learnt that it is
customary on the day before Christmas for children to go round to the
houses of the village early, before the celebration of the liturgy,
and collect what is called 'the luck of Christ'--that is to say,
walnuts, almonds, figs, raisins, and the like. Every housewife is
careful to have a large stock of these things ready overnight, and if
children come after her stock is exhausted she says, 'Christ has taken
them and passed by.' The urchins, who are not always willing to accept
this excuse, revile her with uncomplimentary remarks, and wish her
cloven feet, and other disagreeable things."

The writer visited the chief inhabitants of St. George, and was
regaled with "spoonfuls of jam, cups of coffee, and glasses of mastic
liquer"; and, in a farmyard, "saw oxen with scarlet horns," it being
the custom, on the day before Christmas, for "every man to kill his
pig, and if he has cattle to anoint their horns with blood, thereby
securing their health for the coming year.

"It is very interesting to see the birthplace of our own Christmas
customs here in Greece, for it is an undoubted fact that all we see
now in Greek islands has survived since Byzantine days. Turkish rule
has in no way interfered with religious observances, and during four
or five centuries of isolation from the civilised world the
conservative spirit of the East has preserved intact for us customs as
they were in the early days of Christianity; inasmuch as the Eastern
Church was the first Christian Church, it was the parent of all
Christian customs. Many of these customs were mere adaptations of the
pagan to the Christian ceremonial--a necessary measure, doubtless, at
a time when a new religion was forced on a deeply superstitious
population. The saints of the Christian took the place of the gods of
the "Iliad." Old customs attending religious observances have been
peculiarly tenacious in these islands, and here it is that we must
look for the pedigree of our own quaint Christian habits. We have seen
the children of St. George collecting their Christmas-boxes, we have
spoken of pig-killing, and we will now introduce ourselves to Chiote
Christmas-trees, the _rhamnae_, as they are called here, which take the
form of an offering of fruits of the earth and flowers by tenants to
their landlords.

"The form of these offerings is varied: one tenant we saw chose to
make his in the shape of a tripod; others merely adorn poles, but all
of them effec