WHITE MUSLIN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 11

WHITE MUSLIN.

In case one or two women arc still unprovided with a white muslin froch, the only wear for this time of yoir, above shows a pretty find easily-laundered example, in Swiss, book, lawn, or nainsook, ■

narrow stony,:road still remains*.to entice the traveller that-,way. . On.both sides of. the. road are stretches of. bare,, dry country, the earth shqwing .everywhere through , th<> slirivelled. remains of vegetation (a plentiful crop of thistles), up' the slope of tho hill are two jwa : hoeing,, and later on the small rubbish fires will be'lit.. On a; hillock "to the right is' a jjroup of/green pino trees — the greenest'thing ni tho landscape, on the kift dark banks of clayey earth, and within them, at a slightly lower Wei than thorast of the' country, a confused pass of blocks ■ orJstones. A foreground of dried: grass—black : thistles with their white, cottony-crown of seeds,. and blackberries'. A bee buzzing-round tho: window j and the .promise .<}{ intense- heat, in'

spit© of the autumnal freshness of the morning breeze:- - Take' that as. a picture, and where d,o you place it? 'I give you : three guesses.' For. myself, a week- 'ago I would have- placed'- it somewhere in -the west' of New South Wales in.mid-summer. But yous ; Would any'intuition-tell you it was the de-scription/of-tHe''view from -my-bedroom window looking towards the plain of. Olympk, 'the-sacred'- Atlas-Would- anyone 'else;dis-. cover any-likeness between Greece and the sunny South'of the other hemisphere? This morning- coming from Patras, looking across the'Ghannel to the mountains of Aetolia, the view, is very familiar —I, connect it somehow with tho Now Zealand lakes, and there,was a mountain gully near Agioii, which, if I could have only sent you homo' a good watbr-colour sketch of it-, "I aim suro. you would have at once.pronounced to be one of your favourite, spots in tho Blue Mountains. . _ Perhaps you are wondering how we .arrived in Greece; the road to Athens is not Jxorh-by the feet- of thousands,-as is the road ,to Florence or to Rome. Well, wo came from Brindisi to Patras, thence to Olympia, and back' to Patras, whence we journeyed by rail to.Corinth. 'It was a. long journey: Wo left Brmdisi by 10,' o'clock on Wednesdayj night. About 10 a.m. on Thursday we had. our first stop—Sainti Qnaranti—but no one .went on shore. We stood and watched: .tho. loading,'and'admired the. quaint little village by the waterside, dominated by high hills, with remains of old churches and fortifications on the top.. At Corfu, however, we had a .couple of hours, so we went ashore, and climbed ill sweltering heat to'the'top. of. tho'old fortress, from which we had a lovely view of tho town and its surroundings. There is nothing very striking or interesting about tho town. Tho Empress of Austria had a beautiful villa'some distance out, but it was rather too'far for. our. limited time, so we contented', ourselves with tho view, of 'it as'/we steamed away' with a gorgeous oriental sunset behind; ' - .

Arriving at-Patras at.s a.m., (alas! in Greece one finds boats always arrive between' <1 and 5 and trains-'leave'.'never, later than 7 a.m.), we started off at 6.30 again for Olympia. Quite unconsciously,- thinking it ivas Cook's representative, wo fell-into the hands of a tout for an Olympian hotel on our.boat, and he stuck to us closer than.a leech in spite of our endeavours, so that by the time our train started we werewrath and faint. Marjorie, moreover, was terrified 'at his.description of:the isolation and primitive conditions of Olympia and the need we' had of his assistance. However, a mild-eyed traveller got into the same carriage as ourselves, .evidently going to Olympia and to the same hotel. We felt at least there was a man to protect us if need bo against- the murderous inhabitants of the interior, and when later he started a. conversation, oven Marjorie, the misanthrope, eagerly welcomed and sus-' t-aincd. it,-so that, we-were quite friendly by the time we reached Olympia. ,We had time for it, goodness knows—trains don't hurry in these_parts. From Patras to Olympia is 74 miles, "and it takes six hours. I enjoyed Olympia thoroughly, though the sacred enclosure is for the ordinary tourist little more than a few foundations and a confused heap of stones. ,

Marjorio did not share my enthusiasm. She was. more impressed at the resemblance to Australia. "Is this the sacred vallev of Olympia'l've wasted all ray substance to come and see?" she asked, scornfully. "Why, I've played golf over it thousands of times!" I wonder why the Delphic Oracle, or whoever instituted tho Olympian games, picked out that particular valley. ft is pretty enough in its way, and, of course, would be more so earlier in the year. I suppose the. first moon after the summer solsitce would be June, wouldn'tt- it-P The place io only a narrow strip of level land enclosed on both sides with low-hills of no particular interest, and not two miles away, t hero is a wide plain with the Olympian hills as the fore background and high blue mountains behind, a place with a grandeur and spaciousness tnat Olympia lacks. The sacred enclosure, too, is comparatively tiny; perhaps the originnl grove only was sacred, and. when they started building they kept always withjn its limits— anyway, temples and other buildings are so crowded together that one wonders whether the ancients were able to . get far enough away to get a good view of the pediment and of the .temple of Zeus. And, to the orduiaty traveller who is no archccologist, the condition of the ruins is somewhat disappointing, only three whole columns remaining in position! two of which are in the oldest known temple in Greece, the. Herreon, in which the Hermes was forvnd. As to the rest, the foundations are still there, sometimes two or three feet above the floor level (very like as in s. Sydney, they frequently build j the first two or three feet of jL- stono beforo starting with the brink), and the bases of tho ~ columns, so that you can trace - . the plan quite easily, and the place is' strewn with debris — broken columns, huge frag- — ments of entablature, water spouts,,bases of altars and statues, etc., though, of course, everything of value has been transferred to the musoums. I wish I could remember Omar's lines about the lion and the lizard reigning-'in (.he palaces of the ancients. The whole place is' overgrown with weeds, and there are some fa.ir-sized pine trees and young trees growing out of the ruins, and blackberries twine round the fallen columns.

And. everywhere is a pleasing Kcenfc like pennyroyal, which, we traced to aweed-;wit!v a, tiiiv. purple^floWer; this ;in ... a iivay,;, but-:', could-' have,'-;gotimuch better value for ; . her money ; elsevrl3^reV v ,ShB says one. needs a .very; vivid- imaginatm^ii' l deed to apprecia{e;Gr9^ce.^.: t ,;".-/-,j'^^{.'JV-r,,