Then more rattling and rapping,—more stone throwing and shouting and with the same result as before.
Finally I put my face to the bars of the gate and at the very tip-top and summit of my voice shouted the magic word,
“BACKSHEESH!!”
Instantly there was a sound of feet and voices in the hut, and half a minute later a guard came to the gate and said something in Greek which I did not understand. Then I passed him a franc which his fingers closed upon, and I showed him another with an intimation that he would receive it after we had seen the Acropolis. That guard wasn’t an idiot; money he understood, but it was also necessary that we should have a written permit, and he so insinuated.
I gave him the first piece of paper I could find in my pocket—I think it was my wine bill on the steamer from Constantinople; he looked at it by the moonlight, nodded, said “bono,” and opened the gate without further delay.
It is impossible to describe the Acropolis by moonlight, just as impossible as it is to forget it. I never attempt what I know I cannot do and therefore I leave the picture to the reader’s imagination. And I would say to anybody who is going to Athens, be sure and time your visit so as to be there near the full moon, and on no account fail to spend an hour or two of a clear night in the Parthenon and among the temples that surround it. I think the grandeur and majesty of the place are better felt at that time than in the broad light of day. The softening effects of the rays of the moon are nowhere more perfectly shown than in the ruins of the Parthenon. I have seen the Coliseum at Rome, and the temple of Karnak in Egypt by moonlight, and must give the palm of merit to the Acropolis. These are built of grey or yellowish stone which absorbs some of the rays and gives a certain somberness to the picture. But the Parthenon is of white marble, so that the moonbeams light up the entire scene with a warmth and distinctness that almost rival the effect of the morning sun.
One day just outside of Athens we saw a small caravan of Greek gypsies. They were not a large party, some twenty persons in all, of both sexes, and the usual variety of ages. They were dressed in a costume that seemed a compromise between the Greek and Turkish, and some of their garments were in rags. The men had a proud, haughty air, as if the country belonged to them and they carried nothing but their rifles and other weapons. The women were not so fortunate, as all of them had burdens; the foremost person in the caravan was a woman who bore on: her back a cask that might hold eight or ten gallons, and, by the way she bent forward I judged that the cask was pretty well filled. She was leading a string of ponies and each pony had a good supply of baggage on his back; behind this group there was another woman leading another lot of beasts of burden.