  When ‘the voyager descends upon’ the Grand HÔtel d’Angleterre at Salonica, his attention is first drawn to the regulations as to the manner in which he shall conduct himself during his sojourn at the grand hotel. These regulations are printed in gaudy letters in Turkish, in Greek, and in French, and hang in gilded frames on the walls of each bedroom in the most conspicuous place. A literal translation from the French is in part as follows:
I should explain that no insult is meant to the French on the part of the hotel management by employing their language as one of the mediums of instructing its many-tongued guests in proper deportment. The management realises that of all Europeans Germans are most in need of lessons in deportment; but the hotel, for some reason, is rarely afflicted with Germans, and French is understood by all the people of the Near East of the class that patronise a hostelry like the d’Angleterre. There are several hotels in Salonica which will not permit guests to sleep on the floor. Salonica is the metropolis of Macedonia, and an important commercial centre. It is the Thessalonica of old, built by Cassander on the site of ancient Therma, and named by him after his wife, a sister of Alexander the Great. It is older than Constantinople, and has a history which just falls short of being great. Xerxes and his hosts camped on the plains between Therma and the Axius, now the Vardar, and the view of Mount Olympus across the bay inspired him to explore the course of the Peneus; and a short time Thessalonica fell into the hands of the Romans, became the chief city on the Via Egnatia, and disseminated Christianity among many of the Slavs, Bulgarians, and other peoples who came down from the north and the east. It became a free city and then a part of the Byzantine Empire, and was finally sold by a Greek emperor to the Venetians, from whom it was captured in 1430 by the Turks. High up in the Turkish quarter of Salonica—which rises in a long slope and then in steps from the sea—is a queer little Greek monastery dating back unknown centuries. It was there when the Turks came; for history records that the monks within its walls were treacherous to their fellow-Christians and sold the city to the Mohamedans. Under the courtyard of the monastery runs the aqueduct which supplies Salonica with water from the mountains, and supplied Thessalonica five hundred years ago. It was access to this, a certain means of reducing the city, that the monks of Chaoush (such is the name of the monastery) bartered when the Mohamedans besieged Thessalonica, for certain privileges to be granted after the conquest. The Turks have kept their bargain to this day, but Chaoush has not flourished. Time has moved the Christian quarter down to the sea, and the monastery is surrounded to-day by houses with latticed windows. I loved to ramble up through the Turkish quarter of Salonica where the native ‘infidel’ fears to tread. There is a charm about using the liberty one’s country commands. I generally stopped at a Turkish cafÉ on the route, and sat out in the narrow street on a stool with a cup of coffee on another before me, the subject of curious regard by mollahs and hojas in their long cloaks, and other Mohamedans of little work. Once at one of these cafÉs, with an English boy whom I picked up at Salonica for interpreter, I got into conversation with a harmless-looking Turk on the subject of wars and the Powers; and I learned from him that the Moslems are going to rise again, and will not stop in their conquests until they have subdued the world. ‘Abdul Hamid is a great prophet, infallible and invincible,’ said the Turk. He pointed to three old warships in the harbour His culminating remark had a touch of pathos in it. He was a hungry-looking individual himself, and was glad to get the two piastres we gave him for showing us the way to the wall. ‘The hosts of the Padisha,’ he said, quoting, I judge, some mollah, ‘are the most powerful force in the world; but unfortunately they have not enough to eat.’ This ignorance is due to the teachings of the mollahs, from whom the young Turks derive, directly or indirectly, all of their knowledge. While I was in Salonica an order came from Constantinople to purge the library in the military school, and as a result all reading books, including modern histories which dealt with the decline of the Turkish Empire, were destroyed. THE WALL AND BEYOND, SALONICA. We often went up to the Turkish quarter, but never learned the road to the gate. But with a few words of Turkish, which one must naturally pick up, and many signs, we could generally manage to get coffee and directions. We always halted at the gates, and, supplied with stools by the cafÉ-ji there, sat and rested for half an hour, watching the children come There is a great dignity about the ruling race, the man for whom all others step aside, who drinks first at the fountain and removes his fez nowhere. He is not loud or voluble, and seldom loses his temper. When he is provoked he does not squabble, but strikes. The Christian natives of Salonica are generous in warning one of dangers outside the walls, of brigands and revolutionists; but we often strolled through the gates and over to the barren hills beyond, encountering Turks, Albanians, and Bulgarians, perhaps insurgents, without mishap. The hills were especially attractive in the afternoon, cooler than the closed-in bay below, and pervaded with a quiet in delightful relief from the ceaseless babble of swarming Levantine tradesmen down in the town. At sunset hour we found a favourite spot on the edge of a steep declivity with only a broad expanse of plain between us and the purple mountains of Thessaly. The sun dropped into a dip in these and left the sky for an hour rich in Oriental colouring flaming from behind. To the south a stern bit of the old wall on the precipitous corner of a rock was silhouetted, and we could never tell whether we preferred this in or out of the picture. That is a true Tourists do not come to Macedonia, but if they did they would find a show that no other part of Europe can produce. Not only is the comic-opera stage outdone in characters, in costumes, and in complexity of plot, but the scene is set in alpine mountains on a vaster scale than Switzerland affords. But to pass all these—for the play comes in in the course of the book, and scenery baffles description—there are relics of the ages that would interest many a man who has already travelled far. Salonica is said to be richer than any city in Greece in ecclesiastical remains, and its ancient structures, for the most part, have borne well the ravages of time. There are many great edifices, built by the Romans during their occupation and by the Greeks in their time, and a minaret at the corner of each denotes the purpose it serves to-day. There is a mosque of St. Sophia at Salonica, built, like its great sister at Constantinople, during the reign of Justinian, and with a history also marked by the wars of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. But a fire of four years ago and an earthquake more recently have wrecked the place, so that it is no longer used. The Rotunda, now the Eski Metropoli Mosque, was built by Trajan, after the model, though on a smaller scale, of the Pantheon at Rome, and was dedicated by him to the rites of the mysterious Cabiri. It is circular, the dome unsupported by columns. The One of the best preserved models of ancient Greek architecture extant is said to be the Eski Djuma Mosque. In the porch are several Doric columns, and within the building is a double row of massive columns with Corinthian capitals. There are ‘The Church of the Twelve Apostles,’ and the mosque of St. Demetrius, whose shrine within is revered by Moslems and Christians alike. Between the Rotunda and the sea is the site of the Hippodrome, where Theodosius, the last of the Emperors who were sole masters of the whole Roman Empire, caused to be committed one of the bloodiest of massacres for which Salonica is famous. Although a zealous follower of Christianity, and commended by ancient writers as a prince blessed with every virtue, his moderation and clemency failed signally on this occasion. In order to chastise the people for a movement in favour of a charioteer very popular among them, and who had been arrested at his order, the inhabitants were assembled at the Hippodrome under the pretext of witnessing the races, and then barbarously massacred, without distinction of age or sex, to the number of seven thousand. At the end of the main street, which once formed part of the Egnatian Way, stands a triumphal arch generally supposed to have been raised in honour of THE ANCIENT ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, SALONICA. The doubt which encompasses the history of every ancient place in Salonica finds its climax in the spot where St. Paul preached. There are no fewer than seven of these, and the Christian who would stand where the Apostle stood has to make a long pilgrimage of mosques and synagogues. The main street of Salonica, which once formed part of the Via Egnatia, is lined to-day with curious little shops like boxes, ten or twelve feet square, and often smaller. The floors are all up off the ground from two to three feet, and the keepers need no chairs. The customer stands on the narrow pavement, and the man within reaches for what is wanted from where he sits on crossed legs. He is a most indifferent salesman, and one may take or leave his wares without drawing a word from him. A large percentage of these little places are weapon shops, where belt-knives from six to eighteen inches in length are made on the premises, and also gaudy pistols of tremendous bores. Second-hand English revolvers are in the collection, strung across the opening, and brand-new Spanish models. The prices of the foreign weapons are high, and when one asks the reason, the explanation is given that they This is also the street for native shoes, which are manufactured on the premises. The most common foot-gear, worn by every Balkan people, is the ‘charruk.’ It is something more than a sandal, for it has a cover for the toes; it is a slipper pointed like a canoe bow, and closely resembles an American Indian’s moccasin. It is made of skin with hide lacings, which are wound high up a pair of thick woollen stockings, worn like leggings over the trousers. The Turk often wears these, but seldom do his women. The Turkish woman’s favourite footwear is a cross between a sandal and a clog. It is simply a wooden block the shape of the sole of a shoe, and an inch or more thick, with nothing to hold it on the foot but a strap across the toes. A European cannot keep them on his feet, but the Turk manipulates them with marvellous dexterity. Their great convenience is the rapidity with which they can be shed, as this has to be done on so many occasions throughout the Turkish day: at the hours of prayer, and on entering the presence of superiors, and, obviously, whenever it is desired to sit comfortably, for a Turk is most uncomfortable if he is not sitting on his feet. These clogs are hacked with a hatchet out of solid blocks of wood, In this street one is not shouted at, or dragged bodily into the shops if he stops to look at a display of wares, as he is in Greek and Jewish quarters. This is the business street of the man who opens his shop and sits still till Allah provides the trade. Certain classes of shops in Salonica perambulate. The cart has to be largely dispensed with in most Turkish towns, chiefly because the streets are paved. This is not the case in Salonica; the paving is comparatively good there; but the Macedonian has got into the habit of providing for roads paved with cobble stones. Over the backs of asses and sure-footed mountain ponies the butcher has an arrangement of carving boards, and cuts off a lamb chop or a roast at his customer’s door. One has to rise early to see the heads still on the lambs, for they are great delicacies, and go first, and when roasted the unbounded joy of the native cracking the skull and picking out the tasty bits is nauseating in the extreme. The entrails of animals are also relished; they are eaten as the Italian eats his macaroni. THE TURKISH BUTCHER. The milkman, generally a Tzigane, does not drive the cow through the streets, but brings the milk slung over an ass, in a skin, one end of which he milks at order. A small Jew, with a huge fez and a man’s coat which reached almost to the skirt of his dress, was a daily In summer months the two-footed lemonade stand would be a pleasant encounter were it not so numerous. But as it is generally an Albanian, it does not pester one to buy: it simply requires one to get out of its road. It carries a shelf in front with half a dozen glasses stuck in holes, a copper pitcher in its hand with water for rinsing glasses after Christians have used them, and a curious reservoir of an over-sweet drink on its back. If this receptacle has not many little metal pieces to jingle upon it, the gaily garbed Albanian keeps up a tapping with two glasses as he advances down the street. Most of the men of Macedonia wear a form of skirt, but especially in Salonica does the new arrival feel that he has landed among a race of bearded women. The most picturesque dress to be seen in Salonica is that of the Southern Albanian. It is a sort of ballet skirt, like that of the Greek ‘Evzones,’ a white, pleated thing about the length of a Highlander’s kilt. But the Albanian is more modest than the Scot, and wears his stockings to a proper height. The skirted man most in evidence, however, is the Jew, and his skirt is indeed a marvellous garment. It resembles a dressing-gown made of some bed-curtain The Jewish girl dresses in ‘Franks’ until she is married, but at her wedding she receives as a dowry an outfit of clothes fashioned after those her mothers have worn for countless generations. This is an expensive trousseau, and is calculated to last all her life, for she is not to be a burden to her husband in the matter of dress. The most costly garments in the wardrobe are a fur-lined greatcoat—almost a duplicate of her husband’s—and the covering for her hair. This latter is in the nature of a tight-fitting green cap, with a border of probably red and a chin-strap of still another colour. The cap extends to a long bag behind, in which her braid of hair is stuffed. On the end of this bag a square of several inches is worked in pearls, wherein lies the value of the cap. In skirts the women, like their husbands, go in for gaudy cotton prints. Their waists are cut exceedingly high. In the back the skirt falls from somewhere between the shoulders, but in front a short white blouse is I believe that formerly the Hebrew religion required the women to hide their hair and the men to wear dresses, but to-day these customs are continued by them from habit, for economy, and with a purpose. Their purpose in dressing alike is to look alike, as it is dangerous in Turkey for a non-Moslem—or even a Moslem—to rise above his fellows in either wealth or position. The Sultan considers it a danger to himself for one of his subjects to grow powerful, and he maintains a staff of levellers who have various means of reducing the man who dares to rise. The successful Turk is exiled; other subjects are dealt with in other ways. I once had occasion to send a report to London that a number of dynamite bombs had been discovered by the police in the office of a Bulgarian merchant just opposite the British post office in Salonica. The Turkish authorities took care to let the foreign correspondents hear this news. It was some weeks later that I learned how the bombs got so near the British post office. The business of the Bulgarian merchant, whose name was Surndjieff, had been prospering JEWS. JEWISH WOMEN. Now, the Jew’s property is no safer at the hands of the Turkish officials than is that of the Christian, and yet the Jew is a loyal supporter of the Turkish Government. But there are reasons for this loyalty. The Jews of Salonica, like most of those of Constantinople, found a refuge in Turkey from the Spanish Inquisition, and if they have not liberty in the Sultan’s dominions, they have at least equal rights with Christians. Their position is even, perhaps, better than that of the Turk, who indeed is one of the greatest sufferers from the oppression of the Turkish Government. The Turk is the ruler of the land and the privileged person, and the Jew has learned never to defy his authority. But Most of the Jews of Salonica wear the fez, but some of the wealthy ones, who would enjoy their wealth, have acquired the protection of foreign Powers, and dress in European clothes. Viennese and Parisian styles and makes of clothes are not too good for them, and they travel to Austria and to France regularly in the warm months of the year. The Hebrew boy is generally educated in his father’s shop, but the girl is often given a good schooling, which raises her in mind and morals far above the man she marries—which is sad. Among the various large foreign schools at Salonica there is one for girls conducted by the British Mission to the Jews. It affords a means of learning English, which makes it a most popular institution; and it is within the reach of all classes, because pupils are taken at whatever they can afford to pay. But while the school has been The hundred and one bootblacks (all Jews) who infest the cafÉs of Salonica, and swarm about the hotels to pester the unfortunate inmates as they emerge, are in great glee when an Englishman appears. They mistook me for an Englishman, but whenever I sought to disillusion a native on this score, I was told ‘England, America—all the same.’ The Jews all speak a few words of English, learned, no doubt, from their sisters. ‘When comes the English fleet?’ is the first question a bootblack puts to an Englishman. ‘Do you want the English fleet to come to Salonica?’ I asked. ‘You bet!’ They must have acquired this from the American missionaries. ‘Why?’ Jews are always very fond of music, and they fill the cafÉs-chantants of Salonica on Saturday evenings. Extracts from ‘Carmen,’ ‘Traviata,’ ‘Faust,’ and like operas were being rendered by a small troupe of Italians at one of these places, to which the entrance fee was two piastres—about fourpence. But this was beyond the price of the populace, and the masses flocked to another place of amusement a little further down the quay, where no entrance fee was charged, and by purchasing one cup of coffee you could sit and hear the music the whole evening. Here there was a French artist whose rÉpertoire was known by the whole town, and the audience made it a rule to shout for the songs they desired to hear. A certain duet about dogs and cats, in which the lady meowed and a sickly looking male partner barked, was the Jews’ favourite recital. Late one Saturday evening, when the singers stopped for a cue, the Jews in the audience began to bark, which was the recognised signal for the dog song. But there were a number of Greeks in the audience who wanted the lady to sing alone, and they set up a call for one of her solos. The respective parties attempted to shout each other down, which raised an unearthly din in the neighbourhood, and soon resulted in a pitched battle. But the cry of ‘Soldiers’ brought the conflict to an abrupt termination, and before the gendarmes arrived both the Jews The Jews are rigorous observers of the fourth commandment in so far as they themselves are concerned. Under no circumstances will one of them do a stroke of work on their Sabbath day. But they have no scruples against enjoying themselves by the labour of others. The small boats in the bay are owned entirely by the Jews, and all the week they hustle for Christian and Turkish patronage. But on Saturday evenings in summer they indulge in the hire of Christians and Turks to row them up and down the city front on the smooth water of the bay. The various Sabbaths in Turkey are somewhat annoying to the traveller. On Fridays the Turkish officials will not visÉ passports or issue teskerÉs; on Saturdays the Jews refuse to shine your boots; on Sundays the Christian shops are closed. But neither the Turks nor the Christians observe their days of rest with the same rigour as the Jews do. Though it is impossible to get a teskerÉ from the Turkish Konak on the Turkish Sabbath, a note waiving the necessity of the document can be had for a consideration. We all know the Christian is not an over-strict observer of Sunday. Salonica is unfortunate in possessing a colony of each of the Macedonian races. Besides Turks and Jews, there are many Greeks and Albanians, some Bulgarians and Servians, and a few Kutzo-Vlachs (Wallachians) and Tziganes, and still another people The handsome females who wear the Turkish garb, but do not always cover their faces, are a peculiar sect of Jews alleged to be converted to Mohamedanism. They live, like all the other peoples, distinctly to themselves, not even associating with the Turks; and while they are too few to have a national entity, they carry on, nevertheless, their little feuds with the Jews. Their story is this: Some centuries ago a Jew of Salonica, by name Sebatai Sevi, declared himself to his people as their long-promised redeemer, and won a certain following. He is an example of power making jealous his monarch. At the Sultan’s order he was conveyed to Constantinople and taken into the Padisha’s presence. His plea was heard, but found no credence at the Palace, and the false prophet was given the alternative of death for himself or conversion to Mohamedanism with his entire flock. The Government, no doubt, granted all the assistance Sebatai needed to ‘persuade’ his followers to make the change, and it was soon accomplished. But, unlike Christians converted by pressure or force to the religion of the Turk, these Jews have not become fanatics. Indeed, they are quite luke-warm The Dunmehs are the richest people, on the whole, in Salonica. With their Hebrew instincts for business and their position as Mohamedans, they have a decided advantage over the other peoples. They fill largely the rÔle of Government contractors, and secure many of the plums in the gift of the administration, which it is impossible for non-Moslems to get, and for which the Turks are too indifferent to trouble themselves. The Dunmehs make a speciality of purchasing the rights to gather tithes, for which they often pay more than the legal value thereof. These rights they divide into small sections and dispose of at a profit to the actual collectors of taxes. The tithe is legally one-tenth of the crop, but as it is measured by the collectors, supported by a guard of Turkish soldiers, it generally assumes larger proportions, sometimes attaining to a quarter, and even a half, of the peasant’s harvest. And there is no resource for the peasant against this unjust confiscation, as the first law of the Turkish court is the Koran, which, as interpreted, provides that the But army and other contracts, for which the payment is forthcoming from the Turkish Government, are not often sought by the Dunmehs. These are left to Turks with influence at the Palace; for influence at the Palace or at the Porte is necessary in order to secure any payment from the Turkish Government. Ismail Pasha, an Albanian in the high esteem of Abdul Hamid, and with many friends among the Palace clique, is the only man in Salonica with courage enough to undertake Government contracts. And his daring is proportionately rewarded. This man’s history is worthy of recital; it reads like that of a self-made millionaire. He was born of poor but dishonest parents, and educated himself—dispensing with the arts of reading and writing. He began life as a khanji’s boy, learned there how to rob the wayfarer, and attained, at the age of eighteen, a competency in a brigand band. Step by step, as the men above him died off (sometimes by indigestible pills, and sometimes by falling backward on the knife of an ambitious subaltern), Ismail became a leader. In this capacity he did his work so well, striking terror to the heart of both Turk and Christian, that his ability was recognised by no less a person than Abdul Hamid, who saw in him a man of exceptional ability. This self-made man was invited by the Sultan to Constantinople, there decorated, given the title of Pasha, and sent to Salonica with the high Now, an official in Turkey always knows his spy, and the spy always knows that his man knows him. The spy and his man, of course, are always together, and they become the most intimate friends. Naturally, the man seeks ever to please his spy, which in this case makes Ismail Pasha virtual Vali of the vilayet. He dictates the names of the police who shall be employed—and naturally has a preference for outlaws; kaimakams and other officers of districts hold their places at his pleasure; and Government contracts are awarded to Ismail Pasha, be his bid high or low. Ismail is the trusted ally of Abdul Hamid, and is permitted, therefore, to grow rich and powerful. |
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