ul scene, pushed it over the edge of the abyss.
Then these sixty women linked their hands together, and, singing the
familiar daring song of Suli above the rattle of the musketry, danced
the old surtos measure round and round the ledge of rock, having each
her back to the void as the winding chain approached the brink. And
every time the chain wound round, one dancer, the last in the line,
unlinked her hand, took one step back, and fell down into annihilation.
One by one, without haste, without pause, singing the dancing song, they
followed each other down that leap of death, until the last sprung over
alone, consecrating the mountain with their blood an altar of liberty,
from which, ere long, a flame arose that fired those ancient ranges from
sea to sea."

Such was the spirit of Greek womanhood in the trying year of the Greek
War of Independence; and it was this spirit which enabled the Greeks to
struggle on, without resources and allies, amid discouragements and
misrepresentations, till finally the nations of Europe came to their
rescue and established the modern Greek kingdom on a sure basis.

Athens was finally chosen as the seat of the new Greek government; and
in 1837 the Bavarian king Otho and his lovely bride, the princess
Amalia, entered Athens in triumph, and the kingdom of Hellas was fairly
launched. Within the memory of living men the dynasty of Otho fell, and
a scion of the royal house of Denmark, King George, with his Russian
consort, Queen Olga, now holds sway in Athens.

The modern Greek woman of the higher classes has become so thoroughly
cosmopolitan in her culture that she has lost in large measure her
distinctive traits. Her sympathy is rather with Parisian life than with
English, though her deportment is marked by a sobriety of manner
partaking rather of Greek repose than of French effusion. Many faces
seen in Greek lands exhibit, in profile especially, the Greek type of
beauty.

The women of the lower classes, no doubt, preserve many of the
characteristics of the race in all ages, in spite of the intermingling
with foreign peoples and the results of centuries of Turkish oppression,
which time alone can eradicate. Domestic fidelity, maternal affection,
devotion to religious observances, the cheerful discharge of the duties
and responsibilities of wedded life, are nowhere more beautifully
illustrated than among the Greek women of to-day.

It is the Christian religion which makes the life of Gree