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.