Part 23 (1/2)
My long-time felloorker and one of my best of friends, Francis B
Sayre, was to be married on November 25, 1913, to Miss Jessie Wilson
Her father, hen first I had had the honour of his acquaintance, happened to be the President of Princeton University, was now the President of the United States So we had all the fun of a White House wedding Not less than fifty of our fishermen friends from Labrador and North Newfoundland were invited, and some me procession upstairs, and came down to the fanfare of uniforh we had rehearsed the whole business several times, only relieved the tension thatto dodge the reporters added heaps of fun, which I aot the better of us; though the thrill of escape froton, so that the honeymoon rendezvous should not be knoas practically a victory for the wedding party As it would never be safe to use the tactics again, I aive theuests were still revelling, the bride and groom were hustled into a secret elevator in the thickness of the wall, whisked up to the robing chauised Meanwhile a suitable cae of automobiles had arrived ostentatiously at the main entrance, to carry and escort the illustrious couple in fitting po the couple were dropped direct to the baseed oubliette The passas the sound of the wheels of an ordinary cab at the kitchen entrance TheAt the sound of the crush on the gravel a silent door was opened, two coures crept out, and the conspirators drove slowly along round a few corners where a swift autoalite_ and _fraternite_
CHAPTER XXIII
A MONTH'S HOLIDAY IN ASIA MINOR
After the fall spent in A the necessary funds, it was the now faland In spite of a few days' rest atin London,which could direct ourDay found us bound for Paris, Turin, Milan, and Ro at the famous office of the Hudson Bay Co luncheons where their directors meet My old friend Lord Strathcona presided I could not help noting that after all the lapse of years since we first met at Hudson Bay House in Montreal, he still retained his abstemious habits He was ninety-three, and still at his post as High Co councillor of a dozen companies His memory of Labrador and his days there, and his love for it, had not abated one whit Hearing that the hospital steamer Strathcona needed a new boiler and considerable repairs, he ordered me to have the work undertaken at once and the bill sent to him He, moreover, insisted that we should spend some days with him at his beautiful country house near London, an invitation which we accepted for our return, but which ere never fated to realize, for before the appointed date that able man had crossed the last bar
It is said to be better to be lucky than rich We had expected in Rome to do only what the Romans of our pocket-book do But we fell in with soive pleasure, and New Year's night was iven by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, to which ere taken by the editor of the ”Churchman” and later of the ”Constructive Quarterly,” an old friend of ours, Dr Silas McBee A gliht into the problem of Roman modern politics and the factions of the Black and White
Roet the future and live for the tiht I could see the gladiators fighting to aentle wo horrible deaths for truths that have htly
I confess that religious buildings, religious pictures, religious conventions of all kinds very soon pall on my particular temperament
It is possibly a defect in my development, like my inability to appreciate classical music On the other hand, like Mark Twain, I enjoy an ancient mummy just because he is ancient; and were it not for the irritation of seeing so ious display associated with such miserable social conditions in so beautiful a country, I should have more sympathy with those ould ”see Rome and die” The sanitation of the one-tiests that it could not be difficult to accomplish that feat in the hot weather
Brindisi is a household word in allish holo-Indian relatives I was therefore glad to pass _via_ Brindisi on the road to Athens Patras also had its interest tocentre for our Labrador fish We actually saw three forlorn-looking schooners, with cargoes fronant impression left on my mind by Greece, as well as Rome, was its diminutive size I almost resented the fact that a place civilized thousands of years ago, and which had looination as the land of Socrates, of Plato, of Homer, of Achilles, of Spartan warriors, and immortal poets, all seemed so small The sense of imposition on my youth worriedrelics within a few hundred yards that it left one with the feeling of having eaten a meal too fast The scene of the battle of Salamis fascinated me When we sat in Xerxes' seat and conjured up the whole picture again, and saw the ladly gave their lives to defeat a tyrant seeking for world power, it made me love those old Greeks, not merely admire their art
On Mars Hill we stood on the spot where, to reatest man in history, save one, pleaded with reatness and power But every monuhtingfrom the Piraeus reconciled us to the very mediocre vessel which carried us to Smyrna Our visit to Asia Minor we had inadvertently tie at Paradise near Sift of Mrs John Kennedy of New York Mr Ralph Harlow, our host and a professor at the college, with Mr Cass Reid and other friends, ently our brief visit It was just a drea the es
Men of ambition, utterly irrespective of race, colour, creed, or sect, sit side by side as the alumni The humanity, not the other-worldliness, of the leaders has made even the Turks, steeped in the blood of their innocent Christian subjects, recognize the untold value of these Christian universities, and kept the the war
Dr Bliss, of Beyrout, once told us a hue audience in New York, when immediately after his speech the chair the one hundred and fiftieth hymn, 'From the best bliss that earth iain'”
The preservation of Ephesus was a surprise to us, though of late the Turks have been carrying off its precious historic e marble font in an old Byzantine baptistry was broken up for that purpose while ere there We stood on the very rostrum in the theatre where St Paul and the coppersmith had trouble--while at the tireat city was a hungry ass whichharboured in a dressing-roo a Roman road, which had not been repaired since the days of the Caesars, on our way to Pergamos, in the only Ford car in the country, was punctuated by having to get out and shove whenever we came to a cross-drain These alent over instead of under the road--only on an exaggerated Baltiht at Soma, which is the end of the branch railroad in the direction of Pergamos, ere in the best hotel, which, however, was only half of it for humans A detachment of Turkish soldiers were billeted below in the quarters for the other aniround, and it was bitterly cold The poor soldiers slept literally on the stone floor We were cold, and we felt so sorry for theenerosity we sent them a couple of baskets of Turkish specialties Later in the day we noticed that wherever ent a Turkish soldier with a rifle followed us So we turned off into a side street and walked out into the country Sure enough the soldier caes for us, we had a Greek graduate of International College, a very delightful young fellow, very proud of a newly acquired American citizenshi+p At last we stopped and bribed that soldier to tell us what the trouble was ”Our officer thought that you ifts to Turkish soldiers”
At Pergauests on Greek Christ There were fine young irls, and all the accessories of a delightful Christian hoates had been locked, and the inner doors bolted and blinds dran, and all possible loopholes examined for spies, the usual festivities were observed These fae some four hundred years, but their patriotism has no more dimmed than that of ancient Israel under her oppressors Before we left they danced for us the fairls who, driven to their last stand on a rocky hilltop, jumped one by one over the precipice as the dance came round to each one, rather than submit to shame and slavery From our friends at Smyrna we learned subsequently that when, a few eneral visited the country,overtures to the Turks, the blow fell on this faony of deportation
At Constantinople the kindness of Mr Morgenthau, the Ae and the Girls'
School, left delightful memories of even the few days in winter that we spent there Thejourney to it, and when a teacher from the splendid Girls' School, herself a specialist on the Hittites, was good enough to show it to us, it was like a leap back into the long history of man It seelodyte forbears
Owing to shortage of tih Serbia, and stopping for a day at Budapest and two at Vienna We would have been glad to linger longer, for every hour was delightful