In the old days, too, not all the Greeks were like Ulysses; they used to make colonies and homes in other lands; it is no new thing with them, for Greece has always been a tiny country, not nearly big enough to hold all her people, nor fertile enough to feed them. There were Greeks in Italy and Sicily and Asia Minor, in ancient times; and there were many Greek children in Constantinople, but they--poor little ones!--were there against their will, for in the fifteenth century Turkey conquered Greece, and as it was the custom in those days for the conquered people to pay a tax to their conquerors, Greece had to pay a tax to Turkey. But not a tax of money. No; Turkey demanded a tax of children. Year by year, one-fifth of all the little Christian boys in Greece were taken away from their fathers and mothers and carried off to Constantinople, where they were educated to be the servants, or clerks, or soldiers of the Turks. If you have read Charles Kingsley's book of "Greek Heroes," this story of Turkey and the little Greek boys will remind you of the old legend of the Minotaur, that cruel, man-eating monster who made the Greeks send him a shipful of young men and maidens every year, until at last there rose up a hero named Theseus, who was brave enough and strong enough to slay the dreadful beast. For nearly three hundred years Turkey was a sort of minotaur, but instead of eating the children she made them serve her, and she would not let them worship in Christian churches. The story called "The Finding of the Cave" in this new book of ours by Madame Dragoumis, tells us something of the War for Independence which the Greeks fought, in the nineteenth century, against the Turks, when they at last set themselves free and were no longer obliged to pay the wicked child-tax. Lord Byron, the English poet, fought in that war, to help the Greeks, and died at Missolonghi. But the Greeks, in the old days, who went to Sicily and Italy and other countries around the Mediterranean Sea, usually did so of their own will; and of their own will they are coming to America to-day. You will wonder, perhaps, why they did not come long ago; why, if they loved adventure and sea-faring, they did not come with De Soto and Sir Walter Raleigh, and Champlain, and Captain John Smith, and all those other gallant gentlemen. But you must remember that in those years, when America was being settled, Greece was under Turkey's yoke; she was no longer rich and free, like Spain, or England, or even France; she could not afford to risk money for ships and expeditions on an unknown ocean and in lands so far away. Later, when she had won her independence, she was kept busy putting her home affairs in order, choosing a king, and trying to earn her own living--which is, of course, what every nation as well as every man should want to do. But it is because Greece has not yet been very successful in earning her own living that her people have begun to come to America.