GREECE AS IT IS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 10

GREECE AS IT IS.

GRAPHIC SKETCH BY A LADY WRITER. THE KAISER’S GRUDGE. THE ROYAL FAMILY AND THE PEOPLE. The following interesting account of the present condition of Greece was written by Mrs Crawford, the talented Paris correspondent of London Truth , during a visit to that country in January last before the Cretan insurrection had broken out: —

The first sight I had of Greece was off Cape Navarino, a bold, blue headland, where the first nail was driven by the Powers into the Grand Turk’s Coffin. As usual, they did not make a clean job of their work, but tinkered, peddled, and haggled. They had had to yield to the effects of Byron’s . poetry. It was meet, was it not, that a poet should raise from apparent lifelessness the country which gave the world Greek literature, sculpture, and Attic salt. I was glad find that Greece is not ungrateful to the bard who made its cause fashionable in London and in Paris, where first Chateaubriand, and then Victor Hugo, followed his lead. Byron’s memory is still green at Athens, where the Town Council have named a thoroughfare after him. Were he to rise from the dead, he would rewrite the famous verse on “ The ) Giaour,” in which he speaks of Greece as J “so coldly”sweet, so deadly fair, wc start, f for soul is wanting thero.” There is no more living State in Europe than Greece, nor one in which patriotism is on a better footing. The splendid Museum, Stadium and University of Athens, and the handsome new quarter of that city, are entirely due to the patriotic fervour of Greeks who have made large fortunes. Other rich. Greeks have enabled archaeological societies to unearth temples find statues, to show the nation what ancient Greece was and to excite modern Greece ! to emulate her. When one reflects what j Greece was when poor Otho of Bavaria was set down by Sir Edward Lyons to reside at Nauplia, one marvels at all that has been done since. Despite monetary j difficulties, the little kingdom is as live as ' it can be. It would not surprise me to see a revival of the mettlesome spirit that was too much for Xerxes and his mohster army. Intellect is always young, and what more clever people is there than the Greek. Since I first sighted Navarino I have in one way or another seen a good deal of them. It may be that they are too keen on making money, and not often scrupulous enough as to how it should be made. I have often wished that landlords of hotels and head waiters were better satisfied with their legitimate profits, and did not buzz round guests to induce them to buy dear honey and fancy boxes of figs that might be had for next to ; nothing in the maikofc. Still, the general march is onward and upward, and capacity for high civilisation, not latent merely, but strikingly apparent. The feeling that made the Athenians deify their city, under the symbol of Athenae, has not died. I should say it is as strong as ever. The incapacity of Otho to be bitten by it was the cause of the revolution that overthrew him. The actual King and Queen have long given way to the contagion. Their children are ardent Greeks. Their Prussian daughter-in-law had to choose between displeasing her Imperial brother, by identifying herself completely with the j Greek nation or unpopularity. Ho wanted ! her to remain a Prussian Evangelical and go to worship alone on Sundays at a German chapel. The Athenians noticed her absence from the midst of the Royal family when they went to the cathedral, a gorgeous church in the centre of the town,

with coloured-glass windows, reminding one of the great red, blue and green bottles in a chemist’s window. The • Duchess of Sparta, by electing to please | the Greeks, has brought upon them the ( animosity of the Gorman Emperor. | Many fear that he will do something . nasty to them. The Empress Frederick [ and Queen Victoria tried to make up the quarrel. It was thought last summer they had almost succeeded. But the Emperor’s policy has been, and still is, to get diamonds and firmans out of the Sultan in return for hostility to the Cretans, and, indeed, to any extension of Greece. AVilliam has never got over the impression he received on being taken through the Treasury at Stamboul. That place is the greatest storehouse of jewellery in the world. Valuable, or rather invaluable specimens were culled from the jewels there for presents for the Emperor and Empress, who have since made a return in the shape of photos of themselves and their children in loving family groups. His Imperial Majesty, by the Sultan’s leave, is startler under German management, orphanages in the Holy Land. For what orphans do you suppose ? Of massacred Armenians. German colonies, the building of Geiman churches in Palestine, are favoured by the Sultan, whose influence is also on the side of German traders, and against English and Greek. The “ conversion ” of the Du.ch.ess of Sparta to the Greek Chine 1 has not, however, been the sole cause of the feud between Berlin and Athens. Greece is the most cycclitciivc of modern nations. The King and Queen have no circle, other than their household, family Cabinet and the Corps Diplomatique, because they cannot select their company. To invito some hundreds to dinner and evening parties would be to mortally

offend the thousands. The Empress Frederick did not sufficiently understand that everyone is “ born ” in Attica, but tried to be universally civil. If she offended now and then, it was unintentionally. But the Emperor stood on his dignity in requiring what could not be had—namely, birth. He exacted the application of the Berlin Protocol for presentations, and at a ball given in his honour audibly spoke of the tradesmen, whom the King had to invite, as “fellows.” He also resented I the attempts made by country mayors to shake hands with him at a reception, and audibly wondered why such.a lot of rustics were allowed to come near him. This at j first caused a strong feeling against the I young princess ; but her conversion and her indifferent health brought round the Athenians. I heard a Greek say that the Emperor was so irate at her defiance of his authority, for the sake of conciliating a lot of cads, that he was in a mood to bombard the Acropolis, and perhaps

I might try to do so. I thought this a gross exaggeration. But it seems that it was not, and that Germen men-of-war are to support at the Piraeus Turkish soliers should there be another insurrection in Crete. In the event of such an insurrection, .there will be still further defiance of the Imperial will. The Duke of Sparta and his second and third brothers are determined to head any patriotic movement there. George, the second brother, by saving the life of the Czar in Japan, has won his eternal gratitude. However the Court of St. Petersburg might view a (technically) filibustering expedition led by him, it could not well help to put it down. Besides, the Czar enjoys seeing the Emperor bothered. He is always glad to make him feel that he is not the “ boss ” of Europe, as his grandfather was, though he does not set up to be so. It is a aurious fact -that all the King’s sons, save the eldest, look Greeks. This must be due to unconscious imitation, when children, of the persons who surrounded them. They arc not entitled to be called Princes, and speak of themselves as Princes of Nowhere, and Counts of Nothing-at-all. Their mother has completely identified herself with the common people. She spends much time in hospitals and in visiting the poor. The palace gardens, which are a shady grove, are open on two days in the week to the public. Any one who pleases may attend the military concerts there. There is no fashionable world, but there are many rich people who have come to live at Athens from the cities where they made their fortunes. The King and Queen visit them to acknowledge their patriotic gifts, but must not attempt to make them the nucleus of a Court set. To do so would bo to throw oil on the fire. Decorations may be granted, but titles must not. What a lesson to England 1 I sometimes think that wo are not so deeply indebted as we imagine to Anglo-Saxon ancestors. They were the last European race to be civilised. One has still only to scratch them, or excite them strongly, to detect the barbarian. Their love for a lord is surely barbarous. Is not also their incapacity to see. the identical sinfulness of gambling at casinos and on the turf ?

Civilisation is latent in every man, woman and child in Greece. I never saw such an intelligent-looking imp as at Eleusis. It was an infant of six months, in the arms of a ragged little girl of seven or eight. The impish eyes watched some tourists with the keenest intellectual curiosity and amusement. One might suppose they were the eyes of an Aristophanes in bud. One finds far more politeness in a wayside and sordid-looking country cafe than in an English, or, indeed, a French, drawing-room. I never saw, even in France, a harder-working peasantry. They are miserably poor from overtaxation, but submit to it in the hope that the expensive army will some day rid all Greece of the Turks. The sooner the better.

Are they a handsome people ? They are a people of interesting faces. Eyes are generally as black as those of Mr Gladstone or of M. Cl6menceau, who, by the way, has the bilious complexion, alert mind, and ready wit of the Greek. They are a very well-made, clean-built people. But their features and expressions are so refined as to give them a high sort of beauty. A blooming girl is uncommon. The girls’ faces that most struck me were the colour of yellow wax, which blazing black eyes lighted up as might a devouring flame. There was something in most of the races that betrayed, I thought, liability to fever. All feeling for beautiful drapery is extinct. The rich women dress in frightful imitations of French finery ; the poor in sordid patched raiment, too thick and clumsy to admit of graceful folds. On Sunday, however, there is a show of fancy needlework, that with necklaces, of coins, has a pretty effect. The Queen often wears a Greek costume. She is looked up to as a mother, Her tastes are simple, and her disposition most kindly. She has never got over her own own great sorrow—the death of her eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Paul, whose departure from Athens to be married was more like a funeral than a preface to a bridal. All Athens turned out to wish her joy. But the faces of the bride and her mother were blistered with tears. This being thought a bad omen, the air was filled with lamentation. The Princess was entreated by the women to turn back, and wait for some more propitious time to begin her journey. But Royal personages must not break appointments to escape from evil presages. The Princess went, was mar-

ried, and was killed in less than two years by a fall from a carriage that was going at a furious pace. It may interest Borderland enthusiasts to hear that the following tale was circulated directly the news of her death -arrived at Athens._ A nurse of the Princess, who used to go about with her in her walks and visits to the museum, dreamt the night before the departure for Russia that they were both at the former place. In looking at some marble sarcophagi, then recently discovered, they came to one representing a family group. A sad mother was pressing the hand of a young girl setting out for that bourne from which no traveller returns. A female servant —a nurse probably—knelt to tie the girl’s sandals. A grieved father hid his face with his hands. The dreamer thought the personages were suddenly changed into the King, the Queen, herself and the betrothed Princess. Next morning she told her dream to the Queen, who laughed at, but believed her, as her blistered face showed when her daughter was leaving Athens.