Demosthenes the Fortunate

Bright over the Gulf of Mexico blazed the sun. A small white boat, one-masted, drifted into the tidy harbor of Tarpon Springs, Fla. On a beam reaching from the mast to the flagstaff astern, hung sponges strung on cords six feet in length. It was a Monday. Tuesday was auction day.

Then would the sponges be sold in the one-story brick building called the Sponge Exchange. Yellow, soft, they would be spread on the grey concrete floor like a grotesque splash of sunlight. Purchasers would appraise, make anonymous bids. If the sellers would not sell, a second bid would be made, perhaps a third. But if the third bid was also rejected the Law of the Sponge Exchange has it that the sponges may no longer be offered for sale.

The money earned from the sponges pays for the cost of sending out the boats. The profit is divided between sailors and divers. Divers get more because they risk their lives. There are octipi, sharks. But diving for sponges is lucrative. During 1927 the valuation of the sponge catch at Tarpon Springs was $886,216. The figures for 1928, not yet compiled, will show an increase.

Tarpon Springs is proud of its sponge industry. Its Chamber of Commerce says that the community is "a city in every sense of the word," refers to it, proudly, as the Venice of the South.

Life is simple in the Venice of the South. It has an average population of 4,000. Nearly half, because few Americans will dive for sponges, are Greeks. Among them the trade is of immemorial antiquity and rich with legends, reaching back to the days when divers with burnished copper bodies gleaming in the sun of the Egean plunged to their deaths in quest of the finest, most deeply hidden sponges for the toilets of haughty Livia, or that Messalina whose luxuriance scandalized even imperial Rome.

And among all the Greek sponge-divers of Tarpon Springs last week, jovial young Demosthenes Kananis, who has been less than a year in the new world, was unquestioned hero. With covert glances the girls admired his broad shoulders and deep chest, remembering how, with a shout, he had slipped up from the deeps of Spring Bayou, holding high in his hand the dripping bronze cross.

That was on Epiphany, the Feast of the Blessing of the Waters.

Eight thousand visitors that day thronged Tarpon Springs, for in the course of years the Feast of the Blessing of the Waters has come to be one of the events of the Florida season. Unable to find seats in the small frame church of St. Nicholas, they clustered about, listening to the ardent chants of the Greek Orthodox liturgy that swelled inside, burst passionately on the sunny tranquillity of midmorning. Archbishop Alexander, head of the church in all the New World, had come from New York to preside at the ceremonies.

Shortly after noon solemn high mass was done. A quiver of expectancy thrilled the waiting crowds as the church doors swung open. Out of them issued a colorful pageant.

Acolytes bearing banners of purple, red and gold, censors of bronze and golden lamps, came first. Then with stately tread followed the old archbishop, wearing a golden crown and carrying his sceptre: a massive patriarchal man, whose heavy beard and silvered locks hung down upon the rich brocades and ermines of his vestments. Behind him swarmed the Greek community, all dressed in the folk costumes of their fatherland: white petticoats and bright red shoes on women who clung to the arms of men in purple sash and scarlet fez.

Incongruously a U. S. band blared a Yankee march, and the paraders fell into step with its brazen rhythms--except the Archbishop; and his measured pace was in time with the grave chants that still sang in his mind. Through crowded streets the procession moved to the shore of Spring Bayou. There, the Archbishop was conducted on board a brilliantly decorated boat. He carried a bronze cross.

Memorial of the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist is the feast of Epiphany. But on this occasion also the blessing of God is laid across all the waters. Invoking it, the Archbishop would fling that bronze cross into the green flashing sea. Divers would plunge in after it and bring it back, thus symbolizing the deathlessness of the church of Christ on earth.

On the top deck of the boat the Archbishop and his assisting priests gathered. In antiphon they recited the ancient ritual of the blessing. At a precise moment white doves were loosed, fluttered up into the bright blue cloudless sky, hovered about the little circle of priests and acolytes: these were in token of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost.

Now the patriarch raised his hand, and in the noonday sun the cross kindled into golden fire. His lips moved in scarcely audible benediction. A knot of swart divers poised at the side of the boat, watching, tense, eager. But with all eyes on that shining cross, none perceived Demosthenes Kananis, who slipped quietly into the water and took a quick stroke over three waves.

In a gleaming arc the cross curved through the sunlight, splashed and was out of sight, wavering down through the translucent depths. The divers were after it, the water frothing and tossing as they dived. But far ahead of them all was crafty Demosthenes, parting the waves with powerful arms, dipping down after the prize. Before another diver was near, watchers from the decks above saw him glide close and seize the cross, ere it had reached the bottom.

Then up he came to the sunlight, shook his eyes clear of water, held up the cross with a shout of triumph. Up and down the banks the expectant thousands burst into cheers, applause. The ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters was over.

That night from door to door through the Greek community went Demosthenes, and everywhere he was acclaimed, and given money: alms, to be distributed to the families of dead divers. Upon him all this year will rest the especial blessing of the Archbishop, assuring him of good luck on the sponge reefs. And the waters now will be kindly another year to those who venture into them, diving for sponges; for the blessing of God has been laid upon them, calming their anger.