ashore and visit these classic
localities as quickly as possible. No land we had yet seen had aroused
such universal interest among the passengers.

But bad news came. The commandant of the Piraeus came in his boat, and
said we must either depart or else get outside the harbor and remain
imprisoned in our ship, under rigid quarantine, for eleven days! So we
took up the anchor and moved outside, to lie a dozen hours or so, taking
in supplies, and then sail for Constantinople. It was the bitterest
disappointment we had yet experienced. To lie a whole day in sight of
the Acropolis, and yet be obliged to go away without visiting Athens!
Disappointment was hardly a strong enough word to describe the
circumstances.

All hands were on deck, all the afternoon, with books and maps and
glasses, trying to determine which "narrow rocky ridge" was the
Areopagus, which sloping hill the Pnyx, which elevation the Museum Hill,
and so on. And we got things confused. Discussion became heated, and
party spirit ran high. Church members were gazing with emotion upon a
hill which they said was the one St. Paul preached from, and another
faction claimed that that hill was Hymettus, and another that it was
Pentelicon! After all the trouble, we could be certain of only one
thing--the square-topped hill was the Acropolis, and the grand ruin that
crowned it was the Parthenon, whose picture we knew in infancy in the
school books.

We inquired of every body who came near the ship, whether there were
guards in the Piraeus, whether they were strict, what the chances were of
capture should any of us slip ashore, and in case any of us made the
venture and were caught, what would be probably done to us? The answers
were discouraging: There was a strong guard or police force; the Piraeus
was a small town, and any stranger seen in it would surely attract
attention--capture would be certain. The commandant said the punishment
would be "heavy;" when asked "how heavy?" he said it would be "very
severe"--that was all we could get out of him.

At eleven o'clock at night, when most of the ship's company were abed,
four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring
the enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart, over a low hill,
intending to go clear around the Piraeus, out of the range of its police.
Picking our way so stealthily over that rocky, nettle-grown eminence,
made me feel a good deal as if I were on my way s