The Cruise of the Branwen

PREFACE those of sport. Each of the great cities of Europe is in turn welcoming within its gates the pick of the manhood of the world, trained in every fourth year to the very summit of human physical achievement. From each city these visitors take something home with them besides their medals and their palms of victory and their applause-something less tangible than any of these, but far more valuable. And if I have chosen Athens, and our voyage to Athens, as a typical example of what may be learnt and enjoyed on an expedition primarily undertaken for the sake of sport, it is not merely because Athens, the scene of the first year of these revivals in 1896, the scene of her own international festival in 1906, has certain unapproachable attractions that no visitor can ever see unmoved, but because each of the cities in which from time to time Olympic Games will fall to be celebrated has its own lesson, its own charm,'and I hope that abler pens than mine will in their turn commemorate them. I have also to express my gratitude to Mr. G. S. Robertson for his Greek Ode and Mr. Morshead's translation of it, and to the editors and pro– prietors of Baily's Magazine, the Fortnightly Review, the Edinburgh Review, the Field, the 'I imes, the Daily 'I elegraph, Les Armes, and other papers; for the courtesy with which extracts from articles written for them by myself and others have been permitted to appear in pages which for the present are only privately circulated. In October of this Xl