From Patras to Corinth, along the edge of the gulf, through olive groves and currant plantations, with a range of snow-clad mountains on one side and picturesque hills on the other, is a delightful journey. The culture of currants seems to absorb the greatest degree of attention. They tell me that toothsome little fruit was formerly called “corenth,” taking its name from the historic city. The currant trade is the largest and the most profitable in Greece, and a considerable part of the cultivated area is planted like the vineyards of Italy, in rows about three feet apart, with single stalks, which are trimmed down every fall in order to strengthen the roots. New shoots spring out with the sunshine in March and April, and, by August, are loaded with large light and dark currants unlike those grown in America. You can buy them in boxes at any grocery store for mince pies, fruit-cake, plum pudding or that sort of thing. The development of this industry has been gradual. In 1830, after the independence of Greece was established, the crop amounted to only about 1,900 tons. In 1899 it was 153,500 tons, and it was a poor year. The average for the last ten years has been about 170,000 tons, and the value of the currants exported annually has reached nearly $8,000,000. The largest quantity goes to England and France. The United States takes 10,000 tons, which, you must appreciate, is an enormous quantity of dried currants. The French wine-growers use them for toning up their wine.
While currant-culture is profitable, there is a good deal of risk in it. The crop is easily affected both by drought and excessive rains. Severe wind-storms may blow the fruit off the bushes, and the hills surrounding the Gulf of Corinth, which is the most productive section of the country, are exposed to storms which at any day may convert a good crop into a poor one.
Olive oil is also a source of wealth, and the beautiful silver-leaved trees are one of the pleasantest features of the landscape. Olive trees live to a great age. It is asserted by some who delight to entertain travelers that groves are now standing which bore fruit in the days of Socrates and Demosthenes, and near Eleusis, trees are pointed out which may have been standing for 2,800 years. The trunks are enormous and are perforated with holes, new bark having grown around the wounds made by decay. Most of the olives are consumed in the country. Much of the oil is sent to France.
Owing to the infrequent and irregular rains, irrigation is necessary everywhere in Greece; and every farmer has a simple and limited irrigation system of his own. The water is pumped up from wells by blindfolded mules, horses or oxen, and pours into cement reservoirs set at such an elevation as will give a natural flow into the fields. Windmills are not used.
At every railway station were crowds of people, many of them in the picturesque native costume, which is a cross between that of a ballet-dancer and a Highland chieftain. The kilts are white cotton, accordion-plaited, and worn over white woolen tights, with black garters below the knee. The shoe or slipper is without a heel, curling up over the toe like an old-fashioned skate, and having a large rosette or pompon of silk or black cotton upon the tip. The jacket is beautifully embroidered in gold or silver braid, sleeveless and open in front. The shirt sleeves of cotton are full and flowing, and the front of the shirt is plaited. The collar is a stiff circlet, embroidered with gold thread or braid; the girdle is often of leather or sometimes a sort of sash. A Greek gentleman in full dress or a servant in complete livery will wear a pistol and two or three daggers stuck in between his belt and his shirt-front in a handy sort of way. The peasant wears a leathern belt, with a sheathed dagger or a pouch over the pit of his stomach, from which the handles of a knife and a revolver usually protrude. The Greek still wears the red Phrygian cap upon his head, and the tassel dangles down upon his shoulder in an artistic way.
A “well-greaved Greek” is the most picturesque looking object in Europe. No other costume will compare with his; but, like all national peculiarities, it is gradually becoming obsolete. You see it in the country and towns of the interior, but in the cities few people wear it. The aristocracy dress their servants in that way, which has made it unpopular among the mechanics and the working classes generally. They fear people will mistake them for household servants.
In the rural districts, however, those objections do not prevail, and almost all the natives at the railway stations and the few men who were digging in the fields were in native dress. Their picturesqueness would be greatly enhanced if they were a little neater about their persons. At first acquaintance the modern Greek does not inspire either admiration or confidence. He is very dirty as to his garments, as to his habits and as to his house, and, I grieve to say, judging from appearances, that he lets his wife and sisters carry more than their share of the load. Most of the labor in the fields, as we passed through on the railroads, was being done by women. We saw women staggering along the highways under heavy cargoes, which they carried upon their heads, and clambering down from the mountains with big bundles of fagots upon their backs. In fact, the men seemed to have selected the easy jobs. None of them had burdens upon their heads or backs, and very few were toiling in the fields. They were driving carts and watching the sheep, goats and swine while their wives and daughters were swinging the hoe.
“As beautiful as a Greek shepherd” used to be a favorite phrase with writers of romance, but I doubt if those who used it had ever seen one, for the ideal Greek shepherd is not visible to the ordinary eye. The men who tend the flocks are stupid, filthy-looking fellows, with blank faces, matted beards and clothing that apparently has never seen a laundry. The ancient Greek knew all about statuary and architecture. That we know by evidences that have been found under the soil of his country; but the modern Greek of the working class lives in a house that is comfortless, unclean and dismal, with no evidences of beauty or taste or culture. He needs whitewash, chloride of lime and carbolic acid, although it is claimed by many that his intellect is as strong and active as those of his prototype who lived twenty centuries ago.
In passing through the railway towns of the “currant country” nature alone is lovely. Everything else seems stricken with poverty and neglect. The men who hang around the railway stations seem to be indifferent to their condition and do not inspire either respect or admiration, although their conversational powers seem to be well developed, and nearly every one of them carried a string of beads—not to count his prayers, but to occupy his hands while talking. Beads are aids to conversation. Members of parliament use them when making speeches. I never learned that Demosthenes required any such auxiliary to eloquence, but am assured that the activity of the brain and the fluency of tongue are increased by fingering them.
Modern Corinth, which stands at the head of the gulf, is a town of four thousand inhabitants, having been founded only forty years ago, after the last houses of the ancient town had been overturned by an earthquake. During recent years its prosperity has been considerably revived by the completion of a ship-canal, cut through the clay ridge that divides the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf, which shortens the journey for ships by two hundred and two miles. The idea of cutting a canal through that isthmus was proposed by the ancients and was undertaken by Caesar, Hadrian and Nero. Traces of the work of Nero still exist. The present canal was built by a French company and opened in 1893. It is three miles and a half in length, one hundred feet in breadth, and can accommodate vessels drawing twenty-six feet of water. There are no locks or sluices, but it is on the tidewater level, with breakwaters to protect the entrances.