of the dark fifteen years, leagued themselves in a desperate effort to cast him out.  Corruption on a grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos’ success at the polls was sweeping.  The writer happened to be spending that month in Krete.  The Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in good time to the parliament at Athens, and once more the foreign warships stopped them in the act of boarding the steamer for Peiraeus, while Venezelos, who was still responsible for the Greek Government till the new parliament met, had declared with characteristic frankness that the attendance of the Kretan deputies could not possibly be sanctioned, an opening of which his opponents did not fail to take advantage.  Meanwhile, every one in Krete was awaiting news of the polling in the kingdom.  They might have been expected to feel, at any rate, lukewarmly towards a man who had actually taken office on the programme of deferring their cherished ‘union’ indefinitely; but, on the contrary, they greeted his triumph with enormous enthusiasm.  Their feeling was explained by the comment of an innkeeper.  ‘Venezelos!’ he said:  ’Why, he is a man who can say “No”.  He won’t stand any nonsense.  If you try to get round him, he’ll put you in irons.’  And clearly he had hit the mark.  Venezelos would in any case have done well, because he is a clever man with an excellent power of judgement; but acuteness is a common Greek virtue, and if he has done brilliantly, it is because he has the added touch of genius required to make the Greek take ‘No’ for an answer, a quality, very rare indeed in the nation, which explains the dramatic contrast between his success and Trikoupis’ failure.  Greece has been fortunate indeed in finding the right man at the crucial hour.

In the winter of 1911-12 and the succeeding summer, the foreign traveller met innumerable results of Venezelos’ activity in every part of the country, and all gave evidence of the same thing:  a sane judgement and its inflexible execution.  For instance, a resident in Greece had needed an escort of soldiers four years before, when he made an expedition into the wild country north-west of the Gulf of Patras, on account of the number of criminals ‘wanted’ by the government who were lurking in that region as outlaws.  In August 1912 an inquiry concerning this danger was met with a smile:  ‘Oh, yes, it was so,’ said the gendarme, ’but since then Venezelos has come.  He amnestied every one “out” for minor offences, and then caught the “really bad ones”, so there are no outlaws in Akarnania now.’  And he spoke the truth.  You could wander all about the forests and mountains without molestation.