THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
MAINLY EAST
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN'S
LIFE
AMERICA AS I SAW IT
MEXICO AS I SAW IT. {Now in a Shilling
Edition. Translated)
THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS. {Now in
a Shilling Edition. Translated)
A GIRL'S RIDE IN ICELAND. {Now in a
Shilling Edition)
HYDE PARK : Its History and Romance
PORFIRIO DIAZ : The Maker of Modern
Mexico. {Translated)
A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY.
GEORGE HARLEY, F.R.S. ; or, The Life of
a London Physician. {Out of print)
WILTON, Q.C. ; or. Life in a Highland
Shooting Box. {Out of print)
DANISH VERSUS ENGLISH BUTTER-
MAKING
THE OBER-AMMERGAU PASSION PLAY.
{Out of print)
SUNNY SICILY.
BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS.
BUSY DAYS : A Birthday Book
MY TABLECLOTHS
WOMEN THE WORLD OVER "*"
MEXICO : From Diaz to the Kaiser
WOMEN AND SOLDIERS
A WOMAN ON FOUR BATTLE FRONTS
\
A BIT OF OLD JERUSALEM
From a Water Colour by Mrs. Alec TwEEDiE.
Mainly East
(In prose— perhaps prosey)
^x
BY
Mrs. ALEC-TWEEDIE
COLOURED FRONTISPIECE BY THE ^UTH01{
tAnd 52 Illustrations and IMap
LONDON: HUTCHINSON (SI CO
PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. — Will you jaunt 50,000 Miles with Me ? .
11. — The Joy of making Impression Sketches
III. — Egypt barely out of the War
IV. — Egypt a Year later
V. — Palestine under Military Regime — After
War Days .....
VI. — Life in Indian Palaces — Kapurthala
VII. — Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
VIII. — A Great Native State — Gwalior .
IX. — A Lighted Match — Athens — Salonika
X. — ^The Dardanelles ....
XL — The Middle East aflame — Asia Minor
XII. — ^The Oldest Inhabited City — Damascus
XIII. — Baalbec — IN the Lebanons .
XIV. — Palestine under Civil Rule — and its Future
XV. — Two Thousand Five Hundred Miles up the
White Nile
XVI. — The Greatest Dam in the World
XVII. — What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
page
I
10
21
41
54
84
109
126
147
159
184
199
217
234
255
275
304
rc»/"^ m r-*irf~v*— »
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie ....... Facing p. 1
'* Moutrico," a fishing village in Northern Spain. One
of the villages where Spanish inlluenza was supposed
to be born. From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie . „ 8
Christmas Eve, 1916, in the Leslie Tweedie Memorial
Lounge (Shakespeare Hut, London). By F.
Matania ........ ,, g
Invitation drawn by Mr. Harry Furniss ... „ 10
The Author astride in the desert . . . . . ,, H
Admiral Sir Percy Scott and Mrs. Alec-Tweedie. Ascot,
August, 1922 „ 11
" The Rialto and Venetian market boats." From a
water-colour sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie • . ,, 20
A corner of old Cairo. From a water-colour by Mrs.
Tweedie ........ ,, 21
Outside a mosque, Cairo. From a water-colour by Mrs.
Alec-Tweedie ....... ,, ai
Phila3 Temple, Assouan. From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-
Tweedie in possession of Mr. Edwin Tate . . „ 50
The Bond Street of Kosti, 2,000 miles up the White Nile,
Southern Sudan. The natives live in these "Turkls."
From a water-colour sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie, in
thepossessionof Mrs. Miles Kennedy ... ,, 51
Plaintiffs waiting for the Court to open at Kosti, White
Nile, Sudan „ 51
The Sud. Hundreds of square miles of Pampas grass.
Central Sudan. Photo by the Author. See page 26Q „ 51
" The Kaiser and Kaiserin " (about 15 feet big), on the
ceiling, among the prophets, of the fine Byzantine
Church, and near The Christ over the Altar. The
Palace adjoining is now Government House. It
stands on the top of the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem.
I stayed there a week with General Sir Louis Bols
when it was O.E.T.A. (H.Q.). Photo by Lieut.
Mirehouse, Prince of Wales Volunteers ... „ 54
Delhi at night. Crossing the .Jumna. From a sketch by
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie, in possession of Mrs. Cozens
Brooke „ 55
A snake charmer. Photo by the Author. See Chap.
vni „ 55
The taxi of India. Photo by the Author. See Chap.
r J.J.J.* • • • a « , , , jj QO
The Great French Palace of H.H. The Maharajali of
Kapurthala, Punjab ...... ,, 102
Amritsar, " Julianwallah Bagh," Punjab, where 370 rebels
were shot after warning against riotous meetings,
1919. From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie . . „ 108
" Gwalior Fort " (Central India). At sundown all Indians
cook their own food in little pots, and the soft rising
smoke makes the scene look like water or mist.
From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie, in possession of
Viscountess Chelmsford. See page 14-1 ... „ 108
" Crocodile shooting on the Ganges." From a sketch by
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie . , . . . . ,, 109
Mohammedan Turkish priest at Salonika ... „ 146
Vlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A Greek at Athens. From a photo by the Author .
Turkish boatman, Tripoli, in Asia Minor. From a photo
by the Author .......
Jews loading a ship at Salonika. From a photo by the
Author ........
A corner in the Middle East .....
Dardanelles boats. Photo by the Author .
A priest. Photo by the Author .....
Greek refugees. Photo by the Author ....
Two hundred Greeks came on board. They had been
'' rescued by the British from the Turks in the Dar-
danelles." They hated their own countrymen in
Salonika, and paid their own fares to go back to the
Turks, and were left at Gallipoli. From a sketch by
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie ......
Turkish women packing figs in Smyrna — which was
Greek in 1920. Sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie
finished in an earthquake. See page 192
The Dardanelles, from a sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie,
now in The Imperial War Museum, signed by Gen.
Ian Hamilton, Admiral de Robeck and Admiral
Roger Keyes .......
Armenian refugees, Asia Minor. From a photo by the
Author ........
A corner of Smyrna. From a photo by the Author
Thirteen-year-old Armenian mother and her baby. From
a photo by the Author .....
An Armenian refugee. From photo by the Author
Syrian policeman at Lebanons Station. From a photo
by the Author .......
Entrance to Great Mosque, Damascus. From a photo
by the Author .......
Inside courtyard of Great Mosque, Damascus. From a
photo by the Author ......
Our French guard from Damascus to the Palestine
frontier. From a sketch by the Author
Two Druze women in Trans- Jordania. From a sketch by
the Author .......
" Blue and Silver Virgin," bombed by Bolsheviks at the
door of the Seville Cathedral, Holy Week, 1919, just
as her altar was being carried in to be blessed. Water
colour by the Author. See page 145
A couple of Bedouins outside the Mosque of Acca, Pales-
tine, from which Joan of Arc takes her name.
Sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie ....
Two Palestinian women outside the walls of Jericho.
Sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie ....
The Ash Wedding dance. From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-
Tweedie. In possession of Mrs. Chalmers
2,500 miles up the Nile, beyond Fashoda. Sudan Dinkas,
Shelluks, Sennusi, and other tribes. From a sketch
by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie. In possession of H.E. The
Sirdar ........
Shelluks ; Seven feet high ; Dinka. 2,500 miles up the
Nile. From photos by the Author
Making the greatest Dam in the world — Sennar, on the
Blue Nile, Sudan ......
Fashoda, on the White Nile, now called Kodok. From
a photo by the Author .....
Cutting wood, Erredeba Forest, Blue Nile, Sudan. From
a photo by the Author ^ .
Facing p. 147
147
147
158
159
159
159
164
104
165
196
196
196
197
198
198
198
199
199
216
217
217
260
260
261
302
303
303
J'hoto by2
iVaridyk.
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie
ITo face Cfiapler l.
MAINLY EAST
CHAPTER I
WILL YOU JAUNT 50,000 MILES WITH ME ?
WILL you take a little jaunt with me, unknown
friend — you see, I take it for granted
you are a friend. So let us go a jaunt together.
Please understand right away, I'm no " gentle-
man with a duster " or a " mirror," nor am I a
" gentleman " at all ; nor, being a woman, has
every man I have ever met been violently in love
with me, or twice as many as I have ever met
proposed to me. All these items you can find in
previous volumes by other people. I'm just an
ordinary sort of person who ran away from war
surroundings, and myself, in January, 1919, when
the word " Armistice " was quite newly on every-
one's tongue.
Will you jaunt along some 50,000 miles with
me, mainly East, and into war zones ?
Sometimes we shall live in hovels, sometimes
in palaces, sometimes travel in great ocean steamers,
and sometimes on river barges ; sometimes on a
camel, an elephant, a horse or even the humble
moke, because when we set forth for any given
z
Mainly East
place we must just get there, no matter by what
means of procedure.
I hope it won't take you as long as it took me,
for I was wandering for two years and four months,
and if this book takes all that time to read, the
waste paper basket will be its proper receptacle.
It was January, 1919. War was over, the
Armistice had been signed, and the Peace Treaty
was still five or six months off when I elected to
start.
A tired woman who had done a bit of war work,
had had two sons in " it " from the very beginning,
one of whom was killed in 1916, I packed up my
traps and started out on this long trail — alone !
I shan't take you all the way, new friend,
because you might get tired of me, so we will
drop out my first trip from London across France,
the Pyrenees, through Spain to Seville and
Granada.
Then we will drop out 999 miles in staff cars
along the battle-fields of France and Flanders
from Verdun to Zeebrugge, and we will start afresh
in Egypt.
Let us wander together in the Middle East in
the order in which I did the trip. Egypt, Pales-
tine, India, then home for a cure at Aix les Bains,
and an after-cure in Savoie and Chamonix shall
be omitted — and we will join forces again at f
Venice and wander round the Greek Islands to
Salonica, the Dardanelles, Constantinople and
Smyrna, turning south to Syria, Palestine and
Egypt again, and then down to Southern Sudan
in Central Africa. Rather like the cross on a hot-
1^
Will you Jaunt 50,000 Miles with me ?
cross bun. On the map it makes a very uneven,
unruly sort of a cross, but so it was. From Spain
in the West to the Himalayas in the East. From
the Bosphorus in the North to Rajaf in the South.
And now we are off. I hope you're not off in
another direction, already depressed at the prospect
of our jaunt together.
I'm not going to bore you by telling you about
the very painful circumstances of my birth.
Sufficient to say I came into this world, being a
precocious infant, too soon, and being less than
six lbs. in weight I had to be rolled up in a blanket,
or, maybe, a shawl. I cannot quite remember
which, but anyway, I had to continue rolled up
in something until I grew up sufficiently to get
into the ordinary baby clothes that had been
prepared for me with such stupendous care by a
brilliant mother's nimble fingers.
So you see I did everything wrong from the
very beginning, and started life in an unexpected
way. Somehow I seem to have gone on in much
the same unusual channels of unexpectedness ever
since, and I may go on doing foolish things until
my ashes repose in a nice little urn, and my remains
and my foibles are out of harm's way.
The wandering spirit must have descended from
the days of Captain Cook, who, on his first trip
round the world, was accompanied by a
certain gentleman named Captain Denham, and
that certain gentleman was my great-, great-,
great-uncle on my mother's side, but, being of
Scottish descent, on my father's side (the Had-
dington tomb -stone dates from 1501), I ought
I
3 I*
Mainly East
to say " grand-grand-grand " not great-great-great
— methinks.
On a huge statue near the Admiralty Arch in
Whitehall one reads the following inscription :
" Captain James Cook, R.N., F.R.S. Born 1728,
circumnavigator of the Globe, explorer of the
Pacific Ocean. He laid the foundations of the
British Empire in Australia and New Zealand.
Unveiled by H.R.H. Prince Arthur of Connaught
on behalf of the British Empire League. 7th July,
1914."
And now a new war seems looming in the
Middle East you and I will have a look upon the
scenes before the war bombs really burst, and
when only occasional shots were flying over my
head.
" What is this new war all about ? " asks the
man in the street.
" Everything and nothing," replies the woman
with the pen.
The half educated and totally uneducated people
of the East and Middle East, with their rehgions
and castes, superstitions and dishonesty, and
disloyalty to one another, have been roused, and
it will take a century before they all settle down
again ; meantime, bloodshed, famine and disease
are about ; and in some countries like Russia,
the population has dwindled to almost one-half
through war and annexation and famine.
" And why this strife originally ? " again asks
the man in the street. *
" Because the world was over-populated," replies
4
I
Will you Jaunt 50,000 Miles with Me ?
the woman with the pen. " There was not enough
food to go round. Starvation means war, and
ever will mean war. War is the natural instinct
for self preservation. Horrible but true."
When the Great War ended, I couldn't sit still
with folded hands, could I ? That to a woman
of action would have driven me mad. One cannot
fight sorrow with folded hands. Like others, I
didn't know how terribly I had felt the strain of
two sons at the Front in those first awful years
— of Zepps overhead, or my own war work — until
the strain ended. Then I knew that I should
either sit down and play Bridge and knit, grow
old and dull and stupid doing nothing, or I must
give myself a mental, moral and physical shake
and start a new life.
But where to go and what to do was the
question. Being blessed with a wonderful and
adorable mother, she stepped in and solved the
problem.
" My dear," she said solemnly, when I was
wonderinsr what to do, " if vou don't do some-
thing, you will crack. Go away to Spain. That
country has not been troubled by the war." (My
surviving son had just been sent to a Staff job in
India). " You are quite alone. Go. You painted
very nicely when you were a little girl. Go and
paint."
" Paint ! Why, mother, I haven't painted
since I was a little girl, and I never even learned
how to paint then."
" Never mind, dear, go and try."
Still I hesitated. Several times she returned to
5
Mainly East
the charge. I felt a brute, but firmly refused.
The idea seemed ridiculous.
" Well," she persisted, " as you seem so reluc-
tant to go away or do anything at all, why not —
just to please me — spend a sovereign on some paints.
If you fail, you will have lost exactly twenty
shillings ; if you succeed, you may live to bless
your old mother. Go away and try."
Still I hesitated. I was too jaded to move.
But she persisted.
A wonderful wife, a perfect mother, a house-
proud woman, and withal, her greatest charm was
her unfailing sympathy. Anyone can find fault ;
it is the easiest way of showing, or attempting to
show, one's superiority. Sympathy more often
helps one to achieve success. She lived for others ;
the mainspring of many lives, and she retained her
interest' in everyone and everything. She was
the mainstay of her husband's home (Dr. George
Harley, F.R.S., of Harley Street) ; she was the
incentive from which her children worked, and
but for her, you and I would not have gone this
jaunt together.
And so through the persistency of a dear, wise
old mother I started for Spain, intending the
holiday to last a couple of months.
San Sebastian was a former haunt of hers and
mine, and we had old friends there, so I attached
paper, paint and brush, and muddled, and got
disheartened and muddled again ; but still went
on.
She had asked me to. She was waiting for the
result.
6
Will you Jaunt 50,000 Miles with Me ?
About a fortnight went by. I had worked very
hard, and at the same time enjoyed the extra-
ordinary spectacle of shops and restaurants full
of food, and butter and cheese, and tomatoes, and
bananas, and even cakes, all of which luxuries
were almost unknown in London during the last
two years of the war.
One particular Sunday in March, 1919, in a
Spanish fishing village, I was unutterably miser-
able, and woke up in a cold perspiration, feeling
that something was very wrong. All the morning
I struggled with the depression, so that a little
friend who was with me might not guess how
utterly overpowered I was by a strange feeling of
fear.
I tried to paint ; but I could not paint. I
tried to write ; but I could not write. A curious
premonition of something horrible was upon me.
Always being extremely psychic, and never
wishing to give way to that dangerous power, I
struggled to put it behind me ; but it was no
good ; I could do nothing. My brain was on
fire and yet I felt numb.
At last the brilliant idea seized me that I would
bestir myself and get busy, that I would collect
the few little sketches I had made at San Sebastian
since leaving London a fortnight before, and put
them up neatly into a parcel and post them off
to my old mother, who had inspired the work,
and was waiting — waiting to see it develop.
As it was Sunday I could not register the
wretched parcel, though somehow I felt the
importance of getting it off at once. So I wrote
7
Mainly East
the name on the back of each sketch, tied them
respectfully up in brown paper, sealed them with
care, addressed them, and then laid them upon
the table. They were ready to send home for the
old lady to see, so that she might enjoy the pleasure
of looking at the places we had visited together
some fifteen years before, and the recollection of
these visits would please her whether the sketches
were good, bad or indifferent. They were done
for her, and I felt better.
The irritation that day of not being able to get
them off to her by wireless was horrible ; but I
felt better.
Later my friend and I had our dejeuner early
together. I was a horrible companion, although
she was kind enough not to say so. We collected
our traps and by twelve o'clock marched up the
hill to paint.
When we were half-way up that Pyrenian side
I made the excuse that I wanted to paint, and from
there. I really wanted to be alone. She trudged
up the hill to get a better view and left me. There
I sat (I can see the spot now) on a rocky boulder
overlooking the broad Atlantic, peering across its
blue waters to the West, when that horrible feeling
with which I had awakened in the morning came
upon me again.
A couple of hours later my companion returned,
and was somewhat amazed and amused to find I
had done nothing, but was still sitting with my
paper idly before me, still gazing out to sea.
The next few days were more tranquil, but oh,
how I longed for letters from home. Not, however,
8
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33
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to
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Will you Jaunt 50,000 Miles with Me ?
till the following Thursday afternoon was a wire
put in my hand in that fishing village of Montrico,
in Northern Spain, to tell me that my dear old
mother had passed away at one o'clock that
March Sunday.
She never saw the pictures which she had
inspired.
I left her well less than three weeks before, but
the war and 'flu had played their part. A merciful
release after years of suffering from rheumatism
and arthritis. To me, though it was an irreparable
loss, I have never wished her back : she had
suffered too much. But, oh, the void her passing
has left.
Another horrible tragedy in my life.
Practically I had written to her every day for
fifteen years, or sent her some letters or cuttings
or papers. I had generally spent every Sunday
with her for all that time, unless abroad, and
during those long years of war, every Sunday.
It really seemed as if the last hnks with England
and home had been snapped. Why return ?
In three years I had been deprived of a son
and a mother, two people whom I dearly loved,
and only those in like positions can realize what
that means.
England was no home for me after that; and
so, after telling you why I started to wander, will
you come along with me and see whither those
wanderings led ?
CHAPTER II
THE JOY OF MAKING IMPRESSION SKETCHES
AS I began writing without learning how to
write, so I began painting without having
learned how to paint. I didn't know I had any
sense of colour until I began to daub. I mean
to go on now, because paints have brought new
happiness and solace into my present-day lonely
life. And if anyone who reads these pages wants
a new joy, let them buy paints and brushes and
boldly start. It's an amazing joy — one forgets
time. One forgets luncheon hours or tea times,
or even dinner bells ; one forgets everything ;
one forgets the world and forgets oneself, as little
by little things begin to appear on the white
paper and take form and colour.
Nothing one can write can impress the mind so
vividly as the eye can be impressed by a picture.
The earliest form of writing was picture writing,
and we are rapidly going back to that with illus-
trated newspapers and cinemas. Perhaps we shall
soon forget how to read, and then no more books
will be wanted.
It was impossible to write a book on countries
in the Melting Pot, 'twixt Peace and War.
Many of the places I visited did not even know
10
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The Joy of Making Impression Sketches
to whom they belonged ; one day Greek or ItaHan,
French, Turkish or British, and the next morning
all changed — verily a geographical kaleidoscope.
History and geography in the re-making — soldiers,
aeroplanes and gunboats everywhere.
As it was impossible, therefore, to write a book,
I turned from the pen to the brush, and the result
was the Impression-Sketches of a Woman Writer's
rambles over thousands of miles between the
Armistice and April, 1921, finally exhibited at
the Alpine Gallery (Bond Street) in July, 1921.
They were sketched anywhere and anyhow, and
with only four brushes. And the circumstances
were sometimes wild and wonderful. Sketched
from the top of an elephant in India ; from the back
of a camel in Syria ; astride a donkey in Egypt ;
from the queer wooden bench of a bullock wagon,
or the comfortable cushions of a motor car. From
private saloon coaches to third-class windowless
war carriages ; from splendid steamers to dirty
barges ; from luxurious palaces to tiny tents, or
from straw tukls in Southern Sudan — sketched
sometimes in awful heat, blinding dust storms, or
in the cool of a glorious Eastern night. And
mosquitoes withal in myriads, and sand flies in
multitudes.
But a little camp-stool that cost one shilling and
eleven pence was my happiest seat, my knees my
table, and the swarthy admirers who stood or
pushed or fought to see the results, half smothering
me with their attentions, were merely " an item "
of sundry difficulties attendant on reproducing
one's impressions of the East, where shots were
II
Mainly East
sometimes heard, and martial law oft-time pre-
vailed ; for war in the East and Middle East was
not over then and is not over now.
Don't let the sketches bore you, only, you see,
but for the desire to learn to paint, and I really did
work hard, I might never have wandered so far, and
you and I might never have been introduced.
Somehow I had often felt that water-colour
pictures were more water than colour — so I deter-
mined that mine should be more colour than water
— or else plain paper.
And the paper. Ah ! no one, probably, has
ever had recourse to so many queer papers. After
the war there was a paper famine, so any sort or
kind had to be used, from grocer's blue to the
one piece of brown paper available in Delhi —
capital of India — a piece of brown paper that only
diligent search and bribes could procure. My
own bearer ironed it and I painted on it. Two
more sheets brought into requisition were the
mounts of a Rajah's photograph !
Not framed, nor even mounted. Frames and
mounts are expensive matters, and the sketches had
to be exhibited without the advantages of either ;
in the rough and tumble, just as they were done.
Everyone cannot paint a good picture, nor
can everyone afford to buy a good picture, but
if our British skies are grey, our homes can be
decorated with flashes of bright colour. There
are pictures as pictures, and decorations as decora-
tions. I can merely claim to be a decorator with
a brilliant paint box.
•I* ^P ^F ^F ^F
12
The Joy of Making Impression Sketches
Personally, I rarely met a highly educated man
or woman in India, Palestine, Egypt, or the Sudan,
who wanted the British to leave, and who did
not acknowledge that their countries were still
unable to rule themselves. In Smyrna, Corfu,
Cyprus, Constantinople, Salonica — everywhere —
they had kindly things to say of the British who
had barely left their shores.
Let us God-father these lands, provided they
pay their own way — but don't let us spoon-feed
them with our golden sovereigns, of which I have
lately seen so many in the Middle East. The East
and Middle East are to-day run by Jews (all
honour to them for getting into such high places).
Palestine is becoming Jewish and German. I say
" becoming " advisedly, because, of course, the
Arabs far outnumber everyone else.
The new postage stamp has Palestine across it
in Arabic,
Palestine in English, and Arabic, and
Land of Israel in Hebrew.
This latter phrase is resented by the Arab popu-
lation, which is ninety-three per cent, of the
whole.
There are tens of thousands of Arabs in the
Middle East. They are all of one religion ; yes,
but they are not all of one point of view.
Palestine is not productive, and cannot be
for many years, but is British money to plant
the trees and make the roads and run the show ?
Is it worth it ? I think not.
The Red Flag has waved in Jaffa. A sort of
Jewish Parliament was inaugurated in Jerusalem
13
Mainly East
in October, 1920. Is this to be the Central Jewish
organization of the world ? More anon.
^ H: H: He H:
Mr. Richard Whiteing, author of No. 9 John
Street, in the English Review for March, 1921,
under the title " The Will to Art,'' said :
" The will to do a thing is mainly a force
in itself; and it would be reckoned so but
for its misuse as a shibboleth by some of its
friends. It can have no place in those
fashionable philosophies that have their rise
in the drawing-room, and their end in the
dustbin ....
" Mrs. Alec Tweedie's book on her journey
to Mexico was a case in point. . . .
" Now has come a new craving, but only
' to date.' Her pen has served her well —
why not show what she can do with the
brush ? . . . .
" Her friend, Dame Genevieve Ward, has
had much to do with this resolve. ' Yom-s
has been the most fruitfully busy life I
know,' Miss Ward wrote in her Memoirs. It
was no empty compliment
" For the last two years Mrs. Alec Tweedie
has been on a world pilgrimage, if not exactly
from China to Peru, certainly from Spain as
a starting point to India as the goal, by way
of France, Italy, Greece, Palestine, Syria,
India, Sudan and the Nile. Some three or
four hundred sketches are the result. The
case is before the public for a verdict. My
14
The Joy of Making Impression Sketches
own impression is that it will be favourable.
The artist has the secret, which is to think
in colour, and let the form take care of itself.
This is what we all do in the actual visualiza-
tion of things. Persons and scenes are realized
as colour schemes, not as outline schemes,
merely filled in. A Spanish cathedral — every-
thing, in fact, in Spain — expresses itself in
that way, the religion especially. A great
religious service is emotion rendered in the
terms of colour. This is why it soon tran-
scends the limits of the edifice, and takes to
the open street. The banners are a colour,
the vestments of the priests another, the
crowds the same, the flame of the tapers one
more. The outlines as such are quite elusive ;
the whole is a blended mass of great primaries
in red or orange, violet or blue, and the rest
of it, seen in the drawing, just as it is seen in
life. So with the Indian collection on the
like principle. The true artist is the ' colour-
intoxicated ' man, as Spinoza, in a happy
characterization, was said to be the ' religion-
intoxicated ' one. Both turn instinctively to
light. Hence the new art which has taken
the modern artist out of his studio into the
open air, never to return to the tricks of the
folded curtain, or the meagre infiltration of
rays from chinks in the roof. The method is
still on its trial, to be sure ; but I shall be
greatly surprised if this collection does not carry
it another step forward on its triumphant way.'
Hi 4i * * *
15
»>
Mainly East
The following letter, written December 12th,
1920, is from H.E. the High Commissioner of \
Egypt, Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby, who, with |
British soldiers, conquered Syria (now French) j
and Palestine (now Jewish), and knows every inch :
of both countries, as well as Egypt and the Sudan : ^i
i
" I very much enjoyed seeing your paintings j
yesterday. You certainly have reproduced in i
them both the spirit and colour of these j
countries. I
" I hope you will enjoy Luxor and the ,
Sudan. 5|
" Yours sincerely, •
" Allenby." '
,'!
'(
Conceit, nothing but conceit has made me put |
the above quotations here ; but they were the I
reward of work, and work only. One may inherit j
good looks or bad, much brain or little, small hands j
or large, short sight or good. One may inherit ,|
natural refinement or vulgarity, but weighed against j
all this, if one-third of one's character is heredity, I
another third the result of environment, the last )
third is what one does for oneself, and the three can i
only be co-ordinated to success through work, j
and nothing but work. I
No gifts are any good unless they are made ;
adequate use of, and it is a sad thing to remember ;;
in life that everything that does not progress goes |
backwards. The clock of existence will not stand '
still. Others are always pushing from behind, so ■
unless one keeps up to date and abreast of the j
times, and does one's share, or more than one's I
i6 'i
The Joy of Making Impression Sketches
share in one's environment, gradually, slowly, but
surely, one slips back into the ordinary ruck.
Hence comes despair and joylessness. But don't
let us moralize. Tired or ill I still plodded on with
the brush — to please the old lady who inspired
the idea — because one does one's best for those one
loves, whether they are with us or have passed
on, and the reward came. It brought joy in the
doing. And the world was kind. Conceit again
makes me show you, companion or friend, how
kind.
MRS. ALEC-TWEEDIE'S IMPRESSION SKETCHES
PRESS EXTRACTS, JULY. 1921
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie started to paint shortly after the Armistice
in November, 1919, and returned to London in the spring of 1921.
She travelled 50,000 miles in the two years through Egypt, Sudan,
Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Syria, Palestine, and India. Three
hundred Impression Sketches were exhibited at the Alpine Gallery,
London, July, 1921.
Below are a few extracts from the Press : —
The Times. — " Theories of artistic education dwindle before Mrs.
Alec-Tweedie's impetuous method. Having written 20 books
of travel in 20 years, she thought it would be a change to
combine a little painting with a little more seeing of the world.
... As a tropical survey, the work of one hand, this large
collection is a considerable achievement. . . . Most of the
pictures have some unusual association.'- . . . (and so on
for 10 inches of space.)
TTie Observer (P. G. Konody). — " Her industry is only rivalled
by her enthusiasm. . . . Her work has a spontaneous breadth
and freshness of vision that augur well for the future, should
she decide definitely to exchange the pen for the brush. . . ,
With reservation her sketches of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, the
Sudan, India, Spain, Italy and Savoie are of great historical,
topographical and ethnological interest."-
Daily News. — '' Fine water colours."
17 2
Mainly East
Near East. — " Mrs. Alec-Tweedie turns her intelligent and
elliptical pen to politics. . . . Her talent has enabled her to
retain the vividness of the scene she has depicted ; and her
general management of colour is happy. Curiously enough
it is not in the Near Eastern subjects, which assuredly she
knows as well as may be, that one feels her power most strongly ;
it is rather in a poetic visualization like ' Pallanza at Night '
or in the realistic beauty of the ' Hernani Wine-shop ' that
talent is merged in genius, that the impression of things seen
becomes an interpretation of things experienced. Her work,
as we have indicated, is unequal ; consider, for instance, her
somewhat unconvincing architecture with her boldly success-
ful treatment of the sea. But in all her sketches there is
undeniable interest, and this exhibition has once more proved
the astonishing, perhaps unparalleled, versatility of Mrs.
Alec-Tweedie."
Morning Post.—" Mrs. Alec-Tweedie has given many proofs of
her cleverness with the pen, and her exhibition now proves her
to have a natural talent with the brush. ... As impressions,
particularly impressions of colour, they are frequently vivid
and energetic. A keen, curious observer, with the writer's
instinct where to look highly developed, has certainly dis-
covered a natural turn for recording the results with the
brush. And the result is that where she is working well within
her natural powers, Mrs. Alec-Tweedie produces drawings that
technically, as well as emotionally, are quite adequate, and
sometimes excellent. A little ' Evening, near Luxor ' on the
screen may be cited in illustration of the charm and complete-
ness these drawings can display. ' Thebes (Tombs of the
Pharaohs) and the Libyan Hills ' and the ' Verdun ' close by
it, are others, and there are many more.''
Evening Standard. — " I had a look in at the ' Impressions '■ of
Mrs. Alec-Tweedie' s bustling brush at the Alpine Gallery. . . .
She fairly sweeps round, picking up local colour as she goes.
Prodigious ! The directness of her sketches is their justi-
fication. They have colour and movement of life, and they
convey the swift comments of an active mind.'-
Daily Telegraph—" The sight of them at the Alpine Gallery
brings an instant sense of gusto. These colour notes are often
crude and hurried ; but there is never boredom. The thing
seen has not been a task, but an enjoyment. The obvious
sincerity has triumphed over many obstacles. ... Her self-
instruction has indeed carried her far, aided by her acknow-
ledged gifts of observation and temperament. There is no
i8
1
rto
her
she
giy;
?hti
that
seen
foik,
her
cess-
re is
oved
Mrs,
:s ot
sher
lions,
mid
iter's
dis-
ithe
ithin
that
and
nthe
plete-
ithe
seby
jiisti-
they
.ailery
oiten
thin?
bvions
rself-
:linow-
is no
The Joy of Making Impression Sketches
fluking to success in such capable colour work as ' Bazaar
Via Dolorosa,' or the compelling scene of a Franciscan Service
in the ' Church of the Holy Sepulchre.' -'-
The Referee. — " The Queen has taken a great interest in these
sketches, and a number of them went to Buckingham Palace
for Her Majesty's inspection.''
Of course, the Art critics might have jumped
badly on a writer turning her coat ; but the x\rt
^critics were as generous as the book reviewers
ihad been, and again, one got far more than one
deserved.
We all know our own limitations better than
anyone else, and we all know how miserably we
fall short of what we should like to accomplish.
But nothing could have been more exciting than
to learn to paint day by day. There seemed to be
as many ways of painting a picture as of trimming
a hat. Sometimes the pen-woman was abso-
lutely baffled and in despair, another day in a
seventh heaven of delight because something
had really come off. If you, my friend, have not
tried to paint, go and spend twenty shillings on
colours and begin quickly ; you will revel in it,
and perchance bless me just as I bless the mother
who inspired it.
Knowing nothing, one naturally boldly attempted
iverything.
There is always somebody ready to ask a ques-
tion, and it really seemed as if I have been asked
lundreds of times why I painted in water-colours
nstead of in oils.
Had I painted in oils, I should have been asked
I hundred times why I had not painted in water-
jolours.
19 2*
Mainly East
The reason I did it with water is simple. Less •
paraphernaha is required. One block will hold i
twenty pages instead of the same amount of :
space being required for one oil canvas ; less ;
bulk of paint is necessary ; less bulk of brush ; |
water is easier carried about than turpentine, and, j
therefore, the water-colour has all the advantage ;
of simplicity. I
There its virtue stops, because it is undeniably ■
far more difficult to paint in acquarelle than in i
oil. In the first, the colour must be put on at 1
once, the high lights must be left, and there |
must be no muddling about to find results. In the \
second, the same canvas can be painted over and 1
over again ; new lights can be put on at the last i
moment, and the muddling- about process in no j
way deteriorates from the result. |
But no matter the medium, the joy is the doing, i
The total absorption ; the obliteration of every- ,
thing else ; the being alone oneself with one's !
own creation ; the selfish delight of attainment — j
all bring real joy, real distraction, real peace.
Do try.
Persistency and dogged determination are re
warded in most things.
20
The Rialto aiul Venetian market boats." From a water colour
sketch by Mrs. Alcc-Tweedie
r -TT^ -f^ n A , , c\(\
u
3
O
/' /-^
O
(
CHAPTER III
EGYPT BARELY OUT OF THE WAR
IT SO happened that Lord Allenby gave a
gorgeous dinner-party in Cairo to the Egyp-
tian Cabinet the day after Christmas, 1919. It
' was the first thing of its kind that had been given
since the war, and was altogether a memorable
event.
The Residency in Cairo is a fine building in a
fine garden on the banks of the Nile. It has
known varied and brilliant occupiers, for here
lived Lord Cromer in the days of his glory in Egypt,
when he did so much for the country. Here also
lived Lord Kitchener, who again, in the zenith
of his power, was one of the greatest assets the
British Empire has ever known. And here lives
Lord Allenby, whose reputation has perhaps
attained a higher level, and remained there, than
any other great general of the World War. Some
men are born to rule and to direct others.
At this dinner. Lady Allenby exercised her usual
wonderful power as a hostess by remembering
I the names of every one of those Egyptian gentle-
men without ever referring to a note, and intro-
duced them by their full titles.
I
Mainly East
f!
When we went in to dinner, Lady Allenby
took the Prime Minister of Egypt, a delightful
old gentleman who spoke very good French,
and he sat on her left-hand side. I was placed on
his other side, and beyond me was Major-General
Sir Louis Bols, who had been Chief of Staff to Lord
Allenby both in France and in the Middle East
during all his great campaigns, and had just been
made Head of the Palestinian Administration.
It is the custom at the Residency for the High
Commissioner and his spouse to occupy different
sides of the table, so that Lord Allenby was placed
opposite his wife, and therefore, almost immediately
opposite to me.
The dinner proceeded. There were about forty
people present, nearly all men, and the whole
thing was extremely official. British officers were
still in khaki or blue, and many were covered with
decorations.
After the dinner was over. Lord Allenby got up
and proposed the health of the King, then rose i
again and solemnly proposed the health of the
Sultan. I
Hearing a noise as he put his glass down, he
looked across the flowers and silver. He looked *
again, and seeing a struggle below the boards,
with difficulty restrained his laughter, for lo ! and
behold ! I, the scribbler of these jottings from
memory, had disappeared under the table.
I had sat on the floor. This sounds terribly
bad for a scribe who is almost a teetotaler.
Immediately the poor Egyptian Prime Minister,
in great consternation, tried to assist me from my i
22
J
Egypt Barely out of the War
humiliating position, expressing his desolation in
voluble French, while General Sir Louis Bols tried
to haul me up on the other. He was even more
covered with confusion and sorrow at the situation
than my amused self.
Lord AUenby's laughter quickly turned to
anxiety as he saw the struggle and he called,
across the table : " Good God, I hope she isn't
hurt."
I was not hurt, and merely laughing so heartily
that it was difficult to regain either my com-
posure or my feet.
What had happened was this. At an official
dinner in Cairo it is the custom to leave the dining-
table as soon as the Sultan's health has been
honoured. This being my first official dinner,
though by no means the first time I had enjoyed
the Allenbys' delightful hospitality, I did not
know the custom, and, thinking we were all to
sit down on our seats as we had done after the
King's health, I had proceeded to sit down — on
nothing.
Poor General Bols, being accustomed to these
functions, had most graciously and politely re-
moved my chair to make it the easier for me to
leave the dining-table, but had forgotten to say that
the Prime Minister would offer me his arm and
solemnly lead me from the room to the drawing-
room the moment the Sultan's health had been
officially drunk.
Hence the disappearance of poor me under the
table at an official banquet in Cairo.
As my exalted partner and I proceeded solemnly
23
Mainly East
through the long corridors to the big drawing-
room, I suddenly realized that I was still holding
in my hand one of the serviettes, clutched at,
doubtless, in a moment of agony, and as the
corridor was lined with stalwart servants in gor-
geous attire, I handed the serviette to one of
them, although unable to speak to him in his
native language.
The company had been amused by my exit
beneath the mahogany, but I was far more amused
at the amazed dignity and horror with which
this stately Arab received that serviette. His
disdain expressed an absolute contempt for an
English woman daring to purloin the High Com-
missioner's linen.
When Lord Allenby joined the party in the
drawing-room, he immediately came across to
inquire if I was hurt.
" Not so much hurt," I replied, " as your
unfortunate decoration, which has been dangling
in jeopardy all through dinner."
" Ah ! " he said, " this is the new decoration
the Sultan gave me for Christmas, and I felt I
must put it on to-night with all these officials ;
but, as no place had been arranged for it on my
tunic, it had to be attached at the last moment
by a safety-pin. I hope you did not see the
safety-pin."
" I saw nothing else," I wickedly replied.
" It must have been the enormity of that wonder-
ful decoration dangling on the breast of an exalted
general that upset me so much that I sat on the
carpet."
24
Egypt Barely out of the War
To say Allenby is a strong man is a platitude.
Huge of build, humorous by natiure, artistic by
temperament, he made his name in the Great War
; and is one of the few men who retained it.
. And withal he remains extremely modest, and
; always assures everyone that his success in Cairo is
entirely due to his wife.
Their only child was killed in the war. That is
; a grief neither can forget. His great position, his
title and the money it brought with it cannot
1 descend to a future Allenby, for there is neither
! son nor daughter to come after. Sad, truly.
; But they live in the present, this kindly couple,
. and entertain constantly, receive in a general way
on Sundays, go to all the public functions, although
they never dine in public at an hotel, and only
" tea " in public on rare occasions. Both are
very popular.
But to go back a little. The Great War was
'' barely over. Thousands of prisoners were to be
seen everywhere, even in Cairo in September,
1919, mostly Turkish. Not a single Britisher
over seventeen or under seventy wore plain
clothes, and by Christmas there were thirty or
forty uniformed officers to every single woman in
Cairo. We were then evacuating Syria and Pales-
tine, and officers were waiting literally in hundreds,
almost thousands, to be transhipped for home.
They had come from India, they had come from
everywhere, and they were sleeping in bathrooms,
and on billiard tables, or on camp beds in passages,
and incidentally having a very good time, as, within
a small area, there was a great deal of gaiety.
25
Mainly East
I saw Lord Allenby's arrival when he motored
from the station, both hissed and cheered by the
populace.
I also saw Lord Milner's arrival with his now
famous " Commission," when the same thing
happened, and shortly afterwards heard the yells :
" Down with Milner " sing-songed in long-drawn-
out cries from the tramcars by day and night,
while Arabs clung to the sides, stood on the step-
board, or sat or hung on the roofs. Every few
days somebody was shot in the streets.
They were exciting times, and it was quite
impossible to go beyond Cairo to Luxor or Assouan,
while machine-guns, armoured cars, and soldiers
were constantly in the streets of the town
itself.
Politics were unsettled ; there seemed little or
no policy. Soldiers were kept on the alert and
everybody wanted to be at everybody else's throat.
I was back by the following Christmas (1920) on
my return from India, and it was then much
quieter. A few months later, namely in March, of
1922, Lord AUenby rushed over to London, and the
Independence of Egypt as a Sovereign State, what-
ever that may mean, was proclaimed, an Inde-
pendence which the larger portion of Egypt never
wanted, and don't know what to do with now
they have got it. The country was never so rich
and prosperous as in 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1921.
The exchange was up, the cotton was good. The
place stood high in the world's esteem. In fact
Egypt was one of the richest countries in the
world when it was demanding its Independence.
26
li
Egypt Barely out of the War
And who made it rich ? Why, Great Britain,
of course.
In fact, many Egyptians are themselves already
beginning to regret it, for they have discovered
that the Government yoke of their own fellow-
countrymen is less just and more severe than the
British reign.
There is no doubt about it we made great mis-
takes about Egypt. The country wanted to come
into the Great War, and we refused.
We promised to consider the position — we dallied.
We interned their agitators one day, and let
them free the next.
Egypt wished to be represented in Paris ; we
refused.
They hated the word " Protection," which they
appeared to translate as " Mandateism." They
didn't want it.
We made such a bungle of the Arabic translation
of General Allenby's Proclamation and Lord
Milner's olive-branch document, that both had to be
retranslated with apologies. That sort of thing
is a pity. No wonder Egypt boycotted the
Milner Commission for months, and then only
saw its members at back doors or on barges.
Our Government bungled and fumbled, and
finally we lost Egypt. Shall we fumble and
bungle until we lose the Sudan — in spite of the
Sudan's loyalty to Great Britain ?
1919, 1920 and 1921 were interesting times to
spend in the Middle East and East. Undoubtedly
these countries were then looking towards Great
Britain for a lead. The Turkish details were
27
Mainly East
still unsettled, and the Turks number millions ;
but nothing was settled regarding their position.
Whenever one reads of riots or disturbances of
any kind in Egypt, the name of the El Azah
University creeps in. The word " University "
naturally leads one to think of a seat of learning,
wisdom and discretion ; but as a good many riots
seemed to centre round the El Azah University,
I naturally thought I would like to pay it a visit.
To think is one thing, to do is another.
As we arrived at the entrance to the famous old
mosque, my faithful Mohammed asked us to
wait in the taxi until he got an admission ticket.
We waited, and he did not get the admission
ticket, but came back very crestfallen to explain
that they would not hear of any foreigners coming
inside at all, on any pretext whatever. No per-
suasion on his part had the slightest effect, and
so for that year a view of the inside of the El
Azah University was a blank.
Being a pertinacious soul, on my return to
Egypt a year later, namely, the winter of 1920,
I persuaded Mohammed to take me back and
try again, having read still of the doings of the
students of the El Azah University.
This time we were more successful. The awful
howls of " Down with Milner " of a year before
had ceased, because Lord Milner had given the
Egyptians a good deal more than ever they ex-
pected, and things generally were more tranquil.
All Easterns ask for three or four times what
they expect, and are perfectly content if they get
a quarter. We gave the whole and a bit more.
28
Egypt Barely out of the War
But oh — what a disillusionment was the El Azah
University. " A ragged school for young men "
would be a more appropriate name, for it cer-
tainly has not the appearance of any university
in the world that I have seen, and it turns out
that the education is free, that any sort and kind
of youth may call himself a student, and it is
the hot-bed of all the Socialistic movements in
Egypt.
Not only is it supposed to be a seat of learning,
but the large courtyard seems to be used for
everything. Old men and youths were lolling
about asleep ; others were washing clothes over
little pans ; some were cooking food over small
pots, squatting with their legs crossed in the usual
Egyptian fashion ; in fact, there seemed to be
hundreds of people in that small space, all occupied
in doing every sort of thing except learning.
By standing with my back to the wall I managed
to get a little sketch, because it was picturesque
in its way as a mass of incongruity ; but as soon
as I realized that a little group had noticed I had
a pencil in my hand, it seemed advisable to dis-
continue and quietly and leisurely get out of the
place, for the Egyptians at that time were in no
temper to offend.
That was a peaceful winter. The year before
had been riotous, and eighteen months after was
more riotous still, inasmuch as a number of
Europeans were murdered (generally shot in the
back) in cold blood by the discontented folk of the
Egyptian population, after they had been given
their independence. They do not now seem
29
Mainly East
to be making much use of it, however, and long
before the first year was out, the fellaheen, or country j
labourers, were asking to come under British i!
rule again, because they were being taxed in a ;;
way they did not like, ruled in a way they hated, |j
and their freedom was much less than it had been ij
under Great Britain's sway. |
Methinks before 1925 Egypt will be asking us |j
to go back again, for as one of the great Princes
in the land said to me not long ago :
" I love my country, but we are totally unable
to rule ourselves. Our populace is not educated.
We do not trust one another. You Britishers
brought us to the wonderful position of prosperity
we have enjoyed, and from the moment we have
been given our Independence, our shares, our
prospects and our prestige are all diminishing."
Many of these well-bred Egyptians are very
charming people, and the women are beginning to
take great interest in politics. Those in the upper
classes are discarding the heavy veils, and only the
thinnest of white gauze covers their pretty faces.
They still blacken all round their eyes as they
did in the days of the Pharaohs, and yet they wear
the highest of heeled shoes instead of Mrs.
Pharaoh's sandals.
The working-class women are not veiled.
Hence, when a poor man becomes richer, the
first thmg he does is to buy his wife a veil to show
his exalted position. So riches mean retro-
gression to the women of Egypt and India.
The bazaars in Cairo have enormous iron
shutters. They do not have glass windows. The
30
Egypt Barely out of the War
fronts are open, but at night these iron shutters,
or big wooden, iron-clamped shutters, are placed
before the windows, as few of the people live at
their shops.
Many times, when I was painting in the streets
of Cairo, we would hear the roar of these shutters
being drawn down or put up. It was a sign that
riots were expected, and very quickly mounted
police would be riding through the bazaars, and
where there was room, lorries with machine guns
upon them, manned by many Tommies, were
driven through the streets.
Then, alas ! I had to pack myself up with all
my paraphernalia and my little camp stool and
go home.
Nothing ever happened to me ; no one was
ever rude to me. I never experienced any trouble
of any kind, but I had given Lord Allenby a firm
promise that I would "keep out of mischief," as
he called it, by discreetly retiring when there was
likely to be a row, and there were a great many
rows during that winter of 1919.
We were very gay, however. One dined out
nearly every night, although it was impossible
to cross Bulak Bridge after dusk, and as winter
progressed people ceased to entertain on the
Gezirah side except among themselves, because
of the dangers of getting backwards and forwards
to Cairo. No place, I suppose, ever had so many
men in proportion to women. At a dance the
girls had to allot " turns " to different partners.
It reminded me of my school youth in Leipzig,
where I thought it perfectly lovely to have a
31
Mainly East
fine upstanding Prussian officer stand opposite
me, click his heels, and say :
" Gnadiges Fraulein, darf ich ein extra turn
bitten."
Think of Cairo just after the war with two or
three partners for every dance, and think of
London a couple of years later with no possibility
of a girl getting a dance at all unless she took her
own partner and stuck to him like a leech all the
evening.
Somebody told me there was an interesting small
town called Maag a few miles out of Cairo which
was very primitive, quaint and paintable. So
accordingly, one fine day, a girl friend and I started
forth for Maag.
When we arrived at the little station, there was
nobody there except a stationmaster. He seemed
somewhat surprised to see us, but in answer to an
inquiry, said the most picturesque part was to the
left by the river.
We turned to the left and proceeded along by the
river where we seemed to have stepped straight
into a scene from Bible history. There were the
women washing their clothes, there were the
Rebeccas filling their pitchers, there were the little
children in their little white cotton shirts, just as
depicted in the Holy pictures of the Early Ages.
There was the Joseph, there was the Ass. A most
interesting scene.
Suddenly a little boy about eight, in a white
shirt, stood before us and said :
" I speek the Engleesh."
" You speak English ?"
32
Egypt Barely out of the War
" Yes ! I speek the Engleesh."
" How did you learn English ? " I asked.
*' Wash plates ! "
" Wash plates " I exclaimed, thinking that was
a curious way of learning to speak the English
tongue.
" Yes " he replied, " wash plates, soldiers.'*
" Oh ! you washed the plates for the soldiers,
did you ? "
" Yes ! " he replied, his eyes twinkling, " wash
many plates — good soldiers — like soldiers — like
Engleesh."
And with this staccato conversation, we became
quite interested in the little chap.
He did not understand much, nor could he say
much, but he was mighty willing, and he was
determined we should see the sights of his funny
little town, more especially the mud-brick houses on
the outside stucco of which were painted huge
pictures of dangerous pilgrimages to Mecca. No
man dare have such a picture upon his wall unless
he has been the pilgrimage w^hich, of course, made
him a " Holy man " and entitled him to wear a
green turban.
Mecca to them is a long way and a terrific journey,
and wonderful stories have been woven round these
pilgrimages, so that lions and tigers litter the scene,
and elephants and snakes, as if meeting them were a
daily occurrence on the trip across the Red Sea.
I made a couple of sketches at Maag, one good
and one bad, to a running conversation with the
little boy who told us :
" Faather deed — Mother sit home — one seester."
33 3
Mainly East
And what does your sister do ? "
She sit home," he rephed.
Are you the man of the family, then ? "
Yes, me man," and his httle black eyes twinkled
in his well-tanned face.
When we parted from him he was almost in tears,
but as it is not a good thing to give these small folk
money, we gave him a picture newspaper which he
thought wonderful, and a number of biscuits we
had with us, some of which he was to give to his
mother and his sister, who " sat home."
" Come again," he said when we got to the
station.
" Oh, yes, we will come again," we replied.
" To-morrow ? " he asked.
" No, not to-morrow."
*' To-morrow, to-morrow," he said.
*' No, not to-morrow, to-morrow."
And then pointing to his fingers, he asked : f
To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow ? "
Perhaps, some to-morrow."
And after that we parted.
We did not return for a week, but by this time
we had armed ourselves with some provisions for
the young man, and a little picture book. There
he was on the platform. He rushed at us like a
wild animal.
" How do ? " he said, " me station every to-
morrow, no lady come. Me station to-morrow,
to-morrow, no lady come."
And so he told us the tale of woe, how he had
been every to-morrow for a week, waiting at the
station for us to arrive.
34
Egypt Barely out of the War
It is a curious thing how these little boys of
Egypt, in fact, in other hot countries, are pre-
cocious and well disposed, but as they grow older
they seem to get duller and stupider and do not
always retain their kindly characteristics.
A year later, when I went back to Maag, another
little boy tried to thrust himself upon me, but I
would not have him, and after various rebuffs, he
went away. He must have recognized me because,
in a few minutes, apparently out of nowhere,
appeared my original little friend, much grown,
with a bare foot terribly swollen from a poisoned
bite. He had forgotten much of his quaint
English, but was overjoyed at my return.
That first visit to Maag (autumn 1919) had been
much the most interesting, but when we told a
High Official at dinner that night of our trip to this
famous station through which hundreds of tons of
dates pass every autumn from the great Date
Forest behind, he exclaimed :
" Did you two women go alone ? "
" Yes,'' I repHed.
" Then I request you will not repeat the experi-
ment," he said, " for Maag has been seething with
discontent, and you probably only got out of it in
safety because you were two unprotected women."
" Then you see what a good thing it was," I
replied, " not to be saddled with a male man."
He laughed. " Yes, sometimes they are rather
a nuisance," he said, " but still, it was an indiscreet
thing to do and you are well out of it."
I assured him nobody had molested us or bothered
us in any way, and probably the paint box made
35 3*
Mainly East
them think that we were some queer sort of creatures
who need not be interfered with.
These date forests are wonderful. The trees are
very tall ; the leaves are all at the top ; huge
bunches of orange and golden fruit hang on tendrils
from just below the branches, and the date is a
valuable product ; but perhaps the most interesting
thing of all is to see the men picking the dates.
No ladders could go to the tops of the trees, no
sticks could knock them down, so the men have a
wonderful way of hauling themselves up by a rope.
The rope is made into a ring, big enough to admit a
man and the tree, when his body is swinging out
from the trunk, and in some wonderful manner with
his feet against the tree itself, he manipulates that
rope on which he sits, round and round with little
jerks until he reaches the top. There he picks the
dates at a tremendous pace either by the branches
or separately, whichever comes quickest, and throws
them down to the women below. Then they are
laid out in the sun to dry — and either packed into
boxes or sent away loose for export. A fresh date
is a delicious fruit, and not nearly as sweet as a
dried one.
A little place like Maag sleeps for most of the
year, but during the date season great trains of
freight go from there daily, the fruit carriage
alone amounting to quite large sums per week.
Talking of fruit, the most varied I ever saw out-
side Mexico was in Syria. There seemed to be twenty
different kinds of grapes to begin with. There
were long grapes, nearly two inches long ; there
were round, fat grapes ; there were muscats ; there
36
Egypt Barely out of the War
were black grapes and white grapes, little grapes
and big grapes, seedless grapes and over-seeded
grapes ; in fact, the species was unending, and one
must really go to these countries to appreciate the
fresh figs and fresh dates ; to know what they are
in perfection or to realize the quantities of specimens
of each kind which can be grown. Although, let
it at once be said, no pineapple, peach or nectarine
can ever compare in any land with the choice
tenderly-cared productions of an English hot-
house.
From Smyrna come practically all the currants,
and raisins, as we shall see later ; from Damascus
come acres of apricot pulp, the foundation of so
many jams all over the world, as we shall also see.
When it is lying in the market, it looks like sheets
of red-brown oilcloth or carpet, and stacked in
such huge rolls that it is often difficult for one man
to move a single piece.
From Mesopotamia, in the camel caravans, come
nuts and almonds, but really the only fruit that we
can taste in equal perfection in London is the
banana, because the banana never ripens on the
tree ; it is always picked green, and therefore it does
not much matter whether it travels home or not.
But we only get a few varieties of bananas in Eng-
land, and there are at least fifty different kinds,
from tiny fingers to huge plantains; but many
species are spoilt by travel, as is the luscious
peach-apple of Canada.
Moralizing on fruit grown in sunny lands, makes
one moralize on our position in so many sun- lit
spots.
37
Mainly East
Surely we should never have taken over any
place unless we intended to keep it. If we bring
civilization with its railways and bridges and electric
lights and laws and schools and ideals into a land,
as that land grows up so we must let it share in its
own administration : but agitators and noisy youth
always imagine they are grown up long before they
really are.
Nothing is so unruly as a boy or girl of sixteen,
seventeen or eighteen years of age. They think
they know everything, they kick at anything ;
they lecture their elders and cuff their youngers.
They are in a state of flux, and so is a half-baked
country, and only time can teach it wisdom. Be-
cause a few howl and scream for Independence that
is no reason why the majority should be sacrificed.
When we have taken responsibility we must stand
by it.
Never vacillate. One must often be cruel to
be kind. Compromise always ends in failure and
pleasing no one. Weakness is taken as cowardice
and imposed upon by all.
Again and again I say we should have kept
Egypt and India, and must keep the Sudan ; and
as clearly I feel we ought to clear out of Palestine
and Mesopotamia. The two latter are bottomless
pits for money and will return nothing for centuries
and when they are educated enough to return any-
thing, abuse will follow just as it has done in other
half-educated countries where we teach people
more than the brains of their millions can grasp
or make good use of. The British are great
pioneers. They have done great pioneer work ;
38
Egypt Barely out of the War
but the days for new conquests are over. We
have neither the time, the money, nor the firm
hand to expand. Let us concentrate our energies
on what we have.
Mesopotamia during the war cost us one thousand
milhon pounds. 31,758 were killed or died of
disease. We sent 889,702 men there, viz., one
man to every three of the inhabitants.
Well— what for ? What on eaith is the good
of Mesopotamia ? It is Arab. Let the dozens
of creeds and races of the Arabs rule or misrule
it for themselves.
Really, when one saw the thousands and
thousands, aye, the tens of thousands of little
white crosses put up to mark the graves of British
soldiers in France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Syria,
Palestine, Egypt and India, it gave one to think,
and think furiously.
Memory is fleeting. International memories are
particularly so, and how many nations remember
to-day the enormous sacrifice Great Britain made
in the Great War.
Pause for one moment and remember that
between nine hundred thousand and a million
soldiers of the British Empire laid down their
lives. Nearly a million mothers wept for sons,
and one-third of those sons left widows.
Think again. There were another million and
a half of men disabled.
Think again. There were another million and
a half of children dependent on those who were
dead, or those who were disabled, for whom pensions
had to be provided.
39
Mainly East
Think again. And remember there were other
thousands of parents, brothers or sisters dependent
on our maimed soldiers and sailors.
These lists are stupendous. Four million of our
people were in one way or another directly affected
by the war.
We are not a big country, in fact our little
England is a bagatelle, some forty millions or
thereabouts, but we are a vast and wonderful
Empire. From that great Empire Britain's sons
stepped nobly forward and attained wonderful
things.
The dead we cannot recall, in many cases the
maimed we cannot heal, but what we have done
is to keep our own heads well above water, and
as remarked elsewhere, we are the only combatant
nation in the world that has raised its gold standard
to pre-war value, save in America.
One feels proud to be British. And yet we British
people are so shy. We never talk of our " honour "
as the Germans do, or our " patriotism " as the
French do, or wave " our flags " as the Americans
do.
We are foolishly modest, we are stupidly shy ;
in fact, our national reticence is a deplorable form
of conceit.
4C
CHAPTER IV
EGYPT A YEAR LATER
YOU and I will postpone our more warlike
Eastern trip for a while and drop down on
Egypt again a year later.
Things were quieter. But not for long. Between
times we wandered up the Nile, and you and I will
later jaunt together 2,500 miles up the White Nile
to beyond Fashoda and take a peep at the Blue
Nile on the way. Meantime, let us spend Christ-
mas weeks at Luxor and enjoy the warmth and
the sunshine while we gaze at ancient Thebes, or
enjoy a luncheon party with the head of a well-
known Egyptian tribe.
It is always interesting to see something of the
habits and customs of native peoples, and it was
a very interesting luncheon party to which we
rode on donkeys at Christmas, 1920. Our host
was El Sayed M. El Mahdi El Idrissi. And the
owner had his own beautifully-printed visiting card.
The name was both in Arabic and in Latin letters.
This good gentleman's father was the chief of
all the tribes from Luxor as far down as Assouan.
A very important person, indeed. At the moment
his father was away at Aden negotiating with the
Senoussi tribes. The young man received us with
41
Mainly East
true Arab courtesy. He was dressed in a navy
cloth robe of the finest web, and met us at the
outer gateway of his mud-built house. We followed
him through the doorway of an inner courtyard
and up a somewhat rickety, untidy wooden staircase
to a flat roof. Under the loggia at one end the
luncheon table was laid, but we passed by this
into the reception room. A narrow, upholstered
bench ran round the three walls, even under the
shuttered windows. On the walls were some
embroidered Arabic writings and in the centre, two
carved wooden tables and two or three chairs.
But never had they been polished since they were
made, and they all looked old, but not antiques.
This curious mixture of splendour and decay so
often go hand in hand in the East.
We were asked whether we would rather partake
of the feast in native or European fashion, and
naturally chose the native.
But, in spite of that, we sat round the table on
chairs, and were given plates. So far European,
but for the rest the native element was uppermost.
When we had taken our seats, our host remained
standing, and most solemnly bowing, said what a
pleasure and honour our visit was, and in the name
of his father, the head of the Idrissi, he bade us
welcome. Then, with quiet dignity, he sat down
upon a chair.
Our feast consisted first of all of cutlets and
green peas which were brought in upon a dish.
Tliese our host served with his fingers on to plates
which were handed to us, but as we had no earthly
idea what we were to do with the food to get it
42
Egypt a Year Later
into our mouths, we had, through our interpreter,
to ask him the means of procedure. Most elegantly
the Sheikh lifted up his cutlet by the bone and
bit off a piece, then he broke up a small portion of
soft brown bread, and making a little hole in the
middle with his fingers, he filled it up with the
peas, and this, in its turn, he conveyed to his mouth.
Knives and forks are not known, and looked upon
as rare curiosities and superfluities in nearly every
land excepting the white men's countries. And,
after all, even Queen Elizabeth had not more than
a bowing acquaintance with such implements.
We were not very expert, but we managed to get
along without them.
After much ceremony, all this paraphernalia
was cleared away, and then an entire boiled lamb
was brought in, lying on a dish with its little head
and feet most neatly curled round, almost as neatly
as a fried whiting's tail is put into its mouth.
The lamb was dismembered by the fingers, but it
was so beautifully boiled and so beautifully young
that this was not such a messy performance as it
sounds.
Roast pigeons and wheat followed the lamb, the
wheat almost looking like rice, and we began to
feel that the meal was somewhat solid, and were
hoping there was nothing more to follow at this
sumptuous repast, but more came.
During this time, be it remembered, we had had
nothing to drink, for, being a true Mohammedan,
the Sheikh did not touch alcohol and, if the truth
be told, we were rather afraid of drinking the water.
Flies are so troublesome in these lands that
43
Mainly East
beautifully worked little dish covers made of plaited
coloured straw are always placed over the food for
protection. On this particular occasion we were
each given new dish covers, because they were
smarter, and when we were leaving, both my sister
and I were presented with our own little plaited
cover to take home in remembrance of the party.
The workmanship was so charming, the colours so
beautiful and the necessity for using them as fly
protectors in England so rare, that we immediately
turned them into the crowns of hats, where they
now repose.
Having partaken of the meal with our fingers,
we were very pleased afterwards at being invited
to wash our hands. A brass bowl, with a piece of
soap raised on an iron centre in the basin, stood
on an enamelled tripod at one side of the room,
and beside it was waiting one of the white-robed,
red-belted attendants, with a towel hanging over
his outstretched arm. In the other hand he held
an elegant brass pot with a long spout, from which
he deftly poured water over each visitor's hands
in turn as they came up for ablution. It really
seemed as if we personally were enacting some
gorgeous scene in an opera.
We then adjourned to the salon, where our host
went through a most elaborate function of making
tea. It was so serious it was almost like a religious
ceremony. There were two trays with a tea-pot
and six cups on each (the number of the party).
A tall Russian samovar (or what looked like one)
was brought in and a charcoal fire solemnly lighted
beneath. In one teapot the Sheikh made black
44
Egypt a Year Later
tea, in the other green — in both cases caravan tea
brought via Persia and the Red Sea. Into the
green tea pot, before the boihng water was poured
on, I was horrified to see a lump of sugar bigger
than my fist pushed, and a green powdered herb
which they said was mint. My heart sank at the
prospect of the sickly concoction. But, strange to
say, it was not at all unpleasant, and was really
quite refreshing in that hot weather ; in fact,
the green tea was much nicer than the black tea,
and we were expected to go on drinking cup after
cup of the liquids. So what we did not get to
drink at the meal was amply made up for after-
wards.
Our host was most anxious to be photographed,
and inquired, as soon as we arrived, if we had a
camera. We had. For this important perform-
ance he took off his long blue robe, and appeared
in a cream embroidered one ; so he was pictured,
together with his land agent, who had been brought
in specially to see us.
We were very anxious, in our turn, to see the
women folk of this Egyptian Prince Charming,
but that was quite impossible. It was explained
by our interpreter that we must not press the
question, as he would not like to say " No " to
the English ladies, and such a thing was unheard
of in his home. In fact, white people had hardly
ever crossed the threshold, and our going there
had been a particular favour.
The meal and the tea had taken a considerable
time — hours, in fact — but the conversation had
been extremely limited, although a great many
45
Mainly East
smiles and hand-shakes had taken the place of
the exchange of brilliant ideas.
This man was an exalted Egyptian. He spoke
nothing but his own language, and even read
Arabic with difficulty.
At last, having finished our very solemn party,
and each of us having drunk several cups of tea |
and been pressed to drink several more, we got
up to leave. Not only had we been having a
party upstairs, but the donkeys had been having
a party downstairs, and had been so overfed that
when it came to riding back to Luxor, even the
joy of seeing their native town before their noses
did not make them bestir themselves.
The entire village was at the door to see us off.
This man, it must be remembered, ruled over
tens of thousands of people, and at this particular
village two or three hundred of his followers had
collected to see such rarities as three English women.
His courtesy in helping us to mount, his charm-
ing salutations of good-bye after he had solemnly
introduced his mayor and other officials, was
really a lesson in good manners, and his parting
words were to be sure and come again, by which
time he hoped to have learned English, as he
was going shortly to study reading and English
in Cairo.
As we jogged back to the town, the incessant
squeak of the water wheels made music in our
ears, for nothing is more strange in Egypt than
the way these water wheels, often every few
hundred yards apart, work incessantly to irrigate
the land, just as they did in the same primitive
46
Egypt a Year Later
way in the days of Pharaoh. It is a curious noise,
to some people an irritant, to others quite sooth-
ing ; but whatever its effect on the nerves, it
certainly is a strange remnant of ancient custom
handled in exactly the same way to-day as it was
thousands of years ago. Nature has many moods
and each has its fascination.
As we rode on that great Temple of Karnak
was on our left, with its one hundred and thirty-
three colossal columns in the Hall of Seti, which
never looked more beautiful than it did on
Christmas Eve in the full and radiant moonlight.
Leaving Karnak, we passed the Luxor Temple,
shimmering grey in the evening glow with the
sunset behind, and one felt how much more
reposeful the little Temple of Luxor is than that
colossal bit of Karnak erected by Rameses III.,
if I remember rightly, for I am only writing from
memory, and memory is a fickle nymph. »•
Egypt is the same to-day as in the days of
Rameses — anyway, as regards its women, who all
trudge down to the water in the early dawn and
trudge down again at sunset with their pitchers
upon their heads, just as Rebecca went to the
well. In single file, thousands and thousands of
these women are doing the same thing at the same
hour all over Egypt. They are not beautiful as
women, and they certainly are not clean, and their
black or blue dresses are generally trailing in the
dust ; but their figures and their pose are imma-
culate ; never were there more graceful women
or more exquisite lines of body. Their gait is a
lesson in deportment ; their arms are beautifully
47
Mainly East
rounded and their hands are small ; in fact, the
poorer women of Egypt, though plain of face, are
shapely of body, and their gliding walk and elegant
postures are things to be remembered. The women
never enter the mosques. They do not pray in
public ; but the men of Egypt are most devout
Mohammedans as a rule, especially in the country.
At sunset down they kneel, wherever they are,
with their eyes turned to Mecca, while up and
down they bend as they tell their beads and
murmur their Koran. Religion has a great hold
on all simple peoples. Long may it continue.
How History and Fashion repeat themselves.
And nowhere is this more striking than at Thebes,
opposite Luxor. Here are what are commonly
called " The Tombs of the Kings." Eighty of the
Pharaohs were buried there, and deep in the sandy
hillside are their wonderful chapels, with their vivid
colouring and quaint decorations. Best of all
to my mind was that of Rameses III., although
the colourings were more vivid in the Tombs of
the Queens, especially in that of the little boy.
To show how Fashion repeats itself, although
done thousands of years ago, pictures of women
were painted upon the walls wearing low dresses
and shoulder straps exactly as they do to-day.
And the hobble skirt was then the mode.
No, Egypt has not changed much. There are
still the public letter- writers, bamboo pen in
hand ; there are still the little groups listening to
the one man in a village who can read bits of news
to them from the papers. Indeed, in a big im-
portant town like Luxor, every evening along the
1
Egypt a Year Later
river bank the few educated Dragomen are busily
employed reading aloud to the donkey boys, who
have been running barefooted all day behind
their donkeys across the sandy stretches in
the hill of the Temples of the Kings and
Queens.
The East and Middle East are not educated
yet. The great voice of the people is silent. Is
it then fair to listen to the handful of agitators
who shriek so loudly and demand so much, that
their own people do not even want ? Education
and evolution move slowly.
Mohammed's birthday took place in December.
Mohammed's birthday is a great event for his
followers, and one of the things much appreciated
by the children is the sugar doll made at that
time of year in his memory.
We make hot-cross buns, pancakes and plum
puddings in memory of our forms of religion ;
the Jews make their Passover bread ; and the
Mohammedans, among other things, make little
dolls. These birthday feasts are not the only
similarity between the Christian and Moham-
medan religions ; those who can read the Koran
and the Bible side by side, declare they are full
of similarities. After all, the Mohammedan reli-
gion is even a newer religion than the Christian.
The dolls of sugar are sold in the bazaars in
booths, and these booths are erected, being
temporary affairs, before the mosques. In front,
a table ran the whole length, raised about four
feet from the road. It was probably of this
height so that no one should purloin the goods
49 4
Mainly East
displayed. On the middle of this table, towards
the back, squatted the Mohammedan vendor,
and on either side of him were slanting tiers
of wood, on which rows and rows of sugar figures,
quaint dolls and paper decorations of every kind
were piled.
A still more Eastern touch came from the
fact that the squatting Arab invariably had a
switch fan in his hand, either made from the tail
hairs of a horse, from a collection of rags, or from
pieces of coloured paper ; and with this all day,
when not actually engaged in selling his wares,
he was flicking to keep away the flies. First he
would fan one side, then gently he would fan on
the other side, but the swish, swish, swish of those
fans went on all day for about a fortnight while
the Mohammedan dolls were being sold in honour
of Mohammed's birthday.
From Luxor you and I must wander on south
to Assouan, where we had a curious experience
at Philae. Having gone in the Government launch
to the famous temple, I settled myself down to make
the little sketch facing this page. It was a most
gorgeous afternoon, the day after the New Year
of 1921.
We had not been there very long before a small
boat rowed out from the shore, and the two men
began an earnest conversation with our engineer.
The engineer, who was a foreigner, translated what
the Arabs said — namely, that they could take us for
about a shilling a head inside the temple.
I was busy, but my sister was delighted at the
idea, stepped into the boat and disappeared.
50
<
»i'«..-.
;*• .
^"|C^V^
a
O
a;
o
:3
3
O
is
The Bond Street of Ko.sti, 2,000 miles up the White Nile, Soiithcni Sudan. The
natives live in these " Turkls." From a water-eolour sketch by Mrs. Alec-
Tweedie, in the possession of Mrs. Miks Kennedy
I'laintiffs waiting for the Court to open at Kosti, White Nile, Sudan
i^-«
The Sud Hundreds of square miles of Pampas grass, Central Sudan,
riioto by the Author. .See page 269.
Egypt a Year Later
It seemed to me but a few minutes before they
returned, and she said :
" Oh, it is perfectly lovely inside ; you must
come ! Put those silly old paints away and come
and look at the gorgeous colours inside the temple
at the heads of the Greek pillars."
So, after a minute's persuasion, I, too, tumbled
into the boat, and we rowed off to the entrance
of this famous building. At the New Year the
water was covering two-thirds of the door, because
it must be remembered that the Dam at Assouan
holds back the water of the Sudan seventy feet,
and is let down as required to fertilize Egypt.
When we arrived at this entrance, there seemed
no possibility of getting in at all ; but, as my
sister explained, she had been inside a few moments
before — although she had had to lie in the bottom
of the boat. The row-locks scraped along the top
of what would really have been the ceiling. When
I arrived, we could hardly even get in by such
means.
"It is very extraordinary," she said, " because
with your extra weight in the boat " (not com-
plimentary to me) " we ought to have more room
instead of less, and be deeper in the water."
However, by the two boatmen wriggling and
twisting and pushing the sides, we dived through
this low passage-way, and found ourselves inside
the wonderful edifice.
Then, of course, I regretted I had not brought
the " stupid old paints " with me ; but it was
too late to go back and fetch them, so having
admired the gorgeous colours which the water of
51 4* j
Mainly East
the Nile completely covers for half of every year,
and which seemed by no means spoiled by that
fact, we told the men to take us back to our
launch.
Now came the rub. We had got in with con-
siderable difficulty, but when it came to getting
out, it seemed as though it was going to be
impossible.
" The water must have risen," exclaimed Mrs.
Goodbody. " It certainly must be several inches
higher than when I came in an hour ago, and even
higher than when we came in a few minutes
back."
This was really getting rather tragic, for out
through that passage we had to go or not at all.
However, by all lying down in the bow of the
boat, with a sort of nose-dive process we managed
to get a start on, and by degrees we were able to
scrape out.
We were still pondering on the strangeness of
the water when we arrived to take tea with the
clever Engineer-in-Chief, Mr. Watt. Here, with
great glee, I showed the opalescent colouring of the
little sketch taken from outside the temple (which
looks nothing whatever in reproduction), and glee-
fully explained about the water.
He turned positively green. His hair went
straight up on end, if hair can do such a thing.
"■ Good God ! " he said, " what an awful
catastrophe ! "
" Why ? "
" Why ? " he exclaimed. " Because we turned
the water on this afternoon. You had no right
52
Egypt a Year Later
whatever to be inside there. The boatmen should
have known and warned you, and had you stayed
much longer you would have been buried in."
" Oh ! " the pen- woman remarked cheerily, " you
could have turned the water off again."
" Turned the water off," he exclaimed, even
more tragically than before. " I could not have
turned the water off without a special permit
from Cairo. It would have cost hundreds of
pounds to do so, and I don't exactly know what
would have happened, for such a horrible situation
has never arisen before."
Fools step in where angels fear to tread ; but all
is well that ends well, and we did not end our
days in a watery grave in the romantic interior
of the still more romantic Temple of Philse.
A beautiful evening, retained in the golden
casket of remembrance. One travels to enjoy
oneself, to look for the best in all things, not to
grizzle over uncomfortable experiences.
Laugh and the world laughs with you, is mighty
true.
And the more one journeys in distant lands, and
studies men, women and things, one realizes more
and more what a vast book Experience really is.
53
CHAPTER V
PALESTINE UNDER MILITARY REGIME — AFTER WAR
DAYS
FIRST let me introduce you to the Palestine
of the New Year of 1920, when our soldiers
were leaving.
Then you and I will re-visit it a year later,
and see the extraordinary change from the military
supervision to the civil.
And perhaps by 1925 you; yourself, will have
visited this ancient Holv Land, and can tell me
your experiences, as I shall now tell you mine,
and then you and I can compare notes again.
The day after the ridiculous episode of sitting
so ignominiously on the floor at an official dinner-
partj^ at the Residency, I fled from Cairo, and
started for Palestine for a fortnight while waiting
for a boat to India. Those were still war days,
and ships were very irregular. They were still
in charge of an Army officer ; in fact, from Mar-
seilles to Port Said we had had 1,700 Indians
aboard, and only a small handful of passengers,
all of whom had to conform to war regulations.
Although four months had gone by, things were
still pretty bad, and one had to do what one was
told, and pay the piper at the same time to the
54
Tlie Kaiser and Kaiserin "" (about 15 feet big), on the ceiling, among the
prophets, of the fine Byzantine Cluuch. and near The Christ over the
Altar. Tho Palace adjoining is now Covernnient House. It stands on the
top of the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem. I stayed there a week with
General Sir Louis Bois when it was O.E T.A. (H.Q). Photo by Lieut.
Mirehouse. Prince of Wales Volunteers
[7*0 face p. r>4.
Dellii at niijht. Crossin<> the Jiinina. From a sketch by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie,
in possession of Mrs. Cozens Brooke.
W %^^'
A Snake Charmer. The taxi of India.
Photos by tlie Author. See Choi). VIII.
I
Palestine under Military Regime
tune of sixty pounds for a ticket (at the lowest
rate) from Port Said to Bombay. One used to
travel from Bombay to London, twice the dis-
tance, for fifty pounds.
The bridge at Kantara was still standing — that
famous bridge which was put up, under fire,
across the Suez Canal, so that the troops could be
conveyed direct to Palestine or Syria for Lord
AUenby's campaign. It had suffered much from
war-work, and already heavy trains were for-
bidden to use it ; but it could still stand the
weight of an engine and a couple of carriages, and,
consequently, in Lord AUenby's own personal
car — in which he and General Sir Louis Bols, his
Chief of Staff in France and Syria, had done so
much of their famous campaign — I left Cairo
with Sir Louis and crossed over the famous bridge.
It was dusk ; the little lights of the tents twinkled
all along the canal bank where the soldiers were
cooking, chatting, reading, or washing their
clothes. It was quite an interesting sight.
Crossing this pontoon bridge saved a great
deal of trouble ; otherwise one had to descend
from the train on the western African side, and
walk across the bridge to Kantara (while the
luggage was conveyed mysteriously in little trucks),
get into the Jerusalem train on the Sinai Penin-
sula, and proceed on one's journey to Jerusalem
itself, an ascent to 3,500 feet. Up to the war
days, the greater portion of this long journey had
to be done by driving ; but Lord AUenby's men
had laid the line under fire, and conveyed the
water seventy miles for the troops to the top of
55
Mainly East
the mountain. Surely that railway and water
pipe were among the most wonderful pieces of
engineering work ever accomplished.
Kantara is a terrible place — in fact, it is no place
at all. No one could have the shghtest idea of the
miseries that were experienced round Kantara.
It is an absolutely dreary waste, this bit of the
Sinai Peninsula. There is not a tree. There
are no proper houses — in fact, no buildings of
any kind worth mentioning ; but on this spot tents
were pitched, and those tents housed one million
men for several dreary years. Yes, a million men
had sat upon those sandy shores of the Suez Canal,
in all the heat, mosquitoes, and dreariness of the
war years. They were dumped there from home,
they were dumped there from the Antipodes and
India. It was not only a great training centre,
but it was a great jumping- off post from which
to start for whatever part of the war zones the
men were most wanted.
But it was a lonesome spot. When I crossed
that bridge the first time, there were still one
hundred thousand men living in huts or tents at
Kantara, with Colonel the Earl of Stradbroke
at their head, whose beautiful wife had constantly
been my hostess at Cairo.
There has been great talk since the " Independ-
ence of Egypt " (March, 1922) of withdrawing the
British troops from Egypt and making Kantara
on the opposite side of the Suez Canal their head-
quarters. Poor men, what a prospect.
To return to the bridge itself. Until the war
days people had to cross this strip of canal water
56
Palestine under Military Regime
by ferry if they wished to go north to Jerusalem
or Damascus. That was an impossible situation
with a war raging, just as impossible as to move
men without giving them a drinking-water supply.
Both were overcome.
The troops, the guns, horses, aeroplanes, food —
everything went over the Kantara Bridge. It
was the great connecting link, the vital artery
of an army.
It was a swing bridge, and a procession of
boats, big ocean liners, passed through at certain
hours of the day. There was no trouble about it.
It was quite an easy business, and no accidents
ensued therefrom.
After the war was over, however, the French,
who practically control the Canal, under my friend
Monsieur le Comte de Serrione (whom I originally
met at the country house of his cousin, Monsieur
le Comte Charles de Lesseps, son of the great
Ferdinand), decided that the Kantara Bridge was
in the way ; that it was too shaky to remain as
it was, and must therefore be demolished, and
as it was an impediment to shipping, they also
decided they would not allow a new one to be
built. Thus the possibility of a railway journey
straight from Aleppo, through Damascus, Jerusa-
lem, Egypt and the Sudan to the Cape remained a
dream, and a dream only.
And the last time I saw Kantara the bridge had
disappeared (it was demohshed by the French at
Christmas, 1920), and that uncomfortable method
of ferry transport from one shore to the other had
again taken its place. For how long ?
57
Mainly East
Having crossed the bridge northwards in com-
fort, it was rather sad, many hours later, to turn
out from Lord Allenby's private car, with its good
food and an attendant, although there was nothing
very gorgeous about it. Still, it had cane arm-
chairs, and a couple of small cabins with bunks
in them ; but out we had to bundle at Ludd, as
General Sir Louis Bols was going off to the north
to Haifa, on an inspection for twenty-four hours,
and we were going direct east to Jerusalem, where
he would pick us up again. Thus it came to pass
that, for the first time, I was landed in Ludd.
Ludd was nothing when the war began. It was
just a small junction, without a station. I saw it
gradually grow, under British rule, during four
visits in little over a year. When I left it last,
it was assuming a sort of Clapham-Junction-of-the-
Holy-Land aspect as far as Palestine was concerned.
That first time, a charming woman, Mrs. Merton,
wife of The Times correspondent in Cairo, was
my companion, and we had to travel from Ludd
up to Jerusalem in one of the ordinary carriages.
Anything more uncomfortable cannot be imagined.
To begin with, they were third-class coaches ; to
continue, they had been thoroughly well banged
about in the war. Also, they were utterly devoid
of glass windows ; some were even without doors,
or any form of light by night. What they were
pleased to call the " officers' car " was really
nothing more than a horse-box. In that we
journeyed to the Holy City.
It was bitterly cold. The wind blew right
through the windowless carriage. As we ascended
58
Palestine under Military Regime
those 3,500 feet to Jerusalem we literally shivered,
and our teeth chattered, for there was no means of
keeping warm, whilst sitting round our one funny
little candle and eating a cold meal produced from
paper bags.
Everything was military. The stations were
crammed with soldiers ; no mufti was to be seen
and very few women. Those who were there were
in nurses' uniform. In fact, Ludd was really a
military garrison. Military trains, guns, lorries,
tents, several Y.M.C.A. huts, and R.T.O., and
such-like military alphabet was painted up on
every side. Ludd was a war junction. Our pass-
ports were military, and soldiers were everywhere.
A year later (November, 1920) all was changed.
This war junction of the desert had become a
Clapham Junction of semi-civilization. True,
there were still no waiting rooms or restaurants —
they came a few months later — but the number of
railway lines was surprising, thanks to British
enterprise. What was more wonderful, however,
was that the broken-about railway carriages had
disappeared, and sleeping cars — yes, actually Pull-
man sleeping cars — were running between Kantara
and Jerusalem, or Kantara and Haifa in the north.
Not only were there sleeping cars, but there
were dining cars as well ; in fact, the transforma-
tion was unbelievable, and it was largely due to
Colonel Holmes, R.E., who, to meet the comfort
of passengers, actually allowed them to go on
board the train at Jerusalem or Haifa in the
evening at nine or ten o'clock, so that they might
get comfortably off to sleep in their little beds
59
Mainly East
(each passenger had a cabin to himself) before
the train started at five o'clock in the morning.
Such consideration was greatly appreciated, be-
cause these trains have to run in daylight round
the dangerous rocky curves and steep ascents,
and it would be an unkind thing to be asked to
catch a train at five o'clock in the morning, when,
by a little courtesy on the part of the railway
company, one can get comfortably settled down over
night. Certainly a miracle of railway travelling had
happened under British administration in one year.
And what of Jerusalem ?
The first impression as one arrives is that of an
ugly, modern, red-roofed, whitewashed little town.
It is a bit of a shock, this modern town, for it is
so terribly modern ; but once inside the famous
walls, once inside the real Jerusalem, which is still
completely encircled and only entered by fine
old gates, one steps back two thousand years, and
finds the bazaars and alleys just as Christ walked
dovv^n them at that time. Even to-day there is
only one break in the walls, and that was made
for Kaiser Wilhelm II. in 1906, when he insisted
on riding into the old city dressed up as a Crusader
in white, with the Cross upon his breast and
mounted on a white steed. He could only ride
a few yards, because the bazaars soon stopped his
way. A modern clock tower, with cheap German
clocks, was put up on the Jaffa Gate by the side
of which he entered, to commemorate this great
and glorious event.
Lord Allenby, as conqueror of Palestine, walked
in beneath the Jaffa Gate on his feet.
60
Palestine under Military Regime
It will be remembered that Jerusalem was taken
by Lord AUenby's army on the 9th December,
1917, and the official entry into the tov/n was made
by the British two days later.
This army consisted of three cavalry and
mounted divisions, of which one was of Yeo-
manry, one of Australians, and one of New
Zealanders and Australians. Some mav like to
remember that there were seven British infantry
divisions and a large number of line of com-
munication troops ; included in these was a
battalion of French Territorials and one company
of Italian troops. A South African brigade of
artillery was with one of the divisions, and two
batteries of West Indian troops were in the line
of communication troops, also one cavalry division
of Indian Imperial Service troops. Indian troops
were most successfully employed in Palestine and
earned much praise. Every other person in
Jerusalem at that time wore khaki, and, their
work done, nearly all of them were waiting to go
south. We had passed trainloads of Indian troops
on our way up, bound for their home in the East,
with all their mules and equipment in open trucks
along those hundreds of miles of railway. The
men were loosely packed, and many of them were
playing cards as they turned their backs on Syria
and Palestine after our evacuation at Christmas,
1919. Many of the Indian troops were also guard-
ing the famous water pipe-line, which made
Jerusalem a possible city to live in, instead of a
waterless one. British engineers again.
It was a novel experience, the drive by road from
6i
Mainly East
Jerusalem past the Garden of Gethsemane to the
top of the Mount of Olives where the Kaiser had
planted his famous castle. This great Byzantine
building was called a " Hostel," where German
pilgrims were to be taken in for five shillings a night,
but, considering the way it was built, the thickness
of its walls, the magnificence of its position, and
the very wide, well-laid military road leading
thereto, one can only believe that it was really
made as a great fortress, more especially as the
church was built with a high tower, adding another
250 feet to the 3,500 already ascended. From
that tower the great German searchlight, which
was still standing when I was staying there, could
pretty well sweep the whole of Palestine, which is
only about the size of Wales.
There is a wonderful view from that church
tower, standing wellnigh 5,000 feet above the
Dead Sea, which one sees almost perpendicularly
below. That thirty-five miles of water lies 1,200
feet below the level of the ocean, and is deep blue
and calm, nestling among the sandy, rocky, yellow
hills. Opposite rise the hills of Moab, glorious in
pinks and yellows in the evening light.
At the northern end, below Jericho, the water
is dark and muddy — Why ? Because, perfectly
clearly, one sees the River Jordan, which has flowed
out of the Sea of Galilee, entering the Dead Sea.
That clear early January day one saw for sixty or
seventy miles in every direction, from the church
tower, away to Hebron, to Solomon's Pools and to
Bethlehem across some of the most historically
religious lands of time.
62
Palestine under Military Regime
Facing the other way, across the garden of
Gethsemane Hes Jerusalem, only about half a
mile distant. No wonder Christ stood on the
Mount of OUves and wept over Jerusalem. Look
upon that scene in the sunrise across the Dead Sea,
or the moonrise away towards Bethlehem, and one
does not wonder He was moved to tears. It is a
panorama of striking magnitude and beauty.
Those miles and miles of hill and vale are barely
cultivated to-day, the trees disappeared centuries
ago, but already the British Government had
planted 800,000 trees of different sorts, and started
prosperity for the people, who appreciated the
British at that time and were most kindly disposed
to them. The Palestinians showed this kindly
feeling at every turn and in every possible way.
That orreat German Palace on the sacred Mount
of Olives was shaken at the foundation by the war,
although only a few shots really touched its walls,
and the Administrator of Occupied Ene7ny Terri-
tory (called for short O.E.T.A.), General Sir Louis
Bols, who, with his staff lived in the building,
had to have it shored up.
It was an interesting place to stay in. Arrived
at the handsome stone entrance, the doors were
flung wide and there, before the marble halls,
stood gorgeous menservants in blue uniforms
embroidered in red and gold, to bid us welcome.
These magnificent looking lackeys were really
Turkish prisoners. They had been in service at
the Palace before, and were still retained in the
capacity of door-keepers, thereby making practical
use of our Turkish prisoners of war.
63
Mainly East
The kindliest of hosts took us upstairs and along
enormously wide passages which looked into the
square garden below, and, turning to me, announced
that I was to have the Von Falkenhayn suite.
This was entered by a big Byzantine arch, and
certainly Von Falkenhayn had done himself well
in his apartments. An enormous bedroom with
solid " new art " German furniture. Huge cup-
boards and a writing table ; massive chairs and
sofas. A fine dressing-room beyond and a bath-
room ; but the Kaiser was not a good plumber,
for there were no radiators anywhere and mighty
few baths.
I simply revelled in Von Falkenhayn's former
comforts. He died " a nobody " in the Spring of
1922, but at his zenith was Chief of Staff in Ger-
many, and a very great personage.
Proceeding down those wondrous passages, one
could not help noticing the preponderance of the
German language, for on every possible wall were
the names of the official German occupants of
every suite, names of the Lord Chamberlain, the
Mistress of the Household, the Secretaries, and
MiUtary or Political potentates. There they re-
mained in the New Year of 1920, and even the
" glorious entry of the Kaiser into Jerusalem "
was depicted in a large picture near the wTiting-
table of General Bols, which he refused to move
and rather enjoyed sitting beside.
That palace is an uncomfortable, draughty
place in many ways, in spite of double doors and
double windows, for the wind sweeps through from
every side, and it seems strange the Kaiser, who
64
Palestine under Military Regime
planned it so well for war, omitted central heating
and warmth for peace.
And among other interesting things left behind
by the ex-Kaiser were golden leather cushions and
chairs with his Royal arms upon them.
On passing down one of the passages, my atten-
tion was arrested by a baccarat table. Turning
to Sir Louis, I chaffed him at having such a weird
green baize at Headquarters.
" Don't blame me," he said. " It is nothing
whatever to do with me, and I am rather wondering
what to do with it. It is a baccarat table left
behind by Kaiser William II. A queer thing to
leave in a hostel for pilgrims," he continued, with
a merry wink.
What is one to think of the Kaiser ?
First, he acquired land on the top of the Mount
of Olives, one of the most sacred spots in the world.
Then he built an enormous, four-sided Byzantine
Palace, suggesting that it was really a hostel for
pilgrims to live in, at five shillings a day. Then he
made a marvellous military road up that steep
incline, at a gradient that would take the heaviest
guns, two abreast, to its summit. He built a fine
church with a tower, to reach whose top there are
250 steps, and in that tower he planted an enormous
German searchlight.
Was he so pleased with himself for building on
one of the finest and most sacred spots on earth
this palace of Byzantine form — but in reality a
fortress — that he must needs put bronze statues of
himself, and pictures of himself in its corridors, and
even on the ceiling of its very church ?
65 5
Mainly East
Who can doubt that the All-Powerful proposed
to add to his titles that of King of Palestine ?
There are wonderful mosaics in that church of
excellent artistic taste, and then upon the amazed
beholder break enormous ten or fifteen feet high
figures of the Kaiser himself and his wife, painted
upon the chapel ceiling, along with the Saints and
Prophets, and even facing Christ Himself. It is a
case of profanity glorified, sanctity reviled ; and,
in strange contrast, the British Tommy bowed his
knee and prayed in the Kaiser's church ; while
just the same strong Briton, so hated of the Teuton,
stood sentinel, capless, and with fixed bayonet,
in the tiny, much-quarrelled-over Chapel of the
Nativity at Bethlehem.
A hatless British soldier on guard was a singular
spectacle. For six months under military rule,
Tommy took the place of the Turk. It was the
first time Tommy was ever on duty without his
hat, but, by Allenby's orders he supplanted the
Turkish soldiers who had stood there so long.
When I returned to Palestine a year later — after
my visit to India — the military administration
was over. Civilian had taken its place. Tommy
had gone from Bethlehem and a dirty-looking
Palestine policeman had taken his place. As
the Palestine Police are so largely recruited
fromx the Irish Constabulary to-day, perchance
an Irishman is there beside that Holy Star of
Bethlehem in the strange small cave, once called
a stable, with its endless twinkling little silver
lamps.
Anyway, Palestine need have no fear in British
66
Palestine under Military Regime
hands, for Gentiles, Moslems and Jews are safe.
The British Empire stands for Justice.
Speaking of a stable, one must remember that
any sort of cave forms an eastern stable. It is a
shelter, and accordingly donkeys, ponies, and
camels all feed and rest in such primitive " stables."
Now there is a church over the site of the Nativity,
and to prevent animals defiling so sacred a place,
the entrance door to the Church has been made
very small, so that one has to step up over a raised
kerb and bend one's head down to get in at all.
Result, no animal can now walk in.
No Jew could enter Bethlehem any more than
a Jew could enter the German Island of Borkum
off Heligoland a few years ago. There are still few
Israelites in Bethlehem, but in Palestine generally
one is struck on all sides by the black curls of the
Jews' beards, and their jet black hair in greasy
ringlets. Those ringlets are often ten and twelve
inches long, in bunches of tight, sausage-like curls.
Some terrible Shylocks are to be seen, and also
some very fine types. When I paid my first
visit to the Holy Land, the Jew and his donkey
politely stood upon one side of the narrow bazaars
to let me pass. When I returned a year later
I had to stand back to let the Jew and the donkey
pass me. What a change.
In Bethlehem one could not help noticing the
good looking Christian women who were unveiled.
They wore two-feet high white head-dresses, which
seemed to give dignity to their bearing and were a
remnant of the old Crusader days ; in contrast, the
women of Jerusalem are of a much plainer type,
67 5*
Mainly East
and most of them (the Mohammedans) are com-
pletely obliterated by a thick veil over the
face.
Speaking of Bethlehem, Colonel Gladstone was
Governor in the military days, and, being a devout
Catholic, the people loved him for his faith in his
religion, and respected him greatly as a man.
They even listened to his wise counsel over the
cleaning of a particular window in the church
over which there has been feud for centuries and
blood is spilt almost yearly.
Palestine is a cosmopolitan crowd of British,
American, Italian, Syrian, Russian, Greek and other
nationalities, and the bazaars of Jerusalem are as
crowded as those of Cairo and even more pic-
turesque ; they are far lower in pitch and completely
covered in. The Jerusalem Gothic Arches run for
long, low vistas into which streaks of light slant
from above. There seem to be as many arches in
Jerusalem as bridges in Venice. I loved those
bazaars and painted them a dozen times or more.
To my mind, the bazaars of Jerusalem and Hebron
are far more interesting than those of Cairo or
Damascus or Bombay. The people of Palestine
and Egypt, too, are quite different in aspect. The
endless black coats and red tarbooshes (fez), the
long, coloured nightgown-looking robes of gorgeous
hue, so noticeable in Cairo, have disappeared in
Jerusalem ; and the plain white turban has given
place to the gorgeous Bedouin head-shawl fixed
to the scalp by a silk or cotton skein, banded every
few inches by gold or silver wire. The people
of Jerusalem, broadened by their huge-sleeved
68
Palestine under Military Regime
garments, look far more Eastern than the men of
Cairo.
To sum up, one might say that Palestine is more
old-world to-day than Egypt ; the people are more
Eastern in physiognomy and dress, the habits and
customs are more cosmopolitan and more primitive.
While Egypt has arrived, Palestine is yet in the
making.
Think what marvels Great Britain has done for
Palestine in the last few^ years. Picture those
hundreds of miles of roads, of railways in passes
hitherto considered impossible ; tliink of the water
supplies. Since the war Great Britain has laid the
foundation of a great and new land — for whom ?
Palestine was Canaan, the Land of Promise,
the Holy Land, the Land of Israel. Palestine
should spell rehgion. It is the " Holy Land,"
and yet how bitter have been, and are, the feuds.
To those who are truly devout, a visit to Palestine
can do no harm, because they will look at every-
thing through their own sweet, religious eyes, and
never notice the tawdry. They will seek the beau-
tiful and find it. For tiie scoffer, Palestine will
but heighten his unbelief ; for the doubtful, it
may sliake what faith remains.
God's rock, nature's majesty, speaks more than
all the tinsel and bunting man can weave, and one
longs for God's hand alone in all its simplicity.
One craves for more nature, more simplicity, and
abhors man's commonplace decoration, and jejune
embellishments. Man's defilement would be a
truer expression perhaps, for man has done his
best for centuries to destroy history, and rehgion
69
Mainly East
and nature. It was especially painful, after an
interesting drive to Bethlehem, to see the crowding
of trumpery lamps and embroideries and mediocre
ware in the spot where Christ was born. Alas,
also the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem itself has
been made tawdry and vulgar.
And yet one turns aside from what is modern,
and cheap, and vulgar and reflects on time. Think
of the scenes two thousand years ago ; and for
hundreds of years tliose Franciscan monks have
held that sacred service every Friday before the
Altar of Anointment, a dozen steps lower than
where Christ was crucified, and only a dozen yards
from where the Body was buried. Age demands
veneration. Above the Altar of Anointment hang
eight little lamps all alike except for colour.
Two belong to the Orthodox Greek Church.
Two to the other Greek Church.
Two to the Latins.
Two to the Christian Armenians.
(Which comprise all such modern people as
Lutherans, Church of England, Presbyterians,
Wesley ans, Quakers, etc.)
Those lights are never allowed to go out. Each
religion looks after its own two, to avoid the
ceaseless quarrels that used to arise when anyone's
sacred lamp became extinguished. It was here
we saw one of the most outwardly devout men
it has ever been my fate to meet. He prostrated
himself before the altars. He wept, tie was in
a frenzy of religion and had travelled thousands of
miles for this glad moment.
Services are always following closely on one
70
Palestine under Military Regime
another, the Holy Sepulchre being portioned off
for certain religions at certain hours of the day.
All may worship there.
I wonder if you wull be as surprised at Calvary
as I was ? Having travelled much all over Europe,
as well as elsewhere, it always seemed that a cross
put at the top of a particularly high hill was called
" Calvary," and in the Catholic countries the
fourteen Stations of the Cross were planted at long
intervals up the steep sides of a circuitous road to
Calvary.
Therefore, I naturally supposed that something
of the same kind would be seen in Jerusalem, the
original site of Calvary itself. Nothing of the
kind. When one enters the church of the Holy
Sepulchre with its various guards squatting, on
the left one faces the Altar of Anointment. Turn-
ing to the right and ascending a few steps, one
enters the chamber of the Crucifixion. Now this
was a great surprise. In the first place it is very
small, though one can distinctly see three holes in
the floor in which the crosses stood, and looking
down, one can see the rock in which they were
embedded. Otherwise the place is crammed full
of decorations and lamps and pictures in one
heterogeneous mass. Luckily the light is bad and
so they are not as obtrusive as they might be.
When the Body was taken down from the Cross,
it was carried doAvn what would probably be a
dozen steps to be anointed at the next rock, i.e.,
the Rock of Anointment facing the door, which is
now set in to an altar with two colossal candle-
sticks on either side. Again the Body was carried
71
Mainly East
on perhaps a hundred paces to where it was
buried.
Surprise No. 1. — That Calvary was not the peaked
summit of a mountain. It is really a bit of the flat
top of the hill on which Jerusalem is built.
Surprise No. 2. — That the scene of the Cruci-
fixion itself was so small and confined.
Surprise No. 3. — That the whole ceremony took
place in what is now called The Church of the Holy
Sepulchre.
Surprise No. 4. — That instead of this being
outside the walls as one somehow imagined, one
enters the Holy Sepulchre Church from the inside
of the walls of Jerusalem.
There are people, of course, who scoff at the
authenticity of the whole story. Whether it be
true or false, for hundreds and hundreds of years
people have worshipped at this particular spot ;
that alone gives it sanctity, and not for one moment
during the twenty-four hours of a day, would it
be possible to find the Holy Sepulchre without
someone praying in some corner. More than that,
they are not all of one religion, for tradition has
made this place so sacred that, as just said, other
than the Christians bow their knee in this historical
edifice.
Volumes have been written round this holy story.
Guide books of description have been penned, so
I can only look at it from my point of view as a
great emblem of the Christian Faith, a great monu-
ment of religious worship, a place to be revered
and held sacred for all times.
No one can conceive the excitemxcnt of the Jews
72
Palestine under Military Regime
before the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. The first
time I saw them was only a few months after
Palestine had been liberated by Great Britain from
the Turks. There were then only eight at prayer.
The next time was just a year later. The number
had swollen to fifty-two. The tears rolled out of
their eyes, their howls and groans were pitiable,
they even banged their heads against the wall.
Their frenzy was even more than the frenzy of the
Pilgrims at Lourdes. Lourdcs is a special pil-
grimage — the Wailing Wall is a daily affair.
Yes, fifty-two men and women were wailing — for
what ? Not for the restoration of Palestine—
unless " to wail " had become a habit of genera-
tions that they could not lightly give up. Wail-
ing for the restoration of the Temple of Solomon ?
Perhaps, because it is said even a Cabinet Minister
supports that idea, apparently forgetting that the
ground of the Temple of Solomon has for centuries
been the site of one of the great Mohammedan
mosques in the world, the Dome of the Rock, or
often called the Mosque of Omar. As well say
demolish Westminster x\bbev because the land is
near the spot where Julius Caesar trod — though in
fact he didn't — and let a temple be erected to him
on the site.
About the New Year the British MiUtary Authori-
ties issued an order that the Hebrew language,
like the English, French and Arabic tongues, was
to be treated as one of the official languages of the
country. Therefore proclamations in four lan-
guages were posted all over the place. Just as a
specimen the one below — which has to do with
73
Mainly East
food, in English — may be of interest. They did
much to restore law and order. They were great
placards about eight feet square. Unfortunately
that order for including Hebrew as an official
language led to trouble later on.
No. 153
PUBLIC NOTICE
Whereas it has been established that supplies
of cereals and other necessities of life, hereinafter
called foodstuffs, are being unduly withheld from
consumption, and that the food supply of the large
consuming centres is being thereby endangered,
AND WHEREAS it is ncccssary to take measures to
ensure the prevention of undue withholding, I,
Major-General Sir Louis J. Bols, in virtue of the
powers conferred upon me as chief administrator
by Warrant under the hand of the General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief the Egyptian Expeditionary
Force,
Hereby Order as Follows :
1. Every Military Governor may, by Order, require
any person in his District to make a declaration
in such form and within such time as may be
specified in the Order :
(a) As to the quantity of foodstuffs owned by
him or in his possession or under his control,
and
(b) As to the place or places in which such
foodstuffs are stored.
74
Palestine under Military Regime
2. Any such Order may direct that, pending the
decision of the MiHtary Governor, the food-
stuffs shall not be removed or otherwise dis-
posed of without his consent.
3. Every Military Governor may, for the purpose
of testing the accuracy of any declaration
made in pursuance of an Order issued under
Clause I. :
(I.) Issue an Order for the inspection of any
lands or premises belonging to or in the
occupation or under the control of the person
who has made the declaration.
(II.) Order the production and inspection of all
books and documents relating to the busi-
ness or occupation of such person.
(III.) Summon and hear witnesses.
4. Every Order issued by a Military Governor
to inspect an inhabited house shall be ad-
dressed to an officer of the Police Force not
below the rank of Commissary or 2nd Lieu-
tenant, and shall direct that, if the owner or
person in occupation of the said house shall
not consent to the inspection being made, the
officer shall be accompanied in making the
inspection by the IMukhtar. The proces-
verbal draw^n up by the officer shall state that
the conditions laid down in the clause have
been complied with, and the Mukhtar shall
sign or seal the proces-verbal.
5. Any stock of foodstuffs in respect of which a
false declaration has been made, or in respect
of which there has been failure to make a
declaration, is liable to be confiscated, and the
75
Mainly East
Military Governor may, pending a decision
of a Military Court, order the sale of the whole
or part of any such stock, and the proceeds
of sale shall be deposited in the Court of the
district.
6. When, in the opinion of the Military Governor,
stocks of any foodstuff in any district, town,
or village, are being unduly withheld from
consumption, all persons within such district,
town, or village, may be called upon to sell
or dispose of the said stocks in the manner
prescribed by him.
7. Save in the case of disobedience to an Order
issued under the provisions of this Notice, no
person shall be called on to dispose of any
foodstuffs reasonably reserved by him for his
household requirements or for the use of his
animals or for his own use as seed.
8. Any person who fails on demand to give in-
formation to an Official of the Occupied Enemy
Territory Administration as to the supply
of foodstuffs in his possession or luider his
control, and any person who disobeys an order
issued by a Military Governor in virtue of
this Notice, shall be liable on conviction
by a Military Court to a fine not exceeding
L. E. 100 or to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding 6 months or to both those penalties.
9. For the purpose of this Notice " Cereals "
shall be deemed to include wheat, barley,
maize, millet, beans, and lentils, or any of
them, and the " Necessities of life " shall be
deemed to include also rice, flour, meat, sugar,
76
Palestine under Military Regime
coal, oil, butter, milk, petroleum, benzine and
firewood.
L. J. BOLS,
Major-General,
Chief Administrator.
Hdqtrs. O.E.T.A. (South).
February, 1920.
One day we went a delightful motor run to the
place where the British made their final attack
on Jerusalem, and it was quite thrilling to be with
Sir Louis Bols, one of the men who had participated
in that final strategic move. It was still riddled
with trenches, and remnants of war lay everywhere ;
and the imprint of the Turk could be seen on every
hand. The Crescent was barely out of place.
And nearby there lies a quiet little convent, with
a sweet-faced Roumanian nun who talks exquisite
French. She gave us delicious liqueur made by
herself and her nuns from fresh almonds, and
walked us round her little garden where the nar-
cissi, roses and iris were just struggling into life
that early January day.
Every reHgion is represented in Palestine, and
apparently each country builds or tries to build
a finer church and hostel than the other country,
and then religion eschews its own religion by
quarrelling with its neighbour. Was there ever
such a quarrelsome land ? But the imprint of the
British soldier has already had good results.
A point that impressed me greatly was, that
with our uniforms everywhere, our law and order
noticeable on every side, one never saw a British
Mainly East
flag in Palestine. The Peace Treaty with Turkey
being yet unsigned, we had carefully refrained
from asserting ourselves or treading upon sensitive
feelings in any way. What tact, and yet one
wondered if the populace really appreciated our
consideration.
A few months later, alas, the country passed
from militarv to civilian rule, and later Great
Britain obtained the Mandate. Once there would
have been no difficulty in collecting large sums
— many millions, in fact — from the people already
owning the land. That chance has practically
gone by. The Zionist pincers are making them-
selves felt on the old inhabitants, and month by
month the chance of Palestine supporting itself
is slipping by.
Palestine is a land of possibilities if enough
money is put into it, just as it was the cradle of
three great religions : the Jewish, Christian and
Mohammedan. But I am jaunting too far ahead,
and we must leave the future for a later chapter
and merely look at Palestine in the winter of
1919-20.
It was the New Year. The weather was vile.
Our host. Sir Louis Bols, was kindness itself. He
proffered hospitality in the truest sense. He
opened his house (the Kaiser's Palace) to us in
the absence of his kindly wife, who had herself
arranged our visit, and each day the General
promised to motor us to the Dead Sea. No one
could be in Palestine and not wish to see the Dead
Sea, nestling between the Hills of Moab on the one
side and Jericho on the other, with the Jordan
78
Palestine under Military Regime
running in straight from Galilee, through which
lake it passes after leaving its source in the
Lebanons in Syria.
Each day we were disappointed. We started
once, but long before reaching Jericho the mud and
the rain and the wet w^ere so hopeless that we had
to turn back. And before we got home it snowed,
yes, snowed.
Thus it was I left Palestine for India without
having visited the Dead Sea or the Jordan, but I
vowed I would return and see both ; and there
was yet another inducement. At that delightful
old town Hebron, all the people wore the most
gorgeous orange (a sort of mandarin yellow) head
scarf. I bartered for one in silk, but it cost three
pounds, and the man would not take less, so I left
Hebron without the precious scarf. For eleven
months I regretted not having bought that shawl, and
vowed that when I returned to Palestine I would
go to Hebron on purpose to procure one of those
scarves, which are the most gorgeous shade of
orange, and the most beautiful silk I think I have
ever seen.
Oh ! the persistency of women. Eleven months
later I saw the Dead Sea ; went to Jericho, and
purchased a yellow handkerchief at Plebron.
I left Palestine determined to return, but feeling
it was no longer a land of milk and honey, that it
was treeless and barren, and that only hard work
and solid gold could give it a future of promise.
Just before I left for India that excellent paper,
the Egyptian Gazette, published the following,
December 31, 1919.
79
Mainly East
A STORY OF THE WAR
General Sir Reginald Wingate's despatch published in a
London Gazette supplement, dealing with the military opera-
tions in the Hedjaz from June 9, 1916, up to the surrender of
Medina on January 10, 1919, is among the most interesting
records of the war. It describes how when the Arab campaign
opened on June 9, 1916, the Turks were to a great extent
taken by surprise and the Sherif's forces were successful in
capturing Mecca and Jeddah within the first month. The
garrison of Taif held out for three and a half months, its eventual
capture on September 22, 1916, being very largely due to the
support of the Egyptian Artillery detachment under the
command of El Lewa Sayed Pasha Ali. Medina was invested
immediately, but the presence of a picked force of 3,500 Turks
destined for operations in Southern Arabia in connection with
the Stotzingen Mission made it too difficult an operation for
the Arab forces to carry out, and the city was not captured.
This led to a considerable prolongation of operations, as the
Turks were enabled to keep open the railway and use Medina
as a base from which to threaten Mecca. After referring
to the Emir Feisal's active co-operation in 1916, and sub-
sequently leading to the forced withdrawal in January, 1917,
of the bulk of the Turkish Hedjaz Expeditionary Force to
the neighbourhood of Medina, Sir Reginald Wingate passes
on to the famous railway raids upon the Hedjaz Railway
in 1918, many of which were conducted by Colonel LaAvrence.
The object of these raids was to hamper the attempts made
by the Turks again to withdraw from the area held by them,
and one can remember how well they succeeded. By the
success early in 1918 of the Emir Feisal's operations about
Maan, the main object of the Southern campaign — the isolation
of Medina — was indeed accomplished by the effective des-
truction of the vital railway communications of Medina with
the North. Moreover, the reaction of Feisal's success upon
his brothers produced, in emulation, a degree of activity
in the southern theatre never hitherto attained, and a deter-
mination on their part to undertake the long-deferred combined
offensive of Medina, with a view of securing the close and
permanent investment of that fortress.
A third despatch, dated December 27, 1918, brings the story
8o
Palestine under Military Regime
of the penultimate stage in the campaign to a close. The
Turks were now so entirely isolated that the operations con-
sisted to all intents and purposes of the siege of a large
area militarily dependent upon Medina, for the Turkish
garrisons in the Southern Hedjaz, including that of Medina,
were entirely cut off from communication with the outside
world, with the exception of a single aeroplane despatch,
which reached Tebuk from the north about the middle of
August, and of infrequent and very irregular supply convoys
to Medina from Hail or Riadh. In accordance with this
general intention, towards the end of May, Emir Abdulla,
supported by strong contingents of the Huteim, Ateiba and
Juheima tribesmen, attacked the Wadi Hamdh ridges : but
although at the first assault several out-lying advanced posts
were captured, the attack failed to develop. A week later a
fresh offensive was undertaken farther south, in the section
between Bir Nasif and Hafira, this time in co-operation with
a detachment of Emir All's Army, led by the Emir in person ;
but, again, little more than demonstration was effected, al-
though some 1,000 rails and half a dozen culverts were destroyed
by Emir Abdulla's demolition parties. On June 7 a more
successful raid was carried out in the neighbourhood of
Toweira, in the course of which 1,200 rails, a bridge and three
large culverts were demolished and a water train with its
locomotive was captured and destroyed by the Arabs. In
this operation the losses of the enemy were heavy, and a
number of prisoners were taken. At the end of July an
offensive was launched by Emir Ali against the Turkish positions
at Jelajila, north-west of Medina, but the enemy's defensive
works proved too strong to be taken by infantry assault with-
out extensive artillery support, which, owing to difficulties
of transport, Ali lacked ; and, notwithstanding a determined
and praiseworthy effort on the part of the Sherifial troops
engaged, Jelajila remained in the hands of the enemy. In
the meantime the capture of Mudaw'ra by an Imperial Camel
Corps column operating from Akaba, on August 8, and the
destruction of the water supply at that place, compelled tlie
enemy to evacuate the railway south of Maan as far as Dhat
el Haj, and finally dispelled any hope he may, till then, have
entertained of the ultimate commmiications with Medina from
the north.
8i 6
Mainly East
In spite of the destruction of the Turkish Armies in Syria
by General AUenby in September, 1918, Fakhr-ed-din-Pasha
refused to surrender Medina, even when guaranteed safe pas-
sage to Egypt by General VVingate, and the Hedjaz Army
closed in upon the starving but devoted garrison. Although
subsequent successes were in one sense rendered abortive by
the Armistice with Turkey (October 30, 1918), when all hos-
tilities by the Arabs were at once suspended, General Wingate
was able to report on January 18, 1919, that : " Fakhri Pasha,
Turkish Commandant at Medina, surrendered to Arab Head-
quarters at Bir Derbish on the 10th instant. The Emir
Abdulla, representing his father the King of the Hedjaz, entered
Medina at 11 a.m. on the 13th instant."
Particularly interesting reading in view of later
events, and written by a highly distinguished
officer, Sir Reginald Wingate, to whom the British
Government behaved none too well.
Another Pier Head jump.
It had been necessary at Marseilles when I
jumped on to a trooper and drilled v/ith a life-belt,
and passed through mine fields ; but none of the
latter were necessary in the dawn of 1920 from
Port Said to Bombay. What was necessary was
to wait for the chance of a vacant cabin, and jump
into it without dallying to discuss even its enormous
price.
I hate people who hate their relatives, don't you ?
Relations are generally nicer than oneself and twice
as useful. In fact, cousins are delightful things.
It was so charming to be met at Suez by Jack
Tweedie and his launch, so useful to be met at
Khartoum by Colonel Car Tweedie, so nice to find
82
Palestine under Military Regime
Colonel Sydney Muspratt in Delhi. All useful
cousins.
Talking of Port Said, which was once the
naughtiest town in the world, it is all light and
searchlights to-day, and quite a large, important
place.
There were floods everywhere along the Canal
in 1919, right up to Port Said, for the water had
been let loose to keep out the Turk. So much
water was there, that it took a couple of years to
get rid of it altogether, although it had gone down
enormously when I re-passed six months later, and
still more when I saw it for the last time in 1921.
Almost an irony to see the water put there to keep
out the Turk gradually diminishing, while the
Turk himself was gathering strength to attack
again, and even more vitally and successfully than
before.
8? 6*
'.^
CHAPTER VI
LIFE IN INDIAN PALACES — KAPURTHALA
ARRIVING at Bombay was an amusing experi-
ence. It was only a few months after Peace
had been signed. It was Sunday morning, in
January, 1920, and very hot.
I had a cabin on the upper deck, and having
told the Captain that I intended to stay a week in
Bombay with my son, who I hoped would meet
me from the Staff College at Quetta, and that I
had ordered rooms by telegram and letter, he had
gravely shaken his head, and repeatedly said : *' I
hope it will be all right."
A knock at my cabin door. There stood that
most excellent Captain, an Irishman, Sweeney by
name, who cheerfully said : " Let me introduce
you to our P. and O. representative, Mr. Gordon."
Before I could say anything Mr. Gordon vouch-
safed : " I do not require any introduction to
Mrs. Alec Tweedie ; we have met before."
Turning to Captain Sweeney, he remarked :
'' You only told me ' a lady in distress,' but you
did not mention the name."
" I am a lady in distress," I replied, " because
I have no idea where I am going to sleep to-night ;
but where did we meet ? "
8^
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
" On the trial trip of the Lusitania, when you
were one of the guests."
To make a long story short, we landed, and he
kindly took me in his launch from hotel to hotel
in pursuit of a bed — result, nil. Bombay was
crammed ; officers and families were going back-
wards and forwards after the war. No one could
get in anywhere ; my letters and telegrams had
had no effect whatever. A wire from my son also
notified that he had had the same ill luck from
Delhi, where he was on leave waiting for me.
After many hours of fruitless search, I decided
to catch the five o'clock train that afternoon to
Delhi, because friends who had been on board were
going that journey. After Mr. Gordon had kindly
fed me at his flat, he motored me all over Bombay
— where all the cotton mill hands were on strike —
to see its wonderful view, its Tower of Silence, its
beautiful Eastern bazaars (burned down a few
weeks later). I landed at the station and tendered
three five- pound notes to pay for my ticket and
the sleeping accommodation already ordered by
telephone after luncheon.
The booking clerk looked at the three five-
pound notes — and absolutely refused to take them.
" But they are English five-pound notes," I said,
knowing that our notes are tender the world
over.
" I am very sorry," he said, " but I have never
seen anything like them before. I cannot take
them."
This brought the war home. This young man
in the booking office knew nothing but an English
85
Mainly East
Bradbury, and a five-pound note and, doubtless,
a sovereign, were unknown to him.
What was I to do ? Cook's was closed when
we landed. It was Sunday. Nothing could be
cashed anywhere. My luggage was already in
the sleeping car, and my English money was of no
value. Incidentally, one's luggage is a constant
anxiety ; but it is more worry to be without it.
My host luckily stepped into the breach. " I
never have any cash," he said, " for we pay every-
thing here by chit (namely, a signed bit of paper),
but it so happened that yesterday I went to the
bank and drew fifty pounds in rupees, so I will tear
home in the car and bring it down before the train
starts."
Rather an amusing position for an unfortunate
man to have to pay fifty pounds to get rid of a
comparative stranger out of Bombay.
Promising myself a more lengthy stay in the
city on my return, then arranged for a year later,
I departed with a strange black man, called " a
bearer," who was to be my servant, guide, philo-
sopher and friend in India.
He proved a thief, and had to be changed within
the week.
And I never saw Bombay again ; but that is
another story.
The night after my arrival in Delhi I had a
nine-bob dinner. Yes, I really mean it. A nine-
bob dinner.
It was a truly Royal affair, but it seemed strange
to make nine curtsies between entering the
Viceregal Lodge and leaving it.
86
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
cc
Why was that ? " someone may ask.
Well, the procedure was formal. It was a
State affair. We all assembled in the drawing-
room. There were fifty of us, and the equerries
solemnly introduced each man to his particular
partner. When this was completed the double
doors were flung open, and :
" His Excellency the Viceroy," was announced.
By this time we were all standing in a large
circle. Lord Chelmsford went round and shook
hands with everyone ; we women made our
curtsy. That was curtsy No. I.
Lady Chelmsford followed behind the Viceroy,
and as she shook hands, we made another curtsy
—that was No. II.
Then the dinner was announced and off we
walked exactly according to our rank. My rank
troubled people in India considerably. I had not
got any. I was only a woman. Just an odd
sort of woman without a husband whose reflected
glory I could attain. Even a Lieutenant's wife
in India is Mrs. Lieutenant, just as they used to be
in Germany, and no one ever steps above or below
his or her rank. No, never. But one and all took
me under their wing and gave me a nice little
niche of my own, where I had an exceedingly good
time and made many delightful friends. But this
is a digression and you, good friend, may be hungry
for your dinner.
The representatives of our King sat at either
side of the middle of the table, on which were
handsome vases and beautifully arranged flowers.
The Indian servants were in lovely uniforms, and
87
Mainly East
their pugarees, or turbans, added much to the
gaiety of a brilliant scene. After the dinner was
over Lady Chelmsford rose, walked slowly back-
wards into the alcove behind her, and made a
solemn curtsy to her husband. His Excellency
the Viceroy, who was then standing opposite her
with all the gentlemen of the party. As we women
followed out one by one, we each passed into this
little recess, and made our low bow to His Ex-
cellency. That was curtsy No. III.
In the drawing-room several women were taken
over to talk to the Vicereine, who sat near a com-
fortable fire that chilly night. On arriving, and
again on leaving her, we curtsied, IV. and V.,
and after the Viceroy came in, four women were
in turn taken to talk to him. Those were my VI.
and VII. curtsies.
Lord Chelmsford is a charming man, with a
delightful manner, a clever brain and keen interest
in Indian affairs, and evidently anxious to do the
best he can for everyone. I was very much struck
by the then Viceroy's sympathy and ability in the
exalted post he held.
He looked most awfully ill in Delhi. Surely it
is rather cruel to send men past their first youth
to such a climate as India, and then forbid them
to leave for five years. Five years is a long spell
for younger people, people with less anxiety and
less responsibility. Certainly no one ever tried
to do his duty more nobly, but Chelmsford was in
India in troubled times ; the bridge towards Indian
Independence was a mighty difficult bridge to
cross in safety.
88
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
At eleven o'clock Their Excellencies rose. We
lined up round the room again as we did before
dinner, and they again solemnly walked round
and said good-night to each individually in turn,
which necessitated an VIII. and a IX. bob. So,
you see, it was verily a Nine-Bob Dinner.
Truly a most Regal affair.
The Vicereine was particularly pleasant to me.
She paints, and paints remarkably well, so we had
much in common. India never fully realized what
a charming artist and indefatigable worker Lady
Chelmsford was. She painted in water colours
incessantly. Every free moment from public
affairs found her with her brush, and certainly
many of her pictures were delightful. She loved
the colour of the East, and was particularly happy
with her red sandstone buildings, and where is
there in India that there is not a red sandstone
building ? My own work was not very satisfactory
in India. Constant moving and packing up leaves
no time for thought or work. The paints had
become so dry that they would hardly work at
all, the last of the European paper was used up.
India had sold out all the pre-war paper and had
nothing. Result, much labour and poor results ;
but still I stuck to it. Nil desperandiim.
One has heard so much of the officials of India
living in extraordinary comfort that it certainly
was surprising to find at Delhi that practically all
of them lived in tents.
Don't imagine by this that they were little tiny
tents such as a dozen men are squeezed into in
war days, because they were more like the big
89
Mainly East
marquees put up for cricket matches in country
villages. But tents they were and nothing but
tents, and they stood in streets, the pathway being
bordered by little plants ; sometimes it was wide
enough for a motor car to stop at the tent door,
sometimes it was not.
The larger tent is generally the living room, a
smaller tent is the dining room ; behind are two
or three bedrooms, bath tent and kitchen.
When an extra child arrives upon the scene an
extra tent is put on. If a friend arrives from
Europe for a long visit another tent is dumped
down, and so these Eastern homes go on ex-
panding or decreasing according to require-
ments.
They are made very pretty inside with Oriental
carpets ; Oriental wall hangings, lamps, piano,
sofas and even a fireplace, but at the same time,
one cannot make a tent anything but cold in winter
and hot in summer.
When officialdom moves from Delhi to Simla,
the whole of this Delhi tent township moves too,
including babies and prams, official documents
and Government papers ; so twice a year official-
dom is upheaved, and not only travels bag and
baggage, but house to boot.
It was near this tentland that the original new
Delhi (again to be the capital of India instead of
Calcutta) was to be built, and if I mistake not,
it was near here that the Prince of Wales, now
King George, laid the foundation stone for new
Delhi, but the spot that had been chosen proved
to be a swamp, and after tinkering at it for some
90
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
time it was decided to build the new Delhi seven
miles away.
This new Delhi was begun about 1913, and
people talk about it being finished in 1925, when
there will be twelve square miles of buildings.
But as I saw it in 1920 it appeared to be one
enormous red brickyard, for bricks were literally
being made in millions and run along little light
railways to be erected into buildings. A large part
of these will be in white stone, marble no longer
being possible in these expensive days, but the
greater number will be of red brick.
My chief memory — and, alas, this book is
entirely written from memory — is little truck-
loads of bricks running along between avenues of
baby trees, for the roads had already been planned
out, and these little trees and shrubs were standing
up two and three feet.
The great hall for the Viceroy was then about
ten feet high. Otherwise nothing had progressed
even as far as that. Sir Edwin Lutyens most
kindly showed me round his wonderful new site,
but as I could visualize nothing from what had
already risen, I had to content myself with the
plans and they were certainly beautiful. Mr.
Herbert Baker, who had sketched the interiors
of these future buildings, is an artist, and he had
made absolute pictures of the different edifices.
That was new Delhi. Old Delhi was quite a
different affair, or rather, the Old Delhis, for there
have been seven of them. Although they have
risen and fallen, and the cities have gone, their
temples and tombs remain. These Mr. Hailey
91
Mainly East
kindly devoted many hours to showing me in com-
pany with Commander Hilton Young, M.P., who
was taking a few weeks' dash round India. The
former Viceroy's (Lord Curzon) idea to preserve
the old cities of Delhi was excellent, and has been
admirably carried out and greatly extended by
that interesting man, Mr. Hailey, Minister of
Finance.
The great Mosque of Jama Mas j id is one of the
finest in India ; but many books could be, and
have been, written on the glories of Indian archi-
tecture. This pen-woman thought the best view
of the town was from the Fort looking across to
the famous Ridge of the Mutiny.
Oh, the dust and cold of Delhi the whole of
February. I had a fire after four o'clock every
day, and wore my fur coat constantly. Indeed, I
had to buy an eiderdown, and although the sun
shone brilliantly for two or three hours at mid-
day, for twenty hours the wind blew the dust in
clouds, and it was mighty cold and uncomfortable.
This was not my idea what India should be, even
in the month of February. When March came,
up went the temperature.
I think I met everybody who was anybody in
Delhi. Dear, cheery Sir Charles Monro seemed
just as cheery, in spite of his important post as
C.-in-C, and the Indian heat, as at home. It had
made him thinner, but he remained just as merry,
and his wife was universally popular.
People were most kind in constantly congratu-
lating me on my son's flight over the Himalayas,
and his landing at Simla (nearly eight thousand
92
Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
feet above sea level) just as a terrific storm burst,
and hailstones three inches in circumference
damaged the machine as he stepped from it, and
before the Royal Buffs, who were in attendance,
could get the tarpaulin over the aeroplane. But
this had appeared in newspapers all over the world
at the time (May, 1919) in Renter's Service.
Looking back on Delhi with its hot days and
cold nights in January and February, a series of
charming little dinners passes before my eyes, and
little kindnesses such as beautiful flowers to welcome
me from the garden of Colonel and Mrs. Verney ;
artistic suggestions from that artistic being, Mrs.
Jack Mackenzie ; mending and packing by Mrs.
Cecil Kaye — an act much appreciated by the
traveller ; a cheery welcome by a cousin-man,
Colonel Sydney Muspratt, and from another de-
lightful woman, Miss Elinor Anderson, sister of
the General Sir Hastings of the Staff College.
Then there was the famous General MacMunn,
General Sir Harry Watson, General J. C. Rimming-
ton. Sir John and Lady Maffey, Ernest Burden,
Sir Michael O'Dwyer, General Sir Herbert Cox,
and my son's old commander Colonel MacEwen
and his successor, Colonel Webb Bowen.
India is a country for young people to play in,
to dance and polo, and tennis and flirt in — morally,
however, it is bad for both sexes and does not often
lead to happy marriages. Too much comfort, too
many servants to start life, extra pay, and too
much amusement to induce love of home. It is
the land of youth and enjoyment and a riot of
gaiety.
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Mainly East
Middle-aged people simply don't seem to exist,
for the next grade are elderly Generals and Knights,
and Baronets and Councillors and Commissioners,
all drawing handsome pay and enjoying the royal
progress of so-called " Inspections ! "
The most disappointing thing in Delhi was the
native bazaar, Chandni Chank. Neither old nor
new, picturesque nor pleasing.
Again and again one felt the street life of the
Indian bazaars was grey and colourless compared
with Cairo, Damascus or Jerusalem. Delhi, Am-
ritsar, Lahore, Agra, and even Bombay took very
back seats for wealth of colour and barbaric
quaintness.
The next move was quite exciting to look forward
to — a week's visit to an Indian Palace.
After a long journey from Delhi, it was interesting
to step forth in the cool air of the early morning
at Jullunda Station, there to find a motor of His
Highness the Maharajah of Kapurthala awaiting
us. When he had kindly asked me to visit him
at his Palace, remembering our former meeting
in London, he had thoughtfully suggested that he
would be glad to see my son, who he knew was
in India, if he cared for some shooting, but un-
fortunately Harley was unable to accompany me as
his leave was up and he had to return to the Staff
College at Quetta, several days' journey away.
But with that wonderful courtesy one receives
in India, the Maharajah wrote again, and said as
I was strange to his country, if I liked to bring
a lady with me he would be very pleased to welcome
her.
94
Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
Consequently, charming and pretty Mrs. Kaye
accepted the invitation and we travelled together.
Such an arrival — for there was her bearer and my
bearer, and her luggage and my luggage, and piles
of bedding, and all the rest of the paraphernalia
that we required for our journey.
As we drove to the Palace, the most extraordinary
mists were rising. It was six o'clock in the morning,
and only people who know India know the extra-
ordinary hues of orange and purple, of indigo
and cobalt, of rose madder and burnt sienna, that
seem to flit across the landscape in the mists and
miasmas of early morning.
Arrived at the Guest House, which had been
entirely placed at our disposal, we were met, even
at that early hour, by an Indian in a frock coat
with an immaculate piece of white picot inside
the lapels ; in fact dressed as though he were
going to Ascot on Cup Day. In perfect English,
he said :
" I welcome you in the name of His Highness the
Maharajah of Kapurthala, and I am to ask you if
there is anything you would particularly like to do
during your visit here."
I thought a moment, and then laughingly said :
" One thing I must do, and that is to ride on an
elephant."
" There is no difficulty about that," he calmly
replied. He called various servants, and solemnly
we were each shown a little suite of rooms, asked
when and how we would like our breakfasts, in-
formed that the Maharajah did State business
all the morning, but that we should see His
95
Mainly East
Highness at the luncheon hour ; and after this
cordial and very ceremonial welcome, the Master
of Ceremonies departed.
Mrs. Kaye and I had our baths, had just enjoyed
breakfast and were still enjoying some delicious
fruit, when a servant entered to ask if we could see
the Master of Ceremonies again.
" Certainly."
In he came.
" Your elephant is at the door, Mrs. Alec
Tweedie," he said.
I almost gasped. Life ceases to be interesting
when one ceases to care who or what is at the
door. One is accustomed to hear that the taxi
is at the door, but not to hear " your elephant is at
the door."
We have just so much capacity for enjoyment or
suffering — each individual differently — and when
the limit of suffering is reached and one ceases to
care who comes in at the door, life has become
numb, valueless and void.
" What elephant ? " I said.
" You expressed a wish, Madam, to ride an
elephant, and one of His Highness' elephants is
waiting your orders at the door."
It really was very funny, and I could not help
turning to Mrs. Kaye and saying : " What on
earth are we to do with the elephant ? "
" Go for a ride on it," she laughed. " What
else ? "
But we were not fully dressed, and had had a
very long journey, and it seemed rather hurrying
matters I suggested.
96
Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
*' Well," she replied, " we must either go now,
for it is eight o'clock or else we won't be able to
go at all until the sun is down, for it will be getting
hotter all the time."
Accordingly, we finished our toilets, and went to
the elephant that was waiting under the huge
portico at the door, looking wonderingly at his
enormous height, while the major domo and the
Mahout arranged our route. The elephant was
told to kneel down, which, with a huge grunt, she
did ; we walked up a little ladder, arranged our-
selves upon her back, and off we went for a ride
through the bazaars of Kapurthala on this rumbling
great beast's back. That was my first elephant
ride in India, and an interesting experience.
The obedience of the elephants to the kick
behind the ears by their groom, or the prod on the
head with the fork of the Mahout, was wonderful,
for these great lumbering things move exactly as
they are wanted.
There is no doubt about it that an elephant
is an extraordinary beast, and that the amount
of Hindustani it understands is wonderful.
Of course, the Mahout thinks that his elephant
comprehends every word that he says, as he sits
on the animal's neck with his little bare legs tucked
behind her ears, and digs his naked toes into her
skin as he cajoles her to go to the right or the left,
or feebly scratches her with his toe nails. In fact
his pats, his cajolerie or his curses are quickly
obeyed, and it is very seldom he has to use force
to make his charge do exactly what he wishes.
He keeps up one long continued conversation
97 7
Mainly East
with his elephant, and there is no doubt that
elephant and man become staunch friends.
They say elephants have amazing memories ;
that they suffer when they lose a faithful keeper,
and if that keeper returns to them many years
afterwards, they know him again in a moment by
his voice or his touch.
An elephant who will behave perfectly well
with one man may behave very badly with another,
and yet when the old controller returns, the
elephant's virtue returns too.
A few days later, there was a magnificent display
of elephants in the Palace Grounds, partly in our
honour, and the opportunity was seized to have
some photographs of the pageant taken.
It really was a splendid sight, for, although our
host has not anything like the finest elephants,
or the most numerous, they were very magnificent
when they were painted all over with grotesque
colours and designs, bearing their wonderful back
cloths and howdahs, and anything more dignified
than the Maharajah himself in bright blue velvet
embroidered in gold, sitting in his massive silver
howdah, with a servant behind him holding an
umbrella of State over his head, cannot well be
imagined.
I cannot say that riding an elephant is a par-
ticularly comfortable performance any more than
riding a camel. Although both jiggle and shake,
the latter is not at all bad when the camel can
be persuaded to trot. The trotting camels of Egypt
are rather rare, but extremely pleasant when one
gets one.
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Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
H.H. The Maharajah of Kapurthala besides
being cultured, well read and much travelled, is
a very dignified looking man. He is tall and hand-
some, and although he speaks faultless English,
he is French in many of his tastes and in some
ways cosmopolitan.
He lives in a beautiful Palace. It is absolutely
French in style, both inside and out ; the very last
thing one would expect to find in the Punjab of
Northern India.
The view across the gardens and park of the
Himalayas is beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed
my week of his hospitality.
How wonderful they looked, those Himalayas,
from my window, just a glimpse of that 1,500-mile
chain of mountains, but enough of their snow-
capped summits showing to make one look forward
to a few weeks later when I was to spend months
among the summer glories of Kashmere. These
gardens and park were laid out by an Englishman.
The excellent band of thirty musicians is conducted
by an Englishman. His cooks are French and
Indian. At luncheon, several Indian dishes were
always served ; but at dinner they were more
French. Old English silver is used at table, the
flowers are arranged in English vases — in fact the
atmosphere is chiefly English or French. Kapur-
thala is a connecting link between the East and the
West.
Married in his youth to four wives (whom he
never saw, according to Indian custom), the Mahara-
jah, when he grew older, found a beautiful young
Spanish girl, about 1905, whom he did see and
99 7*
Mainly East
married, and lived with her happily for a dozen
years or more. But this did not mean he neglected
his other wives when he was in India. These ladies
lived harmoniously together in their own Palace,
each in her own apartments, called upon every day
by the Maharajah when he is at Kapurthala.
The No. I. Indian Princess takes precedence, and
her son is the Crown Prince, who was educated at
Harrow, and his wife in Paris. Result : one wife,
and one happy home. This wife of the Ticka
Ranee, as the Crown Prince is called, is a perfectly
lovely and charming girl. Fair of skin, for she comes
from the mountains. She has three little girls.
The Maharajah has four sons and one daughter,
all of whom have been brought up in England.
He himself was educated in India by a delightful
English tutor who I met at the Palace Avith his wife.
How rapidly in some ways the East is assimilating
the West, with its education, its cinemas and habits.
For instance, except in public, His Highness leaves
his head uncovered. His religion is Sikh, an off-
shoot of the Hindu.
In spite of his spending several months in
Europe every year to avoid the great heat, which
he finds most trying, there appears to be perfect
peace in Kapurthala, so wisely has he chosen the
officials who carry on the affairs of State during
his absence.
There are about three hundred princes in India,
but only fifty of these are big, and only about
five are of first importance. The Nizam of Hydera-
bad heads the list. He is only about thirty years
of age, but is so occupied with his native luxury
100
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
and his harem that he does not entertain foreigners,
travel, or mix with Europeans. The very opposite
of Baroda, Kapurthala and Gwalior.
As far as I know, no Indian prince pays taxes,
or customs, and yet every British subject in India
has to pay both ; but India would take years to
understand, and one is constantly being surprised
by little bits of information such as the fact that
there are six hundred and seventy-six states, and,
as to the number of guns used in salute to the
different Maharajahs, well — ^that would take a
lifetime to understand.
The position of the Indian Princes is more or less
dependent on Great Britain. If Great Britain
withdrew her strong support, the native would
probably turn against himself, and Bolshevism
and chaos would ensue.
About twenty-five per cent, in Russia are literate,
only about five per cent, in India. They are chil-
dren, native children, children of the soil, those
millions of people of India, with a tiny and some-
times noisy froth at the top who want to reform
everyone and everything except themselves ap-
parently, but they are bagatelle among so many.
On the other hand, there are educated gentlemen
who have succeeded in many cases so admirably
that one is struck dumb with admiration at their
attainment, but one swallow does not make a
summer.
When one goes to an Indian bazaar, the native
asks exactly three times what he expects to get
for his wares. When India asks for complete
Independence, she neither wants nor expects more
lOI
Mainly East
than internal Independence. Where would India
or Egypt be without the protection of our army
and our navy ? Neither could have stood alone
for one moment against Germany.
One day at Kapurthala, I was suddenly trans-
planted back to the British Isles. We went off in
a motor launch with a tea basket to the river at
Kap. For miles it might have been the Cam at
Cambridge, and then another stretch was sandy
and low and trackless in truly Indian style. The
trees were so planted as to copy an English scene,
and well indeed did the illusion succeed.
Blackbirds weighed down trees, literally pulling
the boughs into the water, there were such hun-
dreds of them, and kingfishers were everywhere.
My dominant recollections of Kapurthala are
the views of the Himalayas, the curious anomaly
of the French chateau in the Punjab, the Gymkhana
where camels were roped instead of horses, and the
populace squatting below the royal stand looked
exactly like a flower garden, so beautiful were the
shades of their turbans.
Many of these people went off to the cinemas in
the evening, for cinemas are everywhere and,
unfortunately, too little discretion is used in the
selection of films, and white people are often shown
at their very worst to native audiences.
Particularly was this the case in Southern
Sudan before an audience of several thousand
natives, squatting in the sand, with the vault
of heaven above their heads. They yelled and
shrieked in many tongues while a white man and
woman wrestled on the floor — a pitiable spectacle.
loa
■^
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o
i
Amritsar, " Julianwallah Bagh,'' Punjab, where 370 rebels were shot after
warniiiii against riotous meetings, 1919. From a sketcli hy Mrs. Alec-
Tweedie "^
V
i
Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
All that is best should be placed before these
unlettered peoples — not theft and larceny, and
vulgarity and immorality.
An enormous opportunity for Education is now
lost. The audience should be shown the greatness
of the British Empire. Ships, trains, factories,
fine buildings, how trades are worked, anything
and everything to expand their minds, not things
lowering their exalted idea of the White Sahib or
Mem Sahib. Most of the horrible films in the East
should be relegated to the paper basket. They
are a sink of iniquity.
Amritzar
Naturally, being only about fifty or sixty miles
from the famous JuUianwallah Bagh, I asked the
Maharajah of Kapurthala to motor me to Amritzar
to see the spot where the firing had taken place a
few months previously ; so early one morning off
we went with his military secretary.
We drove along that famous road which stretches
from the north to the south of India, nearly two
thousand miles, made by Great Britain in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with its four
rows of shady trees on either side. This is but
one of the many wonderful things my countrymen
have done for that country.
Arrived at Amritzar, which is an unprepossessing
manufacturing town, we saw the bank where the
two Englishmen had been murdered. We saw
the Town Hall that had been burned down, and
passed several places where there had been trouble
103
Mainly East
for weeks. We saw the corner where the Enghsh-
woman had been molested, all of which events had
happened in the weeks previous to the final riots,
which riots took place after a proclamation had
been issued that if the natives continued in their
pernicious and unruly practices, and continued to
hold mass meetings, the troops would fire upon
them, as law and order must be restored.
Arrived at one of the several little roads that led
into the Bagh, the military secretary kindly went
in to find the way. He returned with a somewhat
anxious expression upon his countenance as he said :
'' I really don't think you ought to go there,
the feeling is very anti-British. You are an English
woman, and the Indians are rather antagonistic
just now. They wish to make this the most sacred
shrine of India."
" Oh, but I must see it," I replied. " I have
come all this way on purpose to sketch it. I
won't hurt anyone."
" But suppose someone hurts you ? " he said.
However, after a good deal more conversation
of a like nature, I insisted on picking up the camp
stool and the paint bag (that ugly little black
canvas affair that caused so much chaff from my
friends) and in we went.
The Bagh is a large, open space about twice the
size of Trafalgar Square, and what can be best
described as a rubbish heap. The name " Bagh "
denotes a garden, but there is no garden about it.
It looks exactly like a dumping ground of old grey
bricks, which it really is ; an ugly spot, bare and
bleak.
104
Life in Indian Palaces —Kapurthala
There are several entrances, and not one, as some
people have tried to make out, and it is surrounded
by houses. It must be remembered the populace
had been plundering for days. They were warned.
Again and again the people were told to desist.
On the day of the famous rioting, April, 1919,
almost a year before my visit, when the natives
insisted on assembling in this place against all
orders, three hundred and seventy of the three
thousand or four thousand present were killed.
There were no machine guns. There were neither
women nor children. They were a collection of
rebels and of the worst kind, agitators against law
and order, and had General Dyer's action been
upheld by the British Parliament at home, the death
penalty of those three hundred and seventy men
would probably have stopped all further trouble in
India, especially if it had been coupled with the
arrest of Gandhi. Instead of which, many thou-
sands of rioting Moplars were killed later ; hundreds
were killed in Bombay riots, even more in Calcutta
and various other parts all over India. In fact, the
death roll since has been a sad one because that
lesson, given to emphasize the necessity of law
and order, was blamed instead of praised.
This was another of those regrettable instances
where home people, knowing nothing of what led
up to events, dictate policy. Officials in and out
of India so believed in General Dyer's wisdom that
they subscribed twenty or thirty thousand pounds
in small sums as an offering of gratitude for his
courage. This brilliant soldier (whom, by the by,
I have never met) would not accept it personally,
105
Mainly East
and handed it over to the relatives of those who
were killed.
It seems terrible to anyone who has travelled,
or is travelling, that folk at home, and papers at
home, should criticize things they know nothing
about, and these ridiculous '* Inquiries " (nearly a
year after the event) do a vast amount of harm to
everyone concerned. Surely Sir Michael O'Dwyer,
the brilliant Governor of the Punjab, and General
Dyer, the famous soldier in command, must have
understood a situation they were literally living
amongst better than a lot of men at Westminster,
or those in newspaper offices who think they can
criticize and dictate.
I was in India and the Middle East in very
troubled days ; it always seemed the same every-
where, the people themselves begged for a strong
administration ; the minority, composed of Social-
istic youths, were merely discontented agitators
crying for the moon.
Great Britain had been looked up to and revered
for her wise administration in all these lands, and
would never have fallen from her pedestal if
Members of Parliament at home, and sensation-
alistic newspapers, hadn't done their best to
knock her off. The whole world is a seething
pot of discontent.
But again I must apologize for being political,
and we — you and I — must get on with our jaunt or
we shall never reach the Dardanelles.
Down I squatted, and at a tremendous pace,
and on the back of a piece of paper that had once
been the mount of a photograph, I sketched that
io6
Life in Indian Palaces— Kapurthala
Julianwallah Bagh. It was my very last piece of
paper ; the sun was getting hotter every moment ;
the natives round me, who seemed very threaten-
ing at first, gradually became interested in the
process, and in the half-hour I was there they
became quite friendly.
It is wonderful what a fascination a bit of
colour-paint has for the folk of every country,
and how they love to see a house or tree they
know depicted ; so with a little friendly smile
they soon became friendly themselves, too friendly,
for they pressed around the helpless painter in a
very uncomfortable manner.
There were one or two leafless trees at the back
of the houses surrounding the so-called garden,
and upon them were clusters of mistletoe which
seems to grow regardless of climate more or less
all over the world.
Amritzar is the commercial town of the Punjab.
It is a miserable spot, with just one gem. That
is the Golden Temple set in the water which
reflects all its wondrous hues.
The town is a nasty place to my mind, dirty,
untidy and ill-kept. There were no drains and
no manners, very smelly and with thoroughly
artistic bazaars made picturesque by gorgeously-
coloured hanging rags. The Mohammedan women
were wound round in white sheets, and looked
exactly like clothes' bags with a gauze bit in
front of their faces about four inches by two
through which they could peep out. A sort of
muslin window in front.
What a contrast between Amritzar and Lahore.
107
Mainly East
The latter with fine roads and fine buildings, and
some attempt at sanitation, and the former an
Indian town only a few miles away in all the crude
primitiveness of hundreds of years ago.
The Indian cannot rule or civilize himself any
more than the Egyptian. He is a good follower
but a bad leader.
The Fort at Lahore was one of the finest bits
of work I saw — the jewelled walls, real talc and
looking-glass and coloured stones worked into
mosaic was lovely, and it is in an excellent state of
preservation. Standing high, commanding a fine
view, with its empty moat below, Lahore is a
fine, large, modern open city, but its Temple does
not compare with the Golden Temple of Amritzar.
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Crocodile shooting on the Ganges." From a sketch by Mrs. Aiec-Tweedie.
il
CHAPTER VII
CROCODILE SHOOTING ON THE GANGES
IT sounded lovely and warm and interesting, and
full of experiences. Mid-February in India
should be warm and cheery.
" There won't be mosquitoes," someone kindly
remarked, " but it will be very hot ; take a sun
umbrella, your topee, and don't forget coloured
glasses. It is sometimes very cold at night by
contrast, so also take thick rugs, a hot-water
bottle and a fur coat." All orders were obeyed.
Off we went by train from Delhi to Garhmukh-
tesar and four miles by trolley to the river.
Weather :
1st day, cold and windy.
2nd day, colder and windier.
3rd day, unspeakably cold and threatened rain.
4th day — well, the less said about the cold and
misery of that day the better ; but a cheery party
makes everything cheery, and the trip was most
enjoyable from start to finish, thanks to our
hosts, Colonel and Mrs. Cecil Kaye. I loved every
moment of it.
Naturally, crocodiles (muggars) were the objec-
tive, so we were laden with guns and rifles and
109
Mainly East
field-glasses, everything necessary for shooting
muggars, in fact.
Sport :
1st day, saw one baby crocodile and missed it
at long range.
2nd day, saw one muggar bobbing in and out
of the water ; stalked it for an hour, and never
got a shot. They don't like cold and rain, and
cannot sun themselves on the banks, so they
simply disappear from view.
3rd day, the sun actually came out for an hour,
and so did several muggars, all huddled together.
Stalked the brutes, fell into a quicksand, got
thoroughly wet, and missed the muggars.
" We never have weather like this," said the
kindest of hosts. Of course not. Wherever one
goes in the world, everyone always says, " The
weather is quite extraordinary," so hot, or cold,
or wet, or something.
Those miles and miles of white sandbanks looked
dull and drear. The Sacred Ganges was a sorry
sight. Everything can look hideous in the wrong
light ; anything can be beautiful at the right hour
of the day or night. Duck got up a mile off and
flew far ahead of us down stream, as if to tan-
talize the guns. The stream flowed about three
miles an hour, and two Indian oarsmen (con-
tinually changed) sat perched up in the bow, and
steered us along with the current, or struggled in
mid-stream, or ceased rowing while the men
behind jumped out and waded, or shoved or
hauled over nasty sandy points — all very interest-
ing and picturesque. But where were the
no
Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
muggars ? None were stupid enough to come out
of the water for the pleasure of gazing on so cheer-
less a world.
Corner after corner of the river we turned, to
find it a little colder, or duller, or windier, but
devil a bit a muggar. All the field-glasses in the
world could not find them ! Never mind. It
wasn't the slightest good grumbling. We were
miles from anywhere — miles from a train, or a
telegraph, or a motor car, miles from anything
and everything in fact, so we just told stories and
huddled under the canvas roof of our barge round
a little charcoal fire-pot, or got out and walked
a bit when the sun came out to try and get
warm.
I sketched when it was possible, and the cook
cooked when it was impossible, as native cooks
always manage to do, under the most amazing
circumstances.
Beautiful Daisy Kaye had forgotten nothing,
and so we had three or four-course meals produced
from nowhere, and out of nothing apparently,
by her genius and the cook's proficiency. So we
enjoyed the pleasures of the table, even if we
could not follow the pleasures of the chase.
Every evening before nightfall we hove-to on
some bank, and before one could say " Boo ! "
the foiu- tents were up. It was always done in
half an hour. One for the Kayes, one for my
son, and one for myself, and a fourth one for
the men. Camp beds, chairs, tables, tin baths
and boiling water (started hours before in old
kerosene tins in the cook-boat), lamps, and rugs
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for our feet, were all ready in a twinkling. No-
thing was forgotten. It was camping in luxury.
Every man knew his job and did it. Two of the
crew were practised tent pitchers, and really the
rapidity with which they handled the canvases
and the pegs was a treat to see. They never said
a word, yet they worked in such harmony ; the
two were almost like one man with four hands.
Hardly was the camp fire lighted between the
tents to keep off jackals, and other friendly beasts,
than night fell like a pall, and only those who
have seen the darkness of the East or South can
realize what the wonders of those nights can be.
My son's shikari was a wild hunter-man who had
great power over animals, and by some weird cry
he could collect jackals from all sides who really
came right up to him, wild beasts though they are.
At one of the places we camped at, several
strange Hindus appeared from nowhere — just to
stare at us, and listen open mouthed and open eyed
at the gramophone. When I went to sleep at
night they were sitting on their haunches round the
blazing camp fire, the root of a large tree we carried
with us. When I got up in the morning they were
still sitting on their haunches, exactly in the same
position and just as silently round the embers of
that fire.
One was a yellow ragged priest. In the evening
he refused the gift of a rupee ; he refused food,
he refused to move, he refused to go away, but the
next morning, after eight or nine hours' solemn
contemplation of the flames, he announced he
wanted a coat, a real English coat,
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
" Could the Sahib obhge him with a real proper
coat with two sleeves and with real proper pockets."
This personage was most picturesque, although
shabbily swathed in apricot yellow rags, showing
his bare skin at every corner.
This coat could not be given, as no one had an
extra garment ; but finally an old blanket was
handed to the poor shivering creature. He refused
to take it, but eventually consented to " remove "
it, if the Sahib would kindly leave it on the ground.
The Sahib did so, and later we watched the leper
priest without either fingers or toes pick up and
bear off the blanket. That man washed himself
every morning in the icy cold water of the Ganges
to cleanse his sins, and shivered for the rest of the
day. We saw people doing this incessantly, singly
or in dozens, in the dreary cold of those February
days. How humanity suffers for its religion, and
how gladly.
If the cold and the damp were amazing for India,
the cooking was thrilling for anywhere. In the
servants' boat was the cook-man (hohherjee) who
produced perfectly prepared fare with old tin
petrol cans, bits of charcoal and apparently nothing
but a few native pots. Below was a day's fare.
Breakfast. — Fried fish, chip potatoes, eggs and
bacon, coffee, marmalade and toast. This we
had before leaving the bank.
Luncheon. — We always took cold luncheon
along with us in our boat which the cook-man
prepared beforehand, such as partridge pie with
perfect puff paste, so perfect that it flew away
in scales in the wind.
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Cold mutton, beetroot with excellent mustard
sauce, mince pies, cheese biscuits, butter and
cake.
Dinner. — Our tentland meal was composed of
five courses every night, waited upon by our
three bearers (or body servants) who washed
plates outside the tent so dexterously that one
never noticed we only had about half a dozen
in the camp. They might have been highly
trained London butlers, so perfect was their
waiting.
Menu. — Soup ; fish with excellent sauce ;
roast sirloin, cauliflower with another good sauce,
mustard paste and potatoes ; pudding ; savoury
of egg and anchovy.
Every gravy and sauce was excellent, and it
was all prepared in a space about one yard square
with an awful wind blowing, in the bottom of a
flat-bottomed boat. Amazing men.
And the whole thing was dished up and served
in our own tents before our own camp fire within
an hour of our pulling-to alongside the bank.
And, as if that were not enough, the cook-man
made excellent coffee and always had hot water
ready for baths.
Incidentally, Ganges water is a difficulty and
always has to be specially prepared for use.
Certainly the Britisher has brought camping
in India to perfection, but he cannot be master
of the weather or the sport, alas. I never saw a
more perfectly arranged "bundabust," and, my
friend, I've done a bit of camping in Iceland,
Morocco, Finland, Mexico, the Argentine and other
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
places. India takes the palm for trained camp
servants and comfort.
These Indian servants are like deaf people,
they always understand when least expected.
One wonders why, and yet it is easy. They are
not straining to hear a.nything, are not nervous
or fussed, and so like the deaf man, the native
seems to comprehend by instinct.
Once when we got out for a stretch after dusk,
we found between thirty and forty nice little
earthenware basins, quite whole. What were they ?
Tlie shikari (or huntsman) said they had been
used for a marriage feast. It was near a ferry.
People had therefore come from both sides of the
river and held the Hindu festival on the banks
of the Ganges. A ferry is a favourite site for
weddings.
At this ferry, although the marriage was over,
we saw a wondrous scene. Four weird men in
reddy-yellow rags got out of a boat, each with a
long pole across his shoulders and large red spotted
yellow bundles hanging at either end. They were
snake charmers of this weird land. Down they
popped while we waited for house-boat, servants'
boat, and cook's boat to pick us up.
These men blew their cheeks out till they nearly
burst, as they too-tooed on their pipes, and out
of the baskets now unrolled from the red clothes,
slowly, very, very slowly, emerged the heads of
cobras, and several other forms of snakes.
There sat the four men in a row. There stood
the four baskets, and there facing them were
the heads of the snakes.
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It was too dull and drear to photograph this
weird party, miles from anywhere, but their unruly
long hair, their thin, half-starved naked bodies,
their endless bead necklaces, and the actual savagery
of their mien was quite thrilling. They were as
weird and mysterious and enigmatic as some
clothed men and women of the West. Those
strange shivering Indians appeared happy.
Suffering teaches more than gold. Money ruins
more homes than poverty.
This was real India. India away from anywhere
or anyone. To see the real life of the people one
has always to get away to the wilds and leave
civilization behind. That was why this week on
the Ganges was so full of interest and charm.
One often wonders in India wny so many people,
men and children, go nude. Is it poverty or
choice ? A boy up to ten is often seen with nothing
on but two tapes. A black thing round his neck,
and a black one on or just below his little tummy.
He always has a very big tummy, and it is uni-
versally suggested the lower band is to stop him
eating too much rice and . . . here we draw a
veil. From both bands often hangs a charm.
And the muggars ? Oh, yes, I had really for-
gotten them. Where were the muggars ? Echo
where ? I had often seen them in South America
and Mexico — but not on the Ganges, and later
saw them in thousands, as you will learn, in
Southern Sudan. Where were the Ganges muggars ?
Where ?
As we could not shoot, our host and hostess
regaled me with stories of the great age to which
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
crocodiles live, and how not long before one had
been killed and opened that contained a necklace
from the age of the Moguls, or about the time
of Queen Elizabeth. The beast had probably
eaten it as an " antique " and become its museum
of preservation for a spell.
The crocodile is a man-eating brute. He is a
danger. Rarely is one shot without finding beads,
necklaces, glass bangles, copper nose-rings or coins
inside him. The sad part is that he seizes and kills
children to eat them, and if he gets a chance
grown men and women fall to his jaws.
Another wretched beast is the village pariah
dog. He may be good as a scavenger, but he is
a wild, half mad, starved hideous brute, and
often dangerous. We laughed over trifling jokes,
which, after all, are often the most enjoyable,
just as small ills and plain truths are the least
endurable. Congenial brains act as the sweetest
tonic in life, while nature- study and rest are the
best bromides ; but it was ridiculous to sit on a
Ganges barge, huddled up in eiderdowns to try —
not to succeed — but to try and keep warm, peeping
over the top with field-glasses to find the brutes
who were trying to keep warm also at the bottom
of the river.
Once on the river bank we chanced upon a cart,
drawn by a couple of buffaloes ; the reeds were
being piled from the cart to make a pyre for a
Hindu cremation. It was a miniature haystack
to look at, and inside it the dead person would be
cremated. He would be burned in this primitive
way in the open, and then cast into the sacred
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river. In England the body would not be touched
by flame, but condensed or dried by heat till
nothing remained but a pure white ash ; that ash
would be buried or cast to the winds, or placed
in a little casket in a cloister or church, as preferred.
This funeral pyre of reeds, however, would be
lighted round the corpse, where they would be left
to burn themselves out. No one remains while
that happens, the relatives and friends only return
when the corpse is already destroyed to throw what
remains of it into the Ganges.
The Hindus show their intense wisdom by re-
turning their dead to ash, and the desire of every
good Hindu is to have his ashes thrown into the
Ganges that they may float to Heaven, and all
those who die within reasonable distance of the
shores of this mighty river are cremated upon its
banks. Every few hundred yards one seemed to
see the remnants of a cremation.
There was nothing left of consequence but some
of the little red earthenware saucers that had once
held light, or larger ones that had once held food,
and remnants of the sacred rites performed before
and after the cremation, which they place round
the body. The wick floating on oil of the smaller
pots is lighted to keep away the evil spirits during
the process of purification. These little pots are
rather larger than a night light, made of brown
clay, and are of no value, but according to the
wealth of the family, so the number employed.
In the evening one could see the twinkle of these
weird little lights all along the river bank, where
some body was being purified by fire before its
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
ashes were floated away on the water of the Ganges
to the open sea.
It is all very primitive, very sanitary, very wise,
aye, and it is romantic too : ashes cast on to that
quickly-flowing stream to pass along half of India
and finally find their way into the broad ocean.
Could anything be more beautiful than this
idea ?
Indeed, it seems extraordinary that the whole
world is not cremated. One shudders to think
of the horrors of earth burial. One dare not
look into the future of a cemetery which generally
ends in decay above ground as well as decay below
ground. In Great Britain, cemeteries are often
so derelict that buildings are put up on them and
no respect whatever is vouchsafed to the dead below.
In cremation it is otherwise. The white ash is
symbolic of purity and what is more delightful
than to think of the " Garden of Rest " appertaining
to every crematorium where the last of those
we love can be scattered among the flowers and
the shrubs.
Ethically, cremation is beautiful. Sanitarily,
earth burial is detestable and from such ancient
peoples as the Hindus or the Romans one can learn
much in the way of the disposal of one's dead.
Talking about the safety of earth burial, just
look at the little place called Sidestrand in Norfolk,
one of those many villages which are slowly but
surely disappearing into the sea. Most of the
churchyard has already done so, and consequently,
visitors enjoying their summer's holiday can pick
up complete skulls, jaw bones with teeth in them,
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or other bits of humanity on the seashore while
bathing, and even see the remnants of coffins
still sticking in the cliffs. So much for the safety
and permanence of earth burial.
Life is a great game— death a great gamble.
As we floated and rowed on down the river, we
passed many adjutant birds. Tall, stately, black
and white storks with red legs, and sacred as
scavengers. Sand grouse ran along the low-lying
dreary banks, and endless tall-legged spoonbills.
Every now and then up popped a porpoise or a
turtle, or an enormous fish eagle pounced upon its
prey. There was plenty of wild life — monkeys
played about in the trees, and there were humming
birds of every hue. Round the villages wild
pampas grass flourished ; the houses were mud ;
not mud - baked bricks, but mud - plaster, and
thatched with rush mat roofs.
An old Hindu man was sitting on his haunches
reading a book at one of the villages.
" Do you like reading ? " inquired the sahib.
" I cannot really read it, but I like to sit and
look at it."
That is the Indian all over, he can just sit, or
rather squat on his heels and wait — wait for eter-
nity. No one will ever understand the Oriental
mind, either high-class or low-class, who has not
lived with it, it is pretty difficult even then ; yet
Downing Street, with only one man who has been
in the East, hopes to tackle the Oriental away from
the Foreign Office. Absurd.
At one place we came to a bridge of boats ;
the boats lay side by side and were completely
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
matted over so dexterously that the brown matting
looked like a road. They didn't seem as if they
had often been disturbed, but two of them had
to be moved for our little procession of boats to
pass through. As usual the people told us they
had just seen crocodiles, and we were sure to find
some round the next corner. This was the universal
story — but it never came true. However, the three
sportsmen got out again and stalked along the
bank for a couple of hours and neither got nor
saw anything. Dud shooting days ; but every
hour was of interest to me.
It was our last day and we were all feeling rather
depressed at not having got one single muggar
when the cook-boat, which had been following more
slowly behind came up — and — attached to the
cook-boat by a string and floating in the water, was
a dead muggar. They had picked it up and
brought it gleefully along.
But, truth to tell — in all humility be it added —
it had not been shot by our party, and it was the
only crocodile we got on that shooting expedition
on the Ganges,
Strange fate. A few days later, only three miles
from Delhi, without any elaborate bundabust
and on his flat feet, my son shot a muggar eleven
feet seven inches long.
Here let me add a word of advice. Every
young oflicer in India is encouraged to shoot
muggars. First, he does so for the sport, but
secondly he is told the enormous price the skins
fetch in England. They don't. On my son's
return from the East he brought over twenty
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properly (and expensively) dressed skins. They
were landed into the hall of my flat. Muggars
are not small, remember, and these cases were
large. Sell them ? Not a bit of it. They were
either too big or too small, or there was a drug
in the market or something.
Eventually in despair, for flats are not places
for such impediments, they went to an auction
room and fetched seven shillings and ten shillings
each. So much for muggars.
It was the fifth evening. The last day— and the
dead muggar was our bag.
Before night came on we arrived at a village
literally aflame. The sky was red and yellow
and orange, as if to mock us or wish us good-bye.
Sugar cane was being boiled in cauldrons and the
flames from the cane and the fires, and the smoke
and the sunset all mixed up together, gave the
most weird and wonderful and flaming effect
anyone could imagine.
Nearby we pitched our tents, or rather our men
did, while we looked and marvelled at the open-air
molasses factory. There were four vats in which
the sugar-cane was boiled with water. From vat
to vat it passed, getting thicker and thicker in the
process, until at last concentrated, and put into
jars. It was all cleverly arranged by the natives
in a series of vats, each smaller than the other.
As the stuff congealed it was passed down through
little wooden troughs by huge ladles worked by
men from one vat to the other. As it thickened it
looked almost like black tar.
The dried cane was piled high behind these
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primitive huts, and burning in a huge flame twenty
or thirty feet high. This flame, mixed with the
wonders of the sunset, broken here and there by
feathery reeds, was a picture worth all the cold of
the " shoot " to see.
They let the cane smoulder down at night.
It takes about three months to boil a good
harvest. This had been a very good harvest, and
while we sat round our big camp fire, seventeen
villagers collected and squatted listening to our
gramophone.
Suddenly we heard a strange cry. Many human
voices raised in a sort of long-drawn-out howl.
It was the people calling on their gods at moonrise.
It rose and fell upon that still, calm night. After
the prayer on the Ganges banks at which the whole
village of fifty or sixty people assembled, they
went back into the village and held a semi-religious
tom-tom, cymbal and drum dance which had a
beginning but seemed to have no ending, for, alas 1
it went on till the small hours. This finale was a
sort of harvest festival apparently, only attended
by men.
We were solemnly asked to go and see it, and,
of course, we went. They brought out one of those
lovely native beds (charpoy), for us to sit upon and
were kindness and politeness itself. They always
were. The native of India in real India, apparently
loves the sahib or Rajah. He neither knows nor
cares for the agitator ; he is an agriculturist, a
lover of nature, illiterate and fond of listening to
the Public Story Teller when he gets a chance.
Frugal in his ideas, religious in his habits, and
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quite contented, he appreciates the wise rule under
which he hves, and a dose of quinine or castor oil
from the white man he enjoys beyond words.
They are to him priceless and wonderful gifts.
Our fire blazed away to the leeward of the tents
all night and our wondrous log, that whole tree-
root, was barely finished after making a fifth camp
fire, although here it was assisted by a bed-load of
dry sugar cane which made it blaze splendidly
until it almost outshone the stars.
Our beds were new ones when we started and
cost one rupee each. They are merely matting
supported on four short legs, but they are some of
the most comfortable beds in the world and the
only decent beds in India. The British apology
for beds in the bungalows of India are too dreadful.
Every native has a charpoy. It does for sleeping
on (sometimes several people huddle together).
It does for carrying goods on ; it can be sat upon
by day, but not sat on as we sit. Legs do not
dangle in India.
On the sixth day we landed at Anupshahar.
At 2 p.m. the sun suddenly burst forth in all
its glory as if to mock us again, for we had to leave
the river and motor seventy miles to Delhi to be
sure of being in time for a state dinner at Viceregal
Lodge next day.
It was a wonderful drive back. On the roadside
were two pots side by side on which were written :
«' Water for Hindu."
"Water for Mohammed."
Neither would touch the water jar of the other
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Crocodile Shooting on the Ganges
religion. We met two interesting large weddings,
and at one village there was the weekly market.
Furniture was being removed, sugar cane and
cotton carried ; some of the weird old carts had a
second storev, and both floors were crammed with
people. We passed literally hundreds of slow old
bullock wagons plodding along at their usual two
miles an hour pace.
India is literally strung together by bullock
wagons and kerosene oil tins.
125
CHAPTER VIII
A GREAT NATIVE STATE — GWALIOR
MY most interesting time in India, on the
whole, was my visit to His Highness the
Maharajah Scindia at Gwahor. It was altogether
a delightful fortnight, for Gwalior is a Native
State, and a Native State seemed in every way
to satisfy one's idea of what old India was, and
is, and ought to be. About eighty per cent, of
the people are Hindus and worship their gods.
Of course, it was very charming to be in Delhi,
Lahore or Agra, but all big towns the world over
are much alike, and in the case of India the big
towns are so largely made up of British officialism
that one sees little of the native life.
A real Native State is different. It represents
ancient ideas. Gwalior lies in Central India right
in the middle of those vast plains, and yet the
fort rises perpendicular from the Plains — like the
rock of Gibraltar from the sea. It is a red sand-
stone mountain, with a perfectly flat table top,
a mile and three-quarters long, and at the widest
not more than a quarter of a mile across. At the
summit was a famous fort in the Indian Mutiny.
The fort was not British, but was stormed and
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A Great Native State— Gwalior
captured during those terrible days in 1858 by-
Sir Hugh Rose's force. The British built large
blocks of barracks on the summit for their garrison.
The fort, as well as the cantonment of Movar,
about five miles off, was restored to the Maharajah
Scindia, father of the present ruler, in 1886. This
fort of Gwalior is a very ancient stronghold, and
has a most interesting history ; but there isn't
time to tell you much about that, except that
there is a military school at the top, housed in
the former barracks, for Indian students who are
natives of Gwalior State, and the State Army is
maintained by the Maharajah. The wonderful
and quaint old palace of his forefathers dates back
from the fifteenth century, and is still there, but
no longer inhabited. The Maharajah lives in a
modern palace below.
It has been known for a motor to snort and
puff with difficulty up that hill, although it is so
perpendicular ; but I was lucky enough to waddle
up it on a royal elephant. Poor beast ! it was
wonderful how it kept its foothold, the road is so
terribly steep, and when it got to the top, it raised
its trunk in the air by way of salute, as much as
to say, " That is done."
King George and Queen Mary also went up on
an elephant, but the Princess of Wales (as she
then was) felt so uncomfortable riding up the
perpendicular ascent on an elephant's back, that
she preferred to walk down, which, in itself, must
have been an extremely risky proceeding. The
view from the roadway is beautiful, but the
gradient is high.
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Extremely solemn on official occasions, my host,
the Maharajah Scindia, has a quaint sense of
humour as well as a keen sense of gratitude. He
gave a dinner-party — in a beautiful garden near
the Palace, where, quite a short while back, tigers
roamed at will — to his former tutor and friend,
Mr. W. G. Johnstone.
We were about forty at that party, nearly all
men. Mr. Johnstone sat on the Maharajah's left.
I sat upon his right.
When the dinner was over, the Maharajah made
the most touching speech of gratitude in perfect
English to the Scotch gentleman who had guided
his education. He told an amusing story of how
Mr. Johnstone had encouraged him to take an
interest in engineering as a boy by bringing from
England an engine and coach, and some two or
three miles of rails to run round the Park, and
absolutely refusing to allow the little boy to go for
a joy-ride in the coach until he had learned to work
the engine himself, and knew something of its
mechanism.
This was the origin of Scindia's interest in
engineering. To-day he has vast railway tracks
all over his Principality, which is as big as Wales,
and he explained how all these improvements had
originated from his bringing up and training by
" Master Johnstone Sahib."
His Highness paid the most cordial tribute to his
English tutor :
" I owe him everything," he said ; "we all do.
He taught me never to think of myself, but always
to remember the grave responsibilities thrust
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A Great Native State— Gwalior
upon me in ruling a people, never to forget my
people and their welfare, always to keep their
betterment before me ; to work hard and to work
to wise ends ; in fact, I owe everything, my ideals,
my best thoughts to that dear man. He never
gave me a holiday, and yet I loved him, and love
him still."
The guests at the table were his own ministers,
heads of the army, etc., and it was a touching
tribute in perfect English from a great Indian ruler
to his Scotch friend.
The King-Emperor's health was drunk ; then
Mr. Johnstone was preparing to get up and speak
in reply. A mysterious message came. His High-
ness turned to the guest in whose honour the dinner
was given, and said :
" May I go, please, sir ? A most urgent message
has come."
" Certainly, of course."
Then he turned to me — repeating the request
and naturally getting the same answer.
Up jumped His Highness and off he went,
followed by several servants. We waited — the
reply speech could not be delivered. Everyone
wondered why he did not come back. After a
quarter of an hour, two ladies of the party said
they would go and look for him.
They found him. There he was, sitting on a
table in the garden calmly smoking an English
pipe.
" Is that eulogy of my virtues and vices over,"
he inquired.
" No."
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((
Oh I I came here to avoid it," he laughed.
But he was brought back hke a naughty child,
and being well admonished by the tutor he loves
so well, had to own up that the " urgent message "
had been merely a ruse. He was doubly punished
for his trick by Mr. Johnstone telling stories of
how naughty he had been as a boy, and the awful
games he played upon his former tutor.
Scindia has done marvels for his country and
its three and a half million people in his twenty-
six years' reign — for he began at the age of twelve —
and withal he remains as larky as a boy and as
mischievous as a kitten when en intime.
That sort of mischief seems to be inherited by
his small son. His father had not learned a word
of English until he was twelve, and this little per-
son of four knew none, but I suppose he thought
me something rather strange, for he was particu-
larly fond of running up and giving me a small
smack, laughing ingenuously in my face and run-
ning away again. The only English words he knew
were " Ices " and " Chocolates," the two articles
of fare he particularly enjoyed when he could
escape from his entourage of military colonels,
gorgeous attendants, nurses, governess and what-
not who constantly surrounded him.
At the great Spring race meeting a small bundle
was carried into the Royal Box by four attendants.
The little bundle was laid on the sofa, and lo !
this amazingly dressed miniature doll was the
Heir Apparent, sound asleep.
His father wore ordinary European tussore
clothes, but the small boy was in lovely silks with
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A Great Native State— Gwalior
wondrous jewels, anklets, bangles, earrings and
nose-ring in true Indian style. When he awoke
he opened those marvellous eyes, with the longest
eye-lashes I have ever seen in my life, and simply
stared at me. Then with one spring he jumped
from his sofa and rushed at me to begin his friendly
pats, and murmur " Ices " or " Chocolates."
But the funniest thing of all was to see him
running away from all his attendants when he
once got below in the paddock, and run he did,
with the whole entourage following behind, much
to the amusement of his father, who seemed to
appreciate the joke as much as the young man
himself.
Two years later, as the heir to the Gwalior
State — on the arrival of the Prince of Wales — the
boy was in the full ceremonial dress of a Mahratta
noble, surmounted by the butterfly shaped turban
or hat. The train drew up. He stood at atten-
tion. When trying to salaam to the British
Prince, his hat rolled off and along the platform,
much to the amusement of everyone present and
the huge delight of the young gentleman aged six,
and also the heir to the British throne.
It was at Gwalior the Prince of Wales had five
days' halt to shoot tigers. He got two himself,
the total bag being eight. But apparently the
British heir prefers knocking a polo ball about to
big game shooting and is never tired of the saddle.
It was on the race-course that he had a fall from
his pony and insisted on mounting again to finish
the game in spite of the sun.
The tigers of Gwalior State are famous, and as
131 9*
Mainly East
late as 1918 one calmly walked down the High
Street and entered the Post Office, and another
meandered even later into the Palace Grounds.
The Maharajah of Scindia is a most polished
man, and has the most charming manners. He
attends to all the affairs of his State himself. In
fact he is quite one of the busiest men in India,
and one of her greatest princes. He never seems
to have an idle moment, and one constant stream
of officials passes in and out of his office all day.
Talk of an eight-hour day — eighteen would be
more like when speaking of this great ruler, a man
of vast wealth and, by choice, no leisure.
He has two wives, the Senior as she is called,
has no children. According to Hindu rites, it
took them a whole month to get married, the cere-
monies were so tremendous in the early twentieth
century.
Some years later his mother and his wife put
their wise heads together to find him a second
wife, now called the Junior. This wife has two
children, the boy and a girl, and the whole family
party live together in great unanimity. Both are
cultured ladies. Both speak English. Both have
an English lady doctor as their constant companion.
Both take considerable interest in the affairs of the
world and yet at the same time, they are both in
purdah.
As a rule the Maharajah lunches every day
with his two wives and his children in Indian
fashion, but at night he dines with his Staff, his
friends and his visitors, sometimes at the Guest
House — there are two Guest Houses, one for Indian
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A Great Native State— Gwalior
visitors and one for Europeans — and sometimes in
the Palace.
On one particular night there was a big banquet
at the Palace. We all sat at little round tables
and I suppose there were about one hundred
people altogether.
The French cook served the meal, the menus
were in French, the flowers had been arranged by
an English lady, the glass and silver was all fault-
less, and the whole party might have been one
in Europe except for the fact that Indian servants
in chwpkans (white gowns) and red royal waist-
belts and pugarees (turbans) waited upon us.
In honour of this banquet, the two children
were allowed to stay up. They had had their
meal early and been made to lie down and told
to go to sleep, which, of course, neither of them
had done, and they were very wide awake when
they came in to walk round and shake hands
with the guests bidden to the dinner.
Then came the awful moment when they were
to go to bed. The little girl, perhaps because she
was older, perhaps because she was better behaved,
made her little salaams and departed quietly.
Not so my black-eyed, long eye-lashed wicked
little heir apparent, aged four. He popped under
sofas, he disappeared under tables to the immense
danger of white napery and fine crystal ; in fact
he led everyone a dance until he was led off squeal-
ing and kicking to his bed.
Knowing I was much interested in the children,
the Maharajah asked if I would like to see them
go to bed. Gladly I accepted.
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Mainly East
It was altogether an amusing performance.
They were taken out of their gorgeous native
clothing, their jewels were solemnly counted and
handed over to an attendant, and having been
disrobed of all their little silk shirts and under-
garments and duly washed, they were put into other
little silk shirts and under-garments to go to bed.
My friend, the black-eyed scamp took opportuni-
ties to give me his friendly pats or smacks at odd
intervals, shewing how thoroughly boyish a little
Indian boy can be, although the affairs of State
a few years hence may settle him down as they
have done his father.
Their beds were large hard mattresses on legs,
almost like old English four-posters. All round
the top and sides were mosquito nets. There was
no attempt at sheets, and blankets, of course,
were not needed in the heat, and as the little boy
finally lay prone upon his bed, an ayah sat inside
the curtains waving a fan over him.
He was very tired in spite of his pranks, and had
hardly laid his dark little head upon the pillow
before he was sound asleep.
The ceremony of that undressing, the folding
up of his complete attire which, by the by, was
changed every day according to the functions at
which he was to participate, the removal of the
jewellery which appertained to each suit, was
really a very serious and important affair. There
were five people to put that young couple to bed
in the room next door to their mother, and I
believe two ayahs remained all night beside the
children in case they woke.
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A Great Native State— Gwalior
This royal suite was all comfortably furnished,
and a strange mixture of East and West. It is
very interesting to note how in all these Middle
East and Far Eastern countries the native peoples
are assimilating European habits.
Many of them prefer a chair to squatting on
their heels, or the floor. Where the Mohammedan
of Egypt, Palestine and Syria is wont to cross his
legs and sit on his haunches, he often has for
choice a high seat outside his little cafe and tries
to practise sitting there with his legs dangling
down. In India, where they don't cross their
legs and squat, but have their knees straight up
under their chin, they balance themselves in some
wonderful fashion on their heels. Here again
European chairs are creeping in, and any house
of any pretentions has at least one chair in its
possession.
All the thinking men of India I met say purdah
in the higher classes will be swept out in twenty
years. They see the advantage of having wives
as chums, helpmates and friends, and they are
bringing up their daughters with that idea — but
it's the younger men who must learn first to treat
women with proper respect, and not merely as
slaves and chattels.
It is absolutely ridiculous to talk of giving
Indian women the vote at present.
If British women were only " supposed " to be
educated enough for the franchise in 1918, then
India will not be ready for the vote for another
three hundred years. The bulk of the women
of India have no education whatever. Even the
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Mainly East
highest sit on the floor and eat with their fingers.
It is not their fault, poor things ; they are the
slaves of man and custom. And yet one meets
well-educated ladies among the Rajahs' wives,
and wonders how they can possibly know so much
when they have seen so little. There is one Indian
woman ruler, and a great ruler too — the Begum
of Bhopal — but smallpox raged in her State, and
I did not meet her.
A few hundred women have risen above custom,
and gone specially into medicine or Law, where
they matriculate at seventeen, but when one speaks
of Indian women one does not speak of a few
hundred, or any way, one should not; one speaks
of that great, vast hundred million of uneducated
Indian women. It will take centuries for the
masses to get out of purdah^ to be educated, and
become what the women of the West have become,
viz., great factors in national life.
It was a terrible shock to see the Royal and
wonderfully up-to-date motor arrive at the race-
course for the great spring meeting. The blinds
were drawn, and as there was a little way between
the entrance to the private apartments and the
car, Indian servants unrolled large sheets, and ran
them along the footpath on either side, so that
the Royal ladies might pass through from their
motor to the private door, free from the gaze of
man.
This pen-woman had a delightful little tea-party
with them in their box, where they were receiving
many lady guests, but never a male being entered
this private precinct. The ladies enjoyed the
136
A Great Native State— Gwalior
sport, which they viewed from behind mushn
curtains, just as the wife of the Sultan of Egypt —
now called King — views the opera in Cairo from
behind net windows which guard the Royal Box.
One of the charms of visiting in these Royal
Palaces is the freedom. One just does what one
likes — no sooner is a wish expressed than someone
slides off to see that it is met.
Luncheon and dinner are at fixed hours, generally
one o'clock and eight o'clock, but breakfast and
tea one takes where one likes and when one likes.
Everything is comfortable, but there is little
gorgeousness in the ordinary daily life ; that is
reserved for great Durbars. One seldom sees
strange servants in one's rooms, because everyone
in India travels with his own bearer, and that
bearer fetches tea, or fruit, or hot water, brushes
clothes, finds the washer-man, goes to buy stamps
or send parcels, in fact, is one's own particular
factotum, so no visitor is ever dependent on the
servants of a host.
Another amusing incident that happened at
Gwalior was the arrival of the Sultan of Muscat.
All blame be to me, I had never heard of Muscat
before except in connection with grapes, but I
was quickly informed that it was an important
spot at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, with a
great rocky eminence behind the town where we
had an English resident, who incidentally was a
charming young man, and the son of the famous
Sirdar, Sir Reginald Wingate ; and that the Sultan
of Muscat had come away to India for a little
cool weather, or, let us call it, cooler than his
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Mainly East
own perpetual heat, and was paying various visits
to various Indian princes.
Unfortunately, the gentleman did not speak one
word of any language but his own, though he
could understand a little Hindustani. But he
was such a cheerful soul, it mattered little, and he
did his best to be polite in a few words. Each
time we met, before a meal, upon the stairs, or on
the veranda, he most solemnly salaamed, bowing
low and gesticulating with both his hands.
" How . . . do . . . you . . . do ? " Another
salaam in which he almost prostrated himself
before me when he repeated :
*' How . . . do . . . you . . . do," and yet a
third time :
" How . . . do . . . you . . . do ? "
This was a mixture of the habits of his country
and the habits of mine, the three salutes being
important as homage from his race ; the four
English words he had learned as a compliment
to me.
He was a magnificent-looking man, tall, and
brown and big, beautifully dressed, and with a
most dignified bearing with the daggers of his
ancestors tucked in his belt.
One day he came upon me when I was painting.
This seemed to interest him enormously. Perhaps
he had never seen anybody painting before ; any-
way, he stood perfectly silent for half an hour
behind me, smiling occasionally, but otherwise
motionless.
Apparently, the picture, or the making of it,
had struck him as particularly strange, for he
138
A Great Native State— Gwalior
went off to Mr. Wingate to find out what the
thing I was doing was called, and having rehearsed
the word " P . . . ic . . . turc " until his tongue
could pronounce the syllables, he used to come
and stand before me and repeat the word :
" P . . . ic . . . ture," and with gesticulations
announce the fact that he wished me to show him
some. Accordingly they had to be produced,
when he most carefully stood them all up on
chairs, looked at them one by one, put them round
the room on tables, and looked at them again, and
I can honestly say that I never had a more ardent
admirer in the picture line than His Highness the
Sultan of Muscat. For this process was repeated
daily.
On one occasion he was to go to tea at the
British Residency, and Mr. Jardine, being parti-
cularly anxious to do everything that was correct,
announced that His Highness would, of course,
sit upon the sofa as the guest of honour, with the
tea table placed before him, and we must all sit
about on different chairs.
But to make plans for a Royal Highness is one
thing, to carry them out another.
The Muscat car was duly met at the door by all
the British Government servants in their best
attire, and the gentleman was bid enter the draw-
ing-room ahead of the host. Nothing of the kind.
The double doors were opened with due pomp, but
instead of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat being
the first to enter, he pushed Mr. Jardine through in
front of him. Plan No. 1 had failed.
Most smilingly His Highness refused to sit
139
Mainly East
upon the sofa. Plan No. 2 went wrong, and
having partaken of tea and cake, he evidently
had come to the conclusion that the greatest
courtesy would be to dispense them himself in
future, so up he jumped, seized the silver teapot
in one hand and the cake plate in the other, rushed
across to me and proceeded to pour the tea into
my half-empty cup.
It was no good Mr. Jardine trying to relieve him
of his burden, or Mr. Wingate or his native followers
helping him. He had made up his mind to pour
out tea for the three ladies present, and pour out
that tea he did, merely going back to seize the
milk jug in one hand and the sugar basin in the
other, so as to complete this all important cere-
mony. And, with all, he never lost his dignity
of bearing, and remained every inch the Prince.
I wanted to take his photograph, which he was
given to understand through his interpreters, and
he was much pleased thereat, but he absolutely
refused to be photographed alone, saying politely
" No, this is the house of the British Raj, and his
representative, Mr. Jardine, must stand beside
me."
That struck me strangely, for it showed that
this man who really knew nothing of the ways of
the Western world, had some innate gift of
courtesy. In fact, if one wants to learn what
beautiful manners really are, and alas ! they are
rapidly disappearing from civilization, one must
go back to the native peoples to find innate
courtesy, curious charm and magnificent dignity
and gait of carriage.
140
A Great Native State— Gwalior
Nothing could be more wonderful than the
view towards Gwalior Fort at sundown from that
British Residency, where I also spent a few days
with our Resident, Mr. Jardine.
The whole of India seems to smoke at sundown.
No sooner has the sun begun to set — and it is a
very quick process, for twilight is unknown in the
East — than the whole of the population of India
cooks enough food for twenty-four hours.
Nearly four hundred millions of people have to
be fed, and the housewives bring out their little
pots with their little charcoal contents, and kindle
their little fires before their little huts and homes,
and thereon cook their rice or their chapatis (bread),
because the one great meal of the day is eaten by
the entire population after the sun is down. Few
of us remember that three out of every four of the
King's subjects are Asiatics.
The effect round the Gwalior Fort was wonder-
ful. The blue haze from the smoke of these
thousands of fires gave the effect of water or sea
below, and it really looked as though that red
sandstone monster, with its Buddhist carvings
— or, more properly speaking Jain, an offshoot of
the Buddhist religion — and Hindu temples, was
standing out of a lake or the sea, tinted with reds
and purples and gorgeous yellows until the light
gradually failed and the great fortress passed
from view.
Evening after evening I used to sit enthralled,
watching that great rock gradually disappear.
Evening after evening the shades of sundown
seemed different, something new appeared or
141
Mainly East
something disappeared, and weird suggestiveness
took its place as the heat and mist rose from the
earth, and the queer noises and wonderful hot per-
fumes of the tropics became almost overpowering.
One of the great products of Gwalior is carpet
weaving ; they are some of the most beautiful in
the world. They are Eastern. They are soft to
walk upon. They are made of the most wonder-
fully subdued colours in the most wonderful
velvety pile, and they sell for large sums.
These carpets are made in the prison, and unless
a man has a sentence of over two years, it is not
worth while teaching him carpet weaving. But if
the sentence is longer than that he becomes an
expert, and hence the wonderful productions of
that Gwalior prison.
Six men sit at a loom, and so complicated and
wonderful is the work, that those six men only
accomplish two inches in a whole day. The
pattern maker squats between two such looms, and
has in his hand an intricate-looking mxap, all
apportioned out into little squares and colours,
from which he reads and calls forth with a curious
sing-song intonation the number of stitches, such
as :
three red,
four grey to left
two yellow to right
one brown middle, etc.
The result being that one loom on each side of
him is making a carpet, thus they are always done
in duplicate.
All this sounds a lengthy process, and so it is,
142
A Great Native State— Gwalior
but at the same time, when a plain bit of pattern is
reached, the shuttles fly dexterously, and it is only
at the more complicated twists and turns that the
carpet weaver is held up and the work goes slowly.
All the predecessors of Scindia have been buried
in a great Hindu temple, a very wonderful place,
and there, every morning at sunrise, little plates
of food are placed before the shrines to his father,
grandfather, etc., by the priests so that their
spirits may be fed.
It all seemed very weird and strange to go back
from the twentieth century to the continuance
of the customs of the Middle Ages — to dine with
this up-to-date Indian Prince, and then see the
daily rites at the shrines of his ancestors. But
all that makes India so interesting, so wonderful.
At Gwalior, among enormous carved Hindu
statues, or more properly speaking, Jain saints
called Tirthankars, enormous Buddhas are carved
in the solid red sandstone on the face of the rocky
fortress. The Buddhist and Jain religions are
very similar and yet separate. If I remember
rightly, the Jains believe man's soul is eternal ;
other faiths believe it is immortal. The Jain
believes his soul passes on from generation to
generation.
Two thousand five hundred years ago a Prince
in North-P^ast India " saw the light," and became
the Buddha. He was just an ordinary man,
although a " Prince." The night his son was born,
instead of helping in the rejoicings, he left the
Palace, and for six years became a wanderer
after Truth. Buddhists all revere the name of
143
Mainly East
his wife for helping him in his hfe. Buddhism is
a rehgion of each man's own soul. Each individual
alone makes or mars his own life. That is their
tenet, and how true.
At Abu Simbul, on the border of the Sudan,
instead of Buddhas and Jains, huge Pharaohs are
also carved in the solid red-yellow sandstone.
Similar and yet dissimilar are the figures. Both
go back hundreds of years, and both are religious
omens, erected by man's hand to their gods.
India is full of endless religions, in constant
conflict with one another. They have an immense
influence on the masses, who are religious, noisily
religious, riddled with superstition and conserva-
tive to the bone. A good thing, too ; there may
be too much religion and too many feasts and
fetes in India ; there are rapidly becoming too
few in Europe, where religion seems to have had
the bottom of its faith knocked out.
The Spring of 1920 was very important for the
vast Hindu population, and one must remember
that the Hindus are by far the greatest number
in India.
Unluckily, I was taken ill in Agra when the
sudden heat came in May. Having delayed my
journey to Kashmir because the snow was late
in lifting in the Himalayas, where I had already
engaged a houseboat for the summer, I had dallied
too long in the Plains, where the heat came parti-
cularly early and ferociously, so I got boxed up
between the two. The heat in Agra arrived as if
you had opened the door of a great blast furnace.
Everyone was ill.
144
A Great Native State— Gwalior
My last remembrance of Agra was the sight of
an enormous and wonderful Hindu procession.
Great big liorses, almost life-size, were being
carried through the streets. They were generally
covered with shining silver paper ; streamers were
attached to banners, which streamers people held
in their hands as they sang and danced and shouted
round the poles.
It was strange to see these silver horses marched
through the town as part of a religious ceremony,
because a year before I had seen the great altars of
the Virgins carried from the churches in Seville
during Holy Week. They were taken during the
night in solemn procession, accompanied by
priests and acolytes, to the Cathedral to be blessed
and carried back in the early hours by twenty
or thirty men staggering beneath the weight of each
altar, to repose in their own special church till the
following " Semana Santa."
This Hindu business was particularly important,
because all imminent marriages had to be com-
pleted at once, and consequently the tom-tom
never ceased that spring. The stars had said
that any Hindu marriage contracted during the
two following years would bring disaster, and so
marriages increased a hundred per cent.
All this was very interesting, certainly barbaric,
and reminiscent of the Middle Ages. But unfor-
tunately I took to my bed with rheumatic fever,
and then those processions and those noises became
absolutely excruciating. For days and days all
through the hours of light, and all through the
hours of darkness, those processions marched
145 10
Mainly East
about Agra. The people tom-tomed, they shouted,
they shrieked, and what between the noises of
these incessant Hindu gatherings, and the ever-
lasting tap, tap, tap, of the coppersmith bird,
coupled with that awful Indian cough, which
every servant employs to attract one's attention,
the noises seemed to throb into one's very brain.
It is not particularly delectable to be ill in India.
It is specially undelectable to be consumed by
high fever with the temperature itself almost
intolerable. But, thanks to a good doctor, a
kindly hostess, an excellent Eurasian nurse, and
a most attentive bearer man, who, by the by,
was the best lady's-maid I ever had, I lived
through those trying times ; but instead of going
to the houseboat four or five days' journey away
to the north, and enjoying a wonderful summer
in Kashmir, I was bundled back south to Europe
like a limp sack of potatoes, practically carried
on board at Bombay to take a tremendous cure at
Aix-les-Bains.
Life is made up of disappointments, sometimes
little and sometimes big. Life, indeed, is like a
Chinese puzzle, and one is always trying to fit in
the missing bits. As it proved impossible to go
to Kashmir and home by Bagdad and Damascus,
with that horrible spirit that refuses to be beaten
more than necessary, I finally got back to
Damascus from the west instead of the east, and
almost reached Bagdad through Transjordania.
But we will jaunt there together further on.
146
fjr .»» ■• V
Mohammedan Tmkisl, Priest at Sal..nikp
ITo face p. 146.
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CHAPTER IX
A LIGHTED MATCH — ATHENS — SALONIKA
WILL you take a jaunt with me from Venice,
in and out of the coast Hne and the Greek
islands, until we reach Syria and Palestine ?
There will be war in the Middle East, so come and
have a look at it before the flame bursts forth
again.
You will ? Well, come along on this Italian
boat, you and I. But do not imagine the Great
War is over, although Peace was signed in Paris
years ago, for war is not over. War in the Middle
East had been just getting ready to begin, and as
we travel on together, you will soon realize what
led up to the conflagration of the Autumn of 1922.
It's all arranged, settled, planned carefully, and
paid for — our trip — but, and this is a big BUT,
it was only beginning (like the new war) in August,
1920, and we shall see and know much before our
journey is over. I chose that trip because I
knew war was coming. Everyone in the East knew
war was inevitable, and that it was merely a
question of where.
The Christmas before it had been solemnly
147 10*
Mainly East
announced in the Press that the Allies really-
intended talking over the question of what was to
be done with Turkey. Nearly three years later
Turkey took the matter into her own hands.
Do you wonder the Turks moved, as the Allies
delayed ? I do not.
There were strikes in Venice in August, 1920, and
red flags were still waving along the quays over the
shipbuilding yards which the workmen had seized,
but found they could not work, so they had to ask
their hated " capitalists " to come and help them,
and admit they were quite incapable of obtaining
orders, or credit, or apportioning work, or getting
the thing to run at all by themselves.
No wires at that time, or letters, were possible
between Trieste and Venice. D'Annuncio had all
Trieste aflame. It used to be said that Napoleon's
idea of diversion was to begin a new war, and
really the diversion of the world to-day seems to
be to begin new wars, and talk about universal
peace. The Triestino Lloyd Office in Venice had
no idea if their boat from Trieste would arrive in
the Lagoon or not. As the train still went between
the two cities in spite of D'Annuncio, however,
a " live-man- wire " was despatched by the cir-
cuitous train route to see what could be arranged
in Trieste about the boat for which several pas-
sengers were already waiting in Venice.
I sat packed, gazed from my hotel window across
the Grand Canal ; dined and chatted, gazed again,
and then — yes. There she was, the steamer had
come — late — but still, she had arrived to bear me
away.
148
A Lighted Match— Athens- Salonika
Our delightful British Consul, Francis Patron,
took me on board in his gondola, and everything
would have felt very romantic but for the darkness
of the night, and the awful squabbling of the
boatmen in another gondola over the luggage,
and the dread that suit-cases and cabin-boxes
might disappear at any moment. I thanked
Heaven devoutly I was not alone with those Italian
ruffians.
Two years later things were even worse, and that
self-same boat could not work according to its
itinerary at all.
We will not bother much with the Adriatic or the
Dalmatian Coast, except to mention that the
Italians had just been told to clear out of Valona,
nestling below the Albanian Hills, and had done so,
by going a little further along the coast and setting
an Italian gunboat outside Valona itself.
We will not stop long at Corfu, interesting as the
old island is, and rich at the moment, for large
sums were made out of the olives in 1919.
But we must just pause to congratulate the ex-
Kaiser on the superb position he chose for his
palace, now a British hospital, about which there
was so much talk in war days of supplies of hidden
oil for " U " boats. I was assured the stories were
untrue.
It was an extraordinary revelation to see the
British goods stacked in rows. I did not know
there were so many sheetings and grey shirtings
in the world, and made a sort of bowing acquaint-
ance with " dry goods " generally, for among the
ship's passengers were a number of travellers from
149
Mainly East
Manchester, and they seemed to be doing a thriving
trade. Our passengers were nearly all men ; for
a whole month they were practically all commercial
travellers, and they were of every possible
nationality — holding every possible kind of views
about everything.
At a place like Patras the goods were not only
stored in the shops from the floor to the ceiling,
but they were stacked out in the streets and along
the open quays. At shops like druggists, there
were nothing but British drugs and soaps — in fact,
it seemed as if a little bit of the commerce of the
old country had descended on to Greece. Every
town we touched at in Greece — and in many other
places too — British goods were paramount.
It was interesting, of course, to go through the
Corinth Canal. There, on the right in the hills,
stood ancient Corinth. Almost nothing remains.
Below, a small, dull, little modern Corinth has
sprung up, but one would rather remember the
old traditions of childhood than look at that
modern township.
The three-mile Corinth Canal is so narrow there
was only just room for our five-thousand-ton ship
to squeeze through, and one could not but admire
the dexterity of everyone, both in the ship and on
the shore, who helped in the process. No one
could be bored on such a trip round the Greek
mainland and its islands ; the wonderful evenings,
the beautiful colourings, the deep, clear darkness
of the sea. But we must not stop to moralize,
you and I, we must just hurry on to Athens, where
excitement was in the air because of the elections.
150
A Lighted Match— Athens— Salonika
As you and I are jaunting we will make our first
real halt at Athens.
How little people know of the chances of the
ballot. I sailed from Athens assured that Vene-
zelos was going back into office, that there was
no chance of anything else, that he was all powerful,
and had got the British Government and others
to concede vast territories to Greece.
Two days after I left, Mr. Venezelos was out of
office, and King Constantine was back at the top
of events. " Tino " flattered his army and, backed
unfortunately by Great Britain, he moved it for
a time victoriously. Then the Nationalist Turks,
led by Kemal (backed by the French — with whom
they had made a pact in Syria), moved more
victoriously, and — well — what next ?
The downfall of Venezelos began the upgrade
of " Tino," and the march of that Greek Army
to the gates of Constantinople two years later.
In Athens— alas and alack — the national dress
had almost disappeared. One beautiful man in
beautiful black, embroidered on fine cream cloth,
looked a perfect picture near the Acropolis.
Of course Athens is a beautiful town. It is
both ancient and modern, and from whichever
point of view one looks at it, it is still beautiful.
But my visit was all too short to see everything,
and the most lasting memory is the effect of the
moon at night from my hotel balcony.
First let it be said the hotel was rather a shock ;
it was supposed to be the best in Athens. I had
wired for a room. The room was ready, but the
hotel was being painted, and when I returned from
151
Mainly East
a very long expedition and asked the hall porter
where the dining-room was, he looked at me
in surprise. It was then eight o'clock. I was
tired and I was hungry.
" The salle a manger,'''' he replied, " is there,
but it is shut."
" Shut," I exclaimed.
" Certainly, Madame. We give no meals in the
summer months, except early coffee."
" Where am I to have any food ? " I asked.
" There are restaurants everywhere," he replied ;
" most of them out of doors. Madame can dine at
any of them."
But " Madame " did not feel at all inclined to
sally forth alone in the dusk of the evening into
unknown Athens to feed by herself in a public
restaurant.
" Can't you give me anything ? " I asked.
" No, Madame," he replied, " there is no dinner
here."
" Could I have an omelette ? " I persisted.
" If Madame will take coffee, perhaps I could
persuade the cook to make an omelette."
And so in the greatest hotel of Athens, the cook
kindly condescended to make an omelette to the
accompaniment of coffee, both of which proved
delicious on the balcony of my bedroom, with that
glorious view below.
It was truly a glorious view, for gradually the
lights twinkled in the town ; the blue-green sky
was slowly transforming to yellow and pink, and
the Acropolis standing on its hill, became purple
and blue in the gathering night, the pillars of the
152
A Lighted Match— Athens— Salonika
temple standing out clear and distinct as the
moon rose.
It was a wonderful picture, the sort of thing one
remembers for ever, and as the darkness o'er came
the sky, the brilliant lights became more brilliant
below. But it is a strange thing how very lonely
one can feel in a big town. No one for whom I
had introductions was there. Every hotel was
shut up, the place was hot and deserted, and one
feels insufferably lonely under such circumstances,
the loneliness that is quite unknown in less fre-
quented haunts.
In the face of the re-entry of the Turk into
Europe it is amusing to remember that at Athens,
just outside the town, is a large and interesting
Turkish cemetery. The slabs are tall black marble,
like flattened pillows very ornately picked out in gold.
It was in a terribly neglected condition but had
evidently been a good Turkish cemetery in its
days, and who knows that it may not be so again
before long. As a contrast to the dead, a most
beautiful new stadium has been put up for the
living. It is built of marble and it holds seventy
thousand people. It was a gift from an Athenian,
who made a fortune abroad, to his town.
Seventy thousand people means an enormous
place, nearly twice as big as the Seville bull
ring, which seats thirty-eight thousand. Both are
naturally open to the heavens above, because no
roof could span such floor space. The London
Stadium will hold 135,000.
In Athens all the Greeks seemed charminsr but
it was quite extraordinary to find how much they
153
Mainly East
were disliked as a nation ; in fact, in and out
of the ports, their domination was as much an
irritant as the French in CiHcia.
One gathers a great deal of information on a
passenger boat that is going in and out of ports,
because merchants, bankers, even camel men and
donkey boys come on board, and one can hear
the individual opinion of the individual person who
lives in that particular district.
Hearsay if you like, but still people do know
and understand the rights and wrongs under which
they live.
And why did I hear and see so much ?
Simply because I paint and scribble. That soon
flies round and everyone and every race Welshes
to pour its stream of woes into sympathetic ears.
But to return to Athens itself.
The first impression of the Acropolis was its
smallness. It seemed such a tiny place after the
great Greek Temples of Sicily, so infinitesimal
after the colossal wonders of Baalbec. It seemed
small after the temples which are to be found all
the way up the Nile almost to Khartoum, and
yet the ruins at Athens are the most perfect style
in the world, absolute gems of architecture, the
very models of Greek work in the capital of Greece
itself.
We modern Europeans think we can build. Ye
Gods, one has only got to compare a modern
English church with the work of the ancients to
collapse in dismay.
Why, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and heaps
more show how little we have progressed since the
154
A Lighted Match— Athens— Salonika
ancient days, in spite of cranes, and machinery
and architectural implements, and education in
the art of building.
The Acropolis was built about 450-60 B.C.,
but a large part of it was ruined by the Venetian
Bombardment in 1687.
It is a terrible risk to write from memory, because
memory is a fickle jade.
Had I intended to write a book on this lovely
tour, I should have taken elaborate and lengthy
notes, as usual, but I never intended to do any-
thing of the kind. I only contemplated learning
to paint when I first started forth six weeks after
the Armistice. But a new war came, so I'm
scribbling some recollections.
Salonika was a sorry sight. Once a prosperous
seaport town, where nominally the Turks reigned,
but more or less under British guidance, it had
just been handed over to the Greeks (August,
1920). There was hardly a ship in the harbour,
trade was dead, enterprise had gone, everything
seemed at a standstill. The Greeks seemed very
unpopular, and the town was in a state of con-
siderable discontent.
What our men must have suffered in the heat
and dust round Salonika. There stood the twenty-
three minarets, charming to look upon, with a
vast portion of the town burned down, luckily
only the slum part, and behind on the hills were
still the red roofs of the little huts that were put
up for our soldiers. The sun burns down in all
its fury on Salonika, and it must have indeed been
a dreary spot for those thousands of British men.
155
Mainly East
Little graveyards tell their tale, and the whole
town is reminiscent of sad memories. The graves
sprinkle the sunlit lands.
The canteens and Y.M.C.A. huts were still
standing. They were empty then, but the British
tongue had left its imprint, and beggars, and boys
and fruit sellers of every nationality had picked up
a few words of English.
Nothing could have been more interesting than
my fellow passengers, especially the third class.
Once, for a couple of days, we took several hundred
Turks on board. They looked extraordinarily poor
as they came up the gangway ; they were mostly
carrying babies, or enormous loaves of bread, and
one almost wondered how they could possibly
afford to pay their third-class ticket.
Now, it so happened that on landing anywhere,
certain forms had to be gone through, amongst
them a declaration of possessions in money, and
it was quite a common thing for these immigrants,
or whatever they called themselves, to have a
hundred pounds, and sometimes as much as three
hundred pounds in their possession.
They generally came on board looking thoroughly
bedraggled, but before they landed anywhere where
they expected to meet their friends, the most
wonderful metamorphosis took place, and they
came out in silks and satins. Yes, verily, in silks
and satins ; silver chains and even golden lockets,
and they looked thoroughly well to do and
resplendent.
At Salonika a curious medley of people dressed
in all sorts of weird clothing came on board. They
156
((
A Lighted Match— Athens— Salonika
had chickens and flower pots, musical instruments
and cooking utensils. On the top of a perfectly-
enormous tub stood a goat, bedding and chairs,
and baskets and extraordinary other strange things
had they, so I could not help asking the Captain
whatever sort of people they were.
" Greeks," he replied, " Those Greeks were
in the Dardanelles under the Turks, and you
Britishers, wishing to be very kind to them, brought
them away from the Dardanelles so that they
micfht be under their own Greeks in Salonika."
How interesting," I exclaimed.
They hated their own Greeks, and begged to
be taken back again. The British refused ; they
asked again ; the same answer, they had been
brought back to their own people for their own
good : but with their own Greek people they
refused to remain. So they have collected enough
money to pay their own passages, and I am going
to take those two hundred Greek people back to
Gallipoli, at their own expense, because they prefer
to live under the Turks again."
Now what on earth is the good of trying to settle
the affairs of the Middle East under such conditions ?
Salonika is celebrated for one particular thing.
Jews load the ships. Jews as a rule perform no
manual labour ; but at Salonika they do, and
what is still more strange, many of them talk
Spanish, imported there by their immigrant for-
bears four hundred years ago, and not forgotten.
We were delayed because it was a Jewish feast,
and for a whole day these men could not handle
the cargo. So we waited.
157
Mainly East
Eighty millions of people have changed their
nationality in Europe since the Peace Treaty.
That is a pretty staggering announcement, and it
shows that eighty millions of people are entirely
unaccustomed to their new nationality, that they
have not settled down, that they hardly know who
they belong to, and that it will take generations
before Europe alone re-arranges itself.
I am not going to write politics because politics
change every five minutes, for it must be remem-
bered that, although the Greeks had gone into
Smyrna in September, 1920, the Greeks were pushed
out of Smyrna by the Turks in September, 1922,
and that now the Turks are back in Europe it
would hardly be human on their part not to wish
to seize Constantinople from the Allies, to re-
conquer Thrace, which lies along the European
side of the Dardanelles, and to make their bid
again for the Balkans.
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CHAPTER X
THE DARDANELLES
IT is all very well to talk about the Dardanelles
being left as an open waterway, but how is
it going to be managed ? I never was more sur-
prised in my life than on entering the Dardanelles.
I certainly did not realize that the piece of water
was about three quarters of a mile across, so that
from a ship in the middle one could almost throw
a cricket ball on to land on one side or the other ;
that the passage is never more than three miles
and a half at the widest part, and it is only thirty
or thirty-five miles long. High hills stand erect
on either side, well defended by Turkish forts,
demolished in theory, but ? According to my com-
panion on that ship those Turkish forts never
were properly demolished, and it would be very
easy to put them back into working order again ;
but of course my companions may have been
wrong, though one and all seemed pretty sure of
their premisses, and asserted that if it ever came
to war again it would not take long to put them
back into a state of fortification, and that big
guns could fire away from either side on to the
ships below in no time.
There seemed to be hundreds of these forts above
T59
Mainly East
the azure blue water and in the hills dotted thickly
were quaint, rocky towns. While the League of
Nations was sitting in Geneva, Session III.,
September, 1922, safeguarding Peace, the Greeks
and Turks were in bloody conflict. Mesopotamia
was at war, Palestine and Syria were not much
better. Upper Silesia and Afghanistan could
hardly be termed peaceful, and Ireland was in the
throes of Civil War.
The League of Nations promised well ; it seems
to be slipping into a sort of waste paper basket
for shelving difficult problems. Will this new
war be its death knell, or will it be its resmTCction ?
As the Turks, solidly instituted, are on the
Eastern side in Angora, and in Constantinople are
only divided by the hills on the Western side from
Thrace and Salonika, they are masters of the
situation. One of the difficulties of these Western
hills is the fact that a large population in Thrace
is and always has been Turkish. Those are the
Turks in Europe. And although Constantinople
and a few miles round it belong to the Sultan by
arrangement, with the Allies as his guard, the
Sultan is a Turk, and Avhen the strong power of
Mustapha Kemal and his Nationalist Army chooses,
they will probably annex Mr. Sultan and IMrs.
Constantinople too.
When the war was over in 1919, the Turks, hke
the Germans, were thoroughly beaten. Great
Britain and France were victorious, and had they
then and there made proper agreements with
Germany and Turkey, they could have enforced
the carrying out of those agreements for the peace
i6o
The Dardanelles
and welfare of the world. They did nothing of
the sort. Hence this prodigious muddle.
Great Britain's sons clamoured to be demobilized
from the Army almost before the War was over — or
supposed to be over, for subsequent events proved
it was not finished in reality. They clamoured to
get back into civilian life, and it was not properly
explained to them that there was nothing to get back
to. Everything was disorganized, every trade was
upside down, no one knew what money they had,
nor what the taxes were to be, nor what trades could
be revived ; so instead of keeping these men in the
Army and teaching them trades properly, and
letting them out as the jobs were ready to absorb
them, we allowed these millions of men to discard
their uniform before there were even civilian clothes
to put upon their bodies, and walk about the streets
unemployed to the tune of two millions which we
taxpayers have had to pay. And there are a
hundred thousand ex-officers on the verge of
starvation.
Of course, it is silly to be wise after the event,
but politicians never will, or can, understand foreign
diplomacies, the Army, the Navy or the Air Force.
" Party " and " Office " are far more important to
the politician. Surely war should be waged by
men educated in the three services, diplomacy
should be run by those possessing diplomatic train-
ing and experience ; and as for Downing Street
sitting round a table and settling the affairs of
the world — or worse still, Mr. Wilson, a college
professor from America, coming over to dictate
foreign policy — the whole thing has ended, as was
i6i II
Mainly East
inevitable, in the most deplorable condition of
affairs. The Irish stew is bad and Eastern hash is
sickening.
One thing we do not realize in this country, and
it is one of the most important points in the world's
history to-day, that there are far more Moham-
medans than Roman Catholics, that their religion
means an immense amount to them, that the
Sultan of Constantinople is their recognized Caliphat,
that the entire Moslem-Islam world looks to him
with mythical reverence. The more uneducated
people are the more they enjoy the pleasures of
Holy Wars, and if only the whole of our members
of the two Houses of Parliament could travel about
a bit and see these various places in their own
countries, their simplicity, their religious fanaticism
and their constant hungering for new sensations
and new leaders, they would realize what a hopeless
tangle Great Britain and France are making of the
whole East and Middle East affairs.
As we are an enormous Moslem Power we must
work in harmony with the Moslem people, and I am
afraid we must realize that Adrianople is an out-
post of the Turkish Empire and necessary for its
security.
Truly the Dardanelles were an immense surprise.
Please to picture again a narrow strip of water
only thirty miles long ; the Straits are only about
three-quarters of a mile across at the Narrows.
Consequently, any ships passing up the middle can
be thoroughly well bombed from either side.
I had never heard the word Chanak till I got
there. No doubt it had often been mentioned in
162
The Dardanelles
the old war days in spite of suppressed information,
but somehow the name did not strike me. How-
ever, as the ship drew off the Eastern bank of the
Dardanelles, everybody ran about whispering to
everybody else that this was Chanak. A bit of
flat sandy land bounded by scrub, on a small
peninsula. The houses mostly one-storied and
generally flat-roofed in Oriental fashion. A few
minarets, just like hundreds of other small Oriental
towns, and in a very exposed position. Such was
Chanak, now famous, as the British remained
wiien their French and Italian allies departed.
The Greeks we had taken on board at Salonika,
who had so disliked their own Greek people, were
all dressed up, looking very smart and ready to go-
on shore. But unfortunately, the sea happened
to be particularly rough, so rough that many hours,
went by before the boats could come off from the
shore. The light w^as waning and the Captain
was getting pretty perturbed, because he refused to
wait till dayhght to land these people with their
enormous amount of luggage, and the oarsmen
tried to assure him it was dangerous to get babies,
goats and bundles into the boats in such rough
water in the dusk.
Oh, how they talked. And what is more, they
all seemed to be talking different languages and
nobody understanding the other, but at last, the
whole party was packed like sardines in little boats,
and the last we saw they were rising and falling
over great waves as they sped back — that Greek
contingent — to make their homes again with the;
Turks they so truly loved.
163 IT*
Mainly East
Now that was at Chanak, about which one heard
so much in the war rumbles of the Autumn of 1922.
It hes in the neutral zone ; it is about half-way
up the Dardanelles on the Asiatic side. British
Military Advisers consider it essential that Chanak
should be held to secure the freedom of the Straits
for unarmed vessels, that without Chanak peace-
able merchantmen could not go safely about their
affairs.
Chanak apparently is the most important point
of defence between the Mediterranean and the
Black Sea.
From the hours I gazed at it through field
glasses, it certainly looked a small and not particu-
larly inviting town. There were one or two fairly
big buildings, but most of it was low and scattered.
How strange it is that often these little places are of
such vital importance that they command the key
to big situations. Chanak is to-day far more
important than Gallipoli on the European side.
Unfortunately, of Gallipoli I saw but little. It was
the dusk of dawn, or dusk of evening both times we
passed, and the steamer did not stop there at all.
But what I could see was the rows of graves, telling
their own tale of what had happened in the past.
My Italian captain was quite unable to point out
any of the well-known spots of the Great War. The
names were not on his chart, and, as he laughingly
said :
" You Englishmen made your English names
yourself, and I do not know them."
So all I could do was to make a little sketch from
the chart room of the hills as I saw them in passing
J64
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The Dardanelles
up the Narrows on our left, with the two big EngHsh
cemeteries, and the French obehsk already up at
the Constantinople end, while the place of the Eng-
lish one was still under discussion. I sketched what
remained of the nine boats that are above water,
to say nothing of the numberless others invisible
below.
To me the Dardanelles seemed a veritable
ships' graveyard, a terrible page of mismanaged
history.
That sketch remained an enigma for several
months until one day, after a luncheon party in
Cairo, it was kindly signed by :
Field-Marshal Lord Allenby and
General Sir Herbert Cox ;
both of whom put in the names of the places out-
lined on the little page.
Then it came to London and other names and
verifications were made and signed by :
General Sir Ian Hamilton,
Admiral de Robeck and
Admiral Sir Roger Keyes ;
so now it has become quite a historical little sketch,
and, as such, I was asked for a copy for the British
Imperial War Museum, where it now reposes.
Oh dear ! oh dear ! vacillation is damnation !
Take a child. Tell it not to do something, and
then let it do it. What is the result ? The child
ceases to trust or respect you. The child's character
becomes deceptive, and your character loses self-
respect.
It is exactly the same with nations and govern-
ments. We fought to get the Turk out of Europe.
165
Mainly East
We won ; but we only won at a terrible price. We
shut our eyes and closed our ears to warnings, and
we let the Turk back into Europe. The child over
again.
Is the Turk to remain in Europe or not ?
Decide that question, and then see it through.
No more vacillation. We won the War, and lost the
Peace.
The situation is grave and serious, and likely to
remain so for a century. The Balkans and the
Armenians are always with us — religions again —
but one point is paramount, are the Turks to
be kept in Asia Minor or to be re-installed in
Europe ?
That brilliant wit and a dear friend, W. S. Gilbert,
would have made a splendid play on the present
situation, which is really a comedy, were it not one
of the most terrible tragedies that have ever dis-
turbed the world. Meantime the situation is quaint.
The French encourage the Turks, Great Britain
has supported the Greeks, and yet Great Britain
and France are supposed to be Allies.
And half the trouble could have been avoided
but for pernicious propaganda. The peoples of
India, for instance, believe it was not the Turks so
much as their Mohammedan religion that we were
fighting. Forsooth, we are the most tolerant people
in the world as regards religion, for every faith
comes under our great and wonderful Empire.
But why did the politicians at home not listen to
the rumblings in the East that followed the Great
War ; why did they close their ears to the ominous
sounds they were told of by everyone who travelled
i66
The Dardanelles
in those regions, and complacently go on paying
out doles at home to quell more rumblings, which
may burst upon them with as much surprise as the
great Holy War that may not be far distant.
On September 23rd, 1922, one read headlines
in the London Press :
" Soviets claim Black Sea."
" Guards leave Aldershot for Middle East."
" Three British Regiments are in Chanak : Loyals,
Gordons and Sussex."
" The Italian and French Troops have been
withdrawn from Neutral Zone."
" Bluejackets dig Trenches."
And again :
" The Greeks are demanding demobilization."
" Lord Curzon and M. Poincare are talking in
Paris."
" Mr. Lloyd George is talking with Labour in
London."
" Lord Robert Cecil and Dr. Nansen are demand-
ing Peace at League of Nations at Geneva."
" Kemal Pasha is in Smyrna demanding many
things."
The United States announced she would take
no part in anything.
Well ! well ! I only wish I could ask you to
take a jaunt round these parts again in a couple of
years and let us see what the outcome of it all has
been. In the meantime, on that very 23rd of
September, two hundred Turkish troops entered
the neutral zone twenty- seven miles from Chanak,
and after much parley retired. For how long ?
Things move apace.
167
Mainly East
On September 28th, 1922, the newspaper headings
ran as follow :
Two hundred thousand Greek and Armenian
refugees huddled together at Smyrna.
Tino abdicated.
Kemal says he knows no neutral zone.
More troops hurried out — Coldstream Guards
and Rifle Brigade.
Lord Robert Cecil suggests International Air
Force to maintain Peace.
On October 11th. Near East peace in sight.
Agreement signed at Mudania.
Ismet Pasha refers to Angora.
Allied terms accepted.
Crisis ended.
Please note the last cheery words ringing through
the world on October 11th, 1922.
CRISIS ENDED.
Thinking people know the crisis is not ended,
and will not be ended— that far more likely it is
beginning.
In 1914 the Turks were so afraid of Germany
that they threw themselves into her arms. They
also thought Germany the winning side.
Suppose their fear of Russia, or co-operation with
Soviet Russia, now throws Turks and Russians
together ? More war in the East follows, and a
new European war clamours on its heels.
Few people realize the enormous importance of
the relations between Russia and Turkey. The
Turks firmly believe that Soviet Russia was their
chief supporter in their attempt to gain full inde-
pendence, and yet, at the same time, strange as it
i68
The Dardanelles
may seem, the Turks look upon Russia as rather
an obstacle and rival to their uniting the whole
Mussulman world. Soviet Russia and Germany
are also very friendly, and that means that three
vast populations, Germany, Russia and Turkey,
are more or less banded together against the world.
People have been very slow at home in realizing
the importance of the controversy in the Middle
East. It was no good writing anything about it
when I was there in 1920, although the seriousness
of the situation was very evident to everyone,
because at that time everything and everyone was
in the melting pot, but as no firm hand took charge
of the Middle East muddle, it muddled on until it
muddled to such effect that the explosion came
two years later.
It is really not much good writing about the
Middle East question to-day because things change
so rapidly. The Turks have reconquered Anatolia ;
history repeated itself with a flying Greek Army
hotly pursued by Turkish cavalrymen ; Smyrna,
which had just been handed over to the Greeks
in consequence of the diplomacy of M. Venezelos
in September, 1920, was already reoccupied by the
Turks two years later. Battledore and shuttlecock.
Many may wonder why the Dardanelles are so
important, and why there is so much talk about
the " Freedom of the Straits," but if they once saw
this narrow belt of water they would at once
realize its importance. It divides Europe from
Asia.
This is the waterway, not only to Constantinople,
but to the shores of the Sea of Marmora, the
169
Mainly East
Bosphorus, the Black Sea, the whole of Southern
Russia, and many of the ports from Persia and
Asia Minor on the eastern side of Europe.
If you will think back for one moment, you will
remember that the Ottoman Empire commanded
these Straits from 1914 to 1918, that we were,
therefore, completely cut off from Russia and her
great grain-growing districts, and that large food
supplies of the world never reached the Western
Allies. Poverty and misery overtook Russia, and
finally the overthrow of the Czar ended in the
terrible condition of Soviet Russia of to-day. The
Dardanelles is the key.
The freedom of the Straits is the lock, and does
not mean only the freedom of trade in peace time,
but it literally means food. It is a great passage
for food ; neither is Russia likely to be restored to
any form of success if the whole of her southern
lands arc cut off from civilization. Above all, it
must be remembered that Russia is practically
devoid of rail transport. There never were many
railway lines in that vast land ; those that were
there have been destroyed, or fallen into decay,
and Russia is, therefore, impotent as regards export
of produce if she continues to be handicapped by
want of railways and has the whole of her southern
shores cut off from a waterway to the sea. The
north freezes.
The United States announced at the end of
September, 1922, that " she would take no part
whatever in helping to keep the freedom of the
Dardanelles." We cannot help wondering whether
America expects the freedom of the Dardanelles
170
The Dardanelles
to be kept by Great Britain for her to have the use
of it afterwards ? The freedom of the Straits is of
vital interest to everyone. Why, then, should
Britain alone be expected to fight for it ?
The French had already withdrawn their troops
from the Asia Minor side at Chanak ; the Italians
took no interest in the matter when the Americans
announced they would do nothing. Therefore
the Straits must either be kept open for the use of
the world by Great Britain alone, or they will be
closed to the use of the world by Kemal Pasha and
his Ottoman Empire.
Our whole Eastern policy hung in the balance
in October of 1922, just as the whole western
world's peace hung on a thread in August, 1914.
Parliament then went to war with the nation
behind them.
A few ministers were talking in October, 1922 ; war
seemed imminent, and a war that might become a
Holy War ; but Parliament was not even sitting,
and the nation had never been consulted at all.
W^e are protecting the Turkish Caliphat in Con-
stantinople against a Turkish general, and on
September 21st, General Sir Charles Townshend
declared that if the Allies remained in Constanti-
nople there would be a Holy War.
Let me introduce you, here and now, to the
present victorious Turkish Army of Kemal Pasha.
They certainly were the most extraordinary-looking
lot of ruffians two years before. They not only
had never been shaved for months, but, judging
by their appearance, they had never been washed
either. There was not one of them in a proper
171
Mainly East
suit of clothes. They seemed to have picked up
any old thing, off any old rubbish heap, and dis-
played it upon their person. Some of them were
very young, but a good many of them were old
and sinister. They were not all Turks, although
they had been fighting on the Turkish side and were
prisoners.
They had been poured into Constantinople in
such numbers, for there were probably one hundred
thousand of them at the time, that they had to be
housed anywhere, to get roofs over their heads. We
really could not see the mosques for the mass of
humanity that tiled the floors. They made a sort
of mosaic pattern, over which one trod.
Some were squatting round little charcoal fires,
cooking ; some were trying to wash rags in tiny pots,
and while these extraordinary performances were in
progress the Muezzin called the faithful to prayer.
It was a curious moment. One noticed right at
the back of the mosque an improvised screen had
been drawn across. That little bit behind it was
the sacred altar, facing towards Mecca. The really
devout men dropped their slippers, washed their
hands, and disappeared behind the screen to say
their prayers in answer to the priest's call.
Only a small percentage of them did so, however,
for the bulk could never have got behind that tiny
space, however much they had tried to do so.
The mosque of Suleiman was simply bursting
with prisoners, and among them were a large
number of Serbs, one of whom stepped forward
and addressed us in English.
He was a very nice-looking youth and at one
172
The Dardanelles
time of his life had been in service with an English
family of whom he spoke with both love and
respect. He had not the slightest idea of where
he was going to or what was going to become of
him, and announced he was " waiting orders."
Those were the men who victoriously marched
back to Europe exactly twenty-four months later.
Supposing you and I lift the veil again in 1924,
what will those two intervening years have brought
about ?
It seems rather strange to think of Kemal
Pasha, a man who was practically unknown two
years before, being at the head of well drilled,
well supplied legions of troops, seventy thousand
of whom were able to deal a death blow to the
Greek army in Asia Minor. An army without
discipline is merely uncontrolled rabble, just as
Society without discipline is uncontrolled mob.
All honour to Kemal for the wonderful work he
did with those thousands of men in ill condition
in the mosques. Did German officers help him ?
Undoubtedly the Turks had learned much in
the Great War, and Kemal attacked the Greeks
just as Hindenburg and Ludendorff attacked the
French in March, 1918. He has become a big man.
The Turk in Europe has again been felt. He is a
person to be reckoned with. It is an open secret
we could have bought the Turk as our ally a
few short years back. Bought him for far less
than we have spent in fighting him.
Only about three centuries ago the Turks, we
must remember, had overrun a great part of Europe,
especially what is now Hungary. How times
173
Mainly East
change in a few hundred years. Mexico, Florida,
Central and South America were then under the
Spanish or the Portuguese rule. There have been
treaties ever since those days, but it seems as if
these treaties will never end or mend anything.
Constantinople is perfectly wonderful from the
sea, but equally disappointing on the land.
Let us envisage it again in Turkish hands.
From the first the wrangles of the Allies since
the Great War have slowly and surely destroyed
the prestige of one and all of them. The foreigner
was respected and revered in Constantinople. To-
day he is laughed at.
Once the Nationalist Turk resumes power out
goes the present Sultan, and his successor will be
one over whom far more constitutional control will
be exercised. His religious position will remain un-
altered, and his political status will be null and void.
After the Nationalists, the first Powers to assert
themselves will be the Bolsheviks and the Germans.
It will be a close race between them. Knowing
nothing about it, I should like to prophesy the
Germans will win.
One hears constantly of capitulations. Roughly
this means every European nationality has the
right to be tried by the consular court, and there-
fore can only be imprisoned under consular
supervision and not in the common gaol, and has
exemption from the payment of certain important
taxes.
The Turk will have none of this. Therefore,
no Christian or foreigner will have much chance
174
The Dardanelles
of success in litigation, and escape from prison will
be expensive.
I thought Pera, the European quarter on the
Asiatic side, horrible. Stamboul, the ancient town
on the European side, is delightful, at least so far
as its mosques are concerned ; but every mosque,
excepting Santa Sofia, was crammed with Turkish
prisoners from Egypt, the Sudan, Arabia, Greece,
from everywhere, in fact, all of whom were
eating, sleeping, cooking, washing, etc., within
the sacred precincts of their Mohammedan
temples.
Constantinople at that time was in the hands
of the Allies ; in fact, it was being ruled by four
nations, the English, French, Italians and Greeks.
Four soldiers stood on every little street island, or
before every bridge, endeavouring to control the
traffic, which was utterly uncontrollable in four
languages ; and while people were being run over,
each soldier swore at the other one because he had
not understood what was being said, or because
he had thought the victim did not belong to his
particular nationality.
One of the most interesting things in Constanti-
nople is its noise. There is a particularly unhar-
monious, strident and incessant cry, or shall we
call it shriek, about Constantinople.
It is not musical ; it is not low-toned ; it is
not sympathetic. It is a mingled noise which
ends on a high and strident key, but it is very
characteristic of the town.
It is always said that the Galata Bridge, which
joins Stamboul to the Golden Horn at Constanti-
175
Mainly East
nople is crossed by more different nationalities
in one day than any other spot in the world.
The saying is probably true. It is, indeed, a
veritable bag of counters, and every counter
represents another race, religion, creed, type of
dress or thought.
But New York does not run it very far short,
for New York opens its mouth weekly to thousands
of immigrants from every quarter of the globe,
who talk just as many languages as they do in
Constantinople. But in Constantinople they are
more or less free, whereas in New York one
and all are practically, from want of means,
obliged at once to take up hard and often ill-paid
labour.
The top of America lives by the work of the
newly arrived immigrants, who become the " under "
America the moment they step ashore. How
these " unders " gradually ascend, and some
finally become top, I have described somewhat
fully in " America as I Saw It." All honour to
the United States for the education it pumps
into those people and, above all, the patriotism
it demands.
The only mosque I could really enjoy in Con-
stantinople was Santa Sofia. The name means
" Holy Wisdom." It was once Christian, and
one can still see the outline of the faint figure of
Christ above the altar.
The peacefulness is what strikes one on entering.
There is a sort of subdued tone of browny grey
mellowed by yellow over the whole building,
much the same sort of harmonious colouring that
176
The Dardanelles
one finds in the great mosque at Damascus. Its
general effect is vastness and soft colouring.
There were not many worshippers, and those
who were there, prostrated with their foreheads
upon the ground, were mostly women. This
always strikes one as curious in a Mohammedan
mosque, as there are few which women are allowed
to enter at all. One is Hebron, because Sarah is
buried there ; one is Santa Sofia and another is
Damascus, but it is almost an invariable rule that
no Mohammedan woman should enter a mosque.
Owing to earthquake or guns, a great crack has
appeared on one side of the famous mosque of
Santa Sofia, and this was so noticeable at the
time of the war by architects who were in military
service that a move was made to see what could
be done, and a very famous architect was per-
suaded to go out from England to report upon the
wall, because it was felt that a very small earth-
quake would bring the whole thing tumbling
down.
Experiments were in process, and one particular
glass experiment which had been going on for six
months had proved nothing.
It is a holy place ; it is one of the most holy
places for the Mohammedan world. It certainly
is very beautiful, its simplicity and size being its
charm, and there are occasions at the big feasts
when it is absolutely crammed with humanity
and where some of the biggest Mohammedan
religious services take place.
I had heard so much about the Bosphorus that
I was as keen to see the Bosphorus as I was to see
177 12
Mainly East
Constantinople, and thanks to the kindness of
Dr. Clemow, of the British Embassy, and Colonel
Holmes, also of the Embassy, who lent his car,
I had a delightful though somewhat drizzly view
of the Bosphorus, and even a peep at the Black Sea.
Parts of it are very charming. Parts are wild, and
again in places there are pretty villages with pretty
villas, gardens and orchards where the Europeans
from Constantinople spend their summer holidays.
But Constantinople itself cannot be congratulated
on its hotels. For such a large and important town
they are extraordinarily bad, and what is more,
they are extraordinarily expensive, but of course
one is inclined to forget that Constantinople is
not one town but many towns, and they are all
utterly different. For instance, the Turkish or
Mohammedan part of the city is Stamboul. That
is the only interesting or beautiful part.
As Pera is the fashionable quarter for embassies,
political officers and Society generally.
The Golden Horn is business.
All three are perfectly clear and distinct in
themselves and yet when spoken of are hyphened
together in the one word, Constantinople, where
nobody seemed to be busy ; everybody seemed to
be waiting for something ; the true Oriental blood
seemed to run in their veins, for verily in the East
the saying " Time waits on no man " is untrue.
Time waits on every man and everything. No
one bustles.
There are only two dominant nations in the East,
the British and the Turks. We must make friends
with the latter, and it really seems advisable that
178
The Dardanelles
we should send a military man as ambassador to
Kemal Pasha, who is now in a big position as head
of the Turks, quite different from what it was
in 1920, for then he was only small fry, though
firing unceasingly over my head.
Kemal is said to be anti-Bolshevik. He hates
the Bolsheviks and their ethics, but he is also
said to be hand in hand with Soviet Moscow.
Just to peep back a moment. The Turks
obtained their first foothold in Europe at Gallipoli
on the Dardanelles in 1358, after which they
immediately proceeded to conquer the greater part
of the Balkans, which conquest was completed
by the capture of Constantinople in 1433.
Constantinople is pretty ancient. It was founded
in 330 A.D. by Constantine the Great, and was first
attacked by the Turks in 1356 and carried in 1433,
which gives some idea of the number of years the
Turks have been amusing themselves around
Constantinople. That is to say, nearly six hundred
years.
By the end of the fifteenth century the Turks
had reached Italy and the Crimea, and by 1550
Rhodes and Hungary had been conquered by them.
Who can foretell the future ? Only a few hundred
years back they marched boldly into Europe.
They were only finally expelled from Europe during
the Great War, and three years later they were
marching boldly in again. One wonders this time
whether they will get to the Balkans or be sent
back to Asia Minor.
The .first Turkish extension in Europe was only
stopped by their fleet being destroyed by Don John
179 12*
Mainly East
of Austria in 1570. That, for the time being, was
the finish of their extension.
In 1915 the Turks were actually packed up to
leave that small spot round Constantinople which
they hold, and if we had fought on for one day
longer in the Dardanelles at that time, it would
have settled the question. No trouble would have
ensued. The Turks were beaten and they knew it.
Having now discussed the question for nearly
four years, the Turks have decided to get back to
Europe, and the Allies have not decided whether
to let them do so, or send them off. Result : that
strip of land from the Black Sea to the Marmora,
and only about eighteen miles across, on the west
of Constantinople, had the Greeks sitting on one
side of it and the Turks on the other, with the
three Allies, British, French and Italians, still
guarding Constantinople as I saw them two years
before. Allied soldiers were still squabbling about
who ought to prevent street accidents, and still
living in thousands in tents outside the famous
city ; the only real difference being that the men
in rags in the mosques were dressed as victorious
soldiers, that their army had acquired tanks
(from where ?), that they had a number of aeroplanes
(from where ?), that they had been properly drilled
by efficient officers (from where ?), and all this
accomplished out of nothing, apparently, in two
years by one man.
And all the while, the Sultan dwelt inside, in
Constantinople, impotent as far as ruling — a mere
figurehead — and martial law prevailed. He is
called Sultan Muhammad VI. or The Caliph.
i8o
The Dardanelles
That rumble of war in the autumn of 1920,
which ah'cady made kind friends bid me keep
away, had gone on rumbling for two whole years,
and those Allied troops I saw at Gallipoli, and in
tents all round Constantinople and along the
Bosphorus, were still there, and more likely to be
seriously wanted there than ever. And again
comic opera — the Australian soldiers who were
tending their comrades' graves at Gallipoli were
the first to down tools and offer to uphold the
cause for which their comrades had died, viz., to
keep the Dardanelles open and to keep the Turk
out of Europe.
War boomed again. Why ? Simply because
for two years there has been no Middle East policy,
things have just gone on drifting, and nothing is
more expensive in the end than drifting. So
now we have all drifted back towards war in the
Middle East while gentlemen from all over the
world talk Peace at Geneva. Everyone in the
Middle East knew what was coming, just as every-
one knew what would happen in Egypt and
India; but the home-birds neither care, nor take
the trouble to understand. History is in the
making, and everyone is holding conferences or
talking.
One of the attractions of spending a month on an
Italian boat from Venice to Beyrout was the
possibility of landing for a few hours at seven little
towns along the Lower Cilician Coast.
Tliey would all have been sketchable. They
would all have been interesting, but not in one of
them did I set my foot. French gun-boats lay in
i8i
Mainly East
every Cilician harbour and French shells continually
rent the air.
All these places were famous in the Great War,
and a couple of years later they became famous
again. For instance, Alexandretta is the port for
Aleppo ; Mercina has its charms ; Addana has
often figured in war telegrams, and so has Adalia,
but none of them did I see except from the sea.
Tripoli in Asia is also of interest.
One of the most interesting things I saw on that
most interesting of journeys was a cloud-burst above
Tripoli and the Lebanons in Asia Minor.
It was the usual story. A French officer had
come on board. I had requested to go on shore to
paint. He had nodded his wise head and replied :
" C'est impossible, madame."
" Pourquoi, monsieur ? "
" Parceque c'est encore la guerre."
" Quelle guerre ? "
" La guerre, madame."
" Mais quelle guerre, monsieur ? "
" Mais la guerre, madame ; la guerre avec les
Kemalists."
Boom ! rent the air as a big shell flew from a
French battleship in the direction of Tripoli and
the Lebanons.
No wonder the French evacuated Cilicia a few
weeks later, but in the meantime the boom, or
perhaps Nature itself, brought a cloud-burst, and
within a moment torrential rain was falling over
the hills and part of the town, while the rest of the
township of Tripoli in Asia was overshadowed by
blue sky.
182
The Dardanelles
It was a wonderful sight, and our ship literally
trembled as the rain water splashed into the sea.
What will be the position of the stormy Middle
East two years hence, say October, 1924 ? Every-
one wants everything, no one wants to concede
anything, and unless sudden and unexpected
wisdom arrives, the picture will become one vast
Middle Eastern war.
It cannot go on as it has done for the last three
or four years.
Probably nearly as many people died from minor
wars and famine and disease from 1919 to 1923
as were killed in the Great War, and unless the
League of Nations can become virile and powerful,
this disastrous state of discontent, religious strife
and disease-toll may go on.
Ireland and the Middle East closely resemble one
another. Half the people apparently don't know
what they are fighting for. Religious fanaticism
is the flame. Socialism, Bolshevism, or whatever
you like to call the world discontent, eggs them on,
and what is the result ?
Is anyone happy ?
Is anyone contented ?
Is any country prosperous ?
And all the result of the insufferable grasp of the
Prussian Junkers and a personal war between
Germany and France. It is deplorable.
i?3
CHAPTER XI
THE MIDDLE EAST AFLAME — ASIA MINOR
LET US look at Smyrna in the autumn of 1920.
The Greeks had just taken possession. The
bay was beautiful with its hills behind, the water
was blue and calm, and lazily lying upon its breast
were two or three idle battleships.
Let us look at Smyrna exactly two years later.
The Turks had marched boldly back (September,
1922). Fire, guns, havoc, ruin followed.
How interesting it would be if we could lift the
veil another two years to the autumn of 1924, and
see what had happened then ? If any reader of
these rambling pages does so, I hope he or she
will let me peruse the jottings.
It is not the slightest good you and I deceiving
ourselves into the belief that the Great War of
1914-1918 ended war in the Middle East. It
merely kindled a new war, which burst into flame
three years later. And which war may kindle still
further flame, and finally become a great Holy War
of Islam. Who knows ?
But, in the meantime, come and jaunt with me
round some of the parts while the smouldering
flames were burning low. Extinguished they were
not. One felt them from Salonica to Constanti-
184
The Middle East Aflame— Asia Minor
nople ; from Cilicia to Syria. One met them
again in Palestine, India and Egypt. For two whole
years and four months I wandered in suppressed
war zones. Strong hands could have extinguished
those flames, but velvet gloves left them ready to
burst out with renewed violence between the
fingers because of the delay.
It really is extraordinary to think that, in the
middle of September, 1922, forty-three different
countries' representatives were sitting discussing
Peace and all the perfections of Peace at Geneva
while the Turks were riding triumphantly into
Smyrna.
On Friday, 8th September, 1922, the Greek
Army was already busily retiring from the neigh-
bourhood of this town. They seem to have done
so in creditable order.
The following day, at noon, near the Smyrna-
Aidin Railway Station, the victorious Turks entered
at a gallop.
All this was very effective, no doubt, the drawn
sabre or revolver in hand, making a general
swashbuckling appearance according to an eye-
witness ; but, in the meantime, you and I can
take a more peaceful walk and just have a look for
ourselves at Smyrna.
Our boat was not allowed to draw up at the quay-
side because the Greeks, so lately put into office,
wished to make a little money by insisting on our
all landing in their boats, for which we had to pay
exorbitant prices. Our own ship was actually
within a dozen yards of the land, but, by this very
clever arrangement, we had to get down into dirty
185
Mainly East
little boats, go out quite a long way to sea, round a
number of other ships lying in the harbour, and then
be brought back again to a landing stage within
twenty yards of our Trieste Lloyd boat. This place
was called the " Customs House and Passport
Office," and anything more dreadful than the
experiences of that Passport Office I cannot imagine.
Sitting along the quay were literally hundreds
of emigrants, refugees, prisoners of war, and all
sorts of dirty, unkempt people. There were Greeks,
Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians and heterogeneous
Jews, and as the sun was powerful the scent was
odoriferous, but among this terrible lot I had to
wait, and it seems to me that I should be waiting
there now, but for the kindness of an officer in
British uniform who, recognizing that I was a
little out of the picture, I suppose, stepped forward
and asked what he could do for me.
" My fellow-passenger, the manager of the Aidin
Railway," I said, " kindly offered to bring me
ashore in his boat ; but as his clerks and depart-
ment managers had come off to meet him, I
refused his kind proffers so as not to be in the way.
Now I am landed here and everyone else seems
to be in my way."
He laughed, this gentleman in khaki, who
turned out to be an Australian officer.
" These Greeks are terrible," he said ; " they
have only been here a short time, and the chaos
and muddle they have made of the whole thing
argues badly for the future. Come along and I
will see what I can do."
Stepping over half-clad misery, yelling babies,
i86
The Middle East Aflame— Asia Minor
orange peel, half- eaten melons, bits of sacks and
bedding, we emerged into a cleaner atmosphere.
Outside I was met, as arranged by my kind
manager of the railway, by a gentleman who
took me in hand, and so you shall take a walk
with me, my friend, along the quay.
It was hot ; all the sun blinds were down ;
people of all and sundry nationalities were drink-
ing at the little open cafes — mostly Turkish coffee,
be it said, in tiny cups ; many were smoking
hookahs, but all thoroughly lazy in the early
afternoon sun.
Smyrna was not a particularly beautiful town ;
it was large, it lay in a fine position on the bay,
the mountains behind. Many of the houses were
I flat-roofed in tropical style, but there was nothing
much in the way of fine buildings or fine streets.
Although the Greeks were in possession of
Smyrna, every other man seemed to be a Turk
and to be dressed in Turkish trousers. The
width of these trousers round the knee is extra-
ordinary. They really are not trousers at all,
but hugely pleated petticoats, and as the little
Zouave coat which accompanies them is generally
heavily embroidered, the Turkish costume is ex-
tremely pretty, although, like most peasant
dresses, expensive, and in former days a matter
of family pride, as the clothes generally descended
from father to son.
Alas ! all these beautiful costumes are disap-
pearing, and the most appalling collection of
worn-out, hideous European attire is taking their
place. Naturally some of these picturesque old
187
Mainly East
Middle East parts are assuming as sordid and
frightful an aspect as a European dock, where
the people are dressed now in anything so long as
it is strictly unpicturesque.
It was really very interesting in travelling about,
and meeting every sort and kind of man and
woman, never to hear anyone say a good word for
either the Greeks or the Armenians. Personally,
I have known some charming Greeks, but as a
nation they seem to be much disliked — anyway,
in the Levant ; and as for the Armenians, they
are laughed at, scoffed at, and abused by all.
Smyrna was once a flourishing port, but, accord-
ing to all the people on my ship as we entered the
bay, its flourishing days ceased with the advent
of Greek control.
The harbour, which used to be a busy hive of
ships, was almost empty. The passport regula-
tions were terrible on landing, and so bad, in
fact, were they and so silly that I was not allowed
to land again from the ship before 8 a.m. the
following morning, so that I could not catch the
only train to the famous Greek ruins on the Aidin
Railway, although the manager had kindly
arranged for his own secretary to take me, had
put a private car at my disposal, and had ordered
the food and the horses to meet us, in order that
I might make a sketch of those wondrous ruins,
and still be back in time for my boat to sail in the
evening. But not a bit of it. The new Greek
rule said that no one must go on shore till eight
o'clock, and the train left at 6 a.m., so that little
expedition came to nothing.
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Mainly East
But Smyrna itself, called " The Pride of the
Levant," was a heterogeneous jumble of nations,
and it seemed a busy place, although everyone
was deploring its lost trade under Greek rule.
After wandering about bazaars with camels
laden with fruit, we entered a sort of warehouse.
I was ushered on to a mountain of plum pudding.
Yes. Literally a mountain of plum pudding, for
here, on a big floor like a large barn, lay tons and
tons of currants going home for your Christmas
fare. These currants were stacked six and seven
feet high in solid blocks, almost like miniature hay-
stacks ; the floor was strewn many inches thick
with currants, over which men with bare feet
were walking as they shovelled the dried fruit on
to the stack, or while bearing loads for weighing
to the machines and packing rooms.
It really was an extraordinary sight. One could
not believe there were so many currants in the
world. Of course, it sounds appalling to visualize
Turks, Greeks, Armenians, any sort of folk,
walking about bare-footed among the currants of
your Christmas pudding ; but when one has seen
wine made in Sicily, or Central France, or Spain,
one knows that the process of wine-making is
similar, and mechanical presses, even to-day, are
not very common. It is the bare feet of humanity
that crush the juice from the grape which makes
the luscious liquid that we drink (or that some
people drink) and enjoy.
The currant packing in Smyrna for a few weeks
is an enormous business. Currants have been
brought down from the hills ; they have come in
190
The Middle East Aflame— Asia Minor
on donkeys and camels from the interior ; they
have been carried in sacks on men's and women's
backs, and they are all thrown on to the floor
on the edge of the sea before being packed for
transportation.
Passing on, we entered another enormous ware-
house. This was for sultanas.
A repetition of the same process — ^tons of
sultanas, dozens of packers, bare feet, and the
same barbaric effect.
And these people were all preparing for your
Christmas pudding, just as a few weeks later I
saw the candied peel being boxed in Damascus
to finish the cooking. These were your puddings
for the Christmas of 1920.
Alas ! your puddings for 1922 will be curtailed,
for real war has destroyed much, and fire has
completed the rest. Hundreds of thousands of
pounds worth of fruit will not be shipped from
Smyrna this year.
But we have not done with Smyrna and food,
for the most important of all is yet to come.
Everyone has heard of Smyrna figs.
The farmers and villagers each sun-dry their
own figs. They then bring them down to the
town by the pound or the bushel, according to
their wealth. Here they are sorted and piled up
in ton weights in the go-downs further along the
shore, and this fig business, during the eight or
ten weeks that it lasts, is one of the great
trades of the world.
Four large steamers, all of one pattern, lay in the
bay, and, as a very American man explained to
191
Mainly East
me (he was a fig agent from the States), those
steamers had come for the first time since the
war (for the Great War had ended two years
before, and the new war only began two years
later). Those steamers arrived to bear away four
cargoes of Smyrna figs.
" But surely you cannot want figs in America
when you grow them in California ? "
" Why, marm, the Calif ornian figs can't hold
a candle to these figs. These fetch a higher price
in our markets, and it pays us to bring big ships
to take them away."
So poor little Smj^rna can beat the United
States in one thing, anyway.
The dried figs are thrown upon the floor.
Turkish women kneel round in a circle, pick up
the figs from the pile, throw them into large
open baskets like trays, grading them according
to value. The contents of the trays may be
worth fourpence a pound, or one shilling a pound,
or even more ; but the figs are all sorted by
these women, who kneel as they do their work.
The rapidity with which they handle the fruit
is amazing, for figs seem to be flying hither and
thither in every direction.
As the baskets are filled a Turkish officer, in
beautiful bright blue coat, much embroidered in
gold, and baggy trousers, notifies to which pack-
ing-room each individual basket is to be carried,
and a constant stream of baskets goes in and out
all day long.
Having arrived at their destination, the figs
already being of one size in that particular basket,
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The Middle East Aflame— Asia Minor
it is easy for the packers to pack them into graded
boxes ready for export ; but it is the Turkish
women kneeling upon the floor who get them ready
so carefully that, when we buy a box of Smyrna
figs, our admiration is aroused as to why and
how they are all exactly the same size.
The above description answers the problem.
Squatting myself down upon that one-and-
elevenpenny camp stool, I sketched vigorously
the scene before me. It was a wonderful contrast
of sun and blue sea outside, dark shadows inside,
bright bits of coloured clothes, and the golden-
grey hue of the figs.
It seemed oppressively hot. Suddenly the whole
place shook.
In a moment I knew that it was an earthquake.
I have been in several minor earthquakes in
Mexico and other places. Almost before I had
time to realize the fact, every woman in the place
and the wondrous blue Turkish official had fled.
Never was there quicker exit. They were out
of the door and gone almost before the tremble
was over.
With a lap full of paints and blocks, and water-
bottles and brushes beside me, I sat calmly on.
Blessed is he, or she, who knows nothing. The
earthquake did not perturb me because of my
innocence, but those wretched people had flown
in despair and terrible anxiety to their homes,
because there had been a very serious earthquake
in Smyrna eight years before, when a large part
of the town had tumbled down.
There had not been any earthquake since, but,
193 13
Mainly East
naturally, when they felt the first shock, their
thoughts at once went to their homes, their hus-
bands and their children, and they fled.
A few houses were wrecked, but no serious
damage happened. It was quite a small affair.
Smyrna is, of course, a long way down the Asia
Minor coast, far south of the Dardanelles, and it
has always been an extraordinarily important
town, because it is a great port from the East.
What will be its future after being half destroyed
by war and fire ?
When I think back to Smyrna on that quiet,
hot September day in 1920, an American gunboat
and a Greek boat lazily lying in the harbour,
those four large steamers waiting for their fig
cargo, my mind wanders to sultanas and raisins,
and those Turkish women packing figs.
The water was blue then ; the heat was op-
pressive, probably owing to the imminent earth-
quake. There were minor squabblings between
the outgoing Turks and the incoming Greeks,
but still, on the whole, Smyrna was at peace.
My kind friend of the Aidin Railway is now
dead ; Smyrna is a turmoil ; the scene is reversed ;
the outgoing Greeks are begging for an armistice,
and have been forcibly made to evacuate Asia
Minor ; and it is exactly two years since the French
officer exclaimed on the Cilician coast : " C^est
encore la guerre.''''
It has never been anything else than " la
guerre,^' and if Kemal Pasha seizes Constantinople
and reconquers Thrace en route to the Balkans again,
the position will tax the statesmanship of all the
194
The Middle East Aflame— Asia Minor
Allies to the utmost, and the League of Nations
will have to assert itself a good deal more than it
has already done if peace is to be maintained.
From the point of view of Great Britain, the
capture of Smyrna by the Turks in the autumn of
1922 is the most serious thing that has happened
to our Empire — in fact, it is impossible to overrate
its gravity. And so you and I have seen Smyrna
belonging to the Greeks in 1920, and now we
know the town belongs to the Turks in 1922, and
who will Smyrna belong to two years later ?
When thinking of the Turks, one must always
remember they are Mohammedans, and one must
also remember there are seventy millions of
Mohammedans in India alone, one and all of
w^hom are interested in the affairs of Turkey
and their Great High Priest in Constantinople.
Tliat is where danger lies and fires smoulder.
Why are Turks so often fat, or is it that their
voluminous trousers make them appear so ? What-
ever it may be, the result remains that the ordinary
middle-aged Turkish man is ponderous, and his
womenkind even more so.
Smyrna, by the bye, is not a modern town. It
was known to history since 1200 B.C. Its position
has shifted somewhat, because part of the land
has been reclaimed from the sea, and the most
ancient city of all was probably about two miles
away, nearer to Mount Pagus.
^olian Greeks established themselves there 1000
B.C., so one sees that the Greeks are not new to
that part of the world. After the Greeks came
the Byzantines ; then the Romans ; and the
195 13*
Mainly East
Knights of St. John, at the height of their power
in Rhodes in 1344, also went to Smyrna. Then
came Tartars and the Ottoman Turks in 1424.
Even the Levant Company began its trade
through Smyrna in the seventeenth century.
It was a serious commercial port, this Smyrna ;
but it had its lighter gambling side, too, in later
days : card players believe that Bridge origin-
ated in Smyrna ; that it came to England through
Lord Brougham to the Portland Club in 1894,
and that the Bath Club in London started
the first Auction Bridge in 1907. Bridge or no
Bridge, Smyrna was certainly a pretty busy place
as I saw it. Cartloads of carpets lying idly on
the quay waiting for transhipment. Enormous
piles of tin-plates had just arrived from England —
they said hundreds of tons arrived monthly, and
a thousand tons a month from England were
passed on to Turkey.
War stopped trade dead.
And most of Smyrna has been burnt down, while
one hundred and seventy-seven thousand refugees
evacuated the place by the end of September, 1922.
Thirty-five thousand were taken off by British
boats and ten thousand by American ships in five
days.
Poor, pretty Smyrna.
Whilst in and out of ports round Constantinople,
we came in contact with many Armenians. As
a race, they are always supposed to be killed in
millions. If all the millions had been killed that
report has announced, there could not be a vestige
of an Armenian left ; but from my own personal
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The chattering got louder and drew nearer,
when, lo ! one of the most extraordinary spectacles
I have ever seen burst upon me. There must
have been thirty or forty coal-black women,
practically nude. Most of them carried a baby
on the lower part of their back slung by a piece
of old rag or sack ; nearly all of them had baskets^
or bundles piled high upon their heads, some-
times held by a hand, but more often kept in place
by sheer balance.
They were extraordinarily plain, these Sudanese
women. The young ones had the beautiful figures
of the East, the older ones were long and lank or
hugely fat ; shapelessly wallowing in fat ; and they
were all chattering in whatever language they
pertain to chatter, evidently very pleased to be
away from their tyrant — man — and making the
most of a cheerful afternoon.
When they saw me, they stopped. The most
appalling silence befell the scene. They were as
much surprised as I was, for it is quite possible
they had never seen a white woman before. It is
equally possible they had never seen a woman with
her clothes on before, and it is certainly more than
possible that they had never gazed upon anyone
sitting down except on her own haunches, or
anyone painting a picture.
So far so good. Having surrounded me in a ring,
they then began to jabber at one another. I
smiled a sickly smile. I am quite sure it must
have been a sickly smile, for I was unable to say
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The Greatest Dam in the World
a single word they could understand ; and they
must have thought the paint box black magic.
Gradually the circle tightened. They came
nearer and nearer, and then one of them with a
brilliant inspiration, and more exposed adipose
tissue than I had ever seen before, stood before
me, and, putting her hand out, demanded some-
thing. She could hardly be asking for money, as
she had probably never seen money. In any case
I had none. I shook my head. But that was
not to stop her.
Number 2 did the same. Number 3, Number 4,
Number 5 all came in turn. I shook my head
more and more, but by this time I must own I was
beginning to feel frightened, for thirty or forty
women in that lone spot could have torn every
rag I had from my body and marched off with
everything I possessed. It was an ugly moment.
No sickly smile seemed to have any effect. No
polite bows, no clapping of hands, and beyond
that — inspiration did not go.
You see, if you, kind reader, had been beside me,
I should have had a companion in this tragic hour,
but I was alone and I dare not even Coo-ee ; first,
because I did not think my European companions
would hear the sound ; and, secondly, because it
might have had a bad effect to show fear. So,
smiling still more benignly, I got up and volunteered
to shake hands with the lot. This they seemed
rather to like, so we all shook hands, and then I
very slowly and quiety — feeling anything but
quiet inside — began to pack vip. This interested
them. They all looked at the sketch, which, by
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Mainly East
the way, was an extremely bad one, and I daresay
whether it had been upside down or not, it would
never have affected them. Finally, when they had
looked at me sufficiently, jabbered about something
incessantly, pointed to thcT mouths to notify
what they wanted was really food, which, alas !
I could not supply, they took themselves off in
quite a friendly spirit, and my knees ceased to
shake.
One afternoon it was proposed we should go a
trip to the land of baboons, so you must jaunt off
with me again, this time for a drive. We bumped.
We gushed and rushed over forty or fifty miles of
sand to Segadi. An occasional monkey crossed
our path, a parrot screeched overhead ; but the
baboons, in which the district abounds, must have
heard us coming, for on the way there they did not
cross our path. At Segadi we were introduced
to the King and Queen, not a live King and Queen,
but a wonderful replica of humanity in two stone
figures standing high up the mountain side, cut out
from the natural granite of the Segadi mountain.
Nature carved them. Man's hand has never
touched them ; but there they are.
Hereby lies a tale. The granite from Assouan
was taken by the early Egyptians and Greeks,
hundreds — well-nigh thousands — of miles, to build
temples in Sudan, Egypt, Palestine, and even
far-away Syria ; but it was " too far " to bring it
a few miles for the building of the Sennar Dam.
At Segadi granite also abounds, a wonderful pink
stone in colossal blocks ; and through the skill of
British engineers and Italian workmen, the moun-
284
The Greatest Dam in the World
tain is being sliced for the building of this great
new dam. Over a million tons will be used in
the work.
High up the extreme edge of the mountain stand
these two extraordinary pillars rising straight
into the air, which so closely resemble two human
figures. The native Sudanese call them the King
and Queen of Segadi ; they look upon them with
awe, and superstition is rife as to their virtues
and their powers. If anything should happen
during one of the blastings to those strange shapes,
there is no doubt about it that the matter would
be serious, for the natives, Mohammedans and
queer-religioned Southern Sudanese tribes, one
and all believe that they are good spirits, and
that if they fell through some untoward blasting
of the rock, disaster they aver would befall the
place. They were standing solidly when I left
them in the early months of 1921.
One legend runs that the two granite pillars
were Sheikh Hadari and his wife, who were turned
to stone for denying God, and so were their cattle
on the plain at the foot of the Segadi hill. These
*' cattle " are the floating boulders of limestone,
which gave the first indications of limestone lying
ten feet under the soil. This limestone is now
being quarried and used for the manufacture of
cement for the building of the dam. It is near
Segadi that Henry Wellcome has that remarkable
rocky house, and is making excavations, many of
his d scoverics being now housed in his wonderful
museum in Wigmore Street, London.
It seemed an extraordinary thing, practically
285
Mainly East
in Central Africa, to be asked what one would like
for one's lunch.
" Chops and steaks," I replied, laughing at
suggesting the impossible.
" You shall have them."
Never was a reply more unexpected. Where
on earth could chops and steaks come from in
such a place ? But they duly appeared, and it
was in this wise.
At the head of the contingent of workmen
engineers at Segadi was an Italian caterer.
These two hundred men had to be fed daily, and
they had employed this man at so much per head
to feed them in this wild desert.
The Italian caterer accordingly had rigged him-
self up an extraordinarily simple little hut, sur-
rounded by tent-like structures which were used
as his larder, his washing-up house, and general
utility store. Every day he killed something, a
sheep or a goat, or whatever good fortune brought
his way, and as the food had to be eaten within
a few hours of being killed, the larder was re-
plenished in the night and emptied soon after
mid-day.
Consequently, when we arrived upon the scene,
about ten a.m., we were able to order our repast,
and a wonderful repast it was, for he wanted to
show the English ladies what he could do in the
wilds of nowhere.
First of all, we had a dish of tomatoes and
macaroni, as only Italians know how to cook
them ; and then, think of it. Far away from the
Strand, or any famous Ritz and Carlton Hotels,
286
The Greatest Dam in the World
this good man served up a mixed grill on a large
dish. There were tiny cutlets (for the sheep never
grew very big), there were little kidneys, and all
sorts of delectable morsels most beautifully cooked.
He had fried and grilled them all with oil, also
in Italian fashion, and beautifully grilled they were.
As far as I can remember, he gave us some sort
of cheese souffle to follow. How the man made it
in that extraordinary place no one knew, but the
whole meal was a surprise. The food was better
than the chamber in which we enjoyed it, for
there was no real table, only a piece of board
slung upon two trestles, and we sat on old baskets
turned upside down, while funny little dogs ran
about all over the place trying to pick up scraps,
and chickens that had jumped down from the rafters
supporting the tent cackled between our feet.
Out of an aperture which formed the door, we
gazed into the most tremendous tropical heat and
sun, and in the distance stood the Segadi Mountain,
with the famous King and Queen of granite smiling
down upon us.
From twelve to three o'clock everyone sleeps.
It is too hot to do anything, but once the great
heat of the day is past coffee is distributed all
round, and people wake up again and start to
work.
Our companion was Dr. Carr, from the London
Hospital. He and another London Hospital man
were looking after the many thousands of people
employed at the Sennar Dam.
As the day waned we turned towards home.
Over the sand we bumped again, passing thorny
287
Mainly East
mimosa bushes, giving off a sweet smell, occasion-
ally seeing a hyena or a wild cat, but never, never
a single baboon, which, of course, we had naturally
been most anxious to see in their native wilds.
But they had been blasting at the hill that morning,
and when they blast, the baboons scuttle. They
are shy beasts. They generally remain away
several days, only returning when they are sure
all is secure again.
Another day we went by Government launch,
with our host Mr. Macrae, to the wonderful forest
of Eredeeba. Think of it again. Eighteen months
before it was almost virgin forest and unknown,
and already twenty miles of light railway, required
for the work, penetrated that African jungle.
Magnificent were the trees, almost all acacia,
locally known as " sunt." The wood is extremely
strong, and so heavy that it will not float in
water. It was being cut for sleepers. Tens of
thousands of sleepers for the railways were being
made in that Eredeeba Forest, because very
shortly Eredeeba Forest, as such, will cease to
exist. It will be part of the great lake which will
cover miles of country once the water is dammed
and regulated at Macwar-Sennar.
Many of these wonderful trees drop long arms,
which settle in the earth, until huge tents or
railings are formed that make penetration diffi-
cult. The jungle is a wonderful thing, and is
almost the same wherever jungle exists. Hundreds
of natives were at work, some wearing white
chemises, some wearing nothing ; and the few
women passing through the forest were fine-looking
288
The Greatest Dam in the World
women, balancing huge baskets or logs upon
their heads, usually carrying a baby, perhaps
two years old, hanging below the waist behind.
I have seen a woman carry two children, one being
presumably quite an infant, and the other still
too short to walk through the scrub. The babies'
heads peeped round like panniers on the lady's
thighs.
These Sudanese women never leave their babies,
because there is no home to leave them in. They
are generally more or less on the wander. They
rig up little shelters of twigs and branches and
palms and bamboos, knowing perfectly well that
not a drop of rain will fall until the right moment,
and when it does fall, it will come down in such
torrential form, that no hut or any ordinary build-
ing would keep it out ; so from the moment the
rains really begin until they are over, the wretched
natives in most countries have to submit to being
soaked.
It was far too hot to walk, and the undergrowth
was far too stiff to get through, so I must ask
you to take a jaunt with me this time on a trolley
car, and let us run a dozen miles or more through
a tropical forest, where eighteen months before
no man had trod.
This little narrow-gauge rail had been made
for moving the trees, or rather moving the lathes
and rail sleepers, after they had been cut in the
forest themselves. The trolley car is worked by
the natives, who run on foot, four of them pushing
from behind to make it go. Its wheels are so well
fitted to the rails, that once the thing is started,
289 19
Mainly East
the little seats (for really they are nothing more
than seats) run along by themselves ; but still it
is wonderful how these men, with their bare feet,
bare heads and little on their bodies, can run, or
trot, by the hour in these tropical lands.
The parrots amused us greatly. They kept up
a constant chatter, and monkeys ran across the
path just as rabbits do in England, only far more
frequently — or they swung themselves from tree
to tree quite unconcerned and undisturbed by
our presence.
After a while we arrived beside a tropical hut.
It was just one of those little wooden huts that
are packed up and sent about the world from one
place to another to be erected as required, but
which are cleverly made with mosquito wire
netting outside, so that the owner can sleep in
peace, and rest without the constant worry and
fear of mosquito bites.
In this httle hut lived a retired British
officer. He was the head of the Forest Works of
Eredeeba, and Hved utterly alone in those wilds,
but for the two native servants who attended to
his wants.
He gave us quite a nice little meal, and when we
complimented him on his cooking and asked to
see his kitchen :
" Kitchen ! " he exclaimed. "It is only a tent,
and I would not go inside it for the world. Nothing
would ever make me eat another thing if I really
knew how it was cooked. I have an idea the
process is horrible, and so the best thing is to
remain in ignorance."
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The Greatest Dam in the World
He was probably right; the natives have their
own ways of doing things, and blessed is he that
knoweth not too much.
On our return journey by the launch, we called
on the Sultan of Myerno. In his way he was a
very great gentleman, and, being a very great
gentleman, he has many wives. Black though he
was, a product of Central Africa, barely educated,
not particularly rich except in goods — for money,
as a coin, is of little consequence — he had the most
wonderful manners, refusing to sit before he had
waved for us to do so, and behaving with all the
courtesy of a great native gentleman.
Things are not done in a hurry in these countries,
and after we had arrived within his mud walls, his
retinue began to decorate the place. They brought
out carpets, slowly and solemnly laid them upon
the floor, they went away for another quarter of
an hour — arrived with more rugs, and laid them
as solemnly upon the tables. Two long, British
chairs, which had been presented to him by the
chief engineer of the dam, and which the Sultan
owned he preferred to sit in himself, rather than
squat on the floor, were carried with great cere-
mony into the courtyard, and finally — but it took
a long time to reach that finality — after the arrival
of the dark gentleman himself with his smiles and
low bows, finally coffee was brought. It was
Abyssinian coffee, for Abyssinia was only a few
miles away, but it was made sweet, very sweet, for
the sugar also grew near by, and it was served
in an English china tea service which was one
of the Sultan's greatest possessions.
291 19*
Mainly East
Our kindly engineer intimated that we English
women would like to see his wives. The Sultan
was all smiles. He sent a servant — a eunuch — to
tell them, and it was quite extraordinary to see the
servants bending to the ground, barely raising
their faces in their salaams to their Sultan —
almost as if they dare not look upon so exalted a
being. Finally, a funny old woman fetched us,
and off we went, down curious passages, between
hedges made of bamboo, to the two or three little
tukls (or straw huts, like cornstacks in England)
each one of which belonged to a wife. We saw
three of these wives. Tliey were all quite different
— different ages, different types, one might have
thought from different countries — though all seemed
to have but one occupation, and that was burning
stencilled patterns on enormous white or yellow
gourds, a couple of which we were given, with many
respectful bows, in remembrance of our visit, a
pretty thought and much appreciated.
One woman was really beautiful. She was tall
and well-made, and rose from her cushions on the
floor with great dignity and chanted a weird song
for our entertainment. Her life was spent in a tukl
the size of a large round dining-room table, and
her only outing was across the compound to grind
her coffee, or bake bread, or fetch water. Her
clothes were of gorgeous hue, and her eyes were
soft, and sad and gentle. She was really a very
striking personality, but of education she knew
nought.
No country ever progresses till its women cease
to be slaves. Man has been misnamed the stronger
292
The Greatest Dam in the World
sex because he is not afraid of a mouse — a delightful
form of fear he adores in the so-called weaker sex.
The Sultan of Myerno and his whole tribe are
Mohammedans. They come from near Sokota, in
British Nigeria. About fifteen years ago the party
started on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and after a
journey of three whole years they reached Sennar.
There they have stopped for the last twelve years.
They live by cultivating maize {dura) during the
rains. Some of them now work at the Dam
and others in the forest cutting timber. They are
good workmen and welcome inhabitants, though
no doubt they intend to continue their journey
to Mecca some day, and eventually return to
Nigeria. No one hurries in Eastern lands.
Our exit from jMyerno was far grander than our
entrance, for the whole village had heard that the
Sultan was entertaining British guests. He walked
with us himself as far as the edge of the cliff,
salaamed and bowed, and wished us God-speed,
sending the whole of his retinue down to the
modern petrol-launch to help us in, while he himself
waved and salaamed from the top. There must
have been two or three hundred naked black
people watching us when we left, many of them
even rushed into the water to grin and shriek and
dance enthusiastically, much to our horror, for
we had seen thirteen crocodiles just before landing
at Myerno, and we saw even more before arriving
back at Sennar half an hour later.
The Macwar (Sennar) Dam is truly a great under-
taking, and it bids fair to bring a great return.
I really do not know what we should have done
293
Mainly East
but for the kindness of Mr. Blagden, and Mr. Gordon
Brock Bridgman of the Pubhc Works Department
in Khartoum. He is a brilliant young architect,
knows the Sudan from end to end and took infinite
trouble to arrange our trip.
When we were talking of going up the Blue Nile,
we wondered how it would be possible to get across
to the White Nile to continue our journey into the
interior.
" That's all right," he said, " there is a little
train from Sennar on the Blue Nile to Kosti on the
White Nile, but you will have to stay three days at
Kosti to pick up the steamer."
" Is there an hotel at Kosti ? " I asked.
" Hotel ! " and he laughed. " No ; there is
certainly no hotel, you must stay with *Eddy.'"
" But how do you know 'Eddy' will wish us to
stay with him ? "
" Oh, that's all right, 'Eddy' will be delighted,"
he replied. " It will be quite a new experience
for him to have lady visitors, so we will arrange
for you to stay with 'Eddy.' "
" But we really cannot go and stay with somebody
we don't know for three whole days. He may
hate us."
" Oh yes, you can. He will be delighted to put
you up for as long as you like ; he is just a lone
man, and you can wait there until the boat arrives."
And so it was arranged in this happy-go-lucky
fashion that we should go to " Eddy." He did not
appear to have any other name, but he seemed to
be pretty well-known by everybody.
Our last night at Sennar, the kindly engineers
294
The Greatest Dam in the World
gave us a dinner party at Mr. East's bungalow.
We were eleven men and three women, and, as
nearly all the men were bachelors, I insisted on
drinking to " the health of their future brides."
Such a bundle of charming old bachelors is seldom
found ; in fact, one has to go into these wild parts
to realize the loneliness of men's lives away from
civilization.
It was a charming little dinner. Mr. P. H. East,
Mr. and Mrs. Macrae, Mr. O. L. Proud, Mr.
Perry and others. Nothing of the wilds about that
dinner. Electric light and pretty lampshades ;
mats upon the table ; good glass and linen, and
everything most comfortable ; and about midnight
we changed from festive garb to travelling clothes
and were driven off to the station seven miles
away.
When the train arrived, it was all dark ; there
were no lights on board, but as the moon was
shining divinely overhead, that did not matter
very much, and we got into a funny little leather-
lined compartment and settled ourselves down till
six a.m. at which hour we were supposed to arrive
at Kosti.
After hauling out our pillows, getting rid of hats
and shoes, we stretched ourselves out on either side
of the carriage. It seemed but a short time when
the door opened and a grinning Arab stood in the
aperture calling :
" Teeketts ! "
Up I got to find the tickets in my suit-case,
although it was too dark for the man really to see
whether the tickets were right or not, and as we
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were the only first-class passengers in this extra-
ordinary little train, and had been seen off by all
the officials in Sennar, it seemed hardly necessary
for him to demand the tickets.
Dozing off to sleep, it appeared but a short time
when the word :
" Teeketts " rang forth again. There stood
this black man in the dusk with his eyes shining
white, and his teeth still whiter, looking absolutely
ghostly and calling forth :
" Teeketts."
" Go away ! " I said. " I have shown you the
Teeketts ! " but nothing would persuade him to
move.
" Go away," I said ; but as he understood my
language no more than I understood his, he only
grinned, repeating :
" Teeketts ! "
Up I got again, for I felt he could murder me if
he liked, and showed him the Teeketts.
For the third time I turned over and went to
sleep. When this wretched man appeared again,
calling : " Teeketts ! Teeketts ! " I shook
my head at him, waved him to begone, but no !
he would have none of it.
" Teeketts ! Teeketts ! " he persisted.
" Go away ! " I again repeated, utterly exasper-
ated at his persistency, and then pulling my skirt
violently, his eyes dilating with excitement :
" Kos-Ti," he said, " Kos-ti ! "
What could the man mean ? It was still pitch
dark, not even the early dawn of six o'clock, the
hour at which we were supposed to arrive at Kos-ti,
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but the good man was determined I should not
he there, so he pulled more violently at my skirt,
and reiterated : " Kos-ti ! Teeketts ! ! Tee-
KETTS ! Kos-Ti ! ! "
There was no doubt about it he was very agitated
about something, so all I could do was to wake
Mrs. Goodbody from her slumbers and say :
" This man seems to insinuate we are coming
to Kosti." We both sat up. We still could see
nothing. But we struggled into shoes and hats,
and lo ! the train pulled up in the desert.
" We have stopped," I said. " Where can we
be ? " and then noticing the shimmer of some
hutments, I went to the end of the corridor to see
if there was anyone there. A tall broad figure
in white duck stood before me.
" I am Eddy," he said.
" Are you ? " I rephed. " But is this Kosti ? "
" Yes ! this is Kosti, and you are one hour too
early. Delighted to see you — where are your
bags ? "
He seemed a cheery soul from what we could
see of him, and a minute later, bag and baggage,
we were tumbling out of the train on to the sand
below.
" I have brought your guard," he said.
Guard ! What guard ? "
Your guard for the luggage."
What could this man mean ?
*' Have you got the ice ? " he inquired.
" Ice ! " I replied, thinking that this man Eddy
must be a lunatic.
" Because I have brought Henry along."
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So he was not a lone man, after all, if he had a
companion.
Things were becoming more and more unin-
telligible. The sand of the desert must have
affected Eddy's head, and I was still sleepy and
stupid from the few hours of supposed rest on the
hard seats of a railway carriage, interwoven with
calls for Teeketts.
Almost as we talked, the day dawned, and there
stood a dozen black and hideous men ; men from
the prison who had come to carry the luggage,
for porters there were none in such a place as this.
These creatures were the guard.
Eddy persisted about the ice, and as we were
hundreds of miles from anywhere in a tropical
land, it seemed a preposterous supposition that I
could have any ice about me, but Eddy was right
and I was wrong. This kind soul, knowing English
women would feel the heat, had communicated
with Khartoum to send 150 kilos of ice down in
three huge ice chests, and as they had had to come
this circuitous route, and been put into our train,
we actually had brought 150 kilos of ice along with
us for use at the bungalow.
That was only one of his kindnesses ; the others
are too many to mention, for a more charming
host, or a more thoughtful one, never existed than
this Sudanese Civil servant, himself a well-known
Oxford blue.
" Henry " was a Ford car into which we jumped
and bumped over the sand until we saw two bunga-
lows standing among the oleander trees, ten or
twelve feet high, in full bloom, the one belonging
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to the Railway Manager being still in darkness,
but the one where we were to stay being ablaze
with light, for on the veranda charming Japanese
lanterns were all twinkling ; in fact it looked as
if the place had been got ready for a ball ; hot
coffee, champagne, whisky, plum cake, eggs and
bacon ; in fact every sort of luxury was waiting
our arrival, to say nothing of a bottle of scent for
each of us, and a box of chocolates.
This man ruled over a vast district. He spent
several weeks at a time in the town of Kosti, with
its ten or fifteen thousand natives ; then he went
out on trek over the desert, riding a splendid white
camel, followed by his servants, his tent and his
food, only to return again to his solitary grandeur
at the bungalow. And with all, he had a grand
piano which he laughingly said kept him from
drink — and a man comes once a year, all the way
from Khartoum, to overhaul it.
One morning we persuaded him to let us go down
to the Court House.
" Certainly, you shall go," he said, " if you
promise not to laugh."
We looked surprised.
" I mean it," he said. " We take our court
proceedings very solemnly. These Sudanese think
a great deal of the Court House, and as the per-
formance will be somewhat strange to you, I am
only warning you that you must not laugh."
We swore that no powers on earth would make
us smile, and accordingly, " Henry " conveyed us
at 7 a.m. to the Court. It was quite interesting ;
at a table sat Eddy, behind him at small tables
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sat various native clerks who, like himself, knew
both Arabic and English. In front of him, squatting
on the floor, were about twenty white calicoed
natives. Each one of these had come to hear
the law ; each one had paid the sum of about
one shilling to receive a large documentary paper
with all the details of his case. This paper, to them,
is worth far more than its weight in gold, for they
can take it back to their village and show where
they have been and what they have done.
A hundred more men were waiting outside, one
and all of whom would come in in turn.
Naturally the proceedings were in a language
we did not understand, but Eddy seemed mighty
efficient, and after he had tried and settled a few
cases, signed and sealed the documents, he explained
to these people that we were very important ladies
from Great Britain, and in an undertone he
said :
" Do you mind shaking hands with these big
sheikhs, they would be most awfully pleased."
" Certainly," I replied, and so solemnly we shook
hands with the whole lot.
And the cases were nearly always the same.
Some man had stolen some other man's water by
turning the irrigation drain. That, of course, is
one of the most serious things that can happen
in a sunbaked land.
Some man had stolen some other man's daughter,
or his wife, or his sister ; another serious offence.
Some man had driven some other man's cattle,
and so on ad lib. These men come for hundreds
of miles to have their cases settled by the white
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The Greatest Dam in the World
man, and whatever he says they will abide by his
decision. That is where the Britisher comes in.
Every Sudanese I ever met, praised Great Britain,
boldly announced they hated the Egyptians, and
they only wished the British flag to fly in Sudan.
At home one wondered for years where all our
golden sovereigns disappeared to. Shiploads went
to America of course, to pay for a large portion of
the Allies' purchases ; but we were always meeting
our own golden sovereigns in Syria, Palestine and
the Sudan. It was a curious anomaly, and the
reason was still more curious ; but we will leave
that at present.
There were thousands of them at Kosti.
Life in the Orient is made up of surprises.
We never should have thought of going so far
up the Nile, or to Sennar, had Sir Murdoch Mac-
donald, the engineer of Assouan, and then the
engineer of Sennar, not made out the plans and
kindly smoothed the difficulties for the Blue Nile.
Since those days Lord Cowdray's firm has taken
over the work for the Sudan Government.
Sir Edgar Burnard, the Finance Secretary to
the Sudan, was another old and kindly friend
who helped arrange the White Nile trip. One
wants friends always in life, they oil the wheels,
but one wants them doubly in the wilds, for
it is people who know a place and those
only who can advise the home-bird turned into a
nomad.
Little did I dream in life that I should make
the personal acquaintance of so many hippo-
potami. There are dozens and dozens in Southern
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Mainly East
Sudan, and the funny part is that when these
black monsters lie on the top of the water asleep
or pop up to have a look at a boat, they don't
look black at all, but in the brilliant sunshine
they look a brilliant pink.
They are clever beasts, and as they do not care
to spend all their time upon the bank, and, unlike
human beings, have no perambulators in which to
sit their babies, they have taught their babies
to sit on the top of their own heads, and conse-
quently one can see mamma hippopotamus sub-
merged in the water all but her head on the top
of which an infant hippopotamus is holding on
or balancing itself in some wonderful way.
Towards evening nearly every civil servant in
the East goes out to shoot his dinner. He begins
his day early and he ends it before the sun goes
down. That is the time for tennis, polo, and all
forms of recreation, and I can picture now one
beautiful evening at Kosti, when we crossed the
Nile in a huge barge, making tea from a tea-basket
while the men rowed or struggled with the sail,,
and as we landed among the high reeds on the;
opposite bank, we noticed the trail of the hippo-
potami.
My host was more intent upon duck for dinner
than upon the hippo, so he and my sister marched
off, he to replenish, and she to peep between the
reeds for a resting hippopotamus. Naturally I
took to my usual vocation and sat myself down
to daub.
It was a wonderful evening. As one goes south
in these parts the sky becomes more and more
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O
7:
tn
'J2
4>
O
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The Greatest Dam in the World
heliotrope until one arrived in the Southern Sudan
to find it positively plum colour.
That night, as I plied a brush (for a pencil I
knew not), it was to the accompaniment of the
song of the whistling teal. These whistling teal
are really very interesting. They rise at sundown,
they spread out like a great pointed V, and as they
poise overhead they whistle distinctly in a strange
and curious key which is very fascinating. Barely
had one flight passed overhead than another
followed.
When the whistling teal ceased for a moment,
great flights of pink or red storks took the wing.
303
CHAPTER XVII
WHAT WILL THE END OF OUR JAUNT BE?
What is it all about ?
AH, that is the question. It is about so much
that the skein of events is one huge tangle.
And God alone knows what the result may be.
A settlement to-day means no settlement to-
morrow. Keep that in mind. One thing is pretty
certain, the Bolshevists are playing an important
part in this Near Eastern crisis.
And who are the Bolshevists ?
There again is a tangled question. The anti-
Jews say they are Jews. The anti-Socialists ally
them to Socialism, or Syndicalism, or Revolution
or what you will. Anyway, the Bolshevists have
pulled down Russia, and have built up nothing.
There is undoubtedly an alliance between the
Soviet Government of Moscow and the Angora
Government, which is that of Kemal and his Nation-
alist Turks, and if report be true there is even a
stronger alliance with Germany.
There lies the rub. What is Kemal ? Is he
simply a Nationalist Turk just fighting for his
own country, or is he a Bolshevist in disguise ?
If the former, he can be reckoned with; if the
latter, he has a vast power behind him.
304
What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
Naturally the Turks want to get back what they
have lost ; that is human nature. They lost
Syria, Palestine, Constantinople, Chanak and some
of the neutral zones and the Balkans, and they
are seeking and will seek to get them back.
The Bolshevist element in the Turkish Army
may be stronger to-day than the purely Nationalist
element, and if that is so, Kemal's influence may be
swamped, even though he himself is purely of
Nationalist convictions. The whole question is
if— if— if ?
But paramount is the query : Do we intend to
have the Turk back in Europe or not ? I am not
talking about to-day, I am talking about to-morrow,
and the other to-morrows.
The whole Mohammedan world is waiting for
the answer, ready to rush to the Green banner.
They thought little of the Caliph at Constantinople
until the Great War, when his name was brought
so persistently forward for propaganda purposes,
that he became a sort of mythical deity to the
Moslem, and now he is their Christ, their God,
their Pope in one.
Neither Peace nor War can settle this question
of the Turk in Europe for all time. The breach
can only be temporarily healed by goodwill.
This Moscow power of Soviet plotters is now
busily engaged in Peking, rushing out propaganda
all over China. China, be it remembered, is on
one side of Russia and Germany is on the other.
And we know Germany and Angora are friends.
Well ?
A consolidated Europe is absolutely essential.
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Mainly East
Great Britain and France must be banded together,
as they are both part rulers of the peoples of Islam.
Religion is an enormous factor, and Christian
versus Moslem is a huge proposition. We really
seem to be going back to the Middle Ages.
Undoubtedly the greatest bond of all bonds of
union is that of a common religion. That is why
Mohammedans all over the world are so interested
in the position of the Turk, who, like themselves,
is an Oriental, worshipping the same Prophet.
Nothing would be more terrible than for the
Moslem world to turn against its Christian
brothers.
Are there not seventy millions of Mohammedans
in India ? That is only a fraction of its peoples,
and yet it is double the population of Great Britain.
Right away from India to Constantinople is roughly
Mohammedan. From the north of Persia to Central
Africa is roughly Mohammedan. Think what it
would mean if all these peoples joined together
against the Christian. And always keep your eye
on Mosul, a town far from the beaten track, but
one of the most important danger spots at the
moment.
We must work hand in hand with India and
Egypt.
India must take her place alongside the Dominions
as a partner in the Biitish Empire.
Turkish lands hide oil. Well — everyone wants
the oil. The treaty of Angora between the French
and Turks gave the Standard Oil a hold on oil.
Well?
As the Turk advances into Europe he stirs up
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What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
the Bulgarian, who is a first-class fighter, imbued
with the spirit of discipline and with no imagina-
tion. Again the Balkans.
The Bosphorus-Dardanelles sea route is a natural
barrier to separate the IMoslem Turk from the
Christian Greek. It separates Europe from Asia.
The Caspian-Black Sea route has a length of
about 1,000 miles, with the Caucasus as a sort of
neutral mountain background. Here is the Bol-
shevik stronghold to-day.
The third important route from the Baltic in the
north to the Black Sea covers the lands of Latvia,
Esthonia, Rumania and Poland, all of which are
near Germany on the one side, and Russia on the
other.
Do you realize the importance of compromise
and peace from the Black Sea to the Baltic ?
I have seen the ravages of war. Those battle-
fields of France and Flanders with the dead barely
buried ; all the debris of battle lying about. My
son sleeping beneath a small wooden cross.
Yes, I've seen it. I know. For God's sake, let
us pause before we repeat such destruction.
If we had sat down at once in 1919 and made a
workable Peace with the Turks, all this trouble of
1922 would have been saved, but in 1919 we were
still flirting with them and still talking about the
belated Peace. So it is hardly to be wondered at
that they got impatient of delay, and as the Allies
did nothing, they took the matter into their own
hands and organized themselves into an Army.
That was human nature.
Few people can stand success successfully. And
Mainly East
so with nations. The Greek won for a spell. It
turned his head. Then the Turk overthrew him
and marched towards Constantinople. Success
turned his head. He overturned the first beginnings
that were being made towards peace.
It is true the Sultan of Turkey no longer reigns
in Syria, Palestine or Mesopotamia, but he reigns
in the hearts of the people.
To-day the Oriental is confronting the Westerner,
stronger in numbers, but the poorer in education,
because the Eastern woman is practically ruled
out. She cannot teach her own sons.
Once on a time the whole of Christian Europe
would have risen at the destruction of Smyrna by
the Moslem Turk. To-day Great Britain alone
protested and sat tight at Chanak, preferring to act
alone when France and Italy, her Allies, withdrew.
If one looks back on history, one finds what an
enormous influence religion has always had in war.
Hostilities constantly have become Holy War.
A strange name for the shedding of blood, truly.
But then men — aye, and women more so — are
fanatical about religion. Warriors for the Cross
have travelled thousands of miles to fight, to wit
the Crusaders, and some of the greatest of wars
have been in the Middle East or near by.
You and I don't want to probe deeply into history
here. Guide books and history volumes are not
for us ; but we cannot jaunt far without realizing
that the days of Holy Wars are not over. They
are just beginning again. You may well shudder ;
but if you have travelled so far with me you must
have noticed the religious unrest everywhere.
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What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
Hindus and Moslems hated one another, but
actually joined together to fight the Christian
Britisher. Hindus and Moslems have never loved
one another, and again they have fallen apart.
The Hartal (suspension of business) was organized
in India that the true believer might mourn for the
fate of Turkey and the Caliphate. That very
agitation hints at Holy War (Jihad), does it
not ?
Turks and Greeks — again of different religions
— have been at one another's throats.
Arabs and Jews are constantly shedding one
another's blood. Down in the far Sudan rehgious
feuds are qu te common.
Armenians and Bulgarians are always at strife.
If you think for a moment, you will see every-
w^here that the religious question predominates.
Religion is the only thing likely ever to pull
Russia together. They have strayed far from their
Greek Church to Bolshevism, but never have I
seen more devout people than in Russia. A few
years ago the churches were crowded with men
and women at prayer, and devout prayer, too.
All that has passed, and chaos has taken its place,
theologically, legally, socially. Only the resusci-
tated Church they formerly revered and worshipped
will ever restore peace and prosperity in Russia,
methinks. The moujik is an uneducated child,
who loves to pray at his mother's knee. He is
full of sentiment, and empty of education.
Russia is largely under German influence to-day.
That is no new alliance. One must never forget that
German and Russian friendship under Bismarck.
Mainly East
The ex-Kaiser's first call after his accession to
the Imperial throne was to St. Petersburg, much
to the annoyance of Queen Victoria. There is a
close understanding between Berlin and Moscow,
and there is an alliance between Moscow and
Angora.
In a way, any Turkish victory is victory for
Germany.
War with the Turk would be insufferably harm-
ful to Great Britain. He must be our friend and
not our foe. He is a Moslem ; our Empire is
largely Moslem, and if we go to war — now or later
— with Kemal, we shall have the whole Moslem
world against us, and the Russian Soviet will
claim Kemal. j
Arthur Rosenberg, a Bolshevist writer, says
(October, 1922) : ?|
" In Egypt, as well as in Palestine and Meso-
potamia, the opposition against England is growing.
In India, after a long period of apathy, a new
uprising of the revolutionary movement is notice-
able in the last few weeks. . . . The National
movement of the Orientals bids fair to erase the
lines of Sevres. The lines of Versailles will like-
wise fade when the resistance of the bartered prole-
tarian masses of Central Europe sets in with full
force."
Is Bolshevism out to overthrow all Govern-
ments ? It aims at that end.
If Gorki is to be believed, the simple Russian
peasant is to-day a monster of primitively cunning
brutality. He calls the Russian people, semi-
savages. Is this the result of the moujik overthrow
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What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
of the monarchy, one asks ? The moujik as I
knew him was certainly not as Gorki pictures him ;
he was of blessed simplicity and faith.
What is the secret hand at work at our own
doors in Ireland, the Near East. Egypt and India ?
Karl IVIarx was a German Jew who worked for
class war and communism. Does the Bolshevism
which seized Russia in 1917 go further ? Bol-
shevists had no wish to help Turkey. They merel}^
sought through helping her to get her to attack
Europe and the Balkans— anything to destroy
European Government and solidity.
Bolshevist Russia and Germanv, Turks and
Moslems may join together, and if they do they
will threaten the downfall of civilization and a
war of race and creed which may annihilate half
the world.
And where is Peace ?
Those sun-caressed lands of the East are under
the blackest thunder clouds. May wisdom arise
and bring peace and goodwill to men.
The greatest thing to avoid is a Holy War.
That is a fork with two prongs : the devilment
of war and the fanaticism of faith. Folk stick
at nothing. Murder becomes sacred.
Many Arabs would prefer the Turks back in
Palestine rather than the Jews — who, by the by,
dislike being called Jews, and prefer to be referred
to as Israelites. There were, of course, troubles
between the Turks and the Arabs, but they were
nothing in comparison with the troubles between
the Arabs and the new Jews. Nine-tenths of the
Palestinians have boycotted their government's
3"
Mainly East
attempt to thrust Zionism upon them under a
new constitution.
Of course, we must remain faithful to Islam.
That is inevitable, and some form of bromide
must be administered which will pacify its far-
spreading religionists or a vast portion of the
world will go madly and religiously drunk.
Again, we must remain allied with France. She
is our nearest neighbour. We must remain
friendly with the United States. She speaks our
language and her people are largely of our own
blood.
And even then, when these three factors are
allied to us, or we are allied to them, whichever
way you may wish to put it. Holy War may not
be impossible. Without these alliances. Holy War
is inevitable.
Race hatred is terrible. I had no idea that
such hatred existed till I went from Italy by
Greece, Cilicia, Syria and Palestine to Egypt.
Every nation, every language came across my
path, and each poured out words of distrust
and often of positive hatred of the other — Armenian
Christian refugees, Russians of the orthodox Greek
Church, German and Austrian merchants, Cheko-
Slavs, French soldiers, Greek bankers, Syrian
Mohammedans, all hat'ng one another.
At the roughest glance :
In India the Mohammedans and Hindus are
only friends when they combine in a common
cause against the white man.
In Palestine Mohammedans and Jews are con-
stantly at one another's throats. In Syria the
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What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
Mohammedan hates the Roman Cathohc under
whom he sits. The Turk is a Mohammedan
fanatic. The Egyptian is either without rehgion, or
is a devout Moslem. The Arabs are mostly of one
religion, but of many races. As tribes and as
religious devotees they are constantly at strife.
The Russian is irreligious to-day, but within him
is a latent germ of strong orthodox Greek Church
Christianity. Once stir up all these religions,
and war ensues.
Leave them alone, for they must work out their
own salvation, or their own extermination.
Why should we police half the world ? For
that is what our task amounts to. Why should
we have to foot the bill ? Great Britain is more
heavily taxed than any other country to-day,
and it is largely because we have become the
universal policeman.
W^hat will be the end of it all? That is a
stupendous question which neither you nor I can
answer at the moment.
We have travelled together since the Armistice
through scenes ostensibly out of the war, practi-
cally in the war, and now back into another war.
To say that peace has reigned in the Middle East since
the Treaty is sheer humbug. There has never been
one moment's peace. Discontent in many instances
has been but growing.
The great German war brought about a great
Empire rally. Instead of Prussia dis-uniting
Great Britain and her Colonies and Dominions,
it united and forged the links stronger than ever
before.
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Mainly East
Surely the recurrence of Armistice Day should
forge even stronger the links in that chain ? The
British flag should wave everywhere, and one
and all of us should be proud to be even a
small unit in our wonderful brotherhood, over
which a Royal King rules both humanely and
wisely. Like so many others, I lost a dear son,
and although I feel sad, that sadness is mingled
with reverence on Armistice Day and increased
loyalty to our wonderful Empire. Having travelled
far, from personal experience I can vouch for the
marvellous things Britishers have done all over
the world. A race to be proud of.
Let us rally round the flag, and reverently
join hands to help the future, in remembrance
of those who have fallen to uphold our ideals in
the past.
But we have to do more than this if the peace
of the world is to be firmly established, and I am
sorry to say that my wanderings have only made
me feel certain that unless some stupendous effort
is made by the nations of the world to insist on
peace, whether through the League of Nations or
otherwise, war and nothing but war will continue.
Somewhere else in these pages it was suggested
that war was often the outcome of over popula-
tion. This is particularly so in the Middle East,
because up to now the agricultural product of the
land has not been sufficient to feed the rapidly
multiplying population of those warmer climes.
And as for ourselves, we could not exist for a
month on what we grow in these islands, while
Australia and Canada are crying out for population.
314
What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
Let us get busy with emigration at once, and stop
doles and their deniorahzation.
The only way to get a cleaner and a better world
is to reduce its population and to teach the wanted
children — the healthy children the people them-
selves can afford and wish to have and bring up —
to teach those children more concisely the difference
between right and wrong ; the degradation of
receiving pay for work they have not given ; the
necessity of being patriotic to the flag under which
they are reared ; to be, in fact, good and able
citizens. All this pulling down, all this socialism,
all this unrest is gnawing at the very foundation of
the world, the very vitals of Life.
This world must be reconstructed on a solid and
sure foundation. Without it there can be no Peace.
I had seen fifty-one Armenian women nursing
babies aboard a small ship, and hardly any children
among that packed company between one year
and ten. What does that mean ?
Women bear the sickness of a year, give the
child life and love for a spell, and then it dies
from want of food, disease and exposure.
Is that fair on women ? An outraged girl of
fourteen with a six months' sickly babe. What
can one expect from such children ?
Revolutionists are generally grown up bodily,
but are the mentally warped, unwanted children.
Poor women, panic stricken at another year of
ill health, another mouth to feed, another child
to wash and dress, are not in a proper frame of
mind to have children ; therefore, instead of happy
infants being born to them, miserable, mentally
315
Mainly East
deficient, physically unfit or morally tainted
babies are thrust into the world. They are not
wanted, they are not happy, and they become
revolutionists. One great factor to save the
world is the improvement of wanted babies and
the control of unwanted ones.
Involuntary motherhood and diseased fathers
are the root of much socialism.
Believe me, over population and under food
production constitute the very root of war. Real
friendship must be forged in Europe if the life of
nations is not to remain a game of chance. Once
the East taught the West, now the West must lead
the East, but vacillation won't do it ; procrastina-
tion won't do it ; strength of men and women
and character alone can help rebuild the world.
And so this war may end. Christmas 1922 may
close with peace and goodwill on earth, but much
as I hate to say it, much as I hate to think it, that
peace cannot continue unless some prodigious
effort is made to make it do so.
War and all its horrors do not seem to have
stayed the hand of strife. It is no good blinding
one's eyes to the fact that some miracle has got
to happen if the world is going to settle itself down
to peace and prosperity.
These pages are mostly East ; just the jottings
from the memory of a woman traveller who is
perfectly convinced that things are not right even
when they outwardly seem so, and up to now they
do not even outwardly seem so ; that not only
must each individual work for the peace and good-
will of the world, but that governments must be
316
What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
composed of men and women who are experts
in the subjects under discussion, and will throw
their whole heart and soul into those discussions
without look ng for reward in individual emolu-
ment, improved position or titles.
We have seen together the political unrest of
Egypt ; the Egyptians' desire to upset the Sudan ;
the dislike of the French in Syria ; the hatred of
the Jew in Palestine and the lessening of British
prestige ; the unrest of the agitator in India,
and the religious quarrels between Hebrew and
Moslem.
We have seen how the Greek was hated in
Salonica, in some of the islands and in Smyrna.
We have walked with the heterogeneous popula-
tion of Constantinople, and seen tens of thovisands
of the Allies' Turkish prisoners waiting to be let
free, a freedom they immediately enjoyed by
joining the Kemalist army, officered now by
Germans, if report be true.
We have seen British prestige declining every-
where, owing to want of poUcy and a strong
hand. One can only rule by governing.
These pages have merely been a chat on what I
saw. What do you glean from them ?
Is the war in the Middle East over, is a Holy
War now simmering ? What will be the end of
it all ?
And this pen- woman and you, reader-friend,
have seen hundreds and thousands— yes, some
317
Mainly East
hundreds of thousands — of graves of British men
who fell in the Great War. What do you feel
about it ? Do you like all this bungling, this want
of policy, this want of cohesion, or will you help
all you can such organizations as the League of
Nations, or Boy and Girl Scouts, do anything and
everything you can to fight socialism, expand
patriotism, and bring about a cleaner, saner
world ?
This present upheaval may come to nothing.
But what about another and much worse war in
five years time ? Financiers juggle with gold.
Religions juggle with gods, false or otherwise.
Nations suffer. Strife outsteps strife. Ambition
kicks ambition. Starvation clamours for food.
War ensues, and the world's civilization may
crumble to ashes ; and a world remain of maimed
men, overnumbering women, and unwanted, un-
cared for children.
May some power awaken the inner religion of
the heart.
Oh God, let us have peace.
Our jaunt is over, and you, reader and
friend, have been a good portion of the fifty
thousand miles with me. If you are not too
heartily sick of the trip, we must take another
together. In the meantime the book is finished
and in your hands, and I have painted
my last picture in England, though you will
318
What will the End of our Jaunt be ?
never guess what this stupendous work of art
has been.
Versatility is recreation ; a holiday is merely a
holiday because it is change of work, but in case
you are curious, let me own the last great artistic
effort has been to repaint an old hat black. With
that upon my head, I take my adieu.
NOTE.
As this proof goes to press, for the last time one
can only summarize the situation in the Near East,
round which so many of these chapters hang, by
saying that for the moment the war is finished
(November, 1922).
General Harington has triumphed ; the Allied
terms have been accepted, and having said that,
one shudders to think of the Allies' degradation in
accepting the terms foisted upon them by the
very people they turned out of Europe with much
bloodshed. They have allowed the Turk to return
to Europe's shores.
Did Great Britain wink at the Greek advance a
few months before, merely to keep the Turkish
Army busy on the west instead of round Mosul ?
One wonders.
But there will be much more wondering before
long, for there are many surprises in store for the
West as the outcome of this ridiculous eulogy on
peace in the Middle East.
There is no peace whatever in the Middle East
or the East itself, nor under present conditions
is peace possible. Some stupendous effort of
319
Mainly East
governing wisely and well must be found —
both East and West — or civilization goes under.
Complete political and economic unity are vital.
Much thinking, gentle handling and, withal,
firmness are required.*
«|> tj^ »|# aJb ^|a
So the Turks are back in Europe.
What will the end be ?
* By the Mudania Agreement, signed 11th October, 1922, the Allies
decided to " hand over Eastern Thrace and Adrianople to the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey." The Greek troops to retire behind the
bank of the Maritza river. The Allied troops to guard the railway
junction for Adrianople. The Turks to send a guard of 8,000 into
Eastern Thrace. (Thrace covers about one thousand square miles of
Europe.) As regards neutral zones, those of Constantinople and Gallipoli
remain unchanged. On the Chanak side the neutral zone is, in future,
only to extend about ten miles from the coast.
THE END.
Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Smrey.
Hill
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