A GREEK.

Tsilka, husband of Mrs. Tsilka, his wife, and ‘the brigand baby,’ born in captivity, lived near our house. Tsilka assisted Mr. Bond in his duties, and Mrs. Tsilka taught at the school. They both spoke English quite well, and the accounts they gave of the long captivity and the ransom were extremely exciting. It was never dull at the mission. There was always something interesting going on. My visit began in the height of a panic. Rumour, which stalked rampant after the Salonica outrages, planned trouble for Monastir on the following fÊte, St. George’s Day. The Vali, under instructions from the Governor-General, got his garrison in readiness to combat an attack by dynamiters, and the civilian Mohamedans, being in an ugly mood, prepared to assist the soldiers. No attack came from the Bulgarians, but the promises of trouble were fulfilled nevertheless. Turks all ready, it required but a signal to start them to work. The signal came in a row between a Turk khanji and a Bulgar baker over payment for a long due account. The Bulgar died, and the mob of bashi-bazouks slaughtered some forty other ‘infidels’ before being dispersed by the soldiers, who at first assisted them.

Then came the panic. Christians closed their shops and barred their doors, and the streets were deserted except for Mohamedans, who, one is led to believe, would shoot a foreign giaour as quickly as they would a native infidel. The Vali sent a soldier to escort the Englishman and me, being giaours, on our daily trips through the streets. The trooper was given us for protection from the Bulgarians, but we kept our eye fixed upon him, for he was an armed Mohamedan.

There was also a guard assigned to duty at the mission. This was a youthful Turk, who brought with him a strip of matting in lieu of a prayer rug. He came one morning at nine o’clock, and nine o’clock next morning found him still at his post. We discovered the poor fellow weeping, and asked the cause. He had been posted here to guard the mission, and told to remain until relieved. His task was severe, as he had brought no food. The missionaries fed him, and he remained twenty-four hours longer before another soldier came to take his place. The object of putting a guard in front of the mission was twofold. One day he arrested a peasant who came to the mission with a bundle and went away with a large piece of brown paper neatly folded in his hand. This piece of paper, in which the economical peasant had brought back my week’s washing, was the evidence produced against him. It was carefully saved, and shown to the Vali. The washing-list was written upon it.

To go about the town at night was thrilling. The patrols and sentinels had orders to arrest—and later to shoot—any man discovered on the streets without a lantern. Several times we were invited to dine at the Consulates, and the Consuls sent their kavasses with a lantern to escort us. As we proceeded down the streets the challenges would come from a hundred yards away, and our Albanian trusty would reply in a deep commanding tone. Even our own guard would jump to his feet on our return as the light of the lantern turned the corner of our narrow street. If nightfall overtook ox-teams or buffalo-carts within the city, the horned beasts were unyoked where they were, blanketed and fed, and their masters slept in the carts. It was uncanny stumbling into munching beasts at night.

Sometimes, when a fight had taken place in the neighbouring hills, a line of cavalry ponies, led by their masters, would pass down the cobble-stone road back to the mission bringing the wounded soldiers into the caserne. Often the men were mortally wounded and had to be supported on the backs of the stumbling ponies. This was a gloomy spectacle. It was peculiar to the night, for the Turks never brought in their wounded till the streets were deserted; they are sensitive over losses.

During an anxious period in Monastir there came around an anniversary of the Sultan’s accession day. The streets were beflagged with Star and Crescent, and Turkish designs in night-lights were arranged on the hills. The day before the celebration long lines of soldiers made their way from the camps and casernes to the various town ovens, each with a whole lamb, dressed ready for baking, in a huge pan on his shoulder. It was a curious sight to see these preparatory parades pass down the streets with the potential dinner. This, indeed, was the only parade to honour the Padisha, for on the anniversary day itself all ‘infidels’ braced the bars behind their doors, and Mohamedans remained in their homes by order of the Vali; and only a doubled guard remained in the streets, to be ready for an insurgent surprise. At night we left the house and crossed the street to the school, and after putting out all the lights—a precaution of the ladies—climbed to the top of the house to see the illuminations on the hills. Not a sound was to be heard over the entire city.

But no matter how intense the quiet in Monastir, there was always one hour of the day when a fearful row raged. That was the hour the British Consul took his daily walk. The Consul was a Scot, McGregor by name, who owned a British bulldog and employed an Albanian kavass. The latter is common to Consuls, but the bulldog was a novel and disturbing element. As the fatted pup strode the narrow streets between his master and his master’s man, a wave of protest from the native canines followed in his wake. The native dog, like the native Mohamedans, is averse to permitting an outsider within his sacred precincts; but, unlike the Turk, the dog is not required to brook the insult in peace. Whenever a protracted dog-fight passed down the semi-deserted streets, ’twas known that the British Consul was out for his daily walk; and when the disturbance came towards the mission, the hired girl was sent to put the kettle on for tea.

There were always visitors at the mission, and sometimes they were peculiar people. One morning a forlorn native appeared at the door with a dejected wife and two miserable children; they stood in a row, salaaming submissively with their thin hands crossed upon their empty stomachs. We went out to inquire their business, and heard the following not unusual story. The man was unfortunately a Bulgarian, and for that crime had been cast into prison in the general incarceration of his race. During his confinement his shop had been plundered by bashi-bazouks, and now he had nothing to live on, and nobody would give him work. (It was a case of ‘No Bulgars need apply’; men who employed Bulgarians were suspected of sympathy with the insurgents.) This Bulgar had called at the mission—here he showed some embarrassment—to see how much money he would receive if he and his family became ‘Americans’! This missionary explained that the Protestant Church did not offer pecuniary inducements and other mundane rewards for converts, as did the Greek, Bulgarian, Servian, and Rumanian Churches, and told him that he would not become an American if he chose to join the Protestant Church. The missionaries had a British relief fund at their disposal at this time, and out of it gave the man a couple of mijidiehs. He was made to understand, however, that this beneficence was a gift, pure and simple, and in no way meant as a bribe to induce him to leave the Orthodox Church. It is difficult for the Macedonian to see why men give up comfortable homes in happy countries to come out and live in a land like theirs.

On another occasion we received a visit from a more enlightened Macedonian. He, too, was a Bulgarian, so he said; and in the same breath told us that he had two brothers, one of whom was a Servian and the other a Greek. This peculiar phenomenon, prevalent in many parts of Macedonia, here came to my notice for the first time. I was puzzled, and asked how such a thing was possible. The Macedonian smiled, and explained that his was a prominent family, and, for the influence their ‘conversion’ would mean, the Servians had given one of his brothers several liras to become a Servian, while the Greeks had outbid all the other Churches for the other brother.

One day Mr. Bond filed a despatch at the telegraph office which brought us a call from the police. A reunion of the missionaries of European Turkey was taking place at Samakov, and the Monastir staff, thinking it unwise to go to Bulgaria at this particular moment, sent a message to the assembly reading ‘Greetings in the name of the Lord.’ The telegraph clerk accepted the despatch and the money. Three days later a gendarme called at the mission to ascertain who this Lord was. Mr. Bond explained to him at length, but the Turk was suspicious, and carefully cross-examined the missionary. He wanted to know particularly if the Lord for whom this telegram was being sent, and who must therefore be in Monastir, was either a Russian or an Austrian. When the missionary informed him that the Lord had been a Jew, the Turk was surprised, but went away without further inquiry. Next day, however, he called again, and asked if Mr. Bond would kindly put the statements he had made in writing for the bimbashee. The missionary wrote out a brief statement, pointing out that the Koran mentioned the Man in question. But the telegram was never sent, nor was the payment for it ever refunded.