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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



profitably administered. To his patron- 

 age the Royal Agricultural Society owes 

 much of its success, and under the care 

 of this institution there are now several 

 agricultural experiment stations in vari- 

 ous parts of the kingdom, devoting them- 

 selves to the improvement of the flocks, 

 the selection of seed, the demonstration 

 of the value of modern implements, and, 

 most promising of all, to a series of ex- 

 periments in dry farming, to which I had 

 the honor of first calling His Majesty's 

 attention and which, it seems to me, af- 

 fords the solution of the chief difficulty 

 with which Greek agriculture now con- 

 tends — the lack of adequate and well dis- 

 tributed rainfall. 



The Attic year is sharply divided cli- 

 matically into two seasons, the rainy and 

 the dry, the latter beginning late in May 

 and extending to early October, and dur- 

 ing which there is no rainfall except a 

 single thunder shower, which comes with 

 great regularity during the second week 

 in August. Outside of Attica climatic 

 conditions are somewhat better. In the 

 islands, along the Gulf of Corinth, and in 

 the Morea there is constant greenery — ■ 

 grass, vines, and many trees. But for 

 one who spent, as I did, four summers 

 on end in Athens, it is not easy to learn 

 that hills may have a beauty aside from 

 forests, and that color, contour, and form 

 can lend enchantment to the naked rock. 

 It was long before my New England eye 

 appreciated the wonderful tints which 

 the Athenian sunset throws upon Lyca- 

 bettus and Hymettus, and that I learned 

 that Athens now, as ever, should be hailed 

 as the "violet-crowned city." 



Personally I found the Athenian cli- 

 mate agreeable, and I cannot now recall 

 a single day during all of my stay there 

 when, even in the rainy season, the sun 

 did not shine at least a part of the time. 

 Cold winds there were, to be sure, in win- 

 ter, blowing down from the snow-capped 

 hills above the town or blowing up from 

 the sea at Phaleron ; but there were no 

 frosts ; the roses bloomed during every 

 month of the year in the legation gar- 

 dens ; oranges ripened in the open air, 

 and we picked our breakfast fruit from 

 the trees outside of the window, while 

 the palm flourishes there as I have seen 



it nowhere else, not even in the Riviera. 

 The summer heat is easily endurable, 

 the absence of rain removing the humid- 

 ity which makes American midsummer 

 so intolerable. Scarcely has the effect of 

 the spring rains worn away than the 

 ^Etesian wind begins to blow, commenc- 

 ing with almost clock-like regularity at 

 four in the afternoon and continuing thus 

 for 40 days, while at night cool breezes 

 sweep up to the city from the sea and 

 through the ravines that lead to Alyssida. 

 One cannot truthfully say that midsum- 

 mer nights in Athens are really cool, but 

 there is a sensible difference from the 

 heat of the day and a freshness which 

 always makes sleep possible. 



Greece's social, season 



Socially, too, the Athenian year divides 

 itself with the climate. At the end of the 

 rainy season the court, the diplomatic 

 body, and the rich flee away, the latter 

 going, as they say, "to Europe" ; and to 

 take their places there flock to Athens 

 and to the seaside hotels at Phaleron and 

 to villas and resorts at Kephisia-in-the- 

 hills numbers of rich Greeks from Asia 

 Minor and from Egypt ; and the whole 

 city reverses the order of its winter life, 

 turning night into day and spending most 

 of the hours between sunset and sunrise 

 out of doors. 



I do not think the midsummer heat of 

 Athens intolerable, despite a well-nigh 

 constant temperature of nearly 100 ; but 

 the glare of a cloudless sun, reflected 

 from the marble pavements and the white 

 stuccoed buildings, always gave me, as I 

 went at midday from the legation to the 

 club for luncheon, a sense of being struck 

 in the face by an angry blast of heat. 

 Needless to say, none venture out of 

 doors in the daytime except on compul- 

 sion. 



Athenian houses are built to resist heat. 

 The exterior and interior walls are all of 

 thick stone, and, with tightly closed win- 

 dows, one stays in doors until the after- 

 noon tea, when the level rays of the set- 

 ting sun permit adventure. Then one 

 strolls or drives, dines wherever the din- 

 ner hour may find him, and invariably 

 out of doors, journeys by tram to Pha- 

 leron for the bathing and the music, seeks 



