The Last Mile to Hellas

The Last Mile to Hellas

Long live freedom! It lives on the Greek railways. The conductor did indeed harass those traveling on the outer walls, whose side he had difficulty in passing while examining the tickets, but it never occurred to him to chase them away. The Prussian police system, which has been implemented elsewhere in the world, is entirely unknown on the Greek railways. Everyone comes and goes as he pleases. Outside the cities, boys and young men waited in the highlands for the train and jumped into it like children into a sleigh when their parents were returning from church. In the same way, they accompanied it long distances from the stations when it left. No one bothered to take the trouble to shake them off.

The railway between Patras and Athens is the most important of all the railways in Greece. As far as Corinth, it runs along the shore of the gulf through continuous vineyards, which widen and narrow as the mountains of the Peloponnese are farther or nearer to the shore. In a few places, the railway runs high on the mountainside, and the view from it is always charmingly beautiful. Where there are no vineyards, there are extensive olive groves. In the waste places, a variety of wild plants, which we are accustomed to growing in pots at home, compete for space: handsome myrtles, acacias, oranges, cypresses, and various large cacti. On the other side of the gulf rises a continuous line of high mountains, at the foot of which are Mesolongio, Naupactus, and Delphi, and behind which Oita and the ever-memorable Parnassus raise their snow-covered peaks. I tirelessly admired these landscapes from the open window, from which sometimes a grasshopper, sometimes a bee, and some strange, scheming insect would dart in.

Below, the clear waves splashed against the rocky shore, into which, over the millennia, they had carved all sorts of sighing arches and niches. From the coast, peasant houses smiled from the midst of various lush parks.

[Image: Poor peasant.]

We were on the same day that the last age group of the reserve went off to war. At all the stops and stations, there were dense crowds of peasants, who, accompanied by their wives and domestics, were waiting for the train to travel to Athens. It is impossible to describe the bustle that prevailed at the stations. Before the train could even stop, the Patras newspaper boys jumped down from the carriages with their rolls and ran screaming into the middle of the crowd, which eagerly tore the newspapers from their hands. The sun-baked, hardened, tough-limbed, and bearded palikars were saying goodbye to their friends and acquaintances. For the most part, they were dressed in their beautiful national costume, the fustanella. This costume includes skin-tight ratio saryks and half-shoes, sewn in the same way as the pikes; in place of the pimple, there is a large red or tassel. At the waist is a starched, pleated, white, skirt-like garment that reaches halfway down the thighs. The vests are often very beautifully embroidered. The coat is also quite peculiar; it is usually worn with the sleeves hanging loose at the back. The collar is sewn into a “pack,” which, in rainy weather, can be pulled over the head. The coat is made of very coarse, homespun sara, either blue or completely white. The back is often sewn full of threads that hang like wool. On the head is either an embroidered cap without a brim or a fez. You can also see these national costumes in the cities. They are worn mainly by those bourgeois who want to show their patriotic Greek spirit. On a man with a slender figure, it is so beautiful that I have never seen anything like it. Women have their national costumes, also strange in their patterns and decorations.

[Image: Megara folk festival.]

“Victory or death! Victory or death!” was heard by those who were leaving, who were already middle-aged men, saying goodbye as they went, and it was a farewell phrase that many an old father uttered to his son. Some left gravely, others cheerfully. The whole crowd, including the youngest boy, seemed to know perfectly well what this departure meant. There was no wild enthusiasm, to be sure, but there was a desire to go to war and try what Hellas could do to the Turks. I did not see tears in the eyes of a single man. But the poor wives burst into such pitiful weeping at the moment of departure that it was a pity to watch. The old, hooked-jawed, lumpy-faced women sobbed so bitterly that emotion made them almost beautiful; the girls, some of whom were very sweet, turned away their tender faces or hid them in handkerchiefs, and the mothers, with red eyes, held out their children to bid farewell to their departing father. The best worker in the home, the only security, the father, was almost every man who now strove to board the crowded train, obey the government’s order, and set off for the border.

As the train set off, there was heavy firing. The soldiers who were with them loaded their rifles with hard cartridges and fired them into the air. Others fired with revolvers and pistols, the boys with wrenches. At a few stations, some dignitary — perhaps the mayor or something of the sort — delivered a thunderous speech to the departing passengers in the manner of Demosthenes, recalling brilliant examples from the history of ancient Greece. Although his flood of words was most potent, and although he accompanied it with violent hand movements, it was nevertheless drowned out by the shooting and the noise of departure.

The train was so complete that not everyone could fit inside, and the outside of the carriages was lined with Hellenes in fustanella as the train passed through classical landscapes. A group of peasants stood in the olive groves watching this procession. They shouted their farewells and waved their shawls. There stood girls who had tied large bouquets to the ends of sticks and held them out to the speeding train. Many hands reached out from the windows, but the speed was too fast, and the takers were too rough; the bouquets fell apart, and the flowers rained down along the embankment.

To Corinth, these scenes were repeated at every place we stopped. On the other side of the isthmus, it was quieter, and the reservists had already left.

Corinth, which is at the foot of the Acrocorinth, in a dry, treeless place, is from the outside a somewhat insignificant city. From that time on, the landscape underwent a complete transformation. There were still high mountains on all sides, but they were almost entirely bare; only low bushes grew here and there. The grass was very scarce, and it is incomprehensible how the large flocks of goats and sheep that were seen grazing in the pastures lived. The sheep have long wool, and so do the goats. Starting from Salamis, large expanses of land extend inland from the seashore, but they are dry and poorly cultivated. Near Corinth, a railway runs across the Corinth Canal. This cuts right through the isthmus, and on both sides of the canal, the walls are very high. This construction, which has cost tens of millions of dollars, has been a complete failure. It does not significantly improve the routes other than the Piraeus, and it is so narrow that large ships cannot pass through it.

[Image: Corinth Canal.]

Between Corinth and Megara, the mountains reach down to the sea, and the railway has had to be bored into steep rock channels. The train slows down at that dizzying height and cautiously circles the vertical cliffs. This interval is the most magnificent on the whole journey. Beyond the bay of Aegina, which spreads out with blue foaming waves on the right, the high, hilly shores of Argolis are visible.

Behind Megara, our plane broke down, and while we waited for it to be repaired, all the passengers went to sit by the side of the track, from which there was a view of the russet ridges of Salamis in the fading light of the evening sun. The plane driver sat on a rock with a newspaper, and the palikaari gathered around him to listen to the war news. Others began to shoot Ploskutta with their rifles. The groups and the environment were excellent.

The incident delayed us for several hours, so it was already evening when we reached Athens. My Greek companions, whose joy rose higher and higher as we approached, suddenly seized my arm, looked out of the window, and exclaimed with emotion: “The Acropolis!” The valleys were already shrouded in night, but there, above the vague shadows, the Propylaea and the Parthenon were reddening in the last twilight!