she became a floating gambling-hell. There were twenty-four
first-class passengers who were in every way first class; Greek
officers, bankers, merchants, and deputies, and their time on the
steamer from eleven each morning until four the next morning was spent
in dealing baccarat.

When the stewards, who were among the few persons on board who did
not play, tried to spread a table-cloth and serve food, they were
indignantly rebuked. The most untiring players were the captain and
the ship's officers. Whenever they found that navigating their ship
interfered with their baccarat we came to anchor. We should have reached
Salonika in a day and a half. We arrived after four days. And all of
each day and half of each night we were anchored in midstream while the
captain took the bank. The hills of Euboea and the mainland formed a
giant funnel of snow, through which the wind roared. It swept the ship
from bow to stern, turning to ice the woodwork, the velvet cushions,
even the blankets. Fortunately, it was not the kind of a ship that
supplied sheets, or we would have frozen in our berths. Outside of
the engine-room, which was aft, there was no heat of any sort, but
undaunted, the gamblers, in caps and fur coats, their breath rising in
icy clouds, crouched around the table, their frozen fingers fumbling
with the cards.

There were two charming Italians on board, a father and son--the father
absurdly youthful, the boy incredibly wise. They operate a chain of
banks through the Levant. They watched the game but did not play. The
father explained this to me. "My dear son is a born gambler," he said.
"So, in order that I may set him an example, I will not play until after
he has gone to sleep."

Later, the son also explained. "My dear father," he whispered, "is
an inveterate gambler. So, in order that I may reprove him, I do not
gamble. At least not until he has gone to bed." At midnight I left them
still watching each other. The next day the son said: "I got no sleep
last night. For some reason, my dear father was wakeful, and it was four
o'clock before he went to his cabin."

When we reached Volo the sun was shining, and as the day was so
beautiful, the gamblers remained on board and played baccarat. The rest
of us explored Volo. On the mountains above it the Twenty-Four Villages
were in sight, nestling on the knees of the hills. Their red-tiled
houses rose one above the other, the roof of one on a line with the
door-step of