THROUGH GRECIAN WATERS.
It is with the liveliest anticipations of pleasure that one who is inspired by these memories, arrives at the port of Athens, which still retains its ancient title,—The Piræus. Its appearance is not especially attractive, and yet I gazed upon it with profound emotion. Still are its waves as blue as when Athenian vessels rode at anchor here, or swept hence to the island of Salamis to aid in the destruction of the Persian fleet and cause the mad flight of the terror-stricken Xerxes. Around them History and Poetry have woven an immortal charm, for in their limpid depths have been reflected the forms of almost every famous Greek and Roman of antiquity.
But the Piræus, after all, is merely a doorway to glories beyond. Hence one quickly leaves the steamer here, and hastens to the capital itself, six miles away. A train of street-cars, drawn by a steam-engine, was one of the first objects that confronted us in the streets of Athens, but even this reminder of the nineteenth century could not dispel the fascination of antiquity. It all swept back upon me. The locomotive and the tram-cars faded from my view, and in their place I saw again my school-room, with its rows of well-worn desks. Once more was felt the summer breeze, as it stole through the open window, and lured me from my lexicon to the fair fields. Xenophon's graphic prose and Homer's matchless verse at last seemed real to me; for over the shop-doors were the Greek characters that I had learned in boyhood, and on the corners of the streets were words once uttered by the lips of Socrates.
THE DISTANT CITADEL.
Even before the tourist reaches the outskirts of the city of Minerva, he plainly sees rising in bold relief against the sky, what was in ancient times the gem of Athens, the casket of the rarest architectural jewels in the world,—the temple-crowned Acropolis. It is a memorable moment when one first beholds it. No other citadel in the world has embraced so much beauty and splendor within its walls. Not one has witnessed such startling changes in the fortunes of its possessors. Its history reaches back over a period of two thousand four hundred years. Wave after wave of war and conquest have beaten against it. It has been plundered by the Persian, the Spartan, the Macedonian, the Roman, the Venetian and the Turk. Yet there is now a modern city at its base, astonishingly new and fresh, compared with its historic background. The buildings of to-day and those of two thousand years ago seem gazing at each other with surprise. Yet there is no hostility between them. Despite her tattered robes of royalty, Old Athens sits enthroned as the acknowledged sovereign. New Athens kneels in reverence before her. For the modern Greeks still cling with pride to the memories of Pericles and Phidias, and sigh when they think of the glory that once was theirs.
A WALK AROUND THE ACROPOLIS.