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National Geographic : 1913 Mar
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Photo by Emma G. Cummings PEASANTS AND FLOCK, NEAR EPIDAURAS, GREECE the Acropolis-incomparable even in its ruins-its cliffs and grottoes still the home of legend and of fable. All the cycles of Athenian life are rep resented. The classic temple of Theseus, best preserved of all the ancient monu ments, recalls the days of Pericles. The Stoa of Hadrian speaks of that distant day when a Roman conqueror ruled the violet crowned city. While the early Christian era finds its survival in the beautiful Byzantine churches, the most striking of which is that of St. Theodore set down in the midst of one of the great business streets of the city and scrupulously guarded from encroachment. Of Turkish days there remain few traces, though the ba zars, as typified by the Lane of the Little Red Shoes or Hephaestos street, the home of the coppersmiths, are more oriental than Hellenic or European. In this land of changing allegiance the marks of Venetian rule were set deep and strong. Corfu today, in its externals at least, is more Italian than Greek, while Nauplia, Patras, and many of the island seaports still find useful the battlemented fortresses erected by the Latin rulers. "A GRAVE NATIONAL HEMORRHAGE" As of old, the Greeks swarm the seas. The Piraeus is one of the busiest of Mediterranean ports-indeed, it is the center of transhipment for all the East while the Corinthian Canal, after many financial vicissitudes, now seems to be in the way of becoming each year a more and more useful route between the Ion ian and the 2Egean Seas. The Greeks are a town people. One tenth of the population is to be found in Athens and the Piraeus. The drain of emigration from the rural districts is enormous. In the words of a Cabinet Minister, it constitutes "a grave national
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