nk and did
not succeed. But the Richard Harding Davis luck did not fail him
completely and I remember I greatly envied him the huge pile of gold
and notes that represented his winnings and which we did our very best
to spend before we left the land of the Prince of Monaco. However,
having had his first taste of war, Richard felt that he must leave the
peace and content of Florence to see how the Greeks, with whom he had
much sympathy, were faring with their enemies the Turks. As it
happened, this expedition proved but a short interruption, and in less
than a month he was once more back with his new-found friends in
Florence.

April 28, 1897

On the Way to Patras on a Steamer.

DEAR FAMILY:

It has been a week since I wrote you last, when I sent you the
Inauguration article. Since then I have been having the best time I
ever had any place ALONE. I have had more fun with a crowd, but never
have been so happy by myself. What I would have been had I taken some
other chap with me I cannot imagine. But the people of this part of
Greece have been so kind that I cannot say I have been alone. I never
met with strangers anywhere who were so hospitable, so confiding and
polite. After that slaughter-yard and pest place of Cuba, which is
much more terrible to me now than it was when I was there, or before I
had seen that war can be conducted like any other evil of civilization,
this opera bouffe warfare is like a duel between two gentlemen in the
Bois. Cuba is like a slave-holder beating a slave's head in with a
whip. I am a war correspondent only by a great stretch of the
imagination; I am a peace correspondent really, and all the fighting I
have seen was by cannon at long range. (I was at long range, not the
cannon.) I am doing this campaign in a personally conducted sense with
no regard to the Powers or to the London Times. I did send them an
article called "The Piping Times of War." If they do not use it I
shall illustrate it with the photos I have taken and sell it, for five
times the sum they would give, to the Harpers who are ever with us. As
I once said in a noted work, "Greece, Mrs. Morris, restores all your
lost illusions." For the last week I have been back in the days of
Conrad, the Corsair, and "Oh, Maid of Athens, ere We Part." I have
been riding over wind-swept hills and mountains topped with snow, and
with sheep and goats and wild flowers of every color spreading for
acres, and in a land whe