MR ATKINS ON THE PLAINS OF TROY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3145, 27 November 1922, Page 8

MR ATKINS ON THE PLAINS OF TROY.

it ~* It is impressive to read about Bri ie tish troops being encamped in and nea ■u the Troad, says a writer in the Daii; s- Chronicle. This' famous tract of conn l- try lies across the Dardanelles 'lron i- Gallipoli, and was, of eour.se, in th< 1- possession of the Turks during tin Great War. It is known to-day as tlw Bigha Peninsula and forms one of flu neutral zones of which we are hearin< so much. Surely even British soldiers wer-i ro never sent to a more thrillTiigly in tie re resting place. Mr Atkins sees normal ie ly a good deal of the world, and dur •hj ing the war he was extremely "far ie flung." But wherever he goes he take: i- it all as a matter of course. He is al ways the same easy-going "fellow.' ].. who endears himself to everybody b\ ts his homely and sociable ways. e . I have seen him in our occupied zom ■e along the Rhine and noted the happ;. j_ and almost domestic terms on which In [o lives amid a people he has recent.// i t . conquered with the eword. I have seen him making himself r- quite at home in a South Africai i- blockhouse and living on the friendlir. est of terms with the •fuzzy-wuzzies ir. j. the neighborhood. Wherever he is, by <>. a Mesopntainian river or on the scorchis ing plains of India, he is always the ? . same, winning all hearts by Ins simple t ] unconscious ways and his freedom from j_ bombast and undue self-assertion. v So will iti be in the new sojourning "o along the shores of the Dardanelles t. and the Bosphorus. It will seem to .. him the most natural thing in the u world to pitch his tent, or dig himself in near the site of ancient Troy and ( ] along the banks of that immortal s stream which witnessed the heroic { deeds ol Hector and Achilles. 0 He will not bo overwhelmed when c lie is told that the pale blue line of mountains 30 miles l to the south-east is "many-fountained Ida." where, acn cording to the story, Paris held his .| celebrated beauty-show and adjudicated the golden apple to laughter-loving s Aphrodite. Thence, by a strictly logical sequence, followed 1 the abduction of Helen, the ten years' 'siege of Troy, 1 and the most glorious epic that ever p has been or ever will be written. It was from .Mount Id;; that Zeus y brooded over the changed fortunes of = the light on the Trojan plain. Poseidon's observation place was on Samo Thrace whose island peak. 5200 feet. high, is , clearlv visible to the north-west of the : T, ; , v uL . The British soldier, though not prone to se\\tm\e\\t'<\\ e\\U\nsv,\s\\is. wiU not i fail to be impressed when at sunset, far away to the west, be is shown the summit of the "Holy .Mount'' of v At.hoS, 6351) feet high, on which are twenty monasteries, inhabited by 7000 monks. The holy fathers of Athos. ~ looking still further west over the blue * Aegean, sight the everlasting snows of ( 'Mount Olympus, the Valhalla of the Greek mythology. But. indeed, if -would be impossible oven to enumerate the places and ohr jeets of interest within the vision or the easy reach of the British soldier stationed in this- outpost. The tomb I of Achilles is a conspicuous feature of the landscape, and the Dardanelles, through which, in strong and steady current, the vast rivers that Mow into" (he Mediterranean and the oceans of live world, recall a hundred events in I'alile and history. 1 rather envy the British soldier his [ campaigning in these storied regions, and if I can find one on his return wbo has actually been encamped near "windy Troy" I shall have a lew questions to ask him.