Greece, though sparsely inhabited, is in the main a very
cheerful-looking country. The loneliness of much of it is not
depressing, the bareness of much of it is not sad. I began to
understand this on the day when I went to the plain of Marathon, which,
fortunately, lies away from railroads. One must go there by carriage or
motor or on horseback. The road is bad both for beasts and machinery,
but it passes through country which is typical of Greece, and through
which it would be foolish to go in haste. Go quietly to Marathon, spend
two hours there, or more, and when you return in the evening to Athens
you will have tasted a new joy. You will have lived for a little while
in an exquisite pastoral--a pastoral through which, it is true, no
pipes of Pan have fluted to you,--I heard little music in Greece,--but
which has been full of that lightness, brightness, simplicity, and
delicacy peculiar to Greece. The soil of the land is light, and, I
believe, though Hellenes have told me that in this I am wrong, that the
heart of the people is light. Certainly the heart of one traveler was
as he made his way to Marathon along a white road thickly powdered with
dust.
[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood