The Port of Athens was reached on April the 20th and here Sir A. Buchanan once more rejoined the party, followed very soon by various Russian, French and Italian officers and diplomatists. Next came the King of Greece--George I., brother of the Princess of Wales--accompanied by a suite and with sounds of distant cheering and the roar of guns echoing around the vessel. After luncheon Athens was visited and found to be gaily decorated and thence the Royal party passed by train to the King's Palace in the country, a beautiful place surrounded by beautiful scenery. In the distance were to be seen the green fields and olive forests of the Attic plain, the Piræus and the Bay of Salamis, the groves of Academus, the ancient Acropolis and Ilissus, and the modern City of Athens. On the following day the Acropolis was visited and the glories of that scene of historic greatness revived in the memories of the Royal travellers. A state banquet followed in the evening and on the next day a number of memorable sights and scenes were visited while the evening was the occasion for a coloured and very striking illumination of the mighty ruins of the Acropolis. Athens was left behind on the 23rd of April and the Royal party, including the King and Queen of Greece, proceeded to Corfu, which was reached on the following day and a more kindly greeting accorded to the visitors. The stay here was a very quiet one enlivened, so far as the Prince of Wales was concerned, by a hunting party on the somewhat wild coast of Albania. May 1st saw a formal leave-taking from the King and Queen of the Hellenes and a departure from this pleasant old-world Island. On the following day Brindisi was reached, and Turin on the 3rd. Accompanied by Sir Augustus Paget, the Minister at Rome, the Royal party crossed the mountains by the Mont Cenis Railway and reached Paris two days afterwards. Here, until May the 11th, they remained in a succession of visits, dinners, reviews and entertainments provided by the Emperor and Empress, and on the following day arrived at Marlborough House after a six months' absence from England. It had been a round of arduous duty mixed with every form of honour and compliment, and including much of genuine pleasure and useful experience, together with the acquisition of practical and valuable knowledge. To the Heir Apparent it was one more step in the training and education necessary for any Prince who is destined to reign over the destinies of an infinitely varied and scattered people. CHAPTER VII. Serious Illness of the Prince