Stephen Crane in the Shadow of the Parthenon           7

to Crete but arrived off the coast of that besieged island only by
chance when the ship changed course to deliver mail to the Allied
Fleet—"The Concert of Powers," as Crane called it—anchored in
Suda Bay which had bombarded and blockaded the Cretan ports.
Stallman's primary evidence is Crane's first report of the Greek-
Turkish War, "An Impression of the 'Concert,'" which is date-
lined "On Board French Steamer Guadiana" but, consistent with
Crane's practice as a feature writer rather than on-the-spot re¬
porter, was almost certainly written after he had arrived in Athens.
According to this dispatch, "Leaving iMarseilles, the passengers of
this ship had no intention of anything more than a tedious voyage
to Athens without pause, but circumstances furnished us with a
mild digression. In the early morning of the fourth day a ponder¬
ous headland appeared to the north and we knew it to be the ex¬
pected glimpse of Greece. Nevertheless, some hours later another
ponderous headland appeared to the southward, and we could not
arrange our geographical prejudices to suit this phenomenon until
a man excitedly told everyone that we had changed our course,
that we were not bound for Piree, but for the Bay of Suda in
Crete."'''

In order to counter this evidence that Crane sailed directly to
Greece from Marseilles and did not accompany Cora on the over¬
land rail trip, Miss Gilkes suggests that the dispatch from Crete
may have been a hoax. Indeed, Crane was not averse to journal¬
istic spoofery. His "Great Bugs at Onondaga" article in the June
1,1891, issue of the New York Tribune reported that a locomotive
had been brought to a stop between Jamestown and Syracuse by
the grease from crushed electric bugs swarming along the tracks.
His sketch, "When Every One Is Panic Stricken," in the New
York Press of November 25, 1894 gave a highly impressionistic
account of a tenement fire on a side street west of Sixth Avenue
which never occurred. But, in sharp contrast to these pieces, "An
Impression of the Concert" presents a specific and detailed descrip¬
tion of the ships and sailors of the Allied Fleet gathered in Suda