IV

And here I am ashore in Salonika! I feel absurdly shy amid so much

busy life. It is almost as busy as a provincial town in England on

market days. I feel something like an escaped prisoner. They say that

convicts, when they are liberated, wander aimlessly about, not knowing

what to do with their liberty. I feel just like that. I wander about

among huge piles of hardware, stared at critically by sentries of all

nations. I make for the Custom House Gate, and I become suddenly aware

that the sun is shining through a jagged rent in the white clouds over

Ben Lomond, and that I am very warm indeed.

There is something tragic about Salonika. I have visited many goodly

states and cities, and I doubt if there be one other on the globe to

compare with Salonika in her ingenious combination of splendour and

squalor. She is a dirty queen, sitting in filthy rags, with gems about

her noisome girdle, and a diadem upon her scrofulous brow. She babbles

in all the tongues of Europe and speaks none of them aright. She has

no native language, no native air. She is all things to all men, Jew

and Gentile, Moslem and Frank. She is everything and nothing. The

winds of heaven blow among the ruined turrets of her citadel, while

the mosquitoes from the Vardar swamps sing ten million strong in the

purlieus of the port. She is very proud. She has nothing left to give

but death, yet the nations fling themselves upon her and quarrel for

the honour of her embrace.

I was thinking all this as I picked my way in the mud along the road

to the Place de la Liberté, because I had thought of it often before.

It is all true. Quitting the Custom House, which is a building of

French design, I pass the Olympos Palace Hotel, an edifice of Berlin

architecture, all curls and whirls and involute swirls. At this point

is the Place de la Liberté, facing the landing place known as Venizelos

Steps. The square is not worthy of the name, being a mere wide strip of

Venizelos Street, and consisting exclusively of cafés. The steps are

flanked by two kiosks which contain bunks for the night watch. This is

the heart of the city. Past this point there rushes a never-ending

tide of tram-cars, pedestrians of all nations, ambulance wagons, motor

lorries, cavalry and artillery, donkey carts and mule teams, staff

motor-cars and dispatch-riders on motorcycles――good men, bad men,

beggar men, thieves.

Along the front Greek schooners are discharging charcoal, paraffin,

stone, fish, vegetables, and peanuts. Around the steps crowd many

launches――British, French, Italian, Greek, and Serbian; row-boats,

sail-boats, ships’ cutters awaiting vegetables, and ship’s dinghies

awaiting their commanders. Old ladies in native costume, caricatures of

Queen Victoria as a widow, move to and fro, gossiping. Shoe-shine boys

almost trip up the unwary stranger in their endeavours to clean his

boots by main force. And then, half a dozen strong, come the news-girls

with their loads of twenty-two different newspapers in six different

languages.

They are not very clean little girls, but I regard them with tolerance

as they press up to sell me a _Balkan News_. They never by any

chance mistake one’s nationality. I suppose the English character is

noticeable in Salonika. Moreover, the Englishman is a fool about money.

I know, because I am a fool about money; yet I am not such a fool as

some. The French, Italian, Russian officer, counts his change with

meticulous care and gives a very very small tip. The Britisher, officer

or man, grasps the coins, looks at them without really knowing whether

he is being cheated or not, bestows munificent largesse, and strides

out, leaving the Greek waiter full of contempt for the burly fool who

parts from his money so easily.

This is by the way. We are learning so many things in this war, that

quite possibly the Englishman abroad may learn to keep his money in

his pocket. Personally, I have not much to spend, and each drachma

must produce its utmost value. But I can gratify my native craving to

be thought a philanthropist when I buy a paper. I give all those dirty

little girls a penny each.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not say they are ugly little girls.

Their noses do not run in the embarrassing way common among the

street-children of a northern clime. They are all different. One is

dark, with long thick brows over black eyes, her hair in a thick plait.

Another is blonde and has a red nose. Another is quite tall and will

probably become a dancer, she has such neat little legs and feet.

Her stockings, by the way, are not a pair. Another has a pair but no

garters, and she looks very untidy. Yet another has garters but no

stockings, and her legs are very dirty. A very tiny little person has

only one forlorn copy of a Greek paper, and she is thrust away by her

more muscular rivals. I give her a penny, too. I am popular.

When all are recompensed they sidle away, looking back wistfully for

a moment. I dare say they are wondering if I am a millionaire in

disguise. Then the whirling vortex of Venizelos Steps sucks them in

again; they spy another sailor coming ashore, and they collect and

fling themselves upon him, a compact, yelling Macedonian phalanx of

youthful amazons.

Turning eastward, one sees the city front curving very gently as far

as the White Tower, nearly a mile away. Beyond that superb landmark

the new suburban town spreads out indefinitely amid shabby foliage.

The view up Venizelos Street is closed by a covered-in bazaar. The

yellow buildings of the front are a confusing medley of cafés,

cigarette shops, hotel entrances, paper shops, hardware shops, barbers’

shops, cinema theatres, Turkish baths, a fish-market, farriers’

shops, _cafés-chantants_, charcoal stores, more cigarette shops, more

cafés; a few immense private houses with interesting courtyards and

discontented-looking sentries in battered boxes, one or two small

houses with tremendous walnut doors and black iron hinges, bolts, and

window-bars; and finally, just as the heat and acrid smells from motors

and horses begin to parch the throat, and the devilish cobbles to tire

the unaccustomed feet, there is a café in a covered garden, with the

White Tower standing alone in a grass plot at the waterside.

V

Salonika makes her own beer, but it is not of uniform quality.

Sometimes the litre will be very palatable. Often the best thing to

do is to leave it. Dutch beer is drunk, and is very good. I am afraid

saccharine takes the place of malt in the local product. At the worst,

one can get passable coffee and good brandy. Seated among the uniforms

at the little tables, you may regard Salonika in a characteristic mood.

The sun shines strongly now through immense piled-up masses of white

clouds, and there is sufficient wind to sail a boat across the Gulf.

The Greek standard waves gently from the top of the White Tower.

The White Tower, let it be said, is a perfectly round cylinder of

whitewashed stone, surmounted by a smaller turret and a flag-staff.

There is one small door over which is an inscription in Turkish, very

beautiful to look at, utterly incomprehensible unless you know Turkish.

One or two small windows and a small ledge half way up are the only

breaks in the vast, smooth surface. The Turks used it for some purpose,

I suppose, or they would not have built it. The legend has it that it

was called at one time The Bloody Tower, but that may have been only a

manner of speaking. I have been shipmate with a Turk only once or twice

in my life, and so far as I know them they are competent, orderly,

well-bred people. I very much regret that fate has made us enemies in

this war.

As I was saying, the blue-and-white Greek standard floats from the

battlements of the White Tower. All around you float officers of

the Greek army in blue-and-silver full uniforms. They look slightly

theatrical, because all the other armies are in service clothes.

The ends of their silver-plated scabbards are muddy. So are their

spurs. Many of them are handsome in a fashion-plate way: dead-white

skin, dead-black moustaches, long legs, thin noses, dark eyes, empty

foreheads. One in particular attracts one’s attention. He is wearing

blue-and-white cocks’ feathers in his hat, white kid gloves on his

hands, and immense Hessian boots with silver spurs on his feet. His

sword is across his knees and he is explaining something with great

energy to his companions.

A French air-man, who has skinned his nose (possibly in a sudden

descent) and who wears the Military Cross, sits behind a glass of

vermouth. Several Russian lieutenants, in their beautiful green tunics

and soft leather boots, are conversing with a French major. An Italian

captain is reading a book. An English captain is talking to a lady.

Some Serbian officers appear to be talking to themselves. Not one of

them seems to have anything to do. Perhaps they think the same of me.

Let us take the car back. The tall and handsome Greek officers cram

into one poor little Ford runabout and rattle off up the road. Let us

take the car. A Salonika tram-car is interesting, believe me.

They nearly always haul a second-class trailer behind them. We go

second class. It is a very small car, and it is very full. The fare is

a penny. A Greek penny is a nickel coin with a hole in the centre, so

that it looks like an aluminium washer. The occupants of the car are of

all ages. Boys and girls and priests are in the majority. The children

are going to school, as may be seen by the books in their hands. The

priests are going――wherever priests go in the morning. If they were

going to the barber’s it would do them no harm. I admit that their

flowing black gowns and extraordinary top hats are picturesque; but why

should the picturesque persist in being insanitary?

I like the children better. They are clean and wholesome. Most of

them, I observe, have ticket-books, from which the conductor removes

a coupon. This arrangement, I suspect, is favoured by the parents,

because the children might save the fare and go to the pictures

instead. The car passes the doors of several cinema theatres, and the

youngsters babble excitedly as they discuss the vivid posters that are

stuck up outside.

One lad of twelve is deep in a penny dreadful. I look over his shoulder

and wish I could decipher the story. He wears a low-necked suit with

sailor collar and French tie, blue corduroy shorts, patent-leather

button boots, and silk socks. His brown legs are bare. The whole

look of him is Byronic, save that instead of a slouch hat he wears a

peaked naval cap on one side of a dark head. Byronic, too, are the

illustrations to his dreadful. A girl is tied to a railway line and two

desperadoes struggle with daggers. I peep farther over his shoulder. He

is so absorbed in the story that he notices nothing. I muse upon his

future. What will he be, when he grows up? Is his father a Venizelist?

Of what race is he? How does this Grecian sprig, who reads penny

dreadfuls in an electric tram-car, regard us Britishers who have come

over the sea, like the Romans and Normans and Franks of old, to leave

our bones on the Balkan ranges? Out in the Gulf ride his country’s

warships with a foreign flag on their gaffs. Does he care? I doubt it.

He turns over the page without looking up.

But of a sudden there is a blare of martial music. The car has stopped.

We are in the midst of a procession. Let us get out. We reach the

sidewalk with a run and find the procession is wheeling round the

corner, just beyond, into the _Place_, and up Venizelos Street. It is

the new Greek Nationalist Army――new uniforms, new rifles, new mountain

batteries, new officers――all very new. They march in fifties, and cries

of “Venizelos!” “Viva!” and other less articulate noises mingle with

much clapping of hands and clinking of scabbards. Our glorious friend

with the cocks’ feathers and white kid gloves is in all his glory now,

directing the procession. He salutes continually. After the soldiers

come motor-cars with generals and admirals. Some of the generals

are, in the words of the penny novelette, a blaze of decorations.

No mortal man could live long enough or have valour enough to earn

all the medals these gentlemen wear in tiers on their padded bosoms.

However, everybody claps, so I clap, too. They are all going to the

front to-morrow, they say, so let us bury criticism. So they pass. I

stand near a large-sized sergeant-major of the R. F. A. and I observe a

peculiar expression of astonishment on his bronzed face as he salutes.

If I read it aright he is thinking, “Well, I’m blowed! What a circus!”

After the uniforms come the civilian members of the new Greek

Government. There is a good deal of the theatrical star about their

appearance, due, I suppose, to the silk hats and opera cloaks and

lavender gloves they affect. They wear their hair rather longer than

our politicians, too. My sergeant-major salutes, but I catch his eye.

He throws up his chin and grins, as though to say, “I’m doin’ this by

orders, so don’t blame me.”

Presently the motor-cars change to pair-horse carriages. Some are

clapped, some are hissed by the crowd on sidewalk and balcony. The

pair-horse carriages change to one-horse and the sergeant-major ceases

to salute. Several political gentlemen in one-horse vehicles lift their

silk hats. As no one claps they put them on again, and sit back with

expressions of rigid ill temper on their faces.

One does not believe in this sort of thing for a moment. It is all too

unreal. The superficial reason for this doubt in a spectator’s mind is

that the public never knows what is actually going on. One of the great

advantages of war, they tell us, is that it clears the air. We learn

who are our real enemies and who are our real friends. War is that

something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. War abolishes

sham and pretense.

But there is another reason. You cannot impose liberty upon a people

any more than you can make them good by legislation. Rousseau, whose

prescience in this matter is almost uncanny, asserts this. “Every

people,” he says, “to which its situation gives no choice save that

between commerce and war, is weak in itself: it depends on its

neighbours, and on circumstances; its existence can never be more than

short and uncertain.” And he quotes with approval this maxim: “Liberty

may be gained, but it can never be recovered.”

Well, they are gone, and General Sarrail, who has been standing on

Venizelos Steps with Colonel Christodoulos, shakes hands with that

gentleman and hurries back to his office. I remark as he passes that he

carries no sword and wears no decorations whatever.

It is now eleven o’clock and I decide on a walk up Venizelos Street

before going aboard.

Venizelos Street is the Bond Street and Fifth Avenue of Salonika. All

the great stores of the city are here. I don’t suppose an American

or a Londoner would call them great stores. They are no counterparts

of Wanamaker’s or Harrods’, of Greenhut Cooper’s or Whiteley’s. But

they are great in comparison with the aboriginal hole in the wall

which the oriental calls a shop. Here in Venizelos Street, you can buy

everything you want and many hundreds of things you don’t. There is a

good bookshop, if you read French. Dutch and American goods predominate

at present. There is a bank with formidable sentries marching to and

fro, possibly to intimidate withdrawals. There is a tailor who will

undertake every conceivable uniform, and make them all utterly wrong.

We pass all these and come to smaller establishments――the inevitable

postcard and cigarette shops, shops with figs hung in festoons and

vegetable marrows blocking the tiny entrance. At length we cross Jean

Tsimiski Street, which is the Fleet Street of Salonika. Here are forged

the thunderbolts of the press. Here, high up in a yellow barrack, is

conceived and executed the daily issue of the _Balkan News_, the only

paper of its kind. If you are a poet, go upstairs and see the editor.

So long as you do not mention Mount Olympos or the Red Light District,

he will be glad to publish your works in daily instalments.

I am no poet, so Jean Tsimiski Street is passed and we enter the

covered bazaar. Here we are in the Orient. Here are no fixed prices,

but a battle royal over every deal. Here the merchant stands outside

and uses all the eloquence of which he is capable to lure you into his

tiny fastness. If he happens to be inside and he sees your eye flicker

ever so slightly toward his wares, he is out in a flash and implores

you to inspect his stock. Sooner or later you will fall. You see some

gimcrack or other which takes your fancy. You are dragged within. You

ask the price. Having appraised your position in life, he names a

figure, about two hundred per cent. above what he expects. You laugh

in his face and walk out. He pursues you, abating a hundred per cent.

You walk on, and he offers it on your own terms. You return and agree

to take it. Then, instead of concluding the deal, this exasperating

person will probably show you something else and offer to throw it in

for another ten francs!

And it is all rubbish. Turkish slippers and fezzes made in Austria,

daggers made in Germany, Japanese silks and fans, black amber ornaments

advertised as from Erzerum, but probably from Germany, ancient coins

and vases, ikons, and charms――all the junk of the foolish traveller,

is here. I observe smart British nurses buying souvenirs for friends

in Balham and Birmingham, smart subalterns purchasing cigarette-cases

and walking-stick handles, daggers, and silly old Turkish pistols. But

after all, they are young, and quite probably they do not know the

East. I recall my first trip to the Orient in a tramp steamer, when I,

too, bought:

Walkin’ sticks o’ carved bamboo, an’ blowfish stuffed an’ dried;

Fillin’ my bunk wi’ rubbishry the Chief put over-side.

After all, this is the time of their lives, these foolish young people

with their curios and their wrist-watches and the stars on their

shoulders and in their eyes.

So, walking through the bazaar, one sees another phase of the only

thing worth looking at――humanity. One sees the little Turkish boy

being fitted with a suit in an outfitter’s, or the little Turkish

maiden buying a comb. One meets the Jewishy tout, who speaks all

languages――“Oh, yes. Engleesh, all right, Johnny”; the fatuous humbug!

One sees French soldiers buying buttons and needles and thread; the

canny creatures! One sees solemn bearded Israelites, in flowing

gabardines, stalking to and fro, conversing, strangely enough, in

Spanish. One sees these things or one does not, according to one’s

temperament and training. Personally, I would like to see more of them.

I feel there is something in this Babel for me, if I could but stay and

catch the subtle cosmopolitan spirit of it. But that may not be. It is

time to return. I go on at two!