe lane. The process of bargaining between one who speaks no English and one who speaks no Greek is naturally largely a matter of dumb show, although the ever-ready pad and pencil figure in it. Madame looks inquiringly up from a handsome Greek coat, and is told by the pad that the price is 50 drachmas. Her face falls; she says as plainly as words could say it that she is very sorry, but it is out of the question. She turns and approaches the door. “Madame! madame!” She turns back, and the pad, bearing the legend 45, is shoved toward her. Again the retreat, and once more the summons to return and see a new and still lower price. Eventually the blank paper is passed to “madame,” and she writes thereon a price of her own—inevitably too low. Finally, however, the product of the extremes produces the Aristotelian golden mean, and the title passes. Indeed, it sometimes happens that the merchant will inform you of an outrageous price and add with shameless haste, “What will you give?” Experience will soon teach the purchaser that the easiest way to secure reasonable prices is to make a lump sum for several articles at a single sale.

Shoe lane, for all its narrowness and business, is far from squalid, and is remarkably clean and sweet. In this it differs from the market district farther along, where vegetables, lambs, pigs, chickens, and other viands are offered for sale. The sight is interesting, but its olfactory appeal is stronger than the ocular. One need not venture there, however, to see the wayside cook at his work of roasting a whole sheep on the curb. Even the business streets up-town often show this spectacle. The stove is a mere sheet-iron chest without a cover, and containing a slow fire of charcoal. Over this on an iron spit, which is thrust through the lamb from end to end, the roast is slowly turning, legs, ribs, head, eyes, and all, the motive power being a little boy. From this primitive establishment cooked meat may be bought, as in the days of Socrates, either to be taken home, or to be eaten in some corner by the Athenian quick-lunch devotee. Farther along in the old quarter, not far from the Monastiri Station of the PirÆus Line, is the street of the coppersmiths, heralded from afar by the noise of its hammers. By all the rules of appropriateness this should be the street of Hephaistos. In the gathering dusk, especially, this is an interesting place to wander through, for the forge fires in the dark little shops gleam brightly in the increasing darkness, while the busy hammers ply far into the evening. It is the tinkers’ chorus and the armorer’s song rolled into one. Here one buys the coffee-mills and the coffee-pots used in concocting the Turkish coffee peculiar to the East, and any visitor who learns to like coffee thus made will do well to secure both utensils, since the process is simple and the drink can easily be made at home. The coffee-pots themselves are little brass or copper dippers, of varying sizes; and the mills are cylinders of brass with arrangements for pulverizing the coffee beans to a fine powder. This powder, in the proportion of about a teaspoonful to a cup, is put into the dipper with an equal quantity of sugar. Boiling water is added, and the mixture set on the fire until it “boils up.” This is repeated three times before pouring off into cups, the coffee being vigorously stirred or beaten to a froth between the several boilings. At the end it is a thick and syrup-like liquid, astonishingly devoid of the insomnia-producing qualities commonly attributed to coffee by the makers of American “substitutes.” In any event the long-handled copper pots and the mills for grinding are quaint and interesting to possess. At the coffee-houses the practice is generally to bring the coffee on in its little individual pot, to be poured out by the patron himself. It is always accompanied by a huge glass of rather dubious drinking water and often by a bit of loukoumi, which the Greek esteems as furnishing a thirst, or by a handful of salty pistachio nuts, equally efficacious for the same purpose. The consumption of coffee by the Greek nation is stupendous. Possibly it is harmful, too. But in any event it cheers without inebriating, and a drunken Greek is a rare sight indeed.

Walking homeward in the dusk of evening after a sunset on the Acropolis, one is sure to pass many out-of-door stoves set close to the entrances of humbler houses and stuffed with light wood which is blazing cheerily in preparation of the evening meal, the glow and the aromatic wood-smoke adding to the charm of the scene. Small shops, in the windows of which stand fresh-made bowls of giaourti (ya-oÓr-ti), are also to be seen, calling attention to that favorite Athenian delicacy, very popular as a dessert and not unlikely to please the palate of those not to the manner born. The giaourti is a sort of “junket,” or thick curd of goat’s milk, possessing a sour or acid taste. It is best eaten with an equal quantity of sugar, which renders the taste far from disagreeable. As for the other common foods of the natives, doubtless the lamb comes nearest to being the chief national dish, while chickens and eggs are every-day features of many a table. Unless one is far from the congested haunts of men, the food problem is not a serious one. That a visitor would find it rather hard to live long on the ordinary native cookery, however, is no doubt true; but fortunately there is little need to make the experiment. One other native dish deserves mention, in passing, and that is the “pilaffi,” or “pilaff,” which is rice covered with a rich meat gravy, and which almost any foreigner will appreciate as a palatable article of food.

Of the ruins and museums of Athens, it is necessary to speak in detail in another chapter. Of the modern city and its many oddities, it is enough to deal here. Rambles through the town in any direction are sure to prove delightful, not only in the older quarter which we have been considering, but through the more pretentious modern streets as well, with their excellent shops, their pseudo-classic architecture, and their constant glimpses of gardens or of distant ruined temples. Occasionally the classic style of building rises to something really fine, as in the case of the university buildings, the polytechnic school, or the national museum itself. The local churches are by no means beautiful, however. Indeed the ordinary Greek church makes no pretension to outward attractiveness, such as the cathedrals and minor churches of the Roman faith possess. Perhaps the most striking of the Athenian houses of worship is the little brown structure which has been allowed to remain in the midst of Hermes Street, recalling the situation of St. Clement Danes, or St. Mary le Strand in London. It is a squat Byzantine edifice, not beautiful, but evidently old, and a familiar sight of the city. Within, the Greek churches are quite different in arrangement from the Roman. At the entrance to the altar space there is always a high screen, pierced by a door leading to the altar itself, and used only by the officiating priest. The altar screen, or “iconastasis,” is richly adorned as a rule with embossed work, and the “icons,” or holy pictures, are generally painted faces set in raised silver-gilt frames, which supply the figure and robes of the saints, only the facial features being in pigment. Images are not allowed in the Orthodox worship, but the relief employed to embellish the faces in the icons goes far to simulate imagery.

The residential architecture of the city finds its best exemplification in the splendid marble mansions of the princes of the royal house, which are really fine, and which are surrounded by attractive grounds and gardens. The palace of the king is far less attractive, being a huge and barn-like structure in the centre of the city, relieved from utter barrenness only by a very good classic portico. But nothing could be lovelier than the deep dells of the palace gardens, which form a magnificent park well deserving the classic name of a pa??de?s??, with its jungle of flowers, shrubs, and magnificent trees—the latter a welcome sight in treeless Attica.

One cannot pass from the subject of modern Athens without mentioning the soldiery, for the soldiers are everywhere, in all degrees of rank and magnificence of dress, from the humble private to the glittering and altogether gorgeous generalissimo. The uniforms are of a variety that would put to blush the variegated equipment of the famous Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. These manifold uniforms have their proper signification, however, and they are undeniably handsome. If the Greek soldiers could only fight as well as they look, what could restrain the modern Athenian empire? The army clothes are admirably designed with an eye to fit and color, and the men carry themselves with admirable military hauteur. Most picturesque of all are the king’s body-guard, with their magnificent physique and national dress. They are big, erect fellows, clad in the short fustanella skirts of the ancient rÉgime, the tight-fitting leggings, the pomponed shoes, the dark over-jacket, and the fez. These are the only troops that wear the old-time garb of the Greek. But the dress is a familiar sight in the outside country districts, often worn by well-to-do peasants, and still regarded as the national dress despite the general prevalence of ordinary European clothes.

It remains to speak briefly of the national money, for that is a subject the visitor cannot avoid. The drachma, which corresponds to the franc, is a peculiar thing. If one means the metal drachma, of silver, it is simple enough. It circulates at par with the franc. But the paper drachma varies in value from day to day at the behest of private speculation, and is almost never at par. I have experienced variations of it from a value of fourteen cents to eighteen. In small transactions, when the paper drachma is high, the difference is negligible. When it is low in value, or in large amounts, it is highly appreciable. The fluctuation of this money is the reason for the pads and pencils in the shops, for it is only by constant multiplication or division that the merchant is able to translate prices from francs into drachmas or vice versa, as occasion requires. Naturally when the drachma is worth only fourteen cents, the unsuspecting visitor is liable to pay more than he should, if assuming that a franc and a drachma are synonymous terms. In such a case a paper bill requires a considerable addition of copper lepta to make it equal the metal drachma or the French franc. The difference in value from day to day may be learned from the newspapers. Most bargains are made in francs, and the French money, both gold and silver, is freely used. Nevertheless, the local paper money is very useful, and it merely requires a little care in the use. Particularly is it desirable to know the status of the drachma in securing cash on a letter of credit or on a traveler’s cheque, in order that one may obtain the proper amount and not content himself with an inferior sum in paper; for although the principal banks may be relied upon as a rule to be honest, individual clerks may not be proof against the temptation to impose upon the ignorant and pocket the difference. I would advise the use of the Ionian Bank as far as possible, rather than the tourist agencies, for the latter often extort money quite without warrant, on the plea of needful stamps or fees for “accommodation,” that the bank does not require. Little trouble will be found to exist in the way of false coin—far less than in Italy. The one difficulty is to follow the paper drachma up and down, and not be mulcted to a greater or less extent in the exchange of silver for paper. The copper coins, which are either the five or ten lepta pieces, occasion no trouble, being like the Italian centesimi or English pence and ha' pennies.

One not uncommon sight to be met with in Athenian streets is the funeral procession—a sight which is liable at first to give the unaccustomed witness a serious shock, because of the custom of carrying the dead uncoffined through the city. The coffin and its cover are borne at the head of the procession, as a rule, while the body of the deceased, in an open hearse, rides joltingly along in the middle of the cortÈge. To those not used to this method of honoring the dead, the exposure of the face to the sight of every passer-by must seem incongruous and revolting. But it is the custom of the place, and the passing of a funeral causes no apparent concern to those who calmly view the passing corpse from the chairs where they sip their coffee, or idly finger their strings of beads. The beads which are to be seen in the hand of nearly every native have no religious significance, as might be thought at first sight, but are simply one of the innocuous things that the Hellene finds for idle hands to do. They are large beads, of various colors, though the strings are generally uniform in themselves, and their sole function is to furnish something to toy with while talking, or while doing nothing in particular. There is a sufficiency of loose string to give some play to the beads, and they become a familiar sight.

Royalty in Greece is decidedly democratic in its attitude. King George and his sons are frequently to be seen riding about town, much like ordinary citizens. Quite characteristic was an encounter of recent date, in which an American gentleman accosted one whom he found walking in the palace gardens with the inquiry as to what hour would be the best for seeing the royal children. The question elicited mutual interest and the two conversed for some time, the American asking with much curiosity for particulars of the household, with which his interlocutor professed to be acquainted. “What of the queen?” he inquired. "She’s exceedingly well beloved," was the reply. “She is a woman of high character and fills her high station admirably.” “And the king?” "Oh, the king! I regret to say that he is no good. He has done nothing for the country. He tries to give no offense—but as a king the less said of him the better!" Needless to say, this oracle was the king himself. Nobody else would have passed so harsh a judgment. King George I has been reigning since 1863, when the present government, with the sponsorship of the Christian powers, was inaugurated. He came from Denmark, being a son of the late King Christian, who furnished so many thrones of Europe with acceptable rulers and queens from his numerous and excellent family, so that the king is not himself a Greek at all. The years of successful rule have proved him highly acceptable to the Athenians and their countrymen, who have seen their land regain a large measure of its prosperity and their chief city grow to considerable proportions under the new order. The kingly office is hereditary, the crown prince reaching his majority at eighteen years.

Prince Constantine, the heir to the throne, lives on the street behind the palace gardens, and has a family of handsome children. Prince George is commissioner in charge of Crete. The royal family has embraced the faith of the Greek Orthodox Church.