LIFE IN SALONIKA.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 March 1916, Page 2

LIFE IN SALONIKA.

CITY OF BEAUTY AND SQUALOR* HOME OP BOOT-BLACKS. - Before you have been in Salonika half an hour you will have learnt the equivalent of "Get out of the wav," in half a dozen languages. "At-tention!" "Bros!" Destour!" "Varda!" "Hey-Oop!" Unless you can interpret the warning in 'reneh, Greek, Turkish, Jew-Spanish (a peculiar local tongue), arid every British dialect from Western Irish to East Yorkshire, you will not go long without n collision (writes 0. 'Ward Price in the London Daily Chronicle). It may be a great French or En»lish motor-lorry bumping fiercely over the uneven flagstones; it may*be a string of wizened littl.e horses, with untidy Greek soldiers perched sideways on their heavy wooden pack-saddles; or a motor-cycfe 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 pitiable wrecks of horses in the shafts that it would be worth a month's imprisonment to their owner to work them in London; or a Jewish hawker with a bunch of turkeys hanging head 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 Donnybrook Fair are not the place for a quiet stroll. ' ' Salonika 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 board the warships in the gulf look at it through the morning mists and envy the soldiers who arc quartered there. The soldiers stumble through its .muddy, rough-paved, ill-smelling streets and wonder why a sailor with a com- | fortable ward-room to live in should ever want to come ( «.shore. 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 has a dignified air that accords well with her historical renown, being set in stately isolation upon the steep slopes of her bare hills, and girdled by ruined but still massive walls that rise to a great Venetian citadel on the landward side. Graceful white minarets that the Turks built are sprinkled aboiit among the houses, and the quay, that is the chief street of the town, lined with picturesque Greek sailing craft, stretches for a full mile along the water's edge. But ashore, shut in by the narow streets of the "Frank quarter," your vivid impressions of i squalor and slovenliness 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 curiously twofold lives. They endure a good share of the hardships of war all night and the greater part of the morning out at their campg on the Monastir-road, and in the afternoon they come into Salonika to enjoy such luxuries as the town affords. The hardships are a good deal more real than the luxuries. During the snap of cold and snow at the beginning of this week the morning temperature in those tents on the bleak, wind-swept position towards the Vardar, was commonly about lndeg. below 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 would have to turn out arid put up tents blown down by the gale in a bitter, driving cold that made your bones ache within you.

On the other hand, the delights of Salonika are limited to one teashop where there are three times as many customers as seats, three kinematographs showing interminable films of a quality that, would ruin an English provincial picture-house in a fortnight, a variety theatre of the kind you only visit once, having your hoots cleaned, and the "Healthy Bath Botton." This last is indeed the most'popular institution in the town. The last word of its title, placarded as above oyer the door, is the name of its proprietor, who is reaping a well-deserved harvest out of the enthusiasm displayed, to his own astonishment, by 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 have his boots cleaned at the same time is the Greek's ideal of a pleasant afternoon. The "lustros," 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-boy. He first metriculously 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 "lustros" now goes on to bring out the high lights by smearing your boot over with a colorless cream, which he brushes again to great brilliance, and finishes off by two or three minutes' friction with a velvet cloth. He completes his work by painting the edge of sole and heel with a sort of varnish.

If you attempt during all this time to withdraw your foot before he ig satisfied with the effect produced, the 'iustros" knocks imperiously with the. back of his brush. Successful "lustroi" 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 professipn never to speak to a client after first attracting his attention by hammering upon their little wooden boxes. For all this you pay the "lustros" ten leptas, or one penny, and walk away with a self-con-scious feeling that your feet are glittering. Salonika .is a great place for furs. Up to the end of 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 lip here which gives full scope to individual tastes in the ■'"■•'•ft of fur coverings for the present nimijj.i. Some officers arc <■ .r -c have a fur lining put into " ish warms; others are attacf ■ cp fur collar which gives an--;r>i< • .xiM picturesque effect. Fren•!■ v..i .»» seem to have specialised on -""'.cjisC wolf skin coats