King George and Queen Olga made our stay in Athens one of extreme
interest and exceeding pleasure. Throwing aside all ceremony, they
breakfasted and dined us informally, gave us a fine ball, and in
addition to these hospitalities showed us much personal attention,
his Majesty even calling upon me, and the Queen sending her children
to see us at our hotel.
Of course we visited all that remained of the city's ancient
civilization--the Acropolis, temples, baths, towers, and the like;
nor did we omit to view the spot where St. Paul once instructed the
Athenians in lessons of Christianity. We traveled some little
through the country districts outside of Athens, and I noticed that
the peasantry, in point of picturesqueness of dress and color of
complexion, were not unlike the gypsies we see at times in America.
They had also much of the same shrewdness, and, as far as I could
learn, were generally wholly uneducated, ignorant, indeed, except as
to one subject--politics--which I was told came to them intuitively,
they taking to it, and a scramble for office, as naturally as a duck
to water. In fact, this common faculty for politics seems a
connecting link between the ancient and modern Greek.
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