OUR STREET IN SALONIKA.
WE live not five hundred yards from the White Tower, and yet we are as far from the crush and roar of Army traffic as if we were billeted in a dug-out on the top of Kotos. Our street is typical of Salonika, with conical stones of irregular shape set at irregular intervals, the crannies between filled up with clinging mud in winter and dust-heaps in summer, eternal pitfalls for the unstable nightfarer—with no sidewalks, a drain down the middle, and heaps of rubble in odd corners. It is the most chaotic winding way in all the city. And yet it has patches of sheer delight. Deep- set doors crop up in unexpected places, barely concealing ancient fragments of Byzantine wall, the towering minarets of distant mosques, the common fountain of a motley crew to whom the rough-flagged court behind is parliament and sanctuary and home. Even war has passed along and left its trace in bullet-mark and tumbled stone. Moreover, it is a very chameleon of streets, changing colour with the season. In winter it is grey, almost colourless, but in summer its sun-raked dwellings are wreathed with a climbing tangle of grape-vine mingling with clusters of rose- pink oleander. The yellow walls, the outside beams of the over- hanging upper chambers (they are of many colours—blue and carnation and palest green), and the half-pipe tiled roofs covered with shining lichen give the whole a radiant visage.
We flatter ourselves that we have in our street (and know it— which is quite another tale) the most interesting folk in all this town of Salonika. They are not of the aristocracy. Two doctors at the lower end on the rim of civilization, a milliner, a hatmaker (whose claim to the title of hatmaker apparently rests on an elaborate sign proclaiming his trade to all and sundry, though rumour has it that a muslin shape was once seen drying on his roof) ; a lawyer who says he talks French and doesn't, who offers us for sale priceless carpets which have never seen the light, who loves law less than raki ; a seller of miscellaneous trifles in the shape of ancient biscuits, oil, fruit, and Turkish coffee ; a charcoal-seller, a surgeon in the Greek Navy, and the proprietor of an Artopoieion constitute our hart monde. The rest are excellent, but humble. Our neighbour on one side is a gentleman who works in a far-off engine repair-shop, somewhere by the junction station. On the other side is one of those mysterious creatures who seem to have inherited from long lines of freight- bearing ancestors the carrying capacity of an elephant with the back of a camel. Our boots are repaired by a Serb whose thread is as thick as his understanding; our clothes are washed by an ancient dame of untold winters who lives in a " shack" in a back- yard behind a backyard. We might even make a meal, though as yet we have not ventured, of vine-leaves stuffed with entrails and rice, cooked while you wait on the portable kitchen of a popular local restaurateur.
But we like them all, and now they probably like us. Our popularity has, indeed, been a thing of gradual growing—much augmented since the fire. At first we were not understood. We were English, but we were not " Johnny." We seemed fond of children, and yet, owing to Egyptian experience, we did not respond overheartily to any call for " bakehish." We were not silent, but we did not appreciate noises, especially those made by gentle- men of military persuasion in the hours after midnight—and expressed our opinion thereof in round terms. We accepted salutations in the market-place, but did not consider that their re- turn warranted a special favour. We thumped one another without mercy, but objected to the bidlying of animals by donkey-boys armed with nail and pointed stick. But we won through. Kalespera, a tiny maiden so called because her evening greeting was misinter- preted to be her name ; Colso (little Constantine), a playful, clean-cut baby from Monastir, whose small sisters know no word of English but Jesus loves me, this I know," which they duly sing every night before their rest ; and Jani, teacher of Greek, ration-carrier, tea-maker, most willing and natural of ten-year-old boys—all these helped us on our way by telling their fathers and mothers of our virtues. We would talk the language ungrammatically but fluently, on all and every occasion. And then when the fire came the unsparing help of our " Jock " made the victory complete.
Moreover, we always had a gallant champion in Mr. Overtheway, Demetrius L Papademetriou (Demetrius, son of Demetrius the priest), the owner of the aforesaid Artopoition. A lank, long- haired, unshaven bachelor of obscure age, his shop is the centre of the gossip and scandal and jollity of the neighbour- hood. Travelling butchers, oilmen, hawkers and scavengers, priests and housewives, servants and small boys, all know and love the quips and quirks of this strange, Boccaccian character. He is never lazy and hardly ever silent If he is not shoving loaves into his oven with a long-handled rake, chanting their merits or dispraise the while, he is outside chatting with his customers, doing a little private quackery with simple or leech, playing with his animals—goats and chickens and dogs and cats and ducks and finches. He has a quaint affection for his flock. One night one of his oats—a walking menagerie of a cat—climbed up on to a pet chair which we had placed in a convenient position on our tiny stoop. There are cats and cats. This was essentially one of the latter breed, so we remonstrated— whereupon we were countered with : "An old lady who has had twenty-six children deserves some consideration." In religion he is in general a fatalist. The fire left him untouched. He bought and imbibed his nightly ration of mastika and then ensconced himself in the street, uttering loudly and continuously: " Salonique no finish, no finish Salonique." Yet the tradition of his birth in the manse clings on, for he believes firmly that aeroplanes are usurping the kingdom of the air, and bring punish- ment of storm and tempest in their wake. But with all his super- stition, all his disregard of elementary laws of cleanliness, he is our friend, and all that is his is ours to have and hold at our will. He makes wordy warfare with Jim, the seller of charcoal, who has a daughter in the States, as to the right to approach us in English. To him alone is given the power to sit on our stoop. OUr enemies are his enemies, our allies are his allies. For good or ill, he is ever steadfast in cur support Truly, of all the wondrous things in this our street,, the love that Demetrius, son of the priest, baker of strange breads, hath for the English passeth knowledge. Ax OLD SALT.
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