you of pictures you have
seen when a youth. Also olive trees and straight black pines and the
Acropolis. There is not much of it left as far as I can see from the
city, but what there is is enough to make you wish you had brushed up
your Greek history. I have now reached the place where Pan has a cave,
where the man voted against Aristides because he was humanly tired of
hearing him called the Just and where the Minotaur ate young women.

What was in the Isle of Crete but the rock from which the father of
Theseus threw himself--is still here! Also the hill upon which Paul
stood and told the Athenians they were too superstitious. You can
imagine my feelings at finding all of these things are true. After
this I am going to the North Pole to find Santa Claus and so renew my
youth.

I regret to say that it is raining very hard and Athens is not set for
a rainstorm. It is also cold but as I have not been warm since I
crossed the North River with Chas. amid cakes of ice that is of no
consequence. When I come here again I come in the summer. The good
old rule that it is cold in winter and warm in summer is a good enough
rule to follow. You have only to travel to find out how universally
cold winter is. last night I was in Cairo, I got in a carriage and
drove out alone to the Pyramids. It was beautiful moonlight. I got a
donkey and rode up around them and then walked over to the Sphinx. I
had never understood or seen it before. It was the creepiest and most
impressive thing I ever had happen to me, I do believe. There was no
one except the two donkey-boys and myself and the Sphinx. All about
was the desert and above it the purple sky and the white stars and the
great negro's head in front of you with its paws stretched out, and the
moonlight turning it into shadows and white lines. I think I stood
there so long that I got sort of dizzy. It was just as if I had been
the first man to stumble across it, and I felt that I was way back
thousands of years and that the ghosts of Caesar and Napoleon and
Cleopatra and the rest were in the air. That was worth the entire trip
to me. This place promises to be most exciting, the New York artists
are all here, they are the most jauntily dull people I ever met. Do
you know what I mean? They are very nice but so stupid. I don't let
them bother me. Who was the chap who wrote about the bottle of
Malvoisie? because I got a bottle of it for BREAKFAST and it is NO
GOOD.