TWO YEARS WITH THE ENEMY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3014, 27 February 1917, Page 6

TWO YEARS WITH THE ENEMY

WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE LEVANT RAVAGES OF LOCUSTS The writer of the following article (in the "Times") is an American lady who recently returned from Beirut, Syria, by way of Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary, and Germany. The Levant is starving. This is no figure of speech, but the literartruth. Wβ left the country exactly two months ago, a party of six—two from Armenia, four from Syria; five American and one Greek. We crossed the whole of Europe at war, visited tho four countries of the Central Powers, and saw a lot that we would rather forget than remember. But nothing existing in Europe can even be compared with present conditions in Asiatic Turkey. To give here a complete picture of the effect of the war there is impossible. From our varied and manifold impressions during the two years we passed there I shall select a few of general interest. When, at the beginning of September, 1914, things began to look black for Turkey, the British ConsulGeneral in Beirut, Mr. Oumberbatch, showed a remarkably clear insight into conditions as they were then, and were probably going to be. A general warning was given to British subjects —especially to those in out-stations— to leave the country, if possible, at the first' .opportunity. Tho reasons given for this advice were the expected scarcity of money, dearth of food, and general tied-up conditions all over the country. Many of us were inclined to think that he was exaggerating. Several English families which might have left without great loss to their positions laughed at the Consul's alarmist ideas, and stayed. One family we knew went to. Cyprus, stayed there for a few weeks, and then came back, greatly annoyed that nothing was liar*pening after all. Mr. Oumberbatch, however, went on advising all families, and practically i ordering all single ladies engaged in mission work tin Syria to leave tho country. i That part of the British Consular archives which Mr. Cumberbatch did not destroy before leaving was left at the Consulate under the protection of the United States Consul-General. x The American protection, which at first seemed a safeguard, proved- p" very little value. The United States ConsulGenoral sealed up the archives, but as soon as the Turkish officials realised that there was no military backing behind his refusal to'giyo them up, they daily became bolder in their attitude, and at last broke the seals and seized them. French sympathies Punished. A great panic among the population followed. Arrests of members of tho best Syrian families began to take place in quick succession. All the people arrested belonged to families which had been connected with the French Consulate. It became known that among the French papers a number had been found which proved political sympathies so strong that the Turkish Government termed them high treason. There had been as great a panic among the Syrians with British sympathies, but none of them were touched. The arrests were followed by trials by -court-martial at Aleih. Men whom we know personally, with whom wo had been on committees, with whom we had dined and played tennis, whom we_ looked upon as the best and most enlightened of their country, were beaten, tortured, deported, and 1 , put to death. There were days when a dozen at a time were hanged in tho public square of Beirut at dawn, the dead bodies being left there for some hours. A hush of fear hung over the city. No man dared trust his neighbour. The end of this tragedy only came in tho beginning of 1916. Syria and Palestine havo only one outlet to the sea. To the cast and south lies the desert, to the north Asia Minor, with which until shortly before the war the only communication was by mule paths and a few carriage roads. Beirut, the most important port on the Syrian coast, has railway connections with Aleppo, Damascus, and Arabia, but these lines only enlarge the hinterland, and do not in any way form a connection with the outside world. A number of French, English, Italian, Russian, and Greek liners used to touch regularly at Beirut once or twice a week.

Effects of the Blockade. Shortly after the beginning of the war all this changed. A strict French blockade was put in. force, and Syria was suddenly thrown on its own resources. So far as food is concerned, the crops of the Lebanon, of .Northern Syria, and of Asia Minor can feed a country.many times larger than their own. The first year, therefore, there was no deficiency, except of European articles. There was a good deal of poverty owing to lack of work, but, thanks to liberal funds provided by the American Red Cross, we were able to distribute flour weekly and keep a great number of men and women in regular employment. The men did street cleaning and road improving, giving the municipality a splendid object-lesson of what could be done in this line. The women did sewing, embroidery, and lace-making, and the winter passed with difficulty but without desperate need so far as we knew. Spring, we hoped, would improve matters. But now came a first calamity. Spring, instead of bringing relief, brought the locusts. The remembrance of them still haunts me and gives me a feeling that I can only describe as nausea. It seemed rather interesting at first, a new experience. All around us the people went out into their fields and gardens beating tin cans and shouting to scare the enormous insects away before they settled down to feed. They flew in light swarms—some 20 to tb& square foot, perhaps, one or two layers above each other. In the lato afternoon they disappeared. Next morning they returned. The swarms were heavier "now, and I gave a greyish cloudy appearance to the sky. They fled high and passed I over us without apparent intention of settling. A few hours later they appeared again, flying lower now and in I still denser clouds. The steady subi tropical sunlight was changed Into a fluttering, uncertain, wavering halfdimness. The rustling of wings became J very strong. Wherever they passed I thov soilod the ground and everything I on it. They stained our clothes when we went outside. It was impossible to hang out washing. The beating and shouting s.till went on around us, but it began to grow tired. A general discouragement seemed to make itself felt. Next morning the locusts wero out before- we were. Their masses now seemed almost solid. We noticed that the young shoots and buds in the gardons were eaten. They stayed for nbout a- weeje. Every evening before sunset they settled, always eating, of course, though not quite so ravenously as we had expected. At the end of the week they all settled on the sandy plains between the coast and The fertile mountain slopes, covering square miles with a heavy coating of black jind yellow. There they died—after having laid their eggs. Horrors of the Locust Plague. Now wo began to realise that. the real plague was yet to come. Hundreds of men and hoys wore sent out by tho Red Cross to dig up tlio eggs buried in the sand, thousands of bags-full were gathered and destroyed—all in va.in. After a short time the little ones be-

gan to come out. They do not fly, ■But like armies of largo black ants they marched across the sandy plain until they reached the first field. There they stopped to eat, and never moved until eyery plant had been stripped. Herbs, bushes, and trees were left naked, robbed even of their bark. The diabolical armies moved on, never pausing, stronger every day. Everywhere' as they approached the villages there was at first a burst of determination. The people were going to fight them; they_ would protect their crops, their families' sustenance for. the next winter. Hedges of thorns and brambles were built round the fields; but the locusts Came, on, silent, gnawing, growing—one' often eating another if he happened to get hold of his neighbour instead of a leaf or a bough.

At the thorny barricades they immediately began to climb and creep through Then the owners of the figld,. when the whole hedge was filled with , young locusts, set fire to it. Millions of insects were destroyed in that way, but myriads were moving on behind, creeping over the smouldering'branches and bodies, burning up themselves, leaving room for the next. New thorn branches were thrown down and burnt up again, but the brambles gave out lone before the locusts did. Then large bodies of men gathered early, before sunrise, when the night air had thickened the wings of the insects and they stuck us if lifeless to trunks and branches. One big missionary college sent out at 2 o'clock at night some hundreds of students, who killed thousands and thousands of them before sunrise. But all in vain; next morning came new thousands to take their places. At the end of Julv, when the insects had finished their last metamorphosis and begun to fly, the wholo olive and grape crop of the Lebanon and Southern Syria had gone. The wheat crop in the north was damaged in places, but not ruined. TEe fruit trees had suffered, but might still yield some-harvest. So we entered the autumn of 1915. Towards spring, cases of starvation began to be known. People were found in the streets unconscious, and wero oarried to tho hospitals. "We passed women nnd children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly,- pale faces. It was a common thing to find •people searching the garbage heaps for orange peel, old bones, or other refuse, and eating them greedily when found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable weeds among the grass alone the roads. Terrible renorts be•gan to run through the. city. The priost of a mountain village had to come down to another village to beg some men to help him hnry the dead that were lying about in the streets. Froin a very reliable source we heard that in 'the Kesserman, a barren district in the Lebanon range, cases .hnd been found of tho eating of human flesh.