Has not each land its representative tree? America has its maple,
England its oak, France its poplar, Italy its olive, Turkey its
cypress, Egypt its palm, and so on. The representative tree of Greece
is the pine. I do not forget the wild olive, from which in past days
the crowns were made, nor the fact that the guide-books say that
in a Greek landscape the masses of color are usually formed by the
silver-green olive-trees. It seemed to me, and it seems to me still in
remembrance, that the lovely little pine is the most precious ornament
of the Grecian scene.
Marathon that day was a pastoral of yellow and blue, of pines and
sea. On the way I passed through great olive-groves, in one of
which long since some countrymen of mine were taken by brigands and
carried away to be done to death. And there were mighty fig-trees, and
mulberry-trees, and acres and acres of vines, with here and there an
almost black cypress among them. But the pines, more yellow than green,
and the bright blue sea made the picture that lives in my memory.
[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood