Vol. XLII, No. 6 



WASHINGTON 



December, 1922 



THE 



NATBONAL 

 TO AFMDG 



COPYRIGHT, 1 9 22.B1 



iTIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D C. 



a 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE" 



By Alexander Wilbourne Weddell 



Formerly American Consul General at Athens 



A FTER some six years spent in 

 I\ Greece, after learning to love that 

 ± \ land of ' 'cloudless climes and starry 

 skies" with something of the affection 

 which I feel for my own country, I am 

 fain to try to convey to those who may 

 read these pages some of the enthusiasm 

 and interest and affection for that soil 

 which life there kindles. 



In attempting this I am following a 

 well-worn path, for the compelling charm 

 of Hellas has been the theme of poets, 

 philosophers, artists, historians, and trav- 

 elers from the earliest days. Foremost 

 among trave 1 -°rs must be named Pau- 

 sanias, the Baedeker of the second cen- 

 tury after Christ, whose minute work is 

 a basis on which our archeologists com- 

 mence to build to their sometimes startling 

 conclusions. Since his time, save for that 

 long period following the reign of Jus- 

 tinian at Constantinople, when a veil seems 

 drawn over the Balkan Peninsula, through 

 which invasions, internecine strife, mas- 

 sacres, and cruelties are dimly felt and 

 seen, there have not lacked men of the 

 stamp of Pausanias to penetrate the 

 country and leave their impressions. 



In those days such voyages required 

 strength, fortitude, and courage of the 

 highest order. How different, how very 

 different, from the luxury now surround- 

 ing a voyage to Greece ! 



approaching attica by ska 



Fate, working through my Government, 

 decided me to go by water. Three days 



over summer seas from Sicily, three nights 

 under starry skies, a fairy glimpse of 

 -Cerigo, — the Cythera of the poets, near to 

 which Venus rose from the sea — then a 

 long line of low-lying islands echeloned 

 toward the coast, and there lay before my 

 eyes the Plain of Attica, surrounded by 

 hills, with "Athens, the eye of Greece," 

 as its center (see map, page 574). 



To every one sensitive to historical sug- 

 gestion, to every one to whom beauty 

 makes the supreme appeal, the first sight 

 of this immortal city becomes the moment 

 of a lifetime. 



To the right rose Hymettus, famed 

 now, as in ancient days, for the honey 

 which the bees rifle from its flowers ; to 

 the left, and nearer, the island of Salamis, 

 with its deathless memories ; a bowshot 

 away, Psyttalia, where Aristides and his 

 band cut down the flower of Persian 

 chivalry, after the naval battle of Salamis ; 

 still farther to the left, the ranges of 

 Parnes, extending in a full, voluptuous 

 curve toward the east. 



Sweeping this panorama with powerful 

 glasses, the city revealed itself more 

 clearly, wearing "like a garment the beauty 

 of the morning," and, outtopping all, the 

 Acropolis, with the Parthenon as its 

 diadem. 



In its still beauty, its majesty and its 

 tenderness, the scene had a vague unreal- 

 ity. I thought of the spirit hand "clothed 

 in white samite, mystic, wonderful," which 

 rose from the lake in the poet's vision and 

 sank again. 



