Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1916 — SALONIKI: AVIGNETTE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SALONIKI: AVIGNETTE

TIER upon tier of crowded eastern roofs rise from the blue bay up to the old Mohammedan town. There on the summit delicate minarets and cypresses stand out against a lemon sky. One’s ey® turns gratefully from the clamorous Greek boatmen and jostling porters •which crowd boat and quay to the lovely lines of the sailing boats, which bring back from the past many an old classic tag. In just such a boat did the old Greeks set forth on their adventures, perhaps even to the quest of the Golden Fleece, writes Constance Brooke in London - Graphic. And what a contrast they must have been, those grand men, to the modern Greek •with his supple fingers and voluble tongue, and anxious efforts to compromise! The luggage is at last extracted from the hubbub by force. A very small boy wheels the barrow under a stream of instructions from a rabble, who would not lay one lordly finger on it to help, but find huge delight in directing the weak one, and, shouting chaff and information to everyone we meet, convey me to the hotel. Soft voices pur in my ear. “You go Delphi? I good guide." “Slrree your boat gomorre? Where come from? Engleesh? Yes?” "Hotel Rome, good hotel!” “You come Paris hotel me!” A persistent shoeblack backs in front of me the whole way like the lord chamberlain, pointing to my boots. Who that has been there does not connect Salonlkl with shoeblacks and long-robed, stately Jews? At every corner, from every alley, there darts out a small alert figure, pointing its accusing finger at your feet. “S-s-s-t, S-s-s-t!” And, indeed, for the sake of peace it is better to resign oneself, or there. is, indeed, no peace from these gadflies. While dust rests on your shoes that figure will rise up, that finger will point, that hissing whisper sound in your ear. I have been haunted by my recollections (somewhat willingly, I must confess) of a Turkish boy with a winning smile, bare feet for an artist and a red sash round his waist. I defy anyone to resist his pleading brown eyes and that flashing smile —certainly I cannot. This was, or is, his mode of business. He first wiped the dust off with a rag. He then smeared on liberally, from a bottle, a very greasy oil, and then proceeded to polish, while still soaked in oil, with some unguent out of a box. Therefore is one’s boot a most cunning dust catcher and the role of shoeblack a profitable one at Balonlkl! I myself used to give my boots ten minutes’ respite; but this was according to the attractiveness or otherwise of the shoeblack. Still a Tubkish Town. Saloniki has only been in Greek occupation a couple of years or so, and is still a Turkish town. The richer Turks, not liking their masters, migrated to Turkey; only the poor ones, not allowed by the Greeks to leave, ’ etill remain. The lower part of the town is a maze of tangled streets and of hurrying foot passengers. Only the stately Jews are unhurried. They are bearded, and wear long black robes, fur-edged (for it is winter), and black or fur caps on their heads, and most are singularly good looking. Their •womankind seldom seen —has picturesque head dresses of emerald green silk, with long streamers flowing out behind, covered with Hebrew characters. I loved the Turkish eating shops open to the street, their counters filled with pyramids of fruit, dated and a gray-colored sweetmeat •which looked like putty. Strange odors of cooking came from' the inner regions. - . The bazar is cobbled underfoot and glass-roofed above. It is full of Greek money changers (where you also buy tobacco and stamps), bootshops and the usual open shop® of the East A strange mixture of West and East, neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. Here in the bazar you see only Greeks and Jews. But go farther up th® hilf toward the old town and the country roads, or rather tracks, and you will see Macedonians In white caps drawn over their ears, a knife in their red sash, or Albanians striding disdainfully along in tljeir native dress, like all upright - and stalwart ———r—One day, in a quiet street, I earner upon a country cart drawn up In the shade of a great wait Its wheels had z been roughly sawn out of the trunk of a tree. The two magnificent black oxen had red, tassels and red cloth on tbeir harness. Under great spreading horns their beautiful eyes gazed

wonderlngly all ways (and upward) as they waited, chewing the cud. To add to the picture, their driver, a Turk, leaned gracefully against one of the glossy beasts, lazily rolling a cigarette. Besides the fez, he wore the short white coat embroidered in black of the country, loose white trousera,and leather slippers. It was hot, and the color, light and shadow were sharply defined. Here and there in the town, turning out of some narrow street, are small market places, full of stalls and baskets and sorrow-stricken donkeys, where girls from the country wear handkerchiefs wound over their heads and thrown gracefully round their chins, and small boys lie chattering In the shade. I shall never forget one figure which came clattering out upon me from the shadows —a crouching figure smothered in white sheepskins, a white drapery over his head, beneath him a poor little donkey, staggering under the added load of many sacks and baskets. (Oh! the cruelty of this Near East to animals! an .ignorant, unheeding cruelty.) Flashing eyes peered at me; a strange wild figure, which one would rather not meet if alone on a hill path. In the Mohammedan Quarter. Waiting one day for the Greek boat, which may come today, or in three days, or in a week —who shall say?—l wandered up the hill to the old Mohammedan town. Such a strange quiet drowses here, after the hurrying, chattering crowd below! The narrow road, worn by the rain, winds between high blank walls and latticed windows. As the hill steepens, broken steps help the traveler here and there. Not a dog, not a living thing is to be seen, only a funny little tub of a boy standing at my feet, peering up at this queer woman, so unlike his own womankind. A great wide red sash holds his fat little person together, and his trousers are so wide I wonder why he does not catch one leg in the other. He has kicked off his funny IJttle slipper, and rubs one foot against his leg, wondering whether to run or to cry. So I give him'a lepta (Greek sou), and he decides to smile; and we sit down together under one of the delicious aromatic cypresses, on a square platform of what were the old fortifications. He sucks his thumb, and I look out dreamily over tangled roofs to the blue, blue Aegean, and watch the pigeons circling round a minaret above my head. The sound of clattering slippers makes me turn to see two Turkish wbmen veiled in black from head to foot, accompanied by their servant, basket on arm, going to shop in the town below. Two or three Turkish men, going home, no doubt, or to the case for food, come lazily up the hill, their sashes, -red trousers and tarboosh making a lovely bit of color against the yellow walls. There are hills outside the .town; a year ago they were covered with tiny delicate lowers, now, alas! I fear, destroyed by the Camps and trenches of the allies. The consulates are in the aristocratic suburbs of Salonlkl, where wide roads and pretty gardens abound. Here the Greek merchants, too, have their'villas. Beyond these, again, on the left of the bay, hills and greensward stretch out to the sea. The large villa out here where Abdul Hamid was Interned until his very sudden death, must have seemed a ceH to that poor thing, accustomed to great _palaces. And -the garden, beyond which Ke wasi not allowed to stir. is small for ordinary mortals. Greek women drive out to these open spaces to take, the air, and the bourgeoisie go to a well-known case to eat giaourtl (sour milk) or the delicious sheep’s milk cheese of Greece.