made by the romancer to have had her out-of-town palace, whose grounds were often opened by her ladyship to the common people. Amid the same luxurious surroundings the Prince Mohammed, who is altogether too much idealized by this novelist, is portrayed as having courted and later as having wedded the fair occupant, having first met her at his White Castle, where with others she had sought shelter from a terrific tempest. Specially to be recalled from early Greek literature is the tale of Jason's expedition for the recovery of the Golden Fleece in the fourteenth century possibly before Christ. There are dim memories of his having landed here and there along these shores, between whose bluffs of varying and sometimes of considerable height we are pleasantly gliding. The hero came from Thessaly. He had two cousins, Phrixus and Helle, against whom there were treacherous plottings. To get them away from the dangers, they were put on a ram with a golden fleece, and at once it dashed away, swam through the Dardanelles where Helle unfortunately fell off and perished, giving her name to this strait, which anciently was called and often yet is termed, the Hellespont, Helle's sea. Her brother succeeded in reaching Colchis, at the farther end of the Euxine Sea. There he offered the ram as a sacrifice, in gratitude for the place of safety which he had reached, and he hung up its golden fleece in a grove where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. It was for this reason that Jason went forth. He had built for him the ship Argos, the largest that up to that time had ever been constructed, with fifty oars, each manned by a brave Greek. It was also "swift," for that is the meaning of the Greek word, Argos, which, however, some say was the name of the builder. Jason and his hardy mariners had many hazardous experiences, but in due time they reached the entrance to the Euxine, which was, so to speak, guarded by the Cyanean rocks or islands, the one on the European side still remaining, but its Asiatic twin having been worn away by the pounding waves of many centuries. To pass between these clashing rocks was perilous. Whenever anything got between, they came together with a bang, crushing any hapless victim, and then they sprang back to their bases. If any one ever got through safely they were henceforth to remain stable and immoveable; a way once opened to human daring is never closed again. Perhaps all this was meant to typify the terrors of what is indeed a Black Sea, with its oft dark-rolling clouds and on-rushing billows. In the vicinity an imprisoned king and soothsayer, the blind and aged Phineus, cursed with a miserable immortality, his skin drawn tightly over his bones, had long been tormented by the Harpies, which were a combination of bird, beast and woman. Whenever a morsel of food approached the wretched man's mouth, the foul creatures swept out from their lurking-places and snatched it away, until he was nearly starved, and yet he could not die. We still speak of harpies to indicate rapacious plunderers, and that is what these were, and the Argonauts pitied the poor victim, who promised that if they would release him, he would tell them how to escape the snapping jaws of the rocky trap. They quickly liberated him, and following his direction they approached as near as they dared to the two rocks. They heard the thunder of the breakers dashing upon them, they saw the spray flying high above them, but they did not falter. Undismayed they drew nearer and nearer, till they were perilously close to what would be a straight line from the one to the other, and then they released a dove, which flying between, was immediately killed, but before the rocks could spring back and return, they rowed with all their might, and with the loss of only their rudder they reached the other side, and in safety made their way to Colchis. Here on the heights above is where Xenophon's ten thousand, returning from the east, cheered at the welcome sight of the sea. The name to-day of this place is Trebizond, which the Russians early in the world war captured, while it was abandoned. under the Bolsheviki to the Turks again. Subsequently there came the British control, as the outcome of General Maude's successful push up through Mesopotamia via Bagdad, after General Townshend's surrender in 1916 of his beleaguered ten thousand at Kut-el-Amara on the Tigris, because his expedition had not been adequately prepared and had not been strongly or at least quickly enough supported in view of unexpected reinforcements to the enemy. It was this same Trebizond that President Wilson recommended as a seaport for freed Armenia, and he it was who was charged by the San Remo Council with the responsibility of actually deciding what the outlet (if any) to the Black Sea should be. Such a singular interplay do we have at this point of the ancient and the modern. We need not recite farther particulars of the first Argonauts, except to say that Medea, the daughter of the King of Colchis, fell in love with Jason, and with the help of her drugs the watchful dragon was slain, and the golden fleece was secured, and there was a safe return home, where followed other tragedies with which Medea, that strange mixture of affection and passion and cruelty and revenge, was connected, as we learn from Euripides. We saw her on the stage of the theater when we were in Athens. We need only comment that the fable of Jason's expedition may have |