EGYPT, GREECE, AND TURKEY- 1888 -1889 439 



sity. Very delightful also were excursions with my old 

 Yale companion, Walker Fearne, our minister in Greece, 

 and his charming family, to the Acropolis, the Theater 

 of Dionysus, the Bay of Salamis, Megara, and other 

 places of interest. An especial advantage we had in the 

 companionship of Professor Mahaffy of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, whose comments on all these places were most 

 suggestive. 



Very interesting to me was an interview with Tricou- 

 pis, the prime minister of the kingdom. His talk on the 

 condition of things in Greece was that of a broad-minded 

 statesman. Speaking of the relations of the Greek 

 Church to the state, he said that the church had kept 

 the language and the nationality of the people alive dur 

 ing the Turkish occupation, but that, in spite of its ser 

 vices, it had never been allowed to domineer over the 

 country politically; he dwelt on the importance of push 

 ing railway communications into Europe, and lamented 

 the obstacles thrown in their way by Turkey. His remi 

 niscences of Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Dallas, whom he had 

 formerly known at the Court of St. James during his 

 stay as minister in London, were especially interesting. 



The most important &quot;function&quot; I saw was the sol 

 emn &quot;Te Deum&quot; at the cathedral on the anniversary of 

 Greek independence, the King, Queen, and court being 

 present ; but I was less impressed by their devotion than 

 by the irreverence of a considerable part of the audi 

 ence, who, at the close of the service, walked about in 

 the church with their hats on their heads. As to the 

 priests who swarmed about us in their Byzantine cos 

 tumes and long hair, I was reminded of a sententious 

 Moslem remark regarding them: &quot;Much hair, little 

 brains. 



On Good Friday I visited Mars Hill and mused for an 

 hour over what has come from the sermon once preached 

 there. 



Toward the end of April we left the Piraeus, and, after 

 passing through the ^Egean on a most beautiful day, ar- 



