A NEW ZEALANDER IN ATHENS.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 718, 14 January 1903, Page 1

A NEW ZEALANDER IN ATHENS.

Wc. arrived at Athens (writes a correspondent of the . Otago _ Daily Times) in a storm of rain such as I seldom remember experiencing, arid found everyone in the very comfortab e Grand Hotel congratulating themselves on the break-up of a drought which had lasted.over eight months. It was .quite Tike dear old Dunedin again to hear the weather the chief topic "of conversation, and we all felt at home at once . Quite an astounding change for the btiUci has taken plale here during the last 95 v cat's * Athens eon Id not iia\e advaneed more if v she"had been a colonial town. Fine private houses, built of Pentelic marble, handsome boulevards and gootV'shops and theatres and lovely public bufldings-all have sprit mr up in the new-town. Whilst in the old much -excavating has gone nn and an enormous amphitheatre, v_m, ten i’. 'ji niA_

I with marble seals, -built cm models ami nearly .completed, and is | destined "for the celebration oi thee far-famed Olympian games. I a trioric citizens love to contribute out .01 their wealth to exciiviti ions and restorations. • • and ythe Academy of Science—a- private gut—is * bunding which .anv', city would be proud to possess.. Outside their univers. > cl'l lids a marble monument ot Gladstone—shirt, collar, and all-arid another of Byron receiving, a laurel wreath front grateful Hellas in hv TTiblic gardens. A street nearer the 'Acropolis is also named after Byr.pn. For modern Greeks do not forget oiu: aid in "their struggle lor independence • witness their generous conduct recently during the Boey war, when tobacco, fruit, wineyanything wh.ch the Wuntry produced-was free y bestowed on our soldiers. And it is pleasant to note how warm a lecluig of friendship they cherish for the Bullish nation! In Athens we go cveryTC i, erc _to museums, ethnological collections. Acropolis, ruins upon ruins —and pay no't one paper drachma for e&trauce. Everything is irec^