Wednesday, October 20, 1915.
Lemnos is a barren-looking place, mountainous all round, no trees, and it is covered with the English and French camps. There is a new hospital being built at the water's edge. There is no fresh water, and experts have been sent from England to sink artesian wells. The water had to be taken out in tanks. One lady at Marseilles sent out ship-loads of soda water for the soldiers. The harbour is full of battleships, chiefly French, and there are several hospital ships, also many transports. The largest ship is the Aquitania from Liverpool, with four large funnels. Mines and nets are all round us; at several points of the island guns are fixed; we could hear firing this afternoon, and we were told that at Imbros one could see the shells bursting at the Dardanelles. We stayed at Lemnos eight hours; it is a lovely day and very calm.
Thursday, October 21, 1915.
We arrived at Piraeus at 6 a.m., landed at 8, then took the train to Athens, and went straight to Cook's office and wrote letters to friends staying here, arranging to return for any answers. We then took a carriage and went to the museum; the statuary is very fine and beautiful. We returned to Cook's and found a letter from our Greek friends, inviting us to luncheon at 1 o'clock. We had an hour and a half more to spare, so took a carriage and went to the Acropolis. It is indeed wonderful the view of Athens from the top, most beautiful. We thoroughly enjoyed this sight; the trees all along are most interesting—avenues of pepper trees, date palms, aloes and cactus; we also saw a few orange trees. We then went to our friend's house at 1 o'clock. There were three married sisters and their children, and an English girl, governess to the children. After luncheon they took us sight-seeing, first to the Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1837 by some wealthy Greek, and containing memoirs of the Greek War of Independence, portraits and native costumes, and the clothes of the Greek King who was shot at Salonika. A tomb has been erected on the pavement there where he was shot, and a chapel is to be built near. The pistol that shot him was in the case with the clothes. We also saw many flags that the Greeks had captured in many different wars, a sword of Lord Byron's, and his portrait and visiting card.
After leaving here we took the carriage and drove round the principal streets, then went to the Keremakos market, where there are wonderful tombs containing the remains of three people in each; the bones are visible, and the statue of the bull. We then went down the oldest streets, and to the ancient Church Eglise de Capnicarea. We saw the temple, the bank, the general post office and the theatre; had tea at a café and took the train back to the port, and arrived on the boat in time for dinner. Another lovely night; I slept on deck. I forgot to mention we passed, on Wednesday, some burning rocks; the chief officer told us they are set on fire by oil by the shepherds, to watch their flocks by night.
We did not leave Athens until 8.30 this morning. We were held up much longer than we expected. An aeroplane followed our boat for a little way, but it was a Greek one, so we had nothing to fear. At 3 p.m. we had quite an excitement; a message was sent to the ship to say we had to go into the Island of Milos for orders; submarines had been seen round the neighbourhood. We got into Milos and found five French battleships, submarine destroyers. One of the maritime ships was in the harbour that had been torpedoed two weeks ago. The island is very picturesque; the houses are built in the Turkish style. We remained in the harbour for about two hours. We have a submarine destroyer escorting us, also another ship was with us, so we feel quite safe. Written notices were sent round to each passenger with instructions what to do in case we were struck. The captain had an anxious voyage from here on, keeping watch all the time. We kept going out of our course and the destroyer and our boat were constantly signalling to each other. We had to come round by Crete instead of Cape Matapan. The wind has risen and it is very rough; most of the people are ill. We had a bad night, continuous thunderstorms and heavy rain. The boat is rolling as well as pitching.
Saturday, October 23, 1915.
It still continues very rough and very few passengers are visible. Nothing exciting has happened; our two escorts are still in front of us.
Sunday, October 24, 1915.