IN ANGORA

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 109, 9 May 1923, Page 13

IN ANGORA

AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S

VIEW

THE PARLIAMENT AND THE

PEOPLE

As the train crawls into, the station of Angora, 800 metres high, one gets a first view of the picturesque little town nestling on the hills. One asks oneself : "Is this quaint ,little -town—for very small town it is—the birthplace of the movement which closed forever the history of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, and started for itself afresh, according to the.will of the people—the nation? By the way, the word "Kemalist" is not used here 'at all, "the Pasha" objects to it. "The movement goes on just the same whether I am dead or alive," he says; .'.'therefore the term is inexact." Amongst the blue, brown, and snow-covered hills. the quaintest little houses have been dropped here, there, and everywhere, with no settled plan of architecture. Most of them are built of wood and mud, and look as though they were in- ruins. Some of Ilia roofs are half off and some are mended with a bright red substance, and the whole place makes a picture one longs to sit down and paint. From the ■ station, past the Grand National Assembly building, up to the market-place there is one street. It is bumpy and holey, but as' it is wide enough to allow four carriages to pass it merits the honour of being classified as "street." The other parts on which the houses aYe situated are extraordinary in their picturesque irregularity. How any carriage can be driven along these terrible paths is beyond conception. Yet thgy tell me there are never any accidents, and the coachmen are quite used to turning their carriages -from angle to angle or even keeping them safe on the edge of such a steep hill as the one which descends from the Ottoman Bank to the town. Truly, dangerous paths make skilful drivers.

With pride the inhabitants of Angora show you first of all the Grand.National Assembly, over which floats the red-and-white Turkish flag, writes a woman correspondent in the "Manchester Guardian." The building from the outride looks, what it was built for in the first instance, a village club-house. Inside are two waiting-rooms and the room in which "the Pasha" receives his. official guests, and last, but not least, the hall of the Assembly itself. The hall is about the size of the average Sundayschool, hall; there is a small gallery where visitors can listen to the speeches, and each deputy or Minister is seated at a little school desk preparing his notes and speeches. On the platform, in the place of the Sunday school superintend' ent, sits the President or Vice-President before a table, ringing a bell as they ring it in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris to obtain silence. Here in Angora the bell is as littlu heeded as it h in Paris, when a deputy has something to say and insists on being heard. It looks a curious assembly, this mixture of turbaned heads, ka.lpa.ks, and fezes. They are all so deadly in earnest while the young Ministters, particularly the Prime Minister, speaks. It takes just a little while to accustom oneself to this young Cabinet. It is true that we in England have had Ministers a good deal under 40, but a whole Cabinet qf young men is a feature, striking in itself. When asked by the editor of one of the two newspapers here for my impressions, I said: "A collection of boys in a village school-hou.se." "A greater movement than this started in a stable," he replied. I am. lodged, at present, at the biggest and best house in the whole place, except the Afghanistan Embassy, which looks as tbongh it. possessed twelve rooms, whilst we have only eight. My host is one of the richest of all the Nationalists and the possessor of 15 villages in Diabekir, of which he is the Deputy as well as here Minister of Public Works. He was .one of the 150 who were sent to Malta by, order of the deposed Sultan and the British High Commissioner, and during his three and a half years there he has learnt to srJeak French, like many of his comrades. The house is two stories high, in tEe quarter called Hadji Bairam, after the one important mosque. It stands out on the edge of a hill which not even the most skilful cabman can mount. with passengers in his cab. It is exposed to all the ■vind and snow, and. the latticed windows '<eep out the sun.. In the hospitable looks and holes in the basement the ■efugee dogs congregate and. give birth 'o more unfortunate animals. The chorus if suffering dog mothers and whining lit•le ones is gruescne in the silence of the light, but human beings have; had to ''ear worse things, and some. qf these •joor;■ human mothers have left their lit. tie ones, like the dogs, to perish in the cold because they have had nothing with which to cover them.

The servants of the house are men, kindly obliging men. One wears a turban and the other a kalpak. Both of them walk about in stocking-feet and speak in hushed whispers. Every time I go out or come back they offer me col. fee, followed by a glass of tea, which is here, called "clay." In the morning they will not wake me, but I generally awake about eight, and then proceed to shock my entourage by washing myself in dirty water in an india-rubber bath. The only alternative to this is to stand coaxing a few drops of water out of a tin tank, as the other people of the house <10. The best heat one has comes from a mangal of burning charcoal. This quickly dies down, leaving the room colder than ever, and it is pot healthy. It would be dangerous to open the windows if you could, for the night air brings malaria, so you bravely face the alternative-— no mangal or a mangal which may choke you. My own experience has not been happy, and my poor host has been frightened out of his wits by my fainting under the influence of these fumes, for he says that if I succumbed England would never believe he had not poisoned me.

The day begins with a meal consisting of biscuits, cheese, olives, and tea. After that comes a solemn translation of the paper and a commentary on the foreign telegrams. At 9.30 the Minister goes to his bureau, a funny, tumbledown kind of place we would not put a hovse ir». One notices, however,, the horses have really better quarters than the master. Our horses have the warmest room in the place, whilst the carriage remains outride. A thick oilcloth covering protects it from the snow and rain to a certain extent, but a drive in it after a snowStorm is not all that one might wish for in the way of comfort.

I- early. found out that the Minister would not leave for his office unless I gave him permission, and also that it was my duty to say when I cared-to eatas he put it, "Vous maitre maison, moi votr? service." To the ladies of the house one can only deliver certain phrases found jn a book of conversation, and these soon come to an end. From the maßter of the house, however, during the long, Ion? meals, when dish after dish, each more fatteninff than the other, makes its appearance, and during the long evenings in the dimly-lighted baremlik, I he»r the tals of the orgsnisation of the Nationalist movement.