LIFE IN SALONIKA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17100, 24 February 1916, Page 8

LIFE IN SALONIKA.

CITY OF BEAUTY AND SQUALOR. Before you have been in Salonika half an hour-'yon- will have learnt the equivalent of “Get out of the way” in half a dozen languages. . “ Attention !” “Bros!” “Destour!” “Varda!” “ITey-Oop!’.’ Unless you can interpret the warning in French, Greek, Turkish. Jew-Snanish (a peculiar local tongue), and every British dialect from Western Irish to'East Yorkshire, you will not go long without a collision (writes G. Ward Price in the “ Daily Chronicle ”).

It may he a great French or English mptor-lorry bumping fiercely over the uneven flagstones; it may be a string of wizened little horses, with untidy Greek soldiers perched sideways on their heavy wooden pack-saddles; or a motor-cycle pitching like a Channel steamer on the uneven roadway; or a party of officers who have ridden in from the camps; or a local cab with two such pitiably wrecks of horses in the shafts that it would be worth a month’s imprisonment- to their owner to Avork them in London; a JeAvish hawker with a bunch of turkeys hanging bead downwards in each hand; or a patchwork patrol of French. English and Greek soldiers, looking very self-conscious and awkward in each other’s _ company—the - streets .of'this Levantine Dorinybrook Fair are not the place for a quiet stroll.-

Salonika resembles most ports of the Eastern Mediterranean in being a picture of' beauty from a distance and a sty of squalor*near at hand. The sailors on hoard the warships in the gulf look, at it through the morning mists arid; envy the soldiers who.are quartered At here; The soldiers, ’stumble through the muddy, rough-paved, illsmelling . streets and . wonder why a sailor,,.with ' a comfortable ward-room to live in shouldever.Aiafit to come ashore. It is, in fact, a slatternly Levantine town in a beautiful, mediaeval setting, comely in the mass, unpleasant in detail. SQUALOR. /(■ As you survey Salonika from the water she lias a dignified , air that accords Avell with her historical renown, being set in stately isolation upon the steep slopes of her bare hills and girdled by ruined but still massive Avails that , rise to a great Venetian citadel on the landAvard side. . Graceful white minarets that the Turks built are sprinkled about among the houses, and the quay, that is the chief ... street of the toAvn. lined with picturesque Greek sailing craft, stretches for a. full mile along the water’s edge. But ashore, shut in' by the narrow streets of the “ B'rank ’quarter,” yonr vivid impressions of squalor and sloveliness soon make you forget the graceful picture from the sea.

The officers of that part of our Balkan Expeditionary Force that is encamped near Salonika lead euriously tAvefold lives. They endure a good share of the hardship of war all night and the greater part of the morning out at their camps on the Monastir Road, and in the afternoon they come into Salonika to enjoy such luxuries as the toAvn affords. The hardships are a good deal more real than the luxuries. During the snap of cold and snow at the beginning of this Aveek the morning temperature in those tents on the bleak, wind-sAvept positions toAvard the Vardar was commonly about lodeg beloAv freezing point. By day the. men had to be sent on route (marches to keep them warm,,and by night it happened several times that the greater part of a battalion woAild have to turn out and put up tents bloAvn down by the gale in a bitter, driving cold that made your bones ache Avithin you. On the other band, the delights ofSalonika are limited to . one tea sbov where there are three times as many - customers as- seats, three • kinematographs .show ing interminable films of a quality that- Avould ruin an English provinoial picture house in a fortnight, a varietv theatre of the kind von would on'lv visit once, having your boots cleaned, and the “ Healthy Bath Bottom” - This last is indeed the most popular institution in the town. The last Avord of its title, . placarded as above oA'er the door, -is the name of its proprietor, who is reaping a well-de-served harvest out of the enthusiasm displayed, to' his own astonishment. British officers for baths. '• • >

BOOT-BLACKING AND COFFEE. Boot-cleaning, one of the milder recreations that Salonika offers, ranks among the national industries of Greece. To sit drinking little cups of ■ thick Turkish coffee and having his boots cleaned at the same time is the Greek’s ideal of a pleasant afternoon. The “lustres,” as Greek shoeblacks are musically called, though usually of tender age, is a true artist, and is by no means content with the dull burnish that satisfies the English boot-, bov. He first meticulously scrapes your boots clean of the smallest fragment of mud, then wipes it carefully.so as to . have a perfectly clean background, to work on- After that he applies the ‘blacking, not by dabbing the blacking brush into the tin, but with a variety of little metal implements and sponges. When he has brushed this to a bright polish you imagine that your shine is over, but it has really only begun, for the “lustres” now goes on to bring out the high lights by smearing your boot over with a colourless cream, which he brushes again to great, brilliance, and finishes off bv two or three minutes’ friction with a velvet cloth. He completes his work by painting the edgo of sole and heel with a sort of If vou attempt during all this time to withdraw your foot before lie is satisfied with the effect produced, the “lustres” knocks imperiously with the back of bis brush. Successful “ lnstroi” even have a little nickel-plated bell which they ring to call your attention when they are ready for the other foot, as it is the etiquette of the profession never to speak to a client after first attracting his attention by hammering upon their little wooden boxes. For all this you pay the “ lustres ” ten leptas, or one penny, and walk away with a self-conscious feeling that your feet are glittering. Salonika is a great place, for furs. Up to the end of the Turkish rule here the Jews, who are about half the'* population, used to wear long fur-lined gaberdines such as they brought with them from Spain in the Middle Ages. Fur being a material that soon wears out, and the Jews wearing it both summer and winter with complete disregard for the temperature, a considerable trade in skins grew up here which gives full scope to individual tastes in the choice of fur coverings for the present campaign. Some officers are content to have a f ur lining put into their British warms; others are attached by a deep ful collar which gives an opulent and picturesque effect. French _ officers seem to have specialised on immense wolf skin coats of great bulk, while active subalterns with a lot. of walking to do order short, jacket-shaped garments made of the skins of various beasts and tied on with tapes. There i is great, licence as to colour, and on j a cold afternoon you will find at ; Flora’s —the tea shop—officers both pie- j bald and skew some in fleeces of spot- i less white, others in shaggy hides of j grey and sable- It only needs that the' steel morions served out. as headgear in France should In. sent oiit here for the British officer to rival a Viking chieftain in barbaric splendour of appeOfficers’ recreations being thus lftnit.'d. those of the men are natural!v few. Route marches, parades, cutting drains, bin ding roads, lill up most of the day, and for amusement in their short leisure tliev are thrown upon their own resources' in the way of football, sing- \ songs and the never-failing mouth 1 1 organ.