Story of Greece and Crete

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 136, 1 August 1941, Page 3

Story of Greece and Crete

ARRIVAL. AT GREECE LIEUT. HULTQUTST'S DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY After three nights and two days r sea, we reached a certain Gree port which has a population of 300 000. On our way we had passcdj certain island with snow cappe ranges which, we little knew was t he the last resting place of a lot c cur chaps, as well as of our cneraj hut it had been good to get a distaii glimpse of green-covered slopes an now in this Greek port it was mar vellous to look out on green hill and trees and dwellings which mor resembled those of our own counir than most of the houses in Eigypt.. Wonderful Welcome. We arrived at. the Greek port h the 11 o'clock, ani< were camped oi the slopes mountain on the out skirts of a great and ancient citj of 500,000 population. After an even ing meal we were paid our firs "ivages in Greek currency, and a num her of men went out on leave for th< evening. I went to view the sight: of the great and ancient city on th< second day, spending the whole aft ernoon and night on leave. It was r most interesting experience. Tht people absolutely welcomed us witl ■open arms and gave our troops wonderful time. Our men soon learned to drink tho local wine called "Crassi" a drinl; made from grape juice and flavoured with the resin of pine trees. Most of us availed ourselves of the opportunity of having a bath which cos 4 : 10 Drachmas (about sd) . We discovered 'that a £ will go a long way in Greece. In fact one found it difficult to get rid of that much, everything was so cheap. There is so. much one could write about that very ancient city that it is hard to decide which would be 'the most interesting thing to select in view of the limited time one has to spare to write letters. So I will leave the description of this city to another time. Move North. We stayed at the mountain side camp for about 5 days and then one morning early moved on to a place away up in the North of Greece — North of Mt. Olympus. As I have already said, I: did that trip on motor cycle. We did it. in thrc3 stages, camping at two p'taces en route overnight. Those were the daj r s when it was still safe to move in the daylight. Little did any of us realise that on our return journey we would be travelling mostly at night and that we would be compelled to hide ourselves in the daytime. It was a very interesting trip north however and we received a great welcome at every village yre passed through. What great people they were. The children woul-d reach out to touch our hands as we Tode past, they would give us flowers, when we stopped they would decorate us and our vehicles with flowers, and give us wine to drink. The wine by the way is the national

drink, noi rea; a good deal of cofTc is drunk there but not tea. Similar to New Zealand. The country reminded one in man parts, of New Zealand. Some of tli landscape views were remarkabl t like landscapes in Hawke's Bay an c Taranaki. Time after time me - would comment on the similarity c i different parts of this and our N;i 1 tive Lund. But farming methods ar > quite different. Farmers do not l'iv ■ on their land in Grcece. They live i; , communities, and go out to -work ci their farms. Consequently you sc. I many little villages, surroundin; ■ which arc "acres and acres" of lan< ; divided up into patchwork square • and l'css regular shaped areas mad; • distinctive by various kinds of croj in various stages of growth, and th lines of demarcation between oni man's property and another man' property accentuated still further ptfrhaps, by the degree to which tin /soil has been worked under the pre I historic methods still used. No Modern Methodte. I can still say that I saw no man lire used either in Greece or Crete Whether or not it was the time tc use it I do not know nor did I have time to find out. But there were nc modern farming appliances. Watering of crops was done cither by hand or on the irrigation from a well, the power to draw water from which was supplied by a mule. I never saw a single power pump. The land was poor, must have been, as everybody outside of the main cities showed signs of poverty, despite the fact that everyone, man. woman and child works on the land from daylight to dark. I gained the impression that thev not only get low prices for their produce, but that the yield is low. I got the impression too that fo; centuries they had been taking every thing they possibly could out of the soil without ever putting anything, or much, by way of manure back. On the other hand the people seemed to be happy, probably not missing by way of a standard of living, what they had never had. But thenwas no modern invention, or aid to a higher standard of life thaiGreece could show us inNNc r Zea-« land. Yet the people were marvellous. All Ages Serve. Most of the menfolk of military age were already at the war, if not in Albania, then up, readj r and waiting with their poor equipment on the borders of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Old men, boys, girls, children and women of all ages were working on the roads. Women and girls predominated in this work. It seemed to me that they had all been conscripted in areas immediately adjoining the main roads to put the roads in good condition, to carry the traffic which was to be far in excess of anything the country had ever seen in its history. The war machine is now mechanised and on wheels. Grcece had seen many Avars, many more than most other countries, but never one like this promised to be. (To be continued).