iiiiiiiaiiiiiiuiiiU! if jkw^^ 1 ■"iiiK:.:::. .v_, iiHtiiiiiiHiiill lllli !feiw';.;!iii!!i!!llll!!!ii..ii.i.i IIIMIIIIMM.llllllllllllltlllllltlllMIIIMIinilllillDillMlMIIIIIOItllhllilillllllllllilii lllUlllill|ll)!liitiill|ili||||iilli|tM|l)r ItHrUITTftATISQ! M(M«MMMMMtMtMMiM*MMH| iWiiiiitniiiiniiiiiinininiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiisiiiuiiiiiiiittiiiiiiiitiiiiKiiiiiiuiiHniDittiui I II lllililllllll I i i i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES /f/ 3 iff, 7. re. The Near East "/ wank'd to go info a Harem. " — (As reported in llio Arabian Nights.) The Near East BY W. Y. Morgan Author of "A Journey of a Jayhawher'' and "A Jayhawker in Europe" Illustrated by Albert T. Reid SECOND EDITION MONOTTPED AND PRINTED BT CRANE & COMPANY TOPEKA Copyright 1913 By Crane & Company DR IS /9/3 Explanatory These letters were written for the Hutch- inson Daily News in the summer and fall of 1913, and are printed in book form without revision. They tell some of the conditions and characteristics of the people of The Near East as they appeared to a newspaper man who had no mission or object except to see the Turk and his neighbors before they were put out of business or brought up to date. W. Y. Morgan. Hutchinson, Kansas, November 1, 1913. Table of Contents Faae Eastward, IIo! 1 Algiers and Arabs, ° The Tideless Sea, 16 Trieste of New 25 Vienna and the Viennese, 32 Down the Danube, 40 The Capital of the Magyars 48 Into the Balkans, 57 The Balkan Powder Box, 65 Something About Servians, 73 Story of the Servians 80 A Balkan Paris, 90 Constantinople, the Different, 101 The Turk Up Close, HO The Turk, Gentleman 118 The Harem Habit, 127 The Problem of the Turk, 135 Among the Greeks, 147 The Acropolis of Athens 156 The Old Greeks and the New 166 No Man's Land — Albania, 179 The Mitey Montenegro 189 The Black Mountain 200 Delightful Dalmatia 208 The Balkan Brethren 217 A Turkish Town 226 The Near East 235 The Near East Eastward, Ho ! Steamship Kaiser Franz Joseph, August 8. There is a comparatively new road to the East. Instead of following the old highway across the northern Atlantic via England, France or Germany, this trip is on the southern route through the Strai's of Gibraltar, along the Mediterranean, and up the ancient Adri- atic to the Austrian port of Trieste. It is 5,000 miles from New York to Trieste, but when the tripper gets there he will be on the other side of Europe, beyond the regular haunts of tourists, safely past the delights and delays of Paris and Berlin, close to the classic lands of Greece and the crescent of the disap- pearing Turk. In many respects this is an unexplored coun- try in recent years, for the civilization of the East practically stopped short a few centuries (1) 2 THE NEAR EAST ago, and the active, enterprising people of the West kept on toward the setting sun. The far Orient is in India, China, and Japan, but the Near East of the Slav, the Greek and the Turk, with their numerous cousins and aliases, is the East of our school-books. It is the country of which Homer sang, where Alex- ander conquered, and Paul preached. It has been a battleground from the time of the siege of Troy and the later fall of Constantinople, for the hostile forces that came out of the mysterious Asia. Just now the Near East is looking up, and with the success of the Balkan states, is doubtless on its way to civilization, as we call it, and to the destruction of its own delightful differences from everybody and ev- erything else. The Near East ought to be worth a visit and a story, for very few travel-writers have gone in among these folks who disregard the cus- toms and the sanitary regulations that have become almost universal. In order to get to the Turk and his neighbors before the advance of civilization has converted or killed them, it will be necessary to move quickly, for Capital is going in to develop the Balkans, and then EASTWARD, HO! there will be nothing more novel among the Bulgars and the Serbs than there is now in Pennsylvania. The ship "Kaiser Franz Joseph, the First," is the largest, newest and best equipped boat regularly in the Mediterranean service. It is of the Austro-American line, and is probably the finest ship of its size on any of the oceans, and that is saying a good deal, for in these days an ocean liner compares favorably with an elegant hotel. In addition to the usual ac- commodations the Franz Joseph has a gym- nasium where the passengers exercise and keep themselves in appetite for meals, a palm gar- den, and a winter garden on deck inclosed in glass. A fine band plays three concerts a day and turns out yards on yards of Viennese waltzes, with an occasional rag-time out of consideration for the Americans. There is eating and drinking and smoking and dancing, with games and jokes and stunts that are pos- sible in a jolly company brought together for two weeks of close association. The people who go down to the sea in ships during the present age are as differently fixed from those THE NEAR EAST who crossed the ocean to settle the New World as a Pullman passenger car journey is from a ride behind an ox team. We even have a daily paper every day, and it is decidedly interesting when in mid-ocean to pick up the Franz Joseph Evening Herald and read the news of the world received by wireless. It enables us to keep in touch with the events of the day — and especially the baseball scores. Coming on the Franz Joseph has the advan- tage of quickly putting one into several for- eign lands. The ship is Austrian and Com- mander Gerolimich is an Austrian from Trieste, which means that he has two native tongues — German and Italian. The officers and crew are largely Italians and Greeks, with a few Albanians. The cooks are Swiss, the bill of fare is in French, the eats are Italian, the drinks are German, and the money is Ameri- can. In the steerage are a thousand Greeks and Italians returning to their old homes, with more clothes and money and less dirt and smell than they brought with them when they entered under the folds of the Stars and EASTWARD, Iio! Stripes. The passengers in the first and sec- ond cabin are mostly Americans, but there are Hungarians, EngHsh, Spanish, French, Swiss, Itah'ans, Austrians, Germans, and one man from Boston. Over all this aggregation there has rested the confidence which people have in a good ship and a good captain in whom they trust. Speaking of the man from Boston, reminds me of a rather good answer he made to an inquirer who asked : "Boston — in what state is Boston?" "Boston," he said, "is a state of mind." The smoking-room is the center of the ship*s activity and also of all the information and mis-information that is naturally scattered in the little community. The first day out we were told confidentially by nearly everyone that the auburn-haired man who got on the boat just as it was pulling out, was really a government detective who would ingratiate himself with the passengers and learn which of us were going to smuggle diamonds and seal- skins on our return. I kept away from him for several days, and then I found he was an 6 THE NEAR EAST advertising agent for a patent medicine. Another passenger was reported very wealthy, and to have in his cabin a case of champagne. He was decidedly popular until he innocently mentioned the fact that he had brought a case of ginger ale on board because he did not like the stale water of a ship. He then faded into obscurity. A musical enthusiast asked a New York broker if he played Wagner. "Yes, I won three dollars from him at pinochle on the Potsdam." I have a great admiration for that Italian, Christopher Columbus, who sailed for weeks in a foolish little boat to find something he was not sure of, and who did not turn back. Any sane, sensible sailor would have turned around and gone home without discovering America. Columbus was considered crazy by the wise men of Italy and Spain, and he undoubtedly was a crank. In these days his family would have had a guardian appointed. Just think of the nerve of sailing on and on, farther from home every day and every week, not knowing for sure whether you would strike India or run off the edge of the earth as everybody had EASTWARD, HO said you would. But I suppose after he had gone about so far on his journey he thought he might as well go ahead and fall off as go back to Spain and be hung for obtaining ships under false pretenses. AYe have come from New York to the Spanish coast, over 3,000 miles, about the distance from New York to San Francisco. Columbus in his little ship cross- ing the Atlantic was like driving from New York to Frisco would be if the country were barren and your only means of locomotion was a mule team and a lumber wagon. Algiers and Arabs Steamship Franz Joseph, August 9. We have been in Algiers for a half-day and an evening. It did not look like Africa to me. In the geography I studied Africa consisted of a pale cream center called the desert of Sa- hara, with green and yellow strips around the edges. Algiers was on the north end of the map, and that much is correct. But the high hills that rose from the coast as the Franz Joseph approached the port were covered with beautiful green stripes of cultivated gardens and orchards, dotted with white houses and the dark foliage of forest trees. The city it- self rose from the harbor front like a semi- circle of an amphitheatre, tier of houses above tier, at various points churches, mosques, and structures which I took to be palaces, but which turned out to be restaurants. The blue of the Mediterranean was the foreground of this beautiful landscape, which stretched from the water's edge to the lighter shade of blue (8) ALGIERS AND ARABS 9 in the southern sky. The picture was one that artist's brush would fail in copying or writer's pencil in describing. Algiers is a city of over 100,000 population. It has better-looking buildings in its business district than Kansas City, and its apartment houses are models which New York could copy. One is hardly prepared for eight-story struc- tures in Africa, but here they are. And down the street go the camel, the automobile, the donkey and the trolley car, evidence that the Orient and the Occident are getting very much mixed. Algiers was a good town when Columbus discovered America. The native Africans had been conquered and assimilated by the Arabs, and a strong Mohammedan state resulted. Then the foolish Christians drove the Jews out of Spain and many of them came to the protection of the more liberal Ottomans. The Mohammedan religion is not much on progress and its strong teachings in philosophy do not develop manufactures and trade. A little over a hundred years ago the principal occu- pation of the Algerian was piracy. It was an 10 THE NEAR EAST easy job, a good deal like operating on Wall Street. The great object was to locate the other fellow's ship, capture and possess its contents, and hold the sailors as slaves for work or ransom. Several years after our Dec- laration of Independence there were 35,000 Christian slaves held in Algiers at one time. When the commercial nations of the world could stand this no longer they began a war against the pirates, in which the United States took an honorable part, and put an end to the great prosperity of the Algerians and their neighbors. It was difficult to get down to hard work, and Algiers was like a boom town in the West when the boom is busted. Fifty-eight years ago the French took some excuse for "inter- vention," and came across from their own country, a night's sail to the north. Thus Algiers became French, and the language of Paris, the ways of Paris, and much of the habits of Paris are the superficial coat on this city and this people today. It was a beautiful afternoon when we landed and drove through a lane of palm trees to the ALGIERS AND ARABS 11 park, which some old sultan planted many years ago with never a thought of the profit his descendants would get by acting as guides for American tourists. We had fought our way to the carriage through a mob of Arabs who besought us to buy things, from oriental rugs to embroidered leather, hand-made brass goods, villainous-looking knives, and delicious fruit. During that two hours' drive these descendants of the pirates never left us, and I often got mixed up in repeating "how beauti- ful" about the landscape and "no, no," to the running salesmen. That part of the city where the French and other foreigners have their homes is a district of beautiful villas, with gardens and flowers and trees. That part where the Arabs reside is a collection of narrow streets, curious houses, and wonderful smells. They were all "Arabs" to me, but that means also Turks, Egyptians, Moors, Spanish Jews, and natives of all parts of northern Af- rica, and of all colors except white. The men wore the fez or the turban, and as a rule were attired in a costume which was a cross between 12 THE NEAR EAST a bath-robe and a bed-spread. They wrapped this around them in a rather decent manner, and to my surprise it stayed on. There was not much work being done. A store was about four feet by ten feet, and the proprietor sat on the sidewalk. He had only one kind of goods, and he evidently did not advertise. Every few yards there would be a cafe with a few Arabs sitting in the front, sometimes drinking coffee but usually just thinking. Vegetables and fruit, fancy metal ornaments, ordinary household goods and tobacco were the staples in the shops. The street itself was almost eight feet wide, and was generally so steep that it was a series of steps, down which ran the sewage, in which played the children. There were ladies in our party who criticised these arrangements, but the Arabs don't mind criticism from such unbelievers. An Arab woman is dressed in proper fashion when she winds a sheet of soft white goods around herself and puts on a veil which covers her face up to her eyes. The gown culmi- nates in some way as a turban and covers her forehead, so all that a man can see of that ALGIERS AND ARABS 13 lady is a ghostlike figure with two bright eyes. I was naturally interested, because the cos- tume was different from that which is worn at home, except at an early morning fire. At first I refrained from curious looks, for fear I might offend the ladies. But I tried a look at one and she did not seem to mind. I looked at her and she looked at me. I imag- ined I saw the beginnings of a lady-like Ara- bian wink. Just to be polite I would have winked once myself, but I saw a half-dozen male Arabs observing the situation, and I promptly decided that winking was not in good form for an American at such a time. So I never will know whether that Arabess was a winker or a deceiver, but I am ahve and well, which is some satisfaction. In the evening our party from the ship wanted to do something exciting. We hired a guide and told him to show us Algiers by electric light. He marched us up and down several streets and into a moving-picture show. The first film was one of those thrilling melodramas of the American cowboy, the villain, the sheriff, the fight, and the final 14 THE NEAR EAST triumph of innocence with matrimony. That was the best Algiers could do for us in the way of devilishness, so we went to the city square and heard a good French military band. Algiers is becoming quite a winter resort, especially for French and English. The cli- mate is like that of the Riviera, and the addi- tional charm of the Arab and the Moor makes it more interesting. And then there are the "bargains." No Arabian merchant has a *' fixed price." He is ready to meet his cus- tomer half-way. The shopping instinct, which is strong in some of us, is thus given a great opportunity. I saw a Chicago lady offer $3 for a rug which the merchant priced at $25. Just before the boat sailed she got it for $3.50. A very curious sword was coveted for a present for some man at home. The lady and the merchant put in forty-five minutes, and the weapon goes to a fellow in Boston at a cost of two dollars, when the original demand was ten dollars. Bargain-hunting with women is a good deal like duck-hunting with men. When the ducks appear in the fall the duck- hunter cannot resist the call of the game. ALGIERS AND ARABS 15 When the "bargains" appear as they do in Algiers, the bargain-hunter refuses to look at scenery or art, and goes after the game. Very few duck-hunters ever get any ducks and very few bargain-hunters get any bar- gains. The duck-hunter gets rheumatism and the bargain-hunter gets stuck. But they have had the fun of the hunt, and they will respond to the call when it comes again. The Tldeless Sea Steamship Kaiser Franz Joseph, Off the Dalmatian Coast, Aug. 11. The Mediterranean is the greatest of the world's big waters. Along with the bays and seas of its border it was the only sea that the Hebrews knew. It was the only sea for the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans. It is the only body of water that has a history going back as far as the records and traditions of men. The Pacific Ocean was "discovered" four hundred years ago. The Atlantic was an unknown proposition until a short time before that. But the Mediterranean, with its Adri- atic and ^gean arms, was the common carrier for the known world on three continents for centuries of the world's history. It is the sea over which Ulysses wandered and on which iEneas took his flight from Troy. It was the scene of the activities of the Greeks and then of the Romans. It carried Peter and Paul to Rome and later it bore the Crusaders to their (16) THE TIDELESS SEA 17 wars for the Holy Scpulclicr. It was in an- cient days, as it is now, the means of commu- nication between Europe, Africa and Asia, the sea of commerce and the resort for pleasure of people of varied races and diverse languages. With a good imagination the traveler on the Franz Joseph can re-people the shores with the gods and heroes of old, can cover the waters with the ancient galleys, and recall from the obscurity of early history the great events that marked the progress of the world. The Mediterranean has been called the tide- less sea, as there is little or no tide in its waters. The tide is something that no one understands, although everybody know just how it is. The proper theory is that the moon has an at- tractive power, as the earth has of gravity. This moon gravity draws everything toward itself ; that is, everything not fast to the earth. The water in the oceans yields to the power of the moon when it draws to fill, and the water bunches together in the center, receding at the shores, and that is low tide. Then the moon goes around to the other side of the 18 THE NEAR EAST earth, the water returns with a rush, and that is high tide. But there are two tides a day and the moon goes around only once, so it is necessary to suppose that when the moon pulls on either side it makes the ebb and flow. There is nothing to prove this theory except that the tide and the moon work on the same schedule. I have often opposed the moon theory in the debates on the tide question that invariably take place on a ship. But I have never been able to work out any good scheme to offer against the accepted one, and as the man in the moon can't defend himself it is just as well to lay the whole works at his door. But why is it that the Mediterranean has no tide while Lake Erie does? That is a question with which you can stump the ex- plainer of tides. Nobody knows. It is like the mystery of what becomes of all the water that is poured into the Mediterranean. There must be a hole in the bottom of the sea. Last night we sailed by my first real live volcano. It was Stromboli, on the island of that name, just north of the strait separating THE TIDELESS SEA 19 Italy from Sicily. The mountain loomed up a dark pyramid in a blue sky with the moon shedding a silvery light on the surrounding waters. Just as we went by, old Stromboli exerted himself. There were two eruptions of flame, like gigantic flashes of exploded gun- powder, followed by columns of smoke which hardly moved in the gentle breeze. It was impressive, especially as I remembered that Stromboli had been doing the same stunt ever since the old Greeks began the record of events. Occasionally Stromboli goes on a rampage and spreads destruction over the island. There are people on Stromboli, and those who escape from one disaster come back and try it again — just why people do so is as much a mystery to me as the tide and the disappearance of the water in the Mediterranean. We have sailed around the boot-shaped Italy, and are now among the islands of the Adriatic sea off the coast of Dalmatia. This was once the center of the world's commerce, when Venice was the great power in the Med- iterranean and all the trade between western Europe and the Orient went through her 20 THE NEAR EAST hands. Every island has been fought for by Christian and Turk, Venetian and Greek, and nearly every one has its ruined castle, a re- minder of the good old days when the knights went forth to do deeds of chivalry and mur- der, when it was international law to kill a Mohammedan on sight, and when there was no closed season on Serbs. This afternoon we will reach Trieste, after thirteen days of easy sailing without missing a meal or throwing one awaj^ And this is quite a feat, for on the Franz Joseph they serve six meals a day, three heavy and three light. The steerage passengers are crowding to the rail, for they are returning "home," a place they left to try their fortunes in a new and strange world. Tonight they will be telling stories to their folks of the strange things in America, and they will doubtless swagger some with the importance of having traveled and adventured among the curious people of New York. Human nature is a good deal the same in Kansas and Dalmatia, so I imagine that the wonders of America will not grow less as they are told in the Italian language THE TIDELESS SEA 21 to the admiring family and friends. Last night the band i)layed tlie Star-Spangled Ban- ner, and while the i\.mericans in the first cabin made the usual futile effort to remember the words and keep up with the tune, the return- ing foreigners paid a tribute of applause to the hymn of the land of Opportunity. This is no place for a young man or young woman to come who is afraid of sentiment. A moonlight night on the Mediterranean would extract affection from a statue. The age limit would need to be high — higher than I have heard of. A bachelor on the Franz Joseph who could not get on the list for the maids was found holding his own hands, with an ecstatic expression in his eyes, thinking of some one far away — perhaps his sister. No wonder the old Greek gods and goddesses used to cut up when they played around the Grecian archipelago on a moonlight night. This is the road to the East, the land of dreams and memories. Before we meet the Serb and the Bulgar we are visiting with the ancient Greeks and Romans by the aid of the moonlight and the waters. Austria-Hungary Trieste of New Trieste, Aug. 13. Trieste is the new door that has been opened to Americans coming to Europe, but it is an old door. It was used by the Romans and by Adriatic commerce for many years. In the last century it has grown steadily in impor- tance, as befits the only port of Austria. It is an Italian city as well as Austrian, for four- fifths of the 300,000 population are Italians by race and by language. Most of the rest are Slavs, and only a small per cent are real Austrians, who speak the German language. Mixed in with the Italians, Austrians and Slavs are Albanians, Bosnians, and representa- tives from the various groups in the Balkan peninsula. All of which makes an interesting aggregation for the tourist, although a little hard for the police to handle. The incoming ships bring spices, fruits, coffee and cotton from the Levant, and take back manufactured goods, sugar, and beer. (25) 26 THE NEAR EAST The town lies prettily on the side of the mountains which rise very abruptly from the shore, and the harbor of beautiful Adriatic blue is filled with vessels of all kinds, includ- ing the picturesque sailing-boats with their yellow and blue colored sails. Most of the city is modern, with fine stone and marble business blocks, well-lighted ways and street sprinklers. But the old town, w^ith its narrow, path-like "vias" and its busy shoplets, is a reminder of the days of not so very long ago. The automobile is here and the auto bus is in evidence. But much of the hauling through the main streets of the city is by oxen — big, fine cream-colored fellows who look wonder- ingly at the motor car that has come to set them free. In the railroad yard the switch- ing is done by oxen, whose union seems to keep out the scab motors. The various folks and colors and customs which I have thus hastily sketched make a delightful picture, and one that causes Trieste to be most interesting to the traveler from another world. The imperial chateau of Miramar was built here about sixty years ago by Maximilian, TRIESTE OF NEW 27 younger brother of the Emperor, who was then an admiral in the Austrian navy. It was here that MaximiHan accepted the job of Emperor of Mexico in 18G4. At that time Uncle Sam had trouble in his own household, and at one of the customary crises in Mexico, France "intervened" and soon had its soldiers in possession of the capital and large cities of the republic. The Mexicans were told to choose an emperor, and they finally unani- mously voted for Maximilian. As soon as he got on the work most of the Mexicans took to the brush and began a guerilla war. The United States pulled the Monroe doctrine on France and the French soldiers went home. Poor Maximilian and his wife remained and the insurrection grew. Finally the insurrectos captured the emperor and shot him — and that ended the emperor business. The chateau of Miramar is a beautiful pal- ace on the shore of the Adriatic. One of the grand duchesses is spending the summer there, so we did not get to see the furniture, which ordinarily can be done on paj^ment to the government of an admission fee of twenty cents. 28 THE NEAR EAST This Austrian money is interesting. The unit of value is the "krone," equivalent to nearly twenty cents American money. The krone contains 100 hellers. This makes you feel rich. You pay seventy-five heller for a cheap cigar. You hand a man a thousand heller and it sounds bigger than the two dol- lars, American, which it represents. When we landed from the ship we took a carriage, and it brought three passengers, two trunks and a lot of hand-baggage to the hotel, with a stop at the custom-house. I gave the driver an American dollar. I knew it was wrong. I knew such an act would sap the foundations of finance in cabdom. But I was glad to get on land once more, and what is one dollar to a Kansan when he is 5,000 miles from home! The next day we wanted to drive and I asked for the same cabman, only to be told that Pietro What-ever-his-name-was was in jail. He had gotten drunk and left his horse stand- ing on the street. The police did the rest. But I knew it was the deadly work of the American dollar. Pietro could not stand prosperity. The smallest Austrian coin I have seen is TRIESTE OF NEW 29 the onc-licllcr piece. It is worLli a fifth of an American cent. The working-women keep their good car- riage by carrying baskets and boxes on their heads. They do not do this for mere exercise, but as the ancient and honorable way of car- rying burdens. You can't get stoop-shoul- dered and bent over with a basket of soik^d clothing on the top of 3'our head. The women of Trieste are very pretty. Of course I would not have noticed it, but the American vice- consul, Mr. De Martini, called my attention to the fact. He continued with his informa- tion : "You observe that when j^ou meet a girl on the street and she smiles and you smile, she goes on and never looks around to see if you are following." I admitted that I had noticed this and wondered why. "Because she doesn't need to look around. She knows you are following." On the top of a high hill overlooking the town and the sea is the Cathedral. A couple 30 THE NEAR EAST of thousand years ago the Romans had a tem- ple there, and some of the old masonry and columns were used in the construction of the present new church in the 14th century. In one of the chapels are buried all the kings of the older branch of the Spanish Bourbons, the *'Carlists." For several generations these kings were plotting the overthrow of the reign- ing line, and kept Spain in a constant turmoil. The Pretender who is on deck now lives over in Venice, a hundred miles away, has married a rich wife, and is preparing to get Alfonso's goat at the first opportunity. The Spanish throne is a good deal of a rocking-chair. That reminds me of the fact that the only rocking-chairs I ever saw in Europe are in Austria, except one that an American consul had had made, up in Sweden. There are no rocking-chairs in England, France, or Ger- many. They are considered unhealthful and impossible, and medical authorities in those countries claim the nervousness of Americans is the result of the deadly rocking-chair. The consul I speak of came from Michigan, and he wanted an American rocking-chair. He TRIESTE OF NEW 31 showed the cabinetmaker how to construct one, but was refused, and he told me had to use his official position to get authority for the man to make a rocking-chair. Of course the importance of Trieste is as a port, although it is a good town to live in and visit. Last year the imports and exports amounted to over 1,000,000,000 kronen, which is more than $200,000,000, and is 100,000,- 000,000 heller. The Austrian government builds its war-ships here and keeps a large garrison of soldiers, carefully placing Hun- garians and Croatian regiments in this Italian city and sending the Trieste soldiers to other places. There was an election of a mayor here yes- terday by the city council. The councilmen were chosen by the people last June in an election which lasted three days, and during which the government had to send two regi- ments of state police from the country to aid in maintaining order. An election in an Ital- ian community is never apathetic. In fact, an ordinary street conversation in Trieste would be almost considered a riot in Kansas. Vienna and the Viennese Vienna, Aug. 17. Vienna is the fourth city of Europe in pop- ulation, the other three being London, Paris, Berhn. The Viennese boast they are jolly and gay, and they are always proving that theory to you. When one starts to live up to a reputation like that it really makes hard work out of it, and that is the way it seemed to me in Vienna. Being "gay" consists in eating and drinking and staying out at nights, and making oneself believe that such is the great aim of man. So the city of Vienna is filled with coffee-houses and drink-halls and wine-gardens, with parks and trees and flowers as a universal background. It is a beautiful city, with many wide streets, clean and well paved, and with handsome buildings both public and private. Vienna had a great streak of luck. Up to about sixty years ago the "inner town" was surrounded by fortifications like a big wide belt. City forts went out of (32) VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 33 fashion, so Vienna pulled down the walls, filled up the moats and had a spacious circle of valuable real estate. Part of this land was sold and the proceeds used in constructing or- nate and beautiful public buildings and pretty- parks on the old fortress site. Broad avenues with rows of trees and several roadways follow the circular line and constitute the "Ring," which is the show place, the promenade and the amusement center for the fun-loving Vien- nese. Of course the waltz came from Vienna, and it is the movement which the Viennese feel, or seem to feel, in their daily life. But the waltz as danced in its home town would not be permitted at a 4th of July picnic in Kansas. The music is the same but the time is faster. The Vienner and the Vienness grapple each other in a perfectly proper position and then they begin to whirl. They do not reverse any more than a top. They waltz-me-around at the rate of 130 revolutions a minute until ex- hausted. Even then they do not reverse, but get their breath and go to it again. A whole evening of this kind of fun is the height of 34 THE NEAR EAST pleasure for these unfortunate people who never saw a turkey-trot. They do hesitate long enough to change partners and drink beer, but these are coincident necessities of the dance. In the window of a music store I saw the advertisement of "the celebrated Ameri- can dance piece," "M. Alexandre's Tattered Time Band," but I am sure no Viennese mu- sician would play it unless he was forced, and I know no Viennese could dance to it if he tried. The Austrians have a new deal on their meal-times, eating the big dinner at 1 o'clock and supper at 8 o'clock. In the stores and offices two hours' time is usually allowed for the midday meal, and the closing in the even- ing is at seven. Austrians have the reputa- tion of being the best cooks and hotel mana- gers in Europe. Next to Strauss, who wrote the waltzes, the Viennese most honor the man who makes the best sauce. When an Aus- trian sits down at the table with his beer or wine in front of him and the menu card in his hand, he looks as happy and expectant as a small boy at a circus. To an American who VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 35 eats at a lunch counter, or who hastily gulps down his food without letting go of his busi- ness thoughts, this looks like a wrong object to set up as the chief one in life. But the Austrian holds in great contempt the foolish man who passes up the enjoyment of a meal with sauces and desserts — and perhaps the Austrian is right. There is more dyspepsia and stomach trouble from a rapid fire into one's interior of pie and coffee, than there is in an extended and artistic application of food and drink, in the Teutonic style. Of course everything is not play, even in Vienna. I have become accustomed to seeing women do active farm work, clean the street- crossings, and carry the burdens. But in the construction of a fine new building on the Ring, just across the street from the beautiful Opera, I saw many women engaged in mixing mortar, laying up rock, carrying hods, and otherwise conducting themselves as men. This shocked me. I made a few remarks to them, but they did not seem to understand my lan- guage. I told them that woman's place is in 36 THE NEAR EAST the home, that they should not go out of the sphere in which they rocked the cradle to rule the world. I repeated all those arguments, but with no effect. One woman, who was ex- cavating, stopped shoveling and listened, but a big fat foreman yelled at her and she turned to the work. With all of this beautiful Vienna and its churches and palaces and parks, I am going to have to remember the woman working with pick and shovel for which she is paid 45 cents for a nine-hour day. The country home of the Emperor Franz Joseph is at Schoenbrunn. The emperor was not at home when I called, but I looked over the place, which is one of the show-palaces of Europe. I was most impressed with the fact that it contains 1441 rooms and 139 kitchens, from which you can see it is bigger than a salt plant. It has a beautiful park, with gar- dens and fountains, but in all of that splendor I did not see one place where the emperor could sit down in his stocking-feet and rest himself — and the emperor is 83 years old this "/ told them that woman's place i.v in her home. VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 37 week. I am often impressed with the seeming fact that royalty has a lonesome time. In the long ago a king could at least have a man's head cut off, or boil somebody in oil, if he felt bad. But nowadays, with constitutions, par- liaments and other modern improvements, a king can't even sit down without getting the consent of his ministry. Once in a while a king or a grand duke slips off and has a good time in the town, but he is terribly talked about, and even then he probably never really lets loose, because he can't get over the idea that he is a king. The female Royalties are in just as hard luck. While they can wear good clothes and go riding in the park, they can't gossip about the other royal families for fear of international complications, and when they ride there are two men up behind watch- ing to see at whom they smile. The imperial palace in the city is a big, beautiful building, but there is no back yard, absolutely no place for privacy, if you are an It, unless you go inside and lock a door. As the poet says, "What is home without a back yard?" Nothing but a flat. It does seem as if a king could do better than a flat. 38 THE NEAR EAST Vienna is an old town, founded by the Ro- mans, and after a good many ups and downs developed by the trade between the west of Europe and the east, which was started by the Crusades. It was the outpost of Christianity when the Turks were sweeping into Europe about 500 years ago. Twice they got as far as Vienna, and then the Christians stopped quarreling among themselves and beat back the Moslems. It is the capital of Austria, and when Austria was at the head of the Ger- man empire it was capital of that. When the German em.pire went to pieces Prussia crowded Austria out of the leadership, and in the re- organization froze her out completely. While Austria is the original German, she is not a part of the present-day Germany, but lan- guage, literature, history and customs are as German as anybody. On the other hand, the Austrian monarchy is made up of a number of different peoples. Only about one-half the people of Austria are Austrians. The rest are Bohemians, Slavs, Ruthenians, Poles, Croa- tians, etc. This does not include Hungary, which is an independent kingdom with the same monarch as Austria. Nearly all these VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 39 nationalities are represented in Vienna, es- pecially on great occasions. It is up to the Viennese to give them a good time and see that they take home no unpleasant notions of their capital and their ruler. So the Viennese have built beautifully and made their city one of the playgrounds of Europe, to which every- one is welcome so long as his money holds out. Down the Danube BuDA Pesth, Hungary, Aug. 20. Up to the time of railroads, and that was not very long ago, the Danube river was the main traveled road for commerce between western Europe and that part of the Near East comprised in most of the Turkish penin- sula, southern Russia and the great fertile plains of eastern Europe. When the railroads came they followed the river route, and a greater trade goes up and down the valley than ever. The Danube is still a busy river, carrying freight and passengers back and forth in even larger amounts than before. It has its source up in the Black Forest of Germany, and by the time it crosses into Austria it is a navigable stream, continuing so for the two thousand miles of its course to where it emp- ties into the Black Sea. It goes through mountains of metals and marble and traverses the richest plains of the continent. (40) DOWN THE DANUBE 41 Along the banks of the Danube the old Romans placed their outposts and called ev- erything beyond an unknown world. The hordes of barbarians which came in successive waves from the breeding-places in Asia, fol- lowed the Danube until they left it to over- whelm their predecessors. The early Chris- tian missionaries carried the cross up and down its course, so that it was a boundary for Chris- tianity. AATien the Turks came to Europe and swept the eastern Roman empire off the map, they were stopped along the Danube, and for centuries Christian and Moslem disputed as to which should possess the great river and its rich valley. Twice the Turks got across, to be met by a united Christendom and held for downs. Twenty-five years ago the last Turk- ish flag on the Danube was lowered at Bel- grade, and the crescent is now in the last of the European possessions which it has held for nearly a thousand years. Every mile of the Danube river has been fought over, and on nearly every hill are the ruins of a castle which once held the forces of a defender of some faith and a captain of some nationahty. 42 THE NEAR EAST But that is not the reason I came down the Danube, which I did yesterday from Vienna to Buda Pesth. It was certainly the proper way to leave the West-European civilization of Austria and enter the semi-oriental of Hun- gary. But I wanted to waltz down the Beau- tiful Blue Danube which Mr. Strauss made famous, and that was why we embarked on a river steamboat for three hundred miles of travel. I am in favor of the Danube and I am an admirer of Strauss. I have waltzed 17,000 miles to his Blue Danube music. But I must put it on record that Mr. Strauss is a beautiful prevaricator or is color-blind, for the Danube river is the shade of the Missouri river when it is up. It would be just as correct for the Hutchinson News to warble hysterically about the Blue Cow Creek as it was for the Viennese composer to hang those remarkably touching harmonies onto a Blue Danube. I set this fact down with a sad heart. I wanted to ride on the blue Danube, and when the stern reality came to me that the Danube was only dirty yellow water and not a limpid stream, it was certainly discouraging and even exasperating. DOWN THE DANUBE 43 I felt as I did when I saw the Tiber, where "Iloratius held the bridge," and realized that any good man could jump it in a couple of jumps. I suppose the Black Sea will not be black and that the Bulgarians will wear sad sober scarfs and blouses. The poets, musi- cians and fashion leaders take too much li- cense for a plain American citizen to keep up with. But the Danube is all right as a river, re- gardless of its race, color or previous condition of servitude. Our steamboat made twenty miles an hour down-stream, and every few minutes we passed other boats or met a tug with a half-dozen barges loaded with mer- chandise. One of the things I never get used to is the quick passing from one country, people and language to another. On leaving Vienna our crowd was nearly all Austrian, speaking Ger- man. In a couple of hours most of them had gotten off and the people who took their places were different-looking and with a language not as much like German as is the English. We 44 THE NEAR EAST had crossed into Hungary, and even the boat- men were using another brand of profanity when they hit a dock too hard. Who are the Hungarians? They are no more Germans than they are Indians. Like most of the people of Europe, they "came out of Asia" in the early centuries of the Christian Era. They are related to the Tar- tars. They took their turn at sweeping across Europe, and were stopped by the Teutons after they had overrun eastern Europe and Italy. They were nomadic, wandering fight- ers. When they struck the German wall they had to stop, and they were like a hive of bees. They swarmed in the rich Danube plain, which thus became Hungary. They were Christian- ized, but their fierce tempers were not sub- dued. They are noted for their bravery, their good looks, and their willingness to fight every time somebody drops a hat, or oftener if con- venient. About 200 years ago the law of descent worked so that the king of Austria became the king of Hungary, and since that time the two countries have had the same monarch, the present Franz Joseph the First being emperor DOWN THE DANUBE 45 of Austria and king of Hungary. The two countries are called the dual monarchy. But Hungary is independent, having its own capi- tal, parliament, and government. The two countries have the same department of foreign affairs and the army is now managed as prac- tically one organization, but so far as other matters are concerned they arc not connected. It is an arrangement which has been tried in other countries of Europe but has never worked elsewhere. Holland and Belgium were hitched together for a few years. Norway and Sweden tried a partnership under one sovereign, but it did not endure, — and yet their people are related. The Austrians and Hungarians are of different race and nation- ality, and they have held togelhcr for 200 years, although there have been several nearly successful attempts to kick over the traces. The Huns are a liberty -loving folk, proud and independent, but they are also loyal to their king, and in many ways they are the mainstay of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Prob- ably so long as they have a king they will stick to the Hapsburg family, which has ruled them so long, but they are now fitted for and 46 THE NEAR EAST practically have self-government. The ques- tion is how long they will let the force of habit prevail. From the boat I saw fields of corn such as we have in America, the first I ever saw in Europe. Indian corn was introduced into this country by the government. At dinner we had "corn on the cob," and the Hungarians ate in the good American style, burying the face in the corn until the butter ran down the sides of the mouth. Table manners are much the same in polite society the world over, but there are often local peculiarities. A charm- ing Hungarian lady sat opposite to me at the table. She consumed the corn, washed it down with a glass of beer, picked her teeth, and lighted a cigarette. None of these would have been considered proper in Kansas, but they are the correct etiquette in Hungary. When a woman can eat corn on the cob, drink beer, pick her teeth and light a cigarette, and still look charming, it is proof that she is pretty and attractive, so I introduce that fact as evidence on the looks of the lady Huns. The Hungarian language can be worshipped. DOWN THE DANUBE 47 for it is like nothing else on the earth or in the waters. All the west-European languages are based on the Latin and German and the printed words look like English. But the Hungarian language is a job lot of consonants without roots, and a printed line looks hke a head-end collision between two freight trains. Another word for Hungarian is Magyar, but that doesn't help the language. Tliere have been great ■ writers, poets and musicians in Hungary, and one of the wonders of the world to me is how they did it in the Magyar. The folks themselves pronounce their words rather softly, but when an American makes the at- tempt you think he is practicing for a swear- ing match. All day and into the night we came down the river, and stopping at places with names like Esztergom, Vacz, Szekesfehrvar, Piszke, Svab-Hegy. It always seemed to me that there was danger of the boat striking one of these names and sinking at once. Then out of the moonlight and under big bridges into the electric light and beside the high buildings of Buda Pesth. The Capital of the Magyars BuDA Pesth, Hungary, Aug. 21. For two thousand years there was a town called Buda on the right bank of the Danube, and for 800 years a town called Pesth on the left bank. In 1872 they were united under the name of Buda Pesth, or as they put it, Budapest. About the year 1250 Buda became the capital of Hungary, and was such until 300 years later, when the Turks captured it and held it for 150 years. Then there were various capitals, and when the Huns and Aus- trians finally got together the old town of Buda was united to the new town of Pesth, only 800 years old, and Buda Pesth was made the capital. The parliament house, in Hun- garian the "Orszaghaz," is one of the beauti- ful buildings of Europe and the royal palace on the Buda side is another. The Pesth side of the city has grown most, because it is flat and easy to build on, while Buda lies on the side of a small mountain which begins at the (48) THE CAPITAL OF THE MAGYARS 49 river's edge. The buildings are largely of oriental architecture, with domes and turrets, and even an ordinary store building will have a marble front and the exterior decorated in figures and colors. This combination of river, mountain and valley, with the art of man making his handiwork as fair to look upon as possible, results in Buda Pesth being one of the beautiful cities of the world. It has many parks and squares, with trees and flowers and broad avenues, and its million population cer- tainly have a delightful place in which to live. It is too bad that the elegant new palace has no one in permanent residence, for the king comes to Buda Pesth only when he must, but there is a university with 7,000 students, and that is better for a town than a handful of kings. When we crossed the line from Austria even the music changed. The waltz gave way to the rather rhapsodical and often weird strains of Hungary. There is music here everywhere, and the very best, — the kind that draws down big money in Europe and America. If the Gipsies have a native land it is Hungary and 50 THE NEAR EAST the little country of Roumania, farther down the Danube. The Gipsies are not Hungari- ans. They are a separate and peculiar people who dwell in Hungary, and who are often found roving in other countries. They are a little hard for the authorities to handle, as they have no names and no habitation. A king of Hungary became a student of Gipsy history and character. He went among a band of them and learned to love them. He took a large estate and gave it to them, with houses, cattle, and all that they might need. They stuck it out a few days and then they disappeared with everything not nailed down. Houses and homes and regular life have no charm for the Gipsies. They own no real es- tate, they appeal to no courts. They have their own laws and rulers, and thus we have the curious spectacle of one nation living in- side of another. The government holds them responsible for crimes against others, but can- not make them submit to regulations among themselves. They escape the required army service because there is no record of their births or marriages, or of names and ages. They are horse-traders and fortune-tellers, and THE CAPITAL OF THE MAGYARS 51 are accused of being oblivious to the so-called rights of property. They are not vicious, but they are not considered desirable neighbors by the industrious and thrifty Huns. All of these Gipsies are musicians, and they supply the great musical element in Hungarian music. They also furnish orchestras which play in the hotels, cafes and parks and make every evening a great concert. Of course they do not confine themselves entirely to their own compositions. At a concert on Margaret's Island, which is a great public park on the Danube, the splendid band got the most ap- plause for a spirited rendition of "The Rag Time Violin," which I fear was considered by most of the audience the American national anthem and was approved on that account. On the Pesth side of the river-front is Franz Joseph Quai, a promenade a mile long, a fine avenue with the Danube on one side and a row of handsome hotels with outdoor cafes on the other. No vehicles are allowed on this boulevard, and every evening from 5 o'clock on to a late hour it is the promenade upon which the Huns and the Hunnesses show- 52 THE NEAR EAST their good clothes and how well they wear them. For the price of a cup of coffee, six American cents, or a glass of beer, two Ameri- can cents, one can sit comfortably at a little table and watch the Danube and anything else that comes along. Across the half-mile of water looms the height of Buda with old cas- tles and new castles, parks and homes. Down the promenade march the latest gowns from Paris, with all the sights that they can con- tribute to the aggregation of the beautiful. Occasionally a peasant woman, with bright colors and high skirts and ankles clothed in heavy socks, adds variety to the passing show. These are out-of-door people who love to be in the sunlight or the electric light, and who don't mind being observed if they are sure their hats are on straight. They are so much like Americans that I wonder if we are not part Tartar ourselves. The rule of the road in this country is to go to the left. I had not known that until we started for a drive in a one-horse carriage which goes slow enough so you can see the sights. An automobile came whizzing toward THE CAPITAL OF TTIE MAGYARS 53 US, and as we were about to meet, our driver turned sharply to the left. I shut my eyes and wondered just how the sad news would get to America. But nothing happened. The auto had, of course, also turned to the left. Another new custom has been sprung on me in this country, beginning in Vienna. I got on a street car and gave the conductor the fare he mentioned. He held out his hand and said something I could not understand. I looked pleasant and said "Yawohl," which generally answers anything in German. But the conductor did not yawohl. His mit was still extended and I knew it must be money. I gave him a ten-heller piece and he took off his cap. I ought to have given him two hel- lers (two-fifths of a cent) and then he would have merely touched his cap. He gets his pay from the tips. No wonder street-car fare is usually about three cents. But I don't Hke to see a man take off his hat to another for ten heller, even if that is the equivalent of two American cents. Buda Pesth occupies about the same posi- tion commercially to the Balkan states that 54 THE NEAR EAST Kansas City does to Kansas and Oklahoma. A wholesale merchant assured me that all the gay -colored Bulgarian blouses and scarfs that we see in America, if they come from Europe at all, are made in Hungary and shipped from Buda Pesth. I think he is correct. This v/orld is getting so close together that it is easier to buy Japanese goods from Connecti- cut manufacturers than it is to order from Japan — and you get better stuff. Once when I was in Germany I was trying to buy a char- acteristic German picture. After quite a search I succeeded in getting something that w^as genuinely Germ.an, only to discover when I examined it later at the hotel that it was "made in Buffalo, U. S. A." The Hungarians have the oriental taste for colors. Their fur- nishings and their decorations are bright reds and blues. They retain the old dashing ways of the Magyar, and with their good physique and dark complexions are one of the most in- teresting peoples of the Near East. Yienna. OUTLINE MAP OF TIUKKY, GREECE, -VXD THE BALKAN STATES, WITH THE NEW BOUNDARIES Those Balkan States Into the Balkans Belgrade, Servia, Aug. 23. Getting into the Balkans is a sort of com- bination of stern reality with comic opera. Coming from Hungary we crossed the bound- ary between that country and Servia just this side of the town Zimony, after a full realiza- tion of the fact that Austria and Servia are not friendly. At Zimony we were ordered out of our comfortable second-class coach and into the police headquarters, which are at one side of the waiting-room. Everybody going across the line, no matter what his nationality or condition, had to have a passport to leave Austria-Hungary. Even a Hungarian going to Belgrade on business, or a Servian return- ing from a visit with his friends in Zimony, must produce for examination the document which entitles him to pass the boundary. I got into a line of about fifty people of all sorts and of all degrees of cleanliness. Then I took my turn until I reached the window and (57) 58 THE NEAR EAST handed through the paper, which looked hke a quitclaim deed but was in reality a signed and sealed statement made by W. J. Bryan, Secretary of State, that I am an American citizen of good character and entitled to con- sideration as such. The document further gives the interesting details of my height, my age, the color of my eyes and hair, and other information which might come in handy to the police in case I turned out bad or had to be located later on. The Austrian officer, who looked like a Knight Templar in dress uni- form, scanned my papers carefully. I knew he couldn't read a word of English, but he acted as if he did, even to turning the paper over and examining the other side. It seemed to me as if he were hunting an excuse to keep us in his country. I did not help. I talked English, which was just the same to him as parrot talk. Finally he had to ask, "Namen?" and then I pointed to my own name on the proper line. He was evidently relieved, but he sighed and looked distressed. I volun- teered "mit frau" and that helped him some. He wrote what I supposed to be the name in INTO THE BALKAXS 59 Hungarian and gave up the rest, but he never admitted it. A seal was stamped on the paper and it was handed back along with a fine line of Hungarian language to which I carelessly responded (in English) that this was a blamed fool country and that he acted like a chump. I think he said "Thank you" in Hungarian; at least he saluted and smiled. I had the right now to leave Austria-Hun- gary if I could. We were eight miles from Belgrade, and by signs and German words we were made to understand that the rest of the trip must be made in a third-class coach, some- thing like a street car with wooden seats and no upholstering. This car had been sprayed with carbolic acid until its odor was that of a charity ward in a public hospital. All passen- gers of all classes had to complete their jour- ney in this carbolic coach because there was cholera in Servia. Just why we should be thus protected when going into Servia I could not understand, except that it was so ordered by the Austrian government. At any rate it made one know he was going across a bound- ary when he was packed into this car with a 60 THE NEAR EAST lot of folks he couldn't understand and with the sweet smell of carbolic acid as a sort of welcome. The Servian oflScer who received us also read my passport. In German he asked my business, and when I explained that I was a "journalist" he trembled and looked me over to see if I were not an Austrian or Bulgarian come to tell stories about Servia. But he was reassured when I pointed out that I was "Amerikanish," and evidently felt better. At any rate he let us proceed, and we were on Balkan soil, carbolicacidized and wondering, but triumphant. An English-speaking hotel interpreter came to our relief and we were soon in a fourth-story room in the Hotel Moskau. We had not wanted to go so high up in a hotel where, in case of fire and not knowing the language, it might be difficult to get out. But our interpreter had disappeared and the debate was with the porter, who could only answer objections by the word "Lift," which is the Anglo for elevator. He uttered that word w^ith pride and a swelling of the chest which showed that it was an argument that INTO THE BALKANS 61 answered any objection, and we gave up. The "Lift" carried two persons at a time. The porter put us in the cage, shut the door, pushed a button, and off we went four stories high in Servia without even an elevator boy to guide us. But the Lift stopped at the right place, and the porter, who had walked up the stairs, let us out, — and we took the room. By this time I had also managed to get some Austrian money exchanged for Servian money and I felt safe. No matter what country you are in or what language is spoken, the truth is that "money talks." Take a handful of coin out of your pocket and the party ad- dressed will make strenuous and usually suc- cessful efforts to get some of it. With a pocketful of Servian silver and lead and a short but practical vocabulary of German I have been made to feel at home in Belgrade and everybody has been kind and helpful. The Servian language is different from all others, although it is related to the Russian, the Greek, the Sanskrit, and, I think, the Choctaw. But it is a good-enough language 62 THE NEAR EAST for the Servians, and so long as they can stand it I do not know that an American tourist has any right to kick. Belgrade is the capital of Servia and has about 80,000 population. It is beautifully located on a peninsula formed by the Danube and the Save rivers, which is a hill rising steeply about two hundred feet above the river-banks. At the end of the peninsula is the fortress which for centuries was the north- ern outpost of the Turks, after they had been driven out of Hungary and across the Danube. Even after the Servians had become virtually independent the Turkish garrison and the Turkish flag in the impregnable castle were the signs of sovereignty until about forty years ago, when the Servians surprised the Turkish commander, killed the Turkish soldiers and hoisted their own flag. The Sultan appealed to the powers of Europe as to what he should do in this emergency, but they could only tell him to take the medicine. The Turkish Crescent disappeared from the Danube over which it had waved so long, and began its march out of Europe, now so nearly completed. INTO THE BALKANS 63 Under the centuries of Turkish domination Belgrade was only a fort, and the town was not much. When the Servians made it their capital in the last century it began to grow, and now it is booming like a town in western Kansas. There is the strange mixture of the INIoslem and the Christian, the minaret of the mosque and the cross of the Greek Catholics. Little narrow streets with one-story houses, the remnants of the days gone by, are side by side with fairly good-sized buildings in Eu- ropean style on broad avenues. Nearly all the hauling is by oxen and small horses, but there are a half-dozen or more automobiles on the roughly paved streets. Electric lights and candles are both used, and the picturesque garb of the Servian peasant is about equally in evidence with the European clothes modeled on those in Paris and London. There are "boomers" in Belgrade, and there are doubt- less those who regret the vanishing of the good old ways. Last and crowning evidence of Western civilization is a sewer system which has been begun and will take the place of nature's means of cleansing a city, by the use of tlie streets and the rays of the sun. 64 THE NEAR EAST In our hotel there is not only a "lift" but a bath-room, not a "room with bath," but a real bath-room. It was advertised on the stationery, and we decided that this would be a good opportunity to remove the dirt of travel and the odor of the carbolic acid. So the order for a hot bath was given, but it was too late for today. The water is heated by a porcelain wood-burning stove with a boiler on top, occupying a corner of the bath-room. An hour's time is required to heat the water, and this can only be accomplished on notice dur- ing the day. The hotel force was sad, but unable to cope with the situation. All that could be done was to accept the assurance that tomorrow a fire will be made and the water heated and a bath "arranged." So far as tonight is concerned a bath in a washbowl is sufficient for us, as it was for Servians for centuries, — and is yet, so far as any evidence that we can find on inspection of the subject and the Serbs. But Belgrade is marching on. The Servians have licked the Turks and the Bulgarians. Next they will have bathtubs, and then they will be redeemed but uninteresting. The Balkan Powder Box Belgrade, Servia, Aug. 25. In order to understand the conditions, likes and dislikes in what is known as the Balkan Peninsula, it is necessary to know a little of history. There are four separate and inde- pendent countries besides Greece and Turkey, and a new nation now being formed under the direction of the Powers. These four countries are Servia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and llou- mania ; and on the map a generation ago they were part of "Turkey in Europe." In addi- tion to these there is Bosnia-IIcrzegovina, a large chunk of the old Turkey which was gobbled five years ago by Austria-Hungary, and whose people are related to the Servians. These little countries are alike in religion and in race, with such differences as might be ex- pected to arise during a thousand years of warfare, the last five hundred under the domi- nation of the Turk. Before the Christian Era very little is known (05) 66 THE NEAR EAST of the people in tins peninsula. They were barbarians according to Greek standards, and were held as conquered by the Romans. The Romans ordinarily did not change the native customs or religion or blood in the provinces which they annexed to the republic and the later empire. Only in the present Roumania is there evidence of the Roman rule, and the people of that country trace their lineage with more or less correctness back to Roman col- onists who mixed up with the natives, and were afterward run over by Huns, Tartars, Goths and Slavs, but influenced their conquer- ors more than they were influenced by them. About the 6th century the Slavs came out of southern Russia, and their descendants are the Servians. Another lot of Slavs who called themselves Bulgars conquered part of the orig- inal Slavs and occupied about what is now Bulgaria. Montenegro was formed by Ser- vians who fled from Turkish rule to the barren mountains near the Dalmatian coast, and who never did give up to the Turks. All of these people were Christianized by Greek Catholic missionaries, and are of practically the same religion as Russia and Greece. All of them are THE BALKAN POWDER BOX T)? related by race to the Slavs of Russia. All of them have always hated the Moslem, the Ro- man Catholic, and each other. At any time during Turkisli rule they could have thrown off the yoke if thcj' had been willing to unite. They did work it off in the last century by the aid of Russia and the Powers and by the paral- ysis that came upon Turkey. Last year they united to take from the Sultan that part of Turkey inhabited by Slavs and Greeks. They defeated the Turkish armies, captured the de- sired territory, and then fought a fiercer and bloodier war among themselves over a division of the spoils and out of the real hatred which they bore each other. It was a war in which they gouged out eyes, cut off ears and other- wise mutilated the enemy, and while most of the atrocities may have been committed by one side, the other was at least revengeful in kind. In fact, these Christians made the Turks seem respectable, and no doubt the ]\Ioslem soldiers are blushing with shame over their inferiority in cruelty to the Christians when they had a chance. In fact, the Christians of this peninsula are a poor imitation of the real article, much of 68 THE NEAR EAST their religion being superstition handed down from the old pagan time. They never were "converted" except by force, and they never learned to act like Christians as we understand the word. For centuries the Turks had tKe only real religion in the peninsula, and the Christians over whose servitude oceans of tears have been shed were quarrehng over doctrine and killing each other for the love of God. The Turks and the Balkan Christians never got out of the old ruts. In England and Amer- ica our forefathers burned Quakers only 300 years ago. In England Protestants and Cath- olics considered it a glorious act to convert or kill a heretic, probably better to kill — and that was less than 400 years ago. The Turks and Balkaners did not progress until the last gen- eration, and they are not yet over the old ways. But the Balkans are progressing rapidly, and in a few years there will be better thought and better religion. Here in Servia it seems to me the change has already come. Of course the Servians say they are the best of the Bal- kan people. They may be. At any rate they arc getting up to date. Their pride is aroused THE BALKAN POWDER BOX 69 to make Servia one of the modern states of Europe, and they are doing it rapidly. The school teacher is abroad in the land, and that means good-by to superstition, brutality, and dirt. This is a democratic country. It is true that Servia has a king, but that is con- sidered a necessity in order to stand in with Russia and the Powers of Europe. But there are no earls or dukes or nobles. There are no titles and no rich landlords. The people come nearer to running their own affairs in Servia than they do in New York. The Skup- tishina, which is their word for congress, is elected by the people, and what it says will go, whether the king wants it or not. Of course the party in power has gerrymandered the dis- tricts just as they do in Missouri. The objec- tion is raised that there are too many politi- cians in Servia. That is poor talk. Every man ought to be a politician, whether he lives in Servia or Kansas, and not let somebody do the governing for him and then kick on the result. Politics in the Balkans is really inter- national in character. These little countries have been rescued from the Turks by the Powers of Europe directly or indirectly, and 70 THE NEAR EAST every move on the European checkerboard is regarded with personal interest because it will probably affect them. The political parties in Servia have been pro-Russian and pro-Aus- trian. In recent years the Austrian side has nearly disappeared because the Austrians have become friends with the Bulgarians. Austria is the neighbor and best customer of Servia, but the two countries expect to clash sometime over Bosnia or southern Hungary, where the Slav population is large. Russia controls the international politics of Servia, Montenegro, and Roumania. The Powers of Europe are divided into two sides : England, France and Russia against Austria, Germany and Italy. With a knowledge that there is such a mix- ture of race, religion, politics and self-interest in these Balkan states, it is easy to understand why they have been called the "Powder Box of Europe." A little scrap between Servia and Bulgaria might involve Austria and Russia with their respective allies in a big war. Dur- ing the last year Austria has had 200,000 sol- diers mobilized on the Balkan boundary, and Russia has been in almost as warlike attitude. They had to do this because they could not THE BALKAN POWDER BOX 71 tell what might happen. It costs millions of money and a great loss in production to put such armies in the field, even if there is no fight. Right now every one says there will be another war between Bulgaria and Servia within five years. In the country recently taken from the Turks, where Serbs and Bul- gars reside in large numbers, there will be continuous strife, and in fact guerilla warfare between the factions is going on now, with small prospect of coming to an end. So far as I have heard no one in the Balkans is try- ing to stop the fight or to prevent the coming war, for everybody realizes that unless the nature of the Serb and the Bulgar has a radi- cal change they would prefer a fight to a feast. The people of these states have for centu- ries been under the corrupt domination of the Turk. He did not try to change their relig- ion, but preferred that they stay Christian. In fact, the Turk was about the first nation- ality to permit practical freedom of worship. But the Turk did not understand the meaning of the word justice, and he considered himself 72 THE NEAR EAST SO far above a Christian that there was no redress if he killed one. So the Balkaners had only the law of might and the golden rule to do the other fellow as he would do you, and be sure to do him first. They are not to blame for having a lot of the cave man in them. They have had to live that way while the rest of us were going to school and revising religion and science upward. And the Turk, "the terrible Turk" that we have heard so much about, — everybody in the Balkans says he is a better man and was a better ruler than either the Bulgar or the Serb would be, — the latter part depending on who is doing the talking. Something About Servians Belgrade, Servia, Aug. 26. The Servians are a nation of farmers. The cities do not control the elections or the char- acter of the government. The young Servian has not yet yielded to the desire to walk the paved street by electric light, but stays on the farm with his folks. Ninety per cent of the farmers of Servia own their farms, even if over half of these farms do not exceed 12 acres. There are practically no landlords or large land-owners. There is a law which makes it almost impossible to sell a homestead, and at least five acres is exempt from debt and not ehgible to mortgage. The farm is not held in the name of an individual, but of the family, and all have to agree to a sale before it can be made. Consequently there are not many sales. Servia is nearly all tillable land, like Kansas, and raises the same kinds of crops, — corn, wheat, cattle and hogs, not forgetting the omnipresent geese. There are copper and (73) 74 THE NEAR EAST coal mines and some gold production, but the general welfare of the Servians is mostly pro- moted by the grain and livestock. This makes a mighty good start for a progressive nation. Where no one is very rich and no one very poor, where land is fertile and easy to culti- vate, happiness ought to follow, and it will if there are no wars. Schools are generally established, newspapers are cheap, the govern- ment is honest, and laws are enforced. Servia has the makings of a great country. The army is returning from the war, the double war, first against the Turks and then against the Bulgars. Those Servian soldiers look well in their drab unirorms, and today as I saw 10,000 of them march through the streets of Belgrade I felt sure of the future. The Serbs are a bright-minded crowd, and remind me a good deal of the Irish, even to their inability to run away from a fight. They are keen, intelligent, and willing to work if the work is not too hard. I had as guide a Serb who spent thirteen years in the United States, the last part as an expert mechanic in a machine shop, making four or five dollars SOMETIIIXr. AT^O['T SERVIANS 75 a day. He came home to fight the Turk, and I asked him if he was not going back to America. "No," he said. "I respect America. I can make three or four times as much money there. But I have to work overtime, and hard. In Servia I do not make near so much, but I make enough — why should I want to kill my- self in a big shop for more money?" There is a good deal in his philosophy. Many an American kills himself by w^ork with- out knowing it. Nearly all Americans fail to really enjoy life, because they want to make more money, usually for some one else to spend. My Servian friend has an interest in a little land and has saved some money. He will continue to w^ork six or eight hours a day, and in the evening he will sit in the cafe and sip a little slivowitz, or talk politics with his neighbor, or do anything else that he wants to, — and he will be happier than he would be working himself stiff and then having as com- panions only other men equally as tired and incapable of pleasure. The wants of the Serb farmer are few. He usually has two suits of clothes : one he wears 7G THE NEAR EAST from April to October, the other from October to April, often without removing them in the mean time. The summer suit consists of a white or once white blouse and skirt, the latter coming nearly to his knees. He wears home- made shoes and the trousers which come from the skirts are tucked inside gaily embroidered high socks or leggings. All of this clothing is made on the farm, and the only way a dude can show off is to get more embroidery on blouse and leggings. The winter suit is the same up to the darker trousers and a coat made of sheepskin with the wool left on, reversible, so that the wool side can be worn either out or in. I do not consider this costume an es- pecially pleasing one, but it is one the Serb has worn for generations. It looks equally as well as the kind he will get when "progress" reaches men's clothing in Servia. I like the Servian men, and I think I should like the Servian women if they would stand still and be talked to. The real Servian coun- try lady wears a red or yellow or blue shawl about her head, a waist of some equally as modest color, a skirt which comes to above SOMETHING ABOUT SERVIANS 77 where her shoe-tops would be if she wore shoes, with a sht up the side that reveals gaily embroidered white goods, and reveals a plenty. Her feet are bare when at home, but she has leather shoes and embroidered stockings when she comes to town to see the soldiers. The Servian woman is in demand, for she is a worker. When a young man marries he takes the girl to his family's farm, where he has constructed a two-room cottage. They work for his father and mother, but have an actual legal interest in the property, making the family ownership I have spoken of. If a Servian has five sons — and he generally does — they all marry and come to their own httle houses on the home place. The women work •in the fields and are given all the rights that men have along that line, but not the right to vote at the elections. Also, if a man has company the woman is not expected to show up, except to wait on the table. This has been a fighting country for so many genera- tions that the sex which goes to battle also has the best seats at home. When the fight- ing age is passed in Servia and the talking 78 THE NEAR EAST age has come, then man will go back and sit down where he belongs. The men-folks of the family meet every evening in the large parental house to discuss the affairs of the country, while the women are given embroidery work to do. Women have not had much opportunity for education, but that is coming in Servia, and before long the good old customs will probably be given a vig- orous twist. Of course the customs of the country ~ are changing. Here in Belgrade there are many Servians who wear the same clothes that are worn in Paris and Hutchinson. The comfort- able and attractive fez cap is being replaced by the derby and the silk tile. The gaily colored skirt of the peasant girl is giving way in the city to the stove-pipe model now used in the West. When the people here speak of "the West" they mean Germany, France, and England. The Servians are modeling after the civiliza- tion of this West. They have not changed their calendar, and when it is the 26th of August according to our calendar it is the 13th SOMETHING ABOUT SERVIANS 79 of August by theirs. A Roman Catholic pope fixed our calendar, and the Greek Catholic will have none of it. They never had a leap year. Perhaps leap year with its incidental advan- tages is not needed in Servia. A girl here does not take a dowry, but is considered a prize to be paid for. Marriages are not made for love, but because the man needs help. It is no trick at all for a woman to get married if she is stout and healthy, and in fact she will be snapped up first and ahead of a pretty girl by the wise Servian father who selects the help-mate for his son. On a little farm there is no use for machinery and no call for hired hands. The family does all the work and does not have to strain its backs very much in the doing. Where the wants are little the supplying of them is not difficult. The Servian gents have time for war and the women for embroidery. All are happy and comfortable and do not worry about pure- food laws and individual drinking-cups. They never have appendicitis or operations, and they live more contentedly and longer than many who do. Story of the Servians Belgrade, Servia, Aug. 27. The Servians came into the Balkan penin- sula about the sixth century, and occupied practically the territory which they now con- trol, with parts of Austria and Macedonia. They were Slavs, and related to the Russians. They were somewhat modified by the earlier inhabitants, whom they killed, made slaves, or married. Under the Greek empire at Con- stantinople they prospered, and then they es- tablished a nation of their own, fighting the neighbors and sometimes the emperor. About the middle of the 12th century a Servian chief united nearly all of the Balkan territory into a Servian empire, and when the Turks came along 200 years later the empire of Servia held almost complete sway. The Turks would have been stopped if the neighbors had been faithful, but some of them joined with the Turks and the others remained neutral, hop- ing to profit by the overthrow of the Serbs. (80) STORY OF THE SERVIANS 81 Consequently the Turks conquered and de- stroyed all the Servians they could find. Some went to Montenegro and established that little nation which kept its independence. But for the next 400 years the Servians were subject to the Turks, with no rights that their con- querors were bound to respect. The Servians were Greek Christians, and the Turks did not disturb their religion. All the Turks wanted was taxes and women. The Servians made no national effort for freedom, but during the 400 years there was always a bushwhacking war, including the killing of prisoners, the de- struction of property, and general brigandage. The Turks even left local government to the Servians, always providing Turkish governors, tax collectors and soldiers to be maintained, and with license to do as they pleased. It was about the year 1800, when the Turk- ish empire was growing generally weak, that the Servians by chance started on their road to independence. The Sultan was trying to overcome the power of the Janissaries, a part of his own army which was making and un- making sultans. A division of the Janissaries THE NEAR EAST was in charge of the fortress of Belgrade and living off the people of the neighborhood, col- lecting exorbitant tribute but sending none to the Sultan at Constantinople. He notified them to stop it or to please remit his share, and threatened if they did not do so he would send a Christian army against them. Their leaders construed this to mean, as it probably did, that the Sultan would organize a Servian army for their punishment: so they decided to strike first by killing all the leaders who might be used in such an organization. Many of the prominent Servians were thus killed, but the result was a boomerang for the Janis- saries. Under the leadership of a Servian guerilla chieftain, George Petrovitch, called Kara-George or Black George, the Servians rallied and in the name of the Sultan and with his permission they cleaned the Janissaries at Belgrade so that not one escaped. This pleased the Sultan, but when he sent a new governor with a request to the Servians to disperse, now that their fight was won, the Servians swelled up and refused to do so. A real Turkish army was sent to force them to STORY OF THE SERVIANS 83 yield, and they defeated it. This was the first time the Servians had met the Turks in real battle and won. The hoodoo was broken. Then Russia came forward as a friend of the Servians and an enemy of the Turks. Per- haps freedom would have been won, but Na- poleon started on his invasion of Russia and their ally could give them little except advice. The Servians were worn out by fighting for nine years. Without much resistance a Turk- ish force occupied Belgrade, and most of the Servian leaders left the country. Again Ser- via was a Turkish province. But one Servian chieftain had not gone. Milosli Obrenovitch, a prominent farmer, at first played friendly to the Turks. They sought to use him to pacify his people. Rus- sia w^as getting in better shape once more, and after a couple of years fooling the Moslems Mr. Obrenovitch raised the Servian standard and insurrected. lie defeated the Turks in a few small battles, and then he out-maneuvered them in diplomacy. The Turkish hold on things generally was slipping, and the Sultan made a treaty with Obrenovitch in 181G, giv- 84 THE NEAR EAST ing the Servians practically control of their own affairs. Milosh stood at the head with his countrj^men. Everything being nice and smooth, Kara- George came back. In order to please the Sultan and perhaps to strengthen his own po- sition as Boss, Obrenovitch had George's head cut off and sent as a present to the Sultan. This pleased the Turks and made them feel good toward the Servians, and the latter did not seem to mind, for the following year, 1817, they chose Milosh Obrenovitch heredi- tary prince of Servia, a position in which he was confirmed by the Sultan. Prince Milosh was a statesman. He established schools, en- couraged better farming, made improved laws, and generally promoted the progress of Servia and the people. He tried to give the country a liberal constitution, but Russia and the Sultan together forced him to stop that. Mil- osh was a despot, but he was a good one for Servia. He kept the enemy away by diplo- macy and prepared the little country for the future. His political mistake was in having a falling-out with Russia, whose influence was necessary to keep the Turks off, and in 1839, STORY OF THE SERVIANS 85 after 22 j'cars of dcspoting, Milosh was forced to abdicate by the enemies he had made in his home town, led by the Russian consul. His son took his place, but that did not suit the Russians ; so he was forced to skip the country and Alexander Karageorgeovitch, son of Kara-George, was chosen prince in his place. This was the second chapter in the Servian feud, the first having been when Al- exander's father's head was presented to the Sultan. Alexander was not much of a king, and let the Servian pohticians run his policy. They got him crossways with Russia, and the in- fluence of the czar resulted in Alexander being dethroned in 1858, and Milosh Obrenovitch, the original, being recalled to the job to which he was elected in 1817. Milosh was old, and did not live long. His son, Michael Obreno- vitch, succeeded him in 1859, and was a pro- gressive ruler. The Turks still kept a garri- son in the fortress at Belgrade, and it was a sore eye to the Servian people. Alexander demanded that this be removed. The Sultan was being worried by Russia, and asked the Powers of Europe what to do. They did not 86 THE NEAR EAST want a war started in the Balkans, so they ad- vised the Turk to withdraw his garrison and to save his face by placing the fortress at Bel- grade in charge of the Prince of Servia. The Sultan did so, and in 1868 the flag of Turkey disappeared from Servia, although the country was still under nominal allegiance to the Otto- man Empire. Then came another chapter in the Obreno- vitch-Karageorgeovitch argument, which was a good deal like one of the feuds in Kentucky. Michael was assassinated by a bunch of the Karageorgeovitchers. His young cousin Mi- lan was elected prince by the national assem- bly. He helped the Russians in the war with Turkey in 1878, but when peace was con- cluded there was little in it for Servia. Milan got sore on the czar and made friends with Austria, always the enemy of Russia. Then Milan, who had been "prince" of Servia, de- clared himself king, and raised his own salary. The pro-Russian party, led by the Karageor- gites, sought his scalp. He had trouble with his wife. Queen Nathalie, tried to get a di- vorce, and was much talked about. He saw STORY OF THE SERVIANS 87 trouble coming, so in 1889 he abdicated in favor of his youthful son, Alexander. The climax to this chapter will be generally remembered. Alexander was a clever, brutal, unscrupulous cuss, who revoked the liberal constitution promulgated by his father. That did not injure his prospects much, but when he married a lady named Draga, with whom he had previously been living, the enemies of the dynasty got in their work. One night in 1903 while Alexander and Draga were drink- ing highballs and smoking cigarettes, the of- ficers of the army quartered at Belgrade broke into their rooms, killed both of them, threw their bodies into the front yard and slashed them into slivers. It was an awful crime, and the public sentiment of the world was shocked. The Servians took it quietly ; no object in making a fuss or prosecuting any- body, for that would not bring back Alexander and Draga, whom no one wanted back anyway. Peter Karageorgeovitch, grandson of the origi- nal Black George, hurried home from Paris and was elected king by the national assembly. Apparently that ends the feud. There are no Obrenovitches left. King Peter has ruled 88 THE NEAR EAST wisely and economically. His prime minister, Mr. Paschisch, is the real thing in statesman- ship, and also knows how to carry the con- gressional election. Under his administration Servia prepared for the recent war, has money in the treasury, and is steadily advancing. Just to show the progress made, I will il- lustrate. King Peter's oldest son, George, is a rough chap. A couple of years ago in a fit of anger he killed a servant. Public sentiment is so far along in Servia that George resigned his rights to the throne and went to live in Paris and Monte Carlo on a pension. Up to this generation the right of a prince of Servia to kill a servant was unquestioned. Now it does not make him liable to prosecution, but it does injure his political chances. The next brother, Rudolph, who will suc- ceed Peter, is said to be a fine fellow. He fought in the recent war and behaved bravely and well. He is popular, and a marriage is being arranged for him with a Russian princess. The government is building a new palace for him. There is every reason to believe that the feud of the Obrenovitches and the Kara- STORY OF THE SERVIANS 89 georgcovitclies is ended with the end of the Obrens and the coming on of Rudolph. Too much must not be expected of a people who were a conquered race for 400 years and who have only just come into the right to control themselves. They will make mis- takes just as our forefathers did at a similar stage of development. But the Servians have the qualities that make a strong people. As we say, "they feel their oats." They are ready for another war with anybody, Austria preferred, and they will be on the world's active stage in the next few years. A Balkan Paris Bucharest, Roumania, Aug. 29. There is one obstacle to travel in the Near East which is often met and which is hard to get around, — the Cholera. There is always cholera in this country, just as there is always smallpox in ours, but occasionally there is an epidemic which is dignified by a proclamation of war and the Cholera is officially recognized by quarantine regulations. There is no doubt but that cholera is the result of bad sanitation and filth, but it can be communicated to the clean and decent. It comes upon the victim suddenly, and in a few hours he is no more. It goes through a town or a country like a hostile army, leaving a train of death behind, for most cases of cholera, even under modern treatment, do not recover. There is always cholera somewhere; one season it will be at Smyrna, the next in Constantinople, then in southern Russia, and so on, like the march of (m A BALKAN PARIS 91 a mysterious force, and there is no telling where it will break out next. During the recent summer there have been a million soldiers under arms and in camps in the Balkan peninsula. They have picked up the cholera in the slums of the towns or the dirt of the camps, and now as they are return- ing to their homes they are taking germs with them which may develop at any time into an epidemic. There were said to be 200 cases at Belgrade when we were there. The Rou- manians have a number of cases in their army hospitals, and in the south of the peninsula much is reported. Under modern methods of treatment the cholera can be stopped or con- trolled and there is no prospect of a recurrence of one of those plagues which in the past have taken off the people by wholesale. That kind of a scourge is no longer possible in the Near East. But the scare of the cholera is still in the human heart, and as soon as it develops in one place, all the neighbors quarantine against the unforlunate. If you happen to be on the inside of the line it will take you and your baggage at least five days of fumigation before you can proceed. The quarantine is 92 THE NEAR EAST more dreaded by the traveler than is the chol- era. For that reason and the further one that the railroad is not running, having been de- stroyed during the war, it was necessary for us to give up the direct route to Constantino- ple, and detour through Roumania, to go to the Turkish capital by the way of the Black Sea. Roumania is one of the small countries of which little is heard, because Roumania has in recent years been attending to her own busi- ness. Roumania does not consider herself much related to the neighbors. Roumania is a sort of Latin island in a sea of Slavs. Her people are descendants of a colony of Roman soldiers who were sent here by Trajan, mixed with of course and affected by Serbs, Goths, Huns and others who swept across these fertile plains in the early centuries of the Christian Era. But they retain a semi-Latin language and Latin notions of society and life, markedly different from those of the Bulgars, the Serbs and the Russians with whom they are politi- cally related. A BALICAN PARIS 03 During the recent war against Turkey, Rouniania refused to join the alHes, but when the Turks were Hcked and the second war began, Roumania put a fresh army into Bul- garia with a threat of w^ar unless the Bulgars gave Iloumania a slice of territory on the Black Sea. Bulgaria had to come across with the land, and now the lloumanian army is returning home full of enthusiasm — and per- haps cholera. Roumania broke away from the Turks in 1876, by taking part in the Russian-Turkish war. When the Powers of Europe divided the spoils at the Berlin conference they made Roumania practically independent, and au- thorized the selection of a prince. There w^as some difficulty getting an available man for the job. The princes who had anything to do did not care to take a chance on Roumania, which was then considered wild and woolly. Finally a German prince named Charles agreed to try it, after being told by Bismarck that at least the experience would be interesting. That was in 1878, and Charles is still king, having shown himself a fairly wise and popu- lar ruler. The trouble in Roumania was that 94 THE NEAR EAST the land was owned by a few great proprietors. The government has attempted to reheve this situation, and has done so to some extent; but the big ranch is still the curse of the coun- try. You can't make a nation strong or a country right where the people do not own their homes or have a chance to do so. This land is remarkably Hke central Kansas. It is mostly level and is all capable of cultiva- tion. Corn is the principal crop, and the great fields of tall stalks are just hke they are in Kansas when it rains. Horses and cattle are raised for the European market. There is cheap labor and not much farm machinery, although I did see a steam plow tearing up the soil at one place. Roumania is about haK the size of Kansas, but has a mountain range along the north and several big rivers running through it, — good things to have around. It also has rich oil fields, and the Standard Oil Company is fixing the price in this country just as it is in Kansas, U. S. A. This city of Bucharest claims to be "the Paris of the Balkans." In order to live up to the title the people have to stay out late A BALKAN PARIS 95 at night and always be gay. To get a repu- tation of being a "Paris" is for a town much Hke the fate of a man who is pronounced a "sport." Any effort he may make to lead a useful life is hailed as a good joke. Every- body warns everybody else against him, but loves to be seen in his company. The women condemn his morals and chase him for the delightful danger of his society. The men slap him on the back, but they don't loan him any money. Finally he goes broke, gets wrinkled and greasy, nobody notices him, and he doesn't even enjoy the reminiscence of his "sport." I am not saying anything against the folks here in Bucharest. The men step lively, the women are pretty, and divorces are more nu- merous than in any other country in Europe. Their idea is to show how different they are from Russians and Bulgarians, and that they are related to the Italians by descent from forefathers who once went out at night and made Home howl. It is a great responsibility to be a forefather. I doubt if the people of New England would be so self -admittedly good if they did not feel it necessary on account of the old Puritans. Many a Virginian has 96 THE NEAR EAST bankrupted himself because he was a son of a cavaHer and had to cavaHer some himself. So it is that the old Romans who came to this section and took soldiers' claims and native wives, have left an inheritance of pride and playfulness to the present inhabitants of the Roumanian plains and cities. Along with a reputation for being a live town comes the necessity of high taxes. Ev- erywhere I go there is a feeling that taxes are too oppressive and must be higher than in the next place. In the next place they have the same idea, and so it marches on. The government has put Bucharest a good many years in advance of the country. There are parks and playgrounds and palaces. You can't secure or maintain a park without pay- ing the price, and the older the park the more it costs. The streets in Bucharest have been widened and are kept clean. That also costs money. But the burden which bears on these people in Europe is not the park or the palace, but the soldier and his maintenance. Every young man must serve in the army two years and keep up his training by annual drills A BALKAN PARIS 97 thereafter. The government must buy uni- forms and guns and keep them new and up to date. The direct war expense, which is maintained when there is no war, is the load that breaks the worker's back. In Roumania this summer the army was "mobihzed." Under the call every man in Roumania between the ages of 17 and 35 had to quit his job or his office or his store and go to his regiment. You can imagine what that did to business. The same situation prevailed in every one of the Balkan states, except that the others had real war while Roumania merely got ready for one. In Bulgaria every man between the ages of 17 and 45 was in the service. So it was in Servia. Of course the railroads quit running, except for military purposes, stores closed, factories shut down, and work was paralyzed. The women took care of the farms, but in many places in the Balkans there were no crops this year, for lack of labor. You can get the idea of the condition if you think what would be the re- sult in Kansas if every man between the ages of seventeen and forty-five were taken off his work and sent to the army. It is not only 98 THE NEAR EAST the actual expense of military supplies and operations, but it is the loss in production oc- casioned by the withdrawal of effective men from their work. The people have been accepting the situa- tion as inevitable, but there is a sentiment developing in favor of some sort of a change. A burden of taxes, which takes a man's money, part of the best years of his life, and perhaps life itself, is hard to endure. But the Roumanians just now do not seem to mind. They are celebrating their short campaign, talking of the time when they will have to go out again, staying up late nights and trying to deserve the reputation of having in their capital Bucharest, the Paris of the Balkans. I Turkey and the Turk Constantinople, the Different Constantinople, Aug. 30. Last night we sailed on the Black Sea from Constanza, and this morning I went on deck with the usual expectation that disappoint- ment was again due. But it was not so. The Black Sea was black, not a black black but a green black, and black enough to deserve its name. All the morning we sailed along the c^ast of Bulgaria and Turkey, and soon after noon sighted a hilly land which they said was Asia. It did not look like Asia to me. I am not sure just what I expected Asia to look 1 ke, except it should have been different and not so much like Missouri. Asia is the land of the Arabian nights, the caliphs, the khedives a id the curious folk of oriental tale. Aladdin had his wonderful lamp and Abou ben Adhem, may his tribe increase, resided on a back street in an Asiatic villayet, whatever that is. I have never been able to think of Asia as a land where they raised corn and watermelons, (101) 102 THE NEAR EAST but that is just what the telescope showed to be the real condition in Asia this morning. The ship turned into the crack in the wall, the strip of water which divides Europe from Asia, the Bosphorus. This is really a river about a mile to two miles wide, twenty-five miles long, and winding in and out among lofty hills which rise almost directly from both banks. On the slopes of these hills are culti- vated farms, quaint villages of oriental archi- tecture, domed and minaretted, ruins of cas- tles, towers and fortresses, all the greens that vineyards, fields and woods can make, houses and palaces of white, the Bosphorus blue as the foreground and the sky blue as the back- ground, — a picture panorama for the twenty- five miles. Then comes Constantinople as the climax, stretching up and over the hills with its mass of white buildings, its cypress groves, its mosques and palaces. The blue water of the Golden Horn, covered with ships and boats, with sails and flags, runs right through the center of the city almost at right angle from the Bosphorus on the European side, a harbor different from all others and a scene that must stick so long as memory will last. CONSTANTINOPLE, THE DIFFERENT 103 The ship came into the dock, and amid the noise of the traffic, the calls of the carriers, the jabber of a dozen languages and the com- bination of a hundred smells, we followed the Turk who carried our baggage on his back to the custom-house. With the help of a hotel interpreter our passport was examined and permission stamped upon it for us to enter the country. With some awe I approached the customs examiner, who stood behind a counter. I told him what I wanted in English, and he politely waved his hand. I waved my hand at him and said "baggage" in all the languages in which I know the word. He said a few words in Turkish and looked pleas- ant. I started to open the bags, but he shook his head gently. We waited a moment, and then I came to and handed him a quarter. He smiled. I had at last used a language he understood. He marked every piece of bag- gage with the Turkish sign that means "O. K.," bowed politely, and said something which I presumed meant that he welcomed us to the city and hoped that we had plenty more pi- asters where those came from. I smiled, and said he was a grafter, which he 104 THE NEAR EAST doubtless thought was an American expression indicating that I considered him a great man. With such mutual smiles and compliments the *' examination" of our baggage was concluded and the porter led the way to a carriage. It is all up-hill in Constantinople. Every street is paved with cobblestones and a Turk- ish driver keeps his horses on the run. Ours had understood when I spoke the name of the hotel to which we were going, and in a few minutes, on about the fortieth bounce, we reached a place where English is spoken and the charges are accordingly high. Constantinople is easy to understand geo- graphically. The "Golden Horn" is an arm of the Bosphorus running westerly, about five miles long, a mile wide at the entrance, and tapering gradually so that it is really the shape of a long trumpet-horn. The part of the city south of the Golden Horn is Stamboul. This is the olil original city, where the Greek emperors lived, with the ancient walls and ruins. It is the Constantinople of history, tradition, religion, and crime. Across the Golden Horn to the north is Galata, where the CONSTANTINOPLE, THE DIFFERENT 105 big boats land, and up on the hill from Galata is Pera, where the foreigners live. Across the Bosphorus on the Asiatic side is Scutari. All of these are merely names for different parts of the city of Constantinople. Stamboul is practically all Turkish and so is Scutari. Ga- lata and Pera are primarily sections occupied by Greeks, Armenians, Jews and other oriental races, including the various and peculiar mix- tures of race which make the whole Levant kin. Europeans and Americans stay in Pera. The population of Constantinople is about 1,200,000, two-thirds of whom are Turks liv- ing mostly in Stamboul and Scutari, and about a third are "the others." In the daytime Armenians, Greeks, Jews, etc., go freely every- where in Stamboul on business, but it is healthier for them to return to their own quarters after sunset. One of the first local institutions which at- tracted my attention was the money-changers. Turkish money is peculiar and hard to calcu- late, but that is not the reason for the chang- ers. When you make a purchase you are sup- posed to furnish the exact or nearly exact 106 THE NEAR EAST change. The merchant, who usually has a store about four feet square or smaller, has no safe or money drawer. Every place you go there is a money-changer, who charges you a very little for changing your money. There are 4,000 such money-changing shops in Con- stantinople. Not one of them is managed by a Turk. All the money-changers are Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Arabs, or some nationality other than the Turks. The Turk doesn't care for such business, considers it beneath him, and could not run it successfully if he tried. Another new one on me is Turkish time. Instead of beginning at noon the count starts at sunset. If the sun sets today at 7 o'clock our time, then at 8 o'clock it will be 1 o'clock Turkish, at 9 o'clock it will be 2 o'clock, and so on. Tomorrow night the variance will be different. When the sun sets at ten minutes of seven the Turkish time begins then, and at ten minutes of eight it is one o'clock, and so on. When a Turk promises to pay you at ten o'clock you want to find out which kind of time he is figuring on. His month is a moon CONSTANTINOPLE, THE DIFFERENT 107 month, of 28 days, so this montli of Ramazan, which has been ahiiost the same as our August this year, will slip back next year and in a few years will be in the spring. Just to complicate the situation in Con- stantinople the Greeks and other Greek Cath- olic people, who make up about one-fourth of the population of Constantinople and a very effective fourth, use their calendar, which is thirteen days behind ours. Christmas with us is their December 12tli. The Greeks and Armenians celebrate the same Sabbath we do, the Jews have theirs on our Saturday, and the Turks theirs on our Friday. The Greek Catholics have a lot of holidays, the Roman Catholics have another lot, the Turks have a third installment, besides sev- eral national days. On the Turkish calendar this is the year 1292, their count beginning with the year that Mohammed skipped out of Mecca. You will see that there is plenty of oppor- tunity to get confused in Constantinople over dates and times. The only advantage I can see is to the children, for there are two Christ- 108 THE NEAR EAST mases, two 4th of Julys and any number of Thanksgiving and April Fool days. There is no city in the world so cosmopoli- tan as Constantinople. London and New York are such by population, but the elements in those cities do not present such startling variations in such close proximity and in ap- parently such harmonious relations. The man driving a donkey down the street may be a Turk, an Armenian, a Greek, a Jew, a Syrian, an Arab, a Kurd, a Bulgarian, an Egyptian, Albanian, or any one of a dozen or more such people. The sailor or the merchant or the man in the carriage may be an Italian, a Ger- man, an Englishman, a Frenchman, or "a westerner." There is apparently no feeling of race prejudice, and the color line is not even considered. Going down the street you will probably meet all these peoples whom I have named and a lot more you never heard of be- fore, but which have a history and perhaps a religion so much older than ours that it makes us feel like new-comers sure enough. These orientals keep their old habits and their old costumes. The Arab, the Bedouin CONSTANTINOPLE, THE DIFFERENT 109 and Egyptian are wearing the same clothes that they do in the pictures. The fez is the universal head covering and the turban is as common in Constantinople as a stiff hat is in Kansas City. A straw hat or derby makes people turn around and look. By race, by rehgion and by appearance Constantinople is certainly the most peculiar aggregation of queer folks that ever got together since the work was interrupted on the Tower of Babel. The Turk Up Close Constantinople, Aug. 31. It is sad to relate, but Constantinople looks better and more picturesque from the Bos- phorus than it does from its own streets. Many of the buildings which loomed up in the distance like mansions of marble turn out to be rather plain-looking houses of cement with big patches fallen off. There are frame structures in Constantinople, and I know of no other European city which has them. The streets are narrow, very few being large enough for carriages to pass, and many are merely long flights of stone steps climbing up the hill. The words street and sewer are almost synon- ymous. While all this oriental difference from Western cities is interesting, to get close is often hard on the olfactory nerve. It has been my general experience that picturesque places and people are accompanied by unpleasant smells. Even in Holland, where the folks are clean, the odor of strong (110) THE TURK UP CLOSE 111 soap can be heard on every side. And in the East you can put it down as an axiom that the most picturesque will upon examination be found to be the most unsanitary. When I see a man with a costume like a Bible pic- ture I imagine he has not taken a bath since Easter, when he changed his clothes. The glimpses I have had of the alleged Circassian beauties make me believe that they just var- nish over with paint and powder, ignorant of the use of soap and w^ater. All the stories about the East tell much of the habit of "go- ing to the bath." My information here is that the women go to the bath not to bathe but to be perfumed, to smoke cigarettes, and tell gossip and questionable stories. In Amer- ica the women get the news from the papers and at the millinery shops, but here they must rely upon the baths. I do not know if the bathhouse news is any more reliable than that in the American papers, but it certainly must be just as interesting. The streets are so narrow that carriages and wagons can only be used on a few. The greatest part of the local freight is carried 112 THE NEAR EAST upon the backs of men — literally upon theii backs, for they bend over in shape triangular and there is a regular saddle on their back upon which the burden is placed. One of these porters will carry as much as a couple of big trunks, or a basket of goods as tall as the man, and do it as easily as an American would take home two pounds of beefsteak. The donkey is used a great deal, the burden being distributed on both sides, and the led pack- horse is very frequent. On the wider streets buffalo are used like oxen — big, strong black fellows who move slowly and ungracefully but picturesquely. The passenger carriages are victorias drawn by horses, and the driver keeps his team at top speed. When your carriage goes down a street about fourteen feet wide and no side- walk, meeting men carriers, donkeys, horses and footmen, your driver cracking his whip and almost running over someone at nearly every step, you wonder why the crowd does not mob you. But they don't, merely taking it out in profanity if they are Christians or curses if they are Moslems. There are a few automobiles in Constanti- THE TURK UP CLOSE 113 nople, very few, and those I think owned by the government. An automobile has about as much propriety in Constantinople as a bulldog would have in a basket of kittens. Up and down every street go the street merchants, selling and crying their goods, ev- erything from Persian rugs to candy. To go into business here one does not need a store building or an insurance policy. Just put your stock of wares on your back, walk the street and try to holler louder than your competitor. No appropriation is needed for advertising so long as your lungs hold out, and there is no overhead expense to be figured into the cost. To get the idea of Constantinople, imagine the narrow and not clean streets, filled with the carriers, donkeys, buffalos, merchants and noises I have tried to describe, then add one hundred per cent, and you will have a con- servative appreciation of the daily appearance of the greatest city in the Near East. On one point I have been greatly disap- pointed. Every traveler who visited Con- stantinople has written or told of the dogs which did the scavenger work, had regular 114 THE NEAR EAST organizations with details of dogs for each street, and all that sort of thing. The dog story is over. So are the dogs. After the Young Turks came into power five years ago they instituted several reforms, and one was the abolition of the dog street-cleaning depart- ment. It made a lot of trouble for the gov- ernment, as many of the Old Turks considered the dogs almost sacred. But some young Turk thought up a plan which worked. Gangs of men went over the city, picked up the dogs with long wooden tongs, and put them into carts. You can imagine how a cart-load of dogs thus selected would fight each other. The carts were taken on a boat to an island, and those dogs which were still alive were turned loose with nothing to eat. They killed one another, and finally the last one starved. Notice the fine philosophy of the Turk. The government did not kill the dogs. The dogs killed themselves. This suited the Turkish temperament, whether as a religious theory or a bit of humor I don't know. At any rate, the dogs are all gone and the government still lives. Incidentally this gives you a side light on THE TURK UP CLOSE 115 the Turkish character, and shows how calmly brutal the Turk can be without even thinking such a thing of himself. The most impressive feature of Stamboul is not the Mosques, but the Bazaars. About four hundred years ago a sultan built this large one-story stone structure, with interior streets covered with arched roofs, and lighted from the top. There are 4,000 separate shops in this one structure, and it takes great nerve to go through the queer streets and not be separated from more money than you in- tended. The best minds of Greece, Armenia, Judea and Turkey are pitted against the con- fused Tourist, and they always get him more or less. The "one-price store" does not exist. The price of a rug or a brass set, or an antique coffee-pot, or a dirk-knife used by Mohammed, or a cigarette case inlaid with silver or nickel, is always started at a high enough figure to command respect. Then the "bargaining" proceeds amid protestations in imknown lan- guages, appeals to God as a witness, compli- ments in pigeon English, and assurances, guar- antees and supplications, — all on one side, — 116 THE NEAR EAST and amusement, admiration, confusion, re- fusals, more refusals not so loud, concessions, wonder, doubt, and final surrender on the other. They are good merchants, these highway- men of the Bazaars. They do have very in- teresting stuff, especially for children and Americans. When you get back to the hotel you are likely to discover where you were fooled — but you did have a glorious time. Quite often in the Bazaars the hopeful mer- chant will invite you to take a cup of coffee. Turkish coffee on the home place is not so bad as it is in America. As every one knows, Turkish coffee differs only in the making. The Turk puts a teaspoonful of sugar and a tea- spoonful of finely ground coffee into enough water for a small cup, and boils the mixture. It is served and drunk without any settling process, grounds and all. It is a bad habit easily formed. Everywhere in Constantinople a visitor is treated pleasantly, or he is if he looks as if he had any money. In this respect the Turks THE TURK UP CLOSE 117 are a good deal like New-Yorkers. One soon gets over the first apprehension excited by the oriental surroundings, and realizes that just because he wears a straw hat and a tailored suit the Turks and the near-Turks are looking at him with as much curiosity as he is at them. Of course if he is a woman he should get off the sidewalk and let the gentlemen go by. That is oriental custom. But the Turk is po- lite and pleasant enough in his own yard, al- though you realize that he really considers you a "dog ;" and I have narrated the humor- ous manner in which he disposed of the dogs. The Turk, Gentleman Constantinople, Aug. 31. The Turk is the only real gentleman in Europe, measured by the standard that a gen- tleman is a man who doesn't work and won't work. The Turk will fight, he will endure, he will fast, he will die, but he will not work. He does not get the idea at all. For genera- tions back he has been a soldier, and a gov- ernor of conquered people who provided him with means of support, or he killed them or they killed him. There was no word in the dictionary of his life which meant hard labor or wise management. His wants were sim- ple, — a wife or two (more if he could afford them), bread, tobacco, and time to think. His education consisted in learning to read the Koran and in discussing [philosophical ques- tions. As a governor of the conquered he failed because he had no executive ability, no foresight, no common-sense. His only idea was to get all he could out of the taxpayers (118) THE TURK, GENTLEMAN 119 now and let the future take care of itself. He built no roads, he developed no mines, he in- vented no process or machine. He merely enjoyed the life that was before him, consid- ered all other people beneath his notice, and rested assured that in the sweet by-and-by he would be in Heaven with Houris to comfort him in the millions of years to come. If he lost a fight — it did not matter, it was only fate. If Bulgaria won her independence — fate. If Italy took Tripoli — fate. He fought to the fmish, but did not worry about his losses, and right now when his country is apparently go- ing to smash and the high cost of living has reduced the ordinary Turk to small victuals and only one wife, he calmly puts all the re- sponsibility on his God and sits and meditates as he did when everything was coming his way. Like the Christian, he believes that "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform," but unlike the Christian he ac- cepts what happens as being the will of God and therefore to be accepted by His people. The Turkish race came out of Asia at the head of the Mohammedan procession, and has 120 THE NEAR EAST always kept that place. There are three hun- dred million Mohammedans in India, many millions in Persia and Africa, who are not Turks, but they recognize the Turkish relig- ious leadership. The Turk was the soldier of the Moslem invasion, and won because his armies were united in one religious belief, while the Christian enemies were divided and hostile to each other. His religion has always been the military strength of the Turk. When he came to the era of statesmanship he was an utter failure, and Turkey would have disap- peared from the map a century ago if it had not been held there by the jealousies of Eu- rope. The Bulgarians could have gone into Constantinople this year if they had wished, but they knew Russia and Austria would never let them keep that conquest, so they stopped. The Turk has failed because he was only a soldier and a gentleman, and when he was outnumbered and defeated the gentleman business did not buy him anything. The Western world has no use for a nation or a man who will not work, and whether his fail- ure is due to laziness or to fate makes no dif- ference to the peoj)le of the West. The Ori- THE TURK, GENTLEMAN 121 cntal does not understand this and will not learn, so there is nothing for him but to get off the earth, which he is doing at a very rapid rate. The Turk washes his face and hands five times a day and prays after every ablution. He may not wash the rest of him once a year, and he often looks as if he did not. He cares absolutely nothing for such things as sewers, pure water and germ theories. They are buck- ing his Allah and he looks upon them as her- etical even when urged by some of his own leaders. His father was a Turk, his grand- father, and so on. His mother was probably not a Turk, but that makes no difference in his character, only in the color of his eyes and hair. From his boyhood he has understood that he is the Real Thing, that Christians and Jews are dogs, and that no matter what hap- pens his own title is clear to the Mansions in the Mohammedan skies. I have found a great change of feeling to- wards the Turk recently. In Servia I was told that the Turk was a gentleman and a 1£2 THE NEAR EAST scholar compared with a Bulgarian. The Bul- gars prove bej^ond a doubt that the Greeks are more cruel in their treatment of Bulgarians than the Turks ever were. Greeks in Adri- anople are now asking that that city be left in the hands of the Turks, who, they say, are better to the Greeks than are the Bulgarians. Every one of these little quarreling states that has for years been making us shed buckets of tears over the atrocities of the Unspeakable Turk now testifies that the Turk is better than the Christians on the Balkan peninsula, except himself. The fact is that judged by the standards of four centuries ago the Turks are all right, but they are still on those standards. They had the habit of treating their Christian subjects kindly, not interfering with their religious wor- ship, only asking that the "dogs" provide for their masters. They were the conquerors, and when they came into Europe it was the rule everywhere that the conquered become the slaves of the victors. Times have changed since then, and the Turks cannot understand what's the matter. They know they have not changed and that they are only carrying out THE TURK, GENTLEMAN 123 the teachings of Molianimcd. The Turk right now is neither angry nor upset, but looks with surprise upon the progress of events and says "kismet," which is his foohsh word for fate. Every Turk wants an ofTicial position, and he wants it to make money for himself. He will accept a janitorship in a public building rather than engage in business. As soon as he secures a position he begins to graft, and if he did not do so he would be looked upon with suspicion. Let a foreigner try to get some business done with the Turkish govern- ment, and he must begin to bribe with the porter at the outer gate and keep it up at every door he enters clear to the top of the department. The point of view is exactly op- posite from ours, for the Turk makes no secret of his graft and no pretense of refusing it. He usually pays some superior for his job with the understanding that he will reimburse him- self with profit. It was always the Turkish custom to sell ai)pointments, and often a Greek or Jew would bid highest and get it. And it is the general testimony that a Greek or a Hebrew could out-Turk the Turks when 124 THE NEAR EAST it came to collecting taxes and not turning them in to the government. It is difficult to tell these folks apart. Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Syrians, Arabs and others of the Near East wear the same clothes, the same fez hat, the same complexion, the same smells. A friend who has lived for years in Constantinople says there is no sure way of distinguishing the men of these races, and yet they differ greatly in race, religion, and lan- guage. At first I thought everybody who wore the fez was a Turk, or at least a Moham- medan, but that was wrong, for the fez is worn by all. It is also worn all the time, even at meals, when a hat is removed. The Turk does not use intoxicating liquor, for it is forbidden by his Bible. Occasionally there is a departure from the straight and narrow path, and he is allowed to drink beer, for beer was not mentioned by Mohammed, and is disguised as "barley water." The Turk is not quarrelsome, not even over relig- ion, for he is perfectly willing that all the Christians and Jews shall go to hell if they want to do so — he will not argue. He does THE TURK, GENTLEMAN 125 love to drink coffee at any and all times, and he consumes cigarettes by the wholesale. He never uses cigars, and his only pipe is the nargileh, with which he draws the smoke through water. Speaking of the use of tobacco, I am re- minded of something important I want to say. In Turkey, as in Austria, Italy and several other countries, the government has a monop- oly on the manufacture and sale of tobacco in all forms. The result is poor tobacco at a high price. Every time the government needs a little more money, I suppose it mixes more cabbage-leaf with the tobacco. I am in favor of the government doing a good many things. In Europe I have grown accustomed to the government running the railroads, the tele- graphs and the telephones. I am not disposed to put any rocks in front of the wheels of Progress. But if our government ever pro- poses to go into the tobacco business with the usual monopoly, count me as a reactionary. Let me warn every man and every woman who smokes or chews, that the government ownership of the tobacco industry is a delu- sion, a snare, a pitfall, an atrocity, or some- 126 THE NEAR EAST tiling equally as bad, and should never be submitted to by a smoke-loving people. The "Turkish cigarettes" sold in America are made in Egypt or Virginia. All that is Turkish about them is the name and the price. The gentleman Turk, as he enjoys his smoke, does more toward maintaining his government than he intends, and he gets less for his money than he would anywhere else. He sits and smokes and thinks, and regards all the rest of us as mere scum of the earth, in which he is doubtless partially correct. The Harem Habit Constantinople, Sept. 1. In my judgment a Turkish woman has mighty httle chance in this world, and accord- ing to the Turkish rehgion she has very httle in the next. From the time a girl is about twelve yesLts old she must keep her face cov- ered from the sight of men. If she belongs to the poor folks she is little more than a laborer ; if her family is upper-class she is almost a toy. There is no such thing as a family or a home as we understand the words. The w^omen do not eat with the men, and often hardly see them. One part of the house is called the harem, or the woman's place, the other the selamlik, or men's place. Only the father or husband can go into the harem, and he can do so at any time except when there are women visitors. Other male members of the family or men friends of the man of the house never see the faces or talk with the women of the harem. The woman leaves the house only (127) 128 THE NEAR EAST when given permission, and then is always attended. She can put in her time with em- broidery, gossip, cigarettes, candy and coffee, but she must not look at a man, — and get caught at it. Polygamy is not merely a Turkish custom. It has been common in the Orient, and even as wise a man as King Solomon had enough wives to ruin anyone but a monarch with a fat bank account. I am told polygamy is not near as general in Turkey as it was. That is because it is an expensive habit. The main- tenance of a large harem is as depleting to the pocketbook of the boss of the harem as it is to keep a stable of race-horses in our country. But the possession of several wives is con- sidered an evidence of wealth and standing. As near as I can figure it out, to have a harem in Turkey is about like having an automobile in Kansas. Every man has one who can af- ford one, and a good many have them just to keep up appearances when they can't really stand the expense. Sultan Abdul-Hamid, who was deposed five years ago, had a large col- lection of wives. One way for anyone who wanted a favor to stand in with Abdul was THE HAREM HABIT 129 to give him a wife. He actually had some wives whom he never met. And Abdul had a habit of rewarding a good friend who had loaned him money, or killed some one for him, by presenting him with a bride. There is no thought of " marrying for love " among the Turks. When a young man reaches the age of about eighteen his motlier goes wife- hunting, reports to father and son what there is in the market, and they pick out the best match possible. The bridegroom does not see the bride until after the ceremony. That is one way to get married. The other way is to buy a good-looking husky Circassian, or some other breed. This eliminates the ex- pense of a wedding and is the way preferred. A wife who comes to her husband with prop- erty, retains the right to that property. But the slave wife does not and cannot act inde- pendently. If she has children she is no longer a slave but becomes just as legal a wife and free woman as anyone. The mother is the important woman mem- ber of a man's family. A boy is considered of great importance, and the mother rejoices 130 THE NEAR EAST over him and makes much of him. After he is fourteen years old his mother is the only woman he sees. She advises him and makes his marriage for him. If she then lives with him she is the head of of the harem and not the wife, who must look to her own son for her future. According to the Mohammedan religion when a faithful follower dies he goes to Heaven to enjoy life, with beautiful Houris to enter- tain him. There is nothing said of meeting his wife there, or of her being there at all. Mohammed promised his soldiers a high old time if they died in the faith. With such a religion there is not much inducement for sew- ing societies, but every reason why the men should stick to services and prayers. With such a religion it is easy to see why a Turk takes as many wives as he wants and can support, but I wonder how long the Turkish women will stand for their own peculiar posi- tion. At first it was a little surprising to meet women with veil masks, but one soon got used to it. One grows accustomed to anything — THE HAT? EM HABIT 131 veils or tight skirts as the case may be. The women were usually in little groups and at- tended, and would scurry along like a covey of quails. The harem apartments in the houses have their windows covered with lat- tice-work. Occasionally I would imagine that from behind a lattice some Turkish lady was watching the American tourists, but you can't even see a wink through a lattice. I wanted to go into a harem. A newspajjer friend said he believed it could be arranged, but the best he could do was to get an opportunity to visit a harem occupied only by a widow 60 years old. I remembered the stories of what hap- pens to men who are caught in harems, and decided that I did not care near so much as I thought I did. I had no desire to cause any international complications, by being sliced or shot by a Turk. I did get to see several Turk- ish women with their veils up, but not one of them seemed to me to be sufficient inducement to take a chance. I was told that the women age early and do not develop good looks, even if they had a start before they entered the harem. With few exceptions they are not ed- ucated, and the life of a bunch of women be- 132 THE NEAR EAST hind lattices and with nothing to stimulate them but gossip and tobacco is not calculated to make them as attractive as they would be if they had a little sunshine in their souls, or even a recognition that they had souls. There is very little in the talk of progress among the Turkish ladies. Firstly, they do not know anything outside of their present condition. Secondly, the present way is the style, and Turkesses are different from most people because they will be stylish. When the Young Turks revoluted a few years ago several Turkish ladies appeared on the street without veils, only to be beaten and chased home by the other ladies. I think the lack of the home is the weakness of the Turk that has brought him ruin. He misses entirely the cooperation and help of a wife. He has grown in on himself for gener- ations. He is selfish and tyrannical. His wife does not even dare say that he smokes too much and thus make the suggestion of econ- omy which is universal elsewhere. He rejects THE HAREM HABIT 133 the help of the better half, and the only won- der is that he has lasted as long as he has. Imagine the kind of a young man you would raise who after fourteen years of age never saw a woman's face except his mother's — at least that is what he says. Then pick out for him a wife he never saw and let him buy some more if he can afford it. Such a young man would naturally be brutal and cruel without knowing the fact. Then imagine the girl you would raise without her talking to any man except her father, and select a husband for her without her help. Give her an education in embroidery and fill the man up with in- struction in the Koran and its promise of Heaven and Houris for men only. The result of such a combination would be bankruptcy and failure, and that is exactly what has hap- pened to the Turk. The "harem" has been the center around which has revolved many a romance of fiction. I doubt if there is much romance in the reality. No doubt there is human nature left, and the harem ladies will flirt if they have a chance. But behind the stone walls and the lattice- work, guarded by a mother-in-law and by a 134 THE NEAR EAST eunuch, a game of drop-the-handkerchief would doubtless be regarded as a mortal sin, worth trying once. The result is that the women do not live long, and while they are doubtless well protected and fed, their lives as such are not eventful or effective. The harem habit in Turkey will not be broken unless the women produce a leader for themselves who will take the soft side of an ax to the religion that refuses them a place in the Hereafter or the Now. The ProbEcin of the Turk Constantinople, Sept. 2. There has been a Turkish problem in Europe for five hundred years. At first the problem was to stop the advance of the Moslems be- yond the Balkans. Then the problem was to recover freedom for the subject Christians in the Balkans. For a century the problem has been for the Christian governments to keep the Turkish government alive in Europe in order to prevent each other getting the bulk of the estate. Three months ago the problem seemed to be about solved and the Turk driven into a little corner around Constantinople, awaiting the final shove that would send him back to Asia from whence he came five centuries ago. The Balkan states had laid aside their jeal- ousies long enough to wallop the Turks — something they should have done long before. But just as this happened, the feud broke forth again, and while Bulgaria was being (135) 136 THE NEAR EAST pounded over the head by Greece and Servia for trying to grab too big a share, the Turkish army marched back into Adrianople and re- covered the really valuable part of their losses. They not only got back Adrianople, but they regained their self-confidence and their nerve. They know now that the Balkan allies will not combine again in this generation, and that either side will ally itself with the Turks if the Moslems wish. The Turk is back on the map to stay a while. Defeated in war by Italy and then by the Bal- kans, he has more compact territory and his enemies are divided and somewhat discredited. Three months ago his hold on the Bosphorus was weak. Now it is really stronger than it has been for many years. The dislike of the Moslem has been obscured among the Chris- tian neighbors by their hatred of each other, and if the Turkish character could only pro- gress in government there would be no further crusading against him. The problem now is whether or not the Turk can change his view- point — a good deal like the leopard changing his spots. THE PROBLKM OF THE TURK 137 And yet the Turks may change. The Japs did and the Chinese are doing so. Who will say that the greatest progress of the next century will not be in Asia, where there are hundreds of millions learning to telephone, ride on electric railways, and to govern them- selves.^ The Turk is an Asiatic, and he feels the stir. So do his neighbors in Arabia, Persia, and India. At my hotel in Constantinople there was a banquet of Syrian public men, about forty or fifty. Some wore the old cus- tumes but most had European dress suits. Their bill of fare was that of Paris and their after-dinner speeches were exactly like those at the Kansas Day Club in Topeka. Of course I could not understand their talk, but I was told that they were organizing to pre- sent their demands for better local government and more offices for Syrians to the Turkish ministry. These leaders are men of good in- tellect, and if they get started on the right track they will move very rapidly. Turkey has a constitution now, with a par- liament elected by the people. As a matter of fact it has been dominated by selfish fac- tions, and was chosen by voters who did not 138 THE NEAR EAST yet know what they were doing. And the Young Turk government has not been much of an improvement over the Old Turk — a good deal like a revolution in American politics by which the outs get the offices and then go ahead doing exactly what they criticized about the old ins. The fault is the lack of that pa- triotism which desires to serve the country for the country's good and not use office as a private snap. And this fault, as I have said before, is temperamental and therefore hard to change — some say impossible. I was talking with an acquaintance I made, an Englishman born in Turkey and in business here as his father was before him. He told me the Turk is really a likeable character, personally honest, temperate, dependable and fair, better than his Christian neighbors. My English friend said the bad qualities in the Turk were his theory that a public office is a chance to get rich, and his disinclination to work. The latter comes from the generations which were never anything but soldiers and made their conquered subjects do the work, and the former results in a government rotten THE PROBLEM OF THE TURK 139 all the way through. These are two serious flaws in the charaeter of any people, but still they are considered about as good as the neighbors who regard themselves as civilized and progressive. Our Consul at Constantino- ple is responsible for the theory that the Turks are going' to make a forward movement very soon, and that the next great stir will be in Asia and not in Arizona. I did not meet the Sultan, Mohammed the Fifth. If I had waited until Friday I could have seen him go to church, but that is not near the circus parade it was under the old sultan, Abdul-IIamid. Abdul w^as about the last of the sultans of the kind that history and romance will tell about. The present sultan is a nice old man who spent the 25 years of his life prior to getting this place in close con- finement, not even being allowed to read the newspapers. Take a man who does not know what has happened for 25 years, and give him a rather studious disposition, and he does not make a Turkish sultan such as you read al)out. Abdul kept Mohammed in jail and now Mo- hammed has Abdul in the same situation. 140 THE NEAR EAST But Mohammed is content to let his ministers do the governing and thus hold his job and keep out of jail. The dominant political party, the Young Turks, manages affairs and has not permitted any second parliamentary election. Nobody is supposed to know where the old Sultan Abdul is, but everybody does. You can't confine a man with a bunch of wives and not have the news get out, even in Turkey. Abdul-Ham id was suspicious and ran his own government. If you wanted to bribe anybody you could go right to the Sultan. He put all the money he could scrape together into his own pocket, and even now is said to have large balances in European banks, suf- ficient to enable him to organize a big revolu- tion if he could get his freedom and his check- book. Only a few of Abdul's wives exercised tlie privilege of remaining with him, and a large colony of his associates in matrimony are now supported by the government in one of the palaces on the Bosphorus. Up to five years ago the Turkish army was composed entirely of Moslems. Every Turk THE PROBLEM OF THE TURK 141 had to serve three years and every non-Mos- lem subject had to pay a tax instead. The revolution brought the dream of all citizens of Turkey being treated alike, regardless of religion. Christians were compelled to do military service. The result was that when the war began many Greeks preferred their motherland to their adopted country. I talked with a Greek merchant who told me with some pride of his two sons who bolted the Turkish army and joined the Greek. Such a condition, coupled with poor preparation and rotten management, demoralized the Turkish troops from the start and accounts partly for the poor showing they made against the Bal- kaners. On the European shore of the Bosphorus and looking from the high hills across to Asia are two institutions which are doing their part in solving the Turkish problem, the American School for Girls and Roberts Col- lege. They are maintained on funds furnished by Americans who want to make their money count for something in the world's advance- ment. Roberts College has been in existence 142 THE NEAR EAST forty years, and has graduates all over the Le- vant. This year over 500 young men, mostly Turks, Bulgarians and Greeks, will be edu- cated on the theory that they should make this world a better world, and along the same lines that they study in Kansas, from mathe- matics to football. It is a great step when you get a young Turk to think that book knowledge is better than loafing in front of a cafe, or teach an Albanian that football is a better sport than sticking a dirk into an en- emy. The college in this country not only has to furnish education, but it must change the viewpoint and habits of its students. This is not so hard to do, for ambition is found in every race, and when the focus is put in the right spot the light will reach there. An American in Constantinople will note, with regret, that the flag of his country does not appear in the harbor. He will find that the banking business is in the hands of the English, French, and Germans. All the im- portant lines of trade are owned and managed by other people than the Turks, but not by Americans. The United States does not figure THE PROBLEM OF THE TURK 143 in the concert of the Powers that is eternally mixing into the affairs of the government. But the great school for girls, the only real college for boys, are under the stars and stripes with their instruction in our language and by our young men and women. When the Amer- ican looks upon these things his heart will beat with a higher patriotism, for while the other nations of the West are making dollars, the Americans are helping to make men and women whose influence will grow and be the greatest factor in solving the Turkish problem. Greece Up to Date Amon^ the Greeks Athens, Greece, Sept. 5. One naturally brings a lot of sentiment to Greece. The country he is visiting is not the projecting corner of the Balkan peninsula ruled by King ConsLantine, but the land of which Homer sang, where Pericles buildcd, and Socrates and other great men thought out things which our centuries since have not im- proved. When the Egyptian boat upon which we came across the ^Egean Sea neared the coast of Greece, it seemed to me that the shores should look different and the sky should be bluer than in the lands from which we came. But the mountain-sides w^ere bleak and there were no electric signs on the harbors from which the Greeks used to go out and conquer or colonize all the world they knew. We steamed into the port of Piricus, selected by Themistocles, the great Athenian admiral, as the port of Athens, and afterward connected (117) 148 THE NEAR EAST with the city eight miles away by long walls. It was hard to realize the fact, but off at the left were the strait and island of Salamis where Xerxes lost his fleet 2,400 years ago. At one side was the hill where Xerxes took his seat to enjoy the forthcoming destruction of the Greek navy, the barrier to the conquest of the little land he had sworn to punish. A modern warship could scarcely turn around in the water where the great navies of the then world met, and the only way to re-people the bay with Persians, Athenians and Spartans was to close the eyes and forget the present geogra- phy. A ship in those days was no bigger than a large row-boat or a small fishing vessel now. Navies were constructed after wars were be- gun. The hostile fleets simply rushed into each other and the combatants fought until one side took to the water to be killed, or made slaves. But these latter facts have noth- ing to do with the case. The Greeks stopped the Persians, ruined their reputation, and cap- tured enough goods and personal property to propitiate all the gods in Greekdom. The harbor has not been improved much since the time of Themis tocles. Not very AMONG THE GREEKS 140 large boats still have to anchor some distance from land, and passengers are required to pay a little additional fee for entering upon the sacred soil. As we rode in the little landing-boat toward the shore, a Greek in uniform spoke up : "American?" "Yes," I answered. "Bully," said he, and I knew he had been in our fair land. "When are you going back to America?" I asked. "Just as soon as I get this uniform off. America has 'em skinned." This was one of the 60,000 Greeks who hur- ried home from America to get into the fight with Turkey. I was told everywhere that these American Greeks were the finest fighting force in the army, and were always put on the hard jobs. Of course men who will come 4,000 miles to fight for their country would make a reputation like that. There were reg- iments of American Greeks where English was almost as commonly spoken as the Greek — especially in emergencies where strong words 150 THE NEAR EAST are required. There is no language in the world like ours for profanity. The heathen Turks do not swear at all, and the Europeans generally have mild and ladylike ejaculations which hardly take the place of cuss- words. There is no way in which a Greek can say "damn" with the emphasis put upon it in America, and an invitation to go to the lower regions in Latin or Greek would not make any- body fight. One result is that all over Greece the rising generation has picked up English phrases from the American Greeks, and any- where you go you will be greeted with "Good- night," "Betcherlife," "Go to hell," and other slang whose origin you recognize. My first Greek acquaintance was from Gary, Indiana, where he had a "business." My next was from Chicago, where he owned a grocery and saloon. Such men as these have carried the name of Greece to the furthermost parts, just as their old ancestors did when they col- onized and conquered everything from the Bosphorus to Sicily. Athens is not a new town. It was started by Theseus, about 1250 B. C. The location. AMONG THE GREEKS 151 was considered good, close to the sea, and with high hills to which the people could go on picnics and to escape from the enemy. During the next 1,000 years the history of Athens was a series of wars with the neighbors and development of culture at home. No Athenian would work. He left such things to the women and to the slaves. When he was not fighting the Spartans he was arguing or thinking, and talking about himself. The government was usually a democracy, with the initiative, the referendum, the recall and a lot of other curleyques which have been dug up recently and pronounced novelties. The Athenians were progressive, always for some- thing new, and always telling how much better they were than other people. They made their city the center of the world for culture, so that when Greece went into the discard as a province of the Roman empire, the victorious Romans adopted all the Athenian ideas of philosophy and art they could understand, and stole all the statues and sculpture they could carry away. From that time until the 19tli centurj^ Ath- ens never amounted to much. In fact, its 152 THE NEAR EAST location is not good for trade, and when Greece secured independence the Athens of olden times had disappeared and only a town of shanties existed on the spot. Sentiment caused the Greeks to make Athens their capital, and it has been rebuilt in less than a century since. Much money has been spent by the govern- ment and by rich Greeks who made their for- tunes elsewhere, and Athens is now a credit- able city, with many good buildings erected in line with the art of the ancient Athens. The name of Greece is not Greece, but ac- cording to its own official language "Hellas," and the king signs his name "King of the Hellenes." The country is very poor. More than two- thirds of the soil is not cultivated and cannot be. The Greek farmers are away behind those in other countries, but as their land is about all steep mountain-side and rocks, it is not easy to suggest any improvements except emi- gration. Greece is all mountain and seacoast, no place being more than fifty miles from the salt water. Its people are and always have been good sailors and merchants. The result AMONG THE GREEKS 153 is that there are more Greeks in Turkey than in Greece, and they are the dominant business factor in nearly all the cities of the Levant. They have gone in every direction, and they are usually successful, but they never get over being Greeks. Jews are everywhere in the East conceded to be the great commercial peo- ple. But there are no Jews in Greece. The Hellenes can beat them at their own game. In addition to the peninsula of Greece there are hundreds of islands, many of them large and important, which belong to the kingdom. These islands are inhabited by Greeks, and have naturally fallen from the Turk's hands into those where they belong. A Greek who lives in Alexandria, Egypt, furnished the funds for the erection of the Stadium on the site of the old amphitheatre where Greeks and Romans contended in ath- letic games and where gladiators and wild an- imals were wont to kill each other. It is the most magnificent grand-stand I ever saw, en- tirely constructed of marble, and seating 70,- 000 people. It is not so graceful in its lines as the baseball park in New York, where 154 THE NEAR EAST Christy Matliewson is king, but its marble whiteness is more impressive. This Stadium was used for the revival of the Olympic games a few years ago. It is a splendid opening for a city baseball league, but so far as I could learn the Greeks have no ball games or sports like ours which develop the rising generation. They go in for running, wrestling and throw- ing the hammer, none of which are good all- around sports. But the Greeks are a fine-looking lot of men. Athens is now filled with soldiers home from the war and waiting for their discharge. They are clean, well-built fellows, and attractive in their enthusiasm. Sixty thousand of them did not return, the price paid for the redemption of a large part of ancient Thrace. The national costume which many appar- ently sensible men wear consists of a white skirt nearly to the knee, tight white trousers, embroidered open jacket. It makes a Greek statesman look like a lady circus-rider, but he wears it in imitation of the good old days and is hapfjy. The women wrap scarfs around their heads and follow a classic style of dra- pery, which is a great improvement over the AMONO THE GREEKS 155 Turkish trousers of the Ottoman and the tight skirts of the Western world. I went to the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, where Paul began his revival work in Athens. It is a hillside on vrhich the Greeks were ac- customed to gather and talk politics, philoso- phy and religion. I thought it would be ap- propriate to make a speech there myself, and I secured an audience by giving a small boy ten leptas, equivalent to two cents. Then I began: "Men of Athens." On reflection I changed to get a little nearer the facts, and started again: "Man of Athens." The boy backed off, even his Greek curiosity and the tip not overcoming his dread of a crazy man. But I continued, and told the men of Athens what I thought of them. My audience re- mained sufficiently near to draw another coin. I had accomplished one of my early desires, to stand on IMars Hill where Paul caught the crowd by his presentation of "the unknown Odd," whom the Greeks worshipped for fear they might have missed one in their official god Hst. The Acropolis of Athens Athens, Greece, Sept. 6. All that is left of the Athens v^^e have always known is the Acropolis, a few ruins of temples, and the view of the sea. The rest is sentiment and imagination. If 3^ou think it over you will remember that Greece and Athens disappeared from view about the third century of the Christian Era and never really came up again until the 19th century. Sixteen hundred years is a long time, and a great deal hapi^ened to Greece and Greek things. First came the Romans, who carried away to Italy statues and deco- rated marble to embellish their public build- ings and their private houses. Then came the early Christians, who considered it a religious duty to destroy the pagan temples and smash the statues of the pagan gods. After that del- uge the Turks arrived, with the sacred pur- pose of demolishing both the pagan and the Christian temples, and carrying off to their (156) )l //(//.' 11(1 iniiiiiN's cliib.s- ill aiiciciil Al/iciifi! " THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 157 mosques in other cities any articles left that would add beauty to those structures. The Greeks themselves, run over and conquered by Bj'zantines, Goths, Crusaders, Turks and Venetians, having no national or religious life of their own, lapsed into a condition in which they did not appreciate the ancient Greek or anything else that they could not eat or drink. For IGOO years Athens was considered a legit- imate field for rol)bery and larceny, and there was no one to protect the Greece of Pericles and Phidias. The only wonder is that the few columns left were not taken away or de- stroyed, and no doubt if the Acropolis had been movable or the sea inflammable, even the hill and the view which delighted the heart of the ancients would have also disappeared. Every Grecian city had an "acropolis," which is a hill with a fort and a temple. To this hill the people ran when the enemy came upon them, and up this hill the Greeks would march with their sacrifice to the god or goddess who protected them. The Athenians had a great hill, and talked about it so mucli and so beautifully that now when one speaks of "the 158 THE NEAR EAST Acropolis" he means the hill of Athens, origin- all}^ a fortress, always the temple of Pallas Athene, the goddess who looked after the in- terests of the Athenians when she was not otherwise engaged. The Acropolis is a hill which rises abruptly from the plain about 500 feet. On three sides it is too precipitous to climb for the last 200 feet, while on the fourth side the ascent is tolerably easy though steep. On one slope of the Acropolis were the theatres and on another temples, and up the passable side went a road upon which the procession moved when it was time to propitiate the goddess to keep her in a good humor or to get her to do something for the home team. The top of the Acropolis was and is about ten acres in extent, and al- most level. Around the top was the wall for defense, first wood and then marble, and in- side was the Parthenon, the greatest temple of heathendom. The Acropolis has had three ages : The wooden age before Pericles, the golden age of Pericles, and the down-shoot most of the time since. During the first period it was more of THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 159 a fortress, and had wooden walls. When the Persians threatened to wipe the Greeks off the earth the Athenians sent to the oracle at Del- phi for advice, and were told to seek refuge in the wooden walls. Those who took this to mean the wooden ships were correct in their guess, while those who accepted the literal interpretation and sought refuge behind the wooden walls on the Acropolis were killed by the Persians. Then came the victories of the Greeks over their enemies and the leadership of Athens, and Pericles. It was the latter gentleman who furnished the brains and found the money to start "the golden age" policy in Athens. He had the assistance of the great sculptor Phidias, he had a lot of money which had been left in Athens by a neighboring city, and he had an army of slave workers gathered in the success- ful wars he waged. He had trouble with the taxpayers, he was assailed viciously by the politicians who failed to get jobs in the con- struction, and his private life was not what it should have been. But he was a great man, and he never let up until he had Athens deco- 160 THE NEAR EAST rated with temples and parks and the Acropo- hs just about the greatest wonder of the world. The Parthenon, most celebrated of Greek temples, was erected under the direction of Phidias. It was described by ancient writers, and the large portion which now stands can be filled in with a fair imagination. There were 62 large and 52 small supporting col- umns, on a platform 228 feet long and 100 feet wide. The pediments contained about 50 life-sized statues and the frieze was 524 feet long, about 39 feet above the ground, and depicted in sculpture scenes of Greek worship and life. There were groups of gods, battle scenes, and carved stories of the olden time. A culmination of art was a statue by Phidias of the Virgin Goddess, as Pallas was called, 42 feet high, of gold and ivory, and costing the equivalent of $750,000. Most brilliant colors were used in decorat- ing walls, friezes and interior. The roof was of tiJe? of Parian marble. The entire build- mg was of marble. In fact, the temple was *^ scrumptious." and was reckoned the greatest work of art in the greatest age of art the world THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 161 has known. It is a little humiliating to admit that these old Greeks 2300 years ago, without the modern inventions, machinery or discov- eries, and without the influence of women's clubs or Carnegie foundations, did a work which no one since has equalled for artistic greatness in execution or in effect. The Parthenon was dedicated in the year 438 B. C. You can imagine the processions, the sacrifices, the speeches and the glowing accounts in the daily papers. Pericles had succeeded in making Athens the foremost city in the world he knew, and he had kept control of the government of the democracy as no other Athenian statesman was able to do. The Acropolis was adorned with other tem- ples, and there are said to have been 1,500 statues in the open court on the hill. The Acropolis had lost its character as a fortress and was devoted to religion and art. The Parthenon remained a temple to Pallas Athene until the old gods lost out and Chris- tianity was established. In the fifth century it was consecrated as a Christian church, and the interior remodeled but not improved. 162 THE NEAR EAST In 1460 the Turks converted it into a mosque and built a minaret at one corner. In 1687 the Venetians captured Athens and the Turkish garrison took to the AcropoHs. They stored their gunpowder in the Parthe- non. A Venetian bomb ignited the powder, and most of the Parthenon went into the air along with the bodies of the Turks. That left the top of the Acropolis covered with broken columns, statues and marble orna- ments. Of course the Turks did not try to restore the structure, and for more than a century the debris lay like a mass of rubbish. Finally, in 1801, Lord Elgin, British minister to Turkey, got the Sultan's permission "to remove a few blocks of stone with inscriptions and figures." Under that kind of a permit he transported all the good statues and friezes he could find, and the best part of the Parthenon is now the most valuable possession of the British mu- seum in London. Since Greece became an independent coun- try, in 1829, its government has gradually gone through the pieces that Lord Elgin did not find or could not move. The columns THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 163 have nearly all been re-erected and the form of the old temple restored, but with little of the ornamentation. The hill is still a quarry of hands and legs and heads of marble figures, slabs of marble paving and portions of marble walls. Much has been done gathering up the remains, but a great deal more is to be done, and where important originals have been taken to London copies have sometimes been made in plaster for the museum in Athens. The colors are gone, the beautiful marble forms have disappeared or are mutilated, the wonderful works of the sculptor are defaced. In spite of all that, the Parthenon is yet one of the greatest artistic works and fully realizes for the tourist as it does for the scholar, the approval and praise it received more than 2,000 years ago. Another temple on the Acropolis would have been a world's wonder if it had not been built so near the Parthenon. The Erechtheum oc- cupies the spot where the goddess Pallas and the river god Poseidon had their dispute as to which should possess Athens. They left it to Zeus, w^ho said the town should go to the 164 THE NEAR EAST one who performed the best miracle. Posei- don struck his trident in the ground and pro- duced a spring of salt water. Pallas punched the ground with her spear and brought forth an olive tree. Zeus evidently preferred olives to water, for he gave the place to the goddess. During pagan times the olive tree and the spring could be seen in this Erechtheum. When the Persians captured Athens and de- stroyed the first temples on the Acropolis they burned down the olive tree, but it came up again in a single night. There was no doubt of the story being true, for there was the olive tree. The top of the Acropolis was paved with marble blocks. This was nearly all used by the Turks to make walls for their fortress. Anyone wishing a detailed description of the Parthenon and the rest of the show on the Acropolis must look to some writer who un- derstands the language of art. Two days ago I was so ignorant that I did not know a Pedi- ment from a Metope, and was not sure whether a frieze was something to eat or was worn under the base of a statue. I have learned more about THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 165 sculpture in twenty -four hours than I can re- member in six months. I can tell a bas-relief from a tenor and a triglyph from a corner- stone. But I am sure no one would believe that I had absorbed so much of the details of art, and therefore I refrain. All that I will say is that the Acropolis is a great hill and could not be moved to the British museum. Therefore it has been saved to its native land. The Old Greeks and the New Athens, Sept. 8. The difficulty the tourist has in Greece is to make the modern match with the ancient and the actual with the ideal. Aside from the sculpture and architecture, there is nothing now which quite comes up to the description of the then. I suppose much of this comes from the obliteration of the Greece we read about by the Romans, the Slavs and the Turks for 2,000 years. Also, I think a good deal of the descent is from the fact that the Greeks told their own story and used the poetic li- cense and exaggeration which were general with the people of ancient times, character- istics which are happily no more. I could write of Kansas, and what I would say would be the plain unvarnished truth, without boast- ing or bragging. The same would be true of any other Kansas writer. I have often no- ticed that in the descriptions of our climate, our crops, our wondrous beauties of nature (166) THE OLD GREEKS AND THE NEW 1G7 and the phenomenal progress of our citizen- ship, we Americans never exaggerate. Our journalists can describe our battles or our po- litical campaigns and never depart from the straight and narrow path of fact. Our writers report our ball games and never favor the home team. But it was not so with the ancient Greeks. They were not familiar with conditions outside their country, and they looked at events through a telescope. A thousand Greeks never overcame less than ten thousand Per- sians. Their mountains always reached up into the skies. The gods used to send to Athens for their favorite brand of honey from which they brewed nectar. The Spartans never refused to fight and the Athenians never were equalled in oratory. Their statesmen were animated by the highest motives, even when they grafted on every contract they let. The Kephisos, the beautiful stream which was the river of ancient Athens and is described by the poets as a torrent, is no bigger than Cow creek, and at this time of year has no water at all. In fact, from all the evidence now in sight, the writers who described the 168 THE NEAR EAST Greece of 2,000 years ago were either Inter- ested in real estate and trying to dispose of suburban additions, or they never let the facts interfere with the interest and beauty of their stories. Those people who come to Greece ex- pecting to find conditions now prevailing as reported by Homer, Thucydides and Plato will be disappointed. The gods no longer take part in human affairs, citizenship in Athens is not now an evidence of superiority, the honey of Hymettos is coarse, the fertile plains of Attica are rocky and sterile, and instead of gathering around the scholars and debating questions of philosophy the Greeks swarm in the cafes and talk about their neighbors. There is no object in a visit to Sparta, for that home of heroes vanished centuries ago and a new village occupies the old site. The pass of Thermopylse has been changed by the action of nature. The inscription still says that "here four thousand Peloponnesians fought against more than three millions," but military authorities now question both the figures given and the location. I am getting so accustomed to the "doubts" which modern science raises in regard to the treasured facts TnE OLD GREEKS AND THE NEW 109 of ancient history that I am almost tempted to disbeHeve the story of our own George Washington and the famous cherry tree. The Greeks had the advantage over the Persians and other enemies. They did their own reporting. But the work the old Greeks did in marble cannot be denied. It is in every European museum and copies of it are on every what- not in the world. About fifteen miles from Athens is a moun- tain of marble, Mount Pentelikon. It is the best and most enduring building material, and is just as good in decorations and statues. With these marble quarries so easy of access and with slave labor, the Athenians built their great structures and even paved some of their streets. A railroad now transports the big blocks and slabs, but in those days they had to be slid down hill and then hauled by hand and by ox-power to the city they were to orna- ment. When Pericles could put 100,000 slaves on the job of quarrying and transporting mar- ble from this mountain, the greatness of the task disappears, though not the importance 170 THE NEAR EAST and magnificence of the work. There is where the Greeks stood preeminent among the peo- ples of the B. C. times. They had the brains to conceive these works, the abihty to carry them out, and the good fortune of telhng their own story to those who came after them. On another point Greece was more nearly up to present standards than other folks of ancient history. Nearly every town in Greece with a little country around it was an inde- pendent state, and the people took part in their own government. Sometimes there would be a tyrant who would usurp power for a few years, but he usually lost his head, figura- tively and literally. The smallness of the state enabled the people to come together to choose their officials and to make laws, hence the Greek government was naturally a democ- racy. Participation in government was re- stricted to citizens, usually to a wealthier class, and of course there were always some common folks and slaves who had no rights at all. There w^ould be a good deal of complaint of a democracy nowadays fashioned on the Greek model. But it was the real self -gov- THE OLD GREEKS AND THE NEW 171 eminent by the people, while the Persians, the Hebrews, the Babylonians and the balance of "the powers" of those times, were governed by kings or priests or despots of some descrip- tion. Why then, it may be asked, is Greece not a democracy, or a republic today? The real answer is, that when the Greeks made their war for independence nearly a hundred years ago, they tried to do so as a Greek republic. They did not win the fight, but were actually liberated by the pressure on the Turks by the nations of Europe, then in a reaction against popular institutions. The French Bourbons and the Russian czars were not in favor of re- publics ; so, in order to keep independence, the Greeks had to follow the advice of the diplomats, who told them they must select a king. They chose a young Bavarian prince named Otho, nineteen years old. Probably they thought they would manage the boy, but a Bavarian could not learn the Greek lan- guage, to say nothing of the Greek tempera- ment. He started in to run the country on despotic lines, and soon had an insurrection 172 THE NEAR EAST on his hands. He was forced to grant a con- stitution, but that did not help much. The Greeks love politics, and at that time consid- ered brigandage a legitimate occupation and revolution a recognized sport. Otho stuck it out for thirty years, with the assistance of the Powers of Europe, who would put his crown on straight every time the Greeks tipped it over or knocked it off. In 1862 Otho gave up the job and went to live with his folks. The Greeks had to choose a new king, and they elected a Dane, a brother of Queen Alexandria of England and related to most of the reigning families of Europe. He took the name of George the First, and, being a Dane, refused to leave the country no matter how the Greeks behaved. He was ijot popular, but he gradu- ally conceded rights to parliament and the people. Whenever they were about to make it too hot he would give another concession to the Greek spirit of liberty. Last year he was assassinated. His son, Constantine, is much better liked because he fought well in the re- cent war, and also because he has a good press agent. The Greeks now have about as much polit- THE OLD GREEKS AND THE NEW 173 ical freedom as the English, and perhaps more than the people of New York. The real boss of Greece is the prime minister, who repre- sents the dominant party, and who six years ago was a country lawyer in the island of Crete. Greece is now governed by a repre- sentative parliament elected by the people, the executive power being the ministry selected from the party which wins the congressional elections. The king is something more than a figurehead, and in response to the desire to keep in style Greece will doubtless retain a monarch and pay the cost. There are no nobles or jukes, and there are no titles in Greece except those which they bestow upon each other in their fierce political scraps. The Greeks are naturally just now very chesty over the result of the wars with Turkey and then Bulgaria. This is the first time the Greeks have really licked anyone since the time of Alexander the Great. By the recent treaty Greece gets a lot of valuable territory whose people are mostly Greeks and therefore can be assimilated, and practically all the islands in the ^Egean Sea she did not already hold. Those Greek section hands whom we 174 THE NEAR EAST have seen working on American railroads and have not really appreciated, proved to be good soldiers, and the campaign was well managed from start to finish. This will give the Greeks confidence in themselves and the respect of their neighbors. If their statesmen can keep the country out of the Balkan quarrels and devote themselves to raising the intellectual standard, there will be a future to Greece which would make old Socrates sit up and take notice if he could return. The worst feature of the Greeks of today corresponds to the weakness of two thousand years ago : ev- ery Greek wants to be a soloist. Athens had the most remarkable jury sys- tem of which I have heard. Every year the government drew the names of five thousand citizens to act as jurors. They were divided into juries of five hundred each, and were paid for their services whether on duty or not. If you had a case to be tried you had to take your chance with a jury of five hundred of your fellow-citizens. If they did not like you very well it was good-by for you, unless your lawyer had good lungs and talked them THE OLD GREEKS AXD THE NEW 175 over. Such a jury found Socrates guilty of impiety, about corresponding to our "conduct unbecoming a gentleman." When Socrates was asked what punishment he deserved, he told the jury that he thought he should be pensioned by the state. This made the jury sore, and ttey socked it to Socrates with the death penalty. According to some authori- ties this is the origin of the motto, "soc et tuum." This jury system made five thousand easy government jobs, with nothing to do but sit on a bench and listen to the lawj^ers, not to the evidence. Pericles was the only Athenian statesman I can find who was able to hold his place, and under his administration at Athens practically every citizen was an office-holder. When an insurgent politician tried to start something Pericles would make him foreman of the jury or custodian of the Erectheum, or assistant superintendent of ventilation for the Areopagus. You can't beat a man like that — or you can't in Athens or New York City. The Eastern Balkans No Man's Land — Albania VoLONA, Albania, Sept. 10. I doubt if many people who read this letter will know where Albania is, or whether it is a country or a breakfast food. As a matter of fact it is the newest state of Europe, al- though its name has been on the map for cen- turies. Along the coast of the Adriatic Sea for about a hundred miles between Greece and Montenegro, and extending back from the coast about a hundred miles, is what might be called the No Man's Land of Europe. It is all mountain land and a very rough and un- prepossessing kind of that. Its soil is not fertile except in spots, and most of it will never be good for anything but to be a cause for war in Europe. It is inhabited by about 200 different tribes, each of which has its chief, and these tribes differ in race and religion. They are Serbs, Turks, Greeks, and descend- ants of the original folks in the Balkans who (179) 180 THE NEAR EAST escaped and took to the hills when their kins- men were killed or enslaved. They are Ro- man Catholics, Greek Catholics, and Moslems. For centuries they have been Turkish subjects, but the sultan was never able to manage them. When he went to war they furnished an ir- regular force of Bashi-Bazouks, who fought fiercely and viciously. They were about the best of the Turkish army when it came to the kind of fighting which means death and de- struction to the enemy, and which has no knowledge of what are called the rules of civil- ized warfare. They were dreaded more than the Turk, and they rejoiced in their reputa- tion. When not engaged in war against an outside enemy they are at enmity with one another, and their tribal feuds and individual vendettas are their national pastime When the Balkan states defeated the Turks last spring the Servians, Montenegrins and Greeks expected to divide Albania. The Pow- ers of Europe stepped in at the desire of Aus- tria and Italy, which want Albania themselves, and announced that Albania must be organ- ized as an independent state. The Monte- negrins were compelled to evacuate Scutari, NO man's land ALBANIA 181 which they had won by bloody fighting, be- cause Scutari is in the north of Albania and necessary for the new state. The Powers then appointed a committee on permanent organi- zation, which will try to form a government and will provide for the selection of a king of the new country. This committee is now in session at Volona, with Austrian and Italian warships in the harbor to see that the report of the committee is adopted. Thus far no European prince has been found with nerve enough to tackle the job of being king of the Albanians. It is not an inviting situation for anyone who values his personal safety. There is an Albanian chief, Effend Pasha, who ought to be the king or boss, but it is feared he could not hold the Albanians together as well as a foreigner. He was in command of the Turk- ish forces at Scutari, and had the sense to surrender the town after holding it as long as possible. Thus he saved the soldiers from the punishment they would have gotten from the Montenegrins, who hate Turks and Albanians with a fanaticism only equalled by that the devil is supposed to have for holy water. 182 THE NEAR EAST The Albanian men-folks remind me much of the old cowboys of the West. They wear gay costumes and carry in their belts big re- volvers and long ugly knives. They look as if they would kill you without notice, but in fact, unless you are an enemy, they seem to be rather gentle and friendly. There used to be a saying in the cattle-trade days of western Kansas : "West of Newton, no Sunday ; west of Dodge, no God." In Volona today I kept thinking of this phrase and imagining it was the good old time and I was out about Cim- arron. The Albanian costumes are something worth the price of admission. An Albanian gent from the south will wear white skirts to his knees. Here in Volona the skirt has disap- peared and the Albanian w^ears blue or white bloomer trousers to the knees, with white leggings and pointed red shoes with tassels. His vest is blue or red and embroidered most gorgeously, while an embroidered or furry coat falls back over his shoulders. On his head is a white fez. Around his waist is a broad sash belt, usually of many colors, and out of that belt stick long revolvers and knives with NO man's TAND — ALBANIA 183 jeweled handles and inlaid work that would be worth a lot in any antique shop in New York. A massive and ornate watch-chain goes with the rest. He is tall and handsome, and real- izes himself that he is a vision of loveliness as he poses in the cafe or as he rides his horse out of town at the cowboy gallop. He wull not work unless forced to do so by stern neces- sity, and then in a mild manner indicating that it is a novel experience which he heartily disapproves. When he turns his hand to or- namentation and skilled handiwork he is ar- tistic, with the love of color of the oriental, and with the same patience and perseverance that characterize the people of the great East. The lady Albanian dresses more quietly, as befits her sex. She may have an embroidered jacket and a pleated skirt. Her ankles are shown higher than they are with us. But as she has to do most of the hanl work while her hero husband hunts the enemy or talks about the war, her costume is careless and not near so attractive or fetching as that of her man. But women occupy a high place in the opin- ion of the men. An Albanian puts the women of his family on a pedestal, and while he ex- 184 THE NEAR EAST pects them to work he will defend them from any insult or attack. He also respects the women of other folks unless he is at war with them. I was told that an Albanian woman would not dare flirt, for if she did and were caught, her husband would exercise his right to kill the flirter and the flirtee. I do not know if this is true or not, for I feared it might be, and my observations of the female Al- banian were made from the rear. When she turned around I looked the other way. In this foolish country, where men wear skirts and there is only one mail a week, it is wise to take no chances. And then I did not want to see any Albanian lady killed on my account. Around this town of Volona Mrs. Morgan and I have wandered today, meeting no one who could speak our language. By the use of signs and money we had a good time, se- cured something to eat, beat down the price quoted on Albanian clothing, and returned to the ship in time for supper. The town is curious with its narrow dusty streets, its low white houses, its uniquely dressed people, and its odd little shops. The sights and scenes 'Wheti she turned around, I looked the other tray. I did not want to see any Albanian lady hilled on my account." NO man's land ALBANIA 185 of a city where sewers are unknown and would be regarded as superfluous, where there is no street-cleaning department, and apparently no city ordinances or trash cans, are not peculiar to Albanians, but they are very noticeable. And yet the people seemed happy, satisfied and cheerful. I wonder if the approaching invasion of civilization, with its clean-up days and its forcing everybody to do what he does not want to do, will not be a net disadvantage to the Albanian ? There is something to the Albanian. Give him a chance and he generally makes good. Many of the best generals and statesmen of Turkey have been Albanians. Sultan Abdul- Hamid would have no guard but Albanians, for he knew thej'^ would rather fight than sell out to his enemies. They have no schools, no roads, no improvements. Under Turkish rule they had no government. It will take time for a people like this to get their feet on the civilized earth and learn to pay taxes and submit to laws. The Albanian in appearance, dress, habitation and customs is much like the old Highland Scot, who turned out to be the 186 THE NEAR EAST smartest man in the world after he was caught and tamed. An enthusiastic Albanian, whom I recently met, said : " Give the Albanians ten years for education and they will be the best folks in the Balkans." Five hundred years ago their forefathers went to these mountains to escape from the enemy. Since that time the Albanians have had no opportunity to do more than live and fight. But they have a character which will develop rapidly now that they are going to get their chance at last. Of course the Powers of Europe were hypo- critical when they formed this new nation. What they want is as many little countries as possible so they can utilize the jealousies and feuds to eventually attach them to the old countries. Albania has several fair seaports and is therefore valuable. I hope the Albania lead- ers will be able to hitch their 200 tribes to- gether so well that the Powers will find this another Montenegro which cannot be con- quered. There are now seven sovereign na- NO man's land ALBANIA 187 tions in the Balkan peninsula, whieli a few years ago was called Turkey in Europe : Rou- mania, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, Greece, Albania, and Turkey. Seven nations in a space about the size of Kansas and Colorado, seven armies to maintain, seven kings with courts, seven governments to support, and seven sovereignties to quarrel with one an- other. We are cruising along the coast of Albania in a ship that stops several hours at every chance. There is no way to go into the in- terior except on horseback. The shore is mountainous and a "sirocco" is blowing on the sea. A "sirocco" is what we would call in Kansas a hot wind from the south, which makes everybody peevish, and the water fussy. Sirocco sounds much better than hot wind. In Kansas we should cover up disagreeable features with pretentious names as they do in the Orient. Anybody would rather have a "sirocco" than a "hoi wind." My Albanian acquaintance has been repre- senting the Associated Press in this section, 188 THE NEAR EAST and is as bright and educated a man as one finds anywhere. He has put aside the em- broidered vest and the big revolver. He is one of the new crowd that will try to make Albania catch up with the procession that has been going by her for 500 years. He is full of hope and confidence, but admits there is a hard job ahead. Probably he is right, and in a few years the Albanians will be peace- ful, law-abiding citizens, and wear the same kind of clothes that we do, but when that happens Albania will not be interesting or picturesque. i The Mitey Montenegro Cettinje, Montenegro, Sept. 14. This is the smallest real nation in the world. It is no toy or dependent principality, but for five hundred years has maintained an inde- pendent existence, the only one of the Balkan states which the Turks did not subdue. It is about 2,000 square miles in area, very little larger than Reno county, Kansas, and all of its land, except a small outlet to the sea, is rough, rocky mountain. This road to the sea is only a recent acquisition. During its cen- turies of warfare against the Turks Monte- negro was the baddest kind of "bad lands," steep mountain-sides, deep gorges, with only an occasional spot that could be cultivated ; a territory which presented no attraction ex- cept its insolent independence, which the Turks were constantly trying to overthrow. Twice the Turkish armies penetrated to tHe little capital and destroyed the monastery which was its only large building. But the (189) 190 THE NEAR EAST Montenegrins had retired into the mountain- tops, and as soon as the army had left an or- dinary garrison they came back, the old mon- astery walls were decorated with the heads of the Turks, and the church rebuilt at once. In the 14th century, when the Moslems de- feated the Serbs in the battle of Kossovo, and subjugated the Balkan peninsula, a number of the Serb leaders and soldiers took to these mountains and refused to surrender. They preferred to abandon old homes and fertile valleys and live in the rocks, to bowing under the Turkish yoke. They and their descendants have hved since then with but one object — to kill all the Turks possible and to drive the rest out of the neighborhood. Whenever any country had a war against the Sultan it could count on the Montene- grin support. Last year when the campaign of the Balkan allies began, 10,000 Montene- grins returned from America to have a hand in the glorious fight. When the call went out for troops the king of Montenegro did not ask for volunteers, but called for every man between the ages of 16 and 65, and they THE MITEY MONTENEGRO 191 all responded. Many women went with the army, and when Turkish prisoners were cap- tured they were often turned over to women guards, thus permitting the men to march ahead. In fact, the whole Montenegrin na- tion went to war last year, just as it had been doing at every opportunity for five centuries. A people raised mid such surroundings for so many generations is bound to be peculiar. Their reputation in the countries round about is that they are honest, courteous, reliable, and ready to fight. In Constantinople they are employed as guards for the banks and as pri- vate watchmen, and are considered better protection than the law. They will not work, or at least not much. They go heavily armed, with gun, pistols and knife. Look at their belts and you think they are highwaymen. Look at their faces and you know they are friends. They are tall, stalwart and fine-looking, the most courteous people I ever met. They have little education as yet, no opportunities, but these mountains have taken the gallant Serbs who would not surrender and made them into the fiercest and kindliest gentlemen in Europe. 192 THE NEAR EAST The same story is told on the Montenegrins as on the Irish. When one of them reached a foreign land he inquired for a job. "What can you do.?" he was asked. "I can superintend." Put a Montenegrin into polite society any- where and he would be perfectly at home. Put him on a rich farm and give him imple- ments and seed, and he would nearly starve. He is not lazy. He simply cannot get the idea of work. For centuries he has been born and raised on the theory that he was a fighting man, and all his talents have been converted into that one. The Montenegro woman does some work. It has been her part to raise the children and the little crop, look after the goat and the pig, and then do a share in the war. If necessary she took a gun and went to shooting, and if necessary her men-folks aided her in the farm work. Each went out of his or her "sphere" for the common welfare, but only on extra- ordinary occasions. The women show the in- fluence of labor and look worn and tired, while their husbands have the serene and peaceful countenances of those who suffer no anxiety THE MITEY MONTENEGRO 193 except to keep their weapons clean and their word good. The king of Montenegro is Nicholas, called always by his people "Nick." He is now old and patriarchal, but he has been a good ruler. It is his custom to sit under a tree in the back yard, hear any complaints, and advise the people what is going on. He has written several plays and he loves to make speeches. In the United States he would undoubtedly be a feature on every chautauqua platform, but in Montenegro he gets nothing for his talk but his regular salary. He is a careful, thrifty monarch, and manages pubhc affairs wisely. One of his daughters is queen of Italy, two more are married to Russian grand dukes. His eldest son, Danilo (the same as our Dan), is popular as a good citizen and fighter. Until about fifty years ago the kingship was hereditary from uncle to nephew. The king was by law the bishop and one of the "black clergy" of the Greek Catholic Church, who cannot marry. Therefore the king would have no children and the job would go to his nephew. This continued about 200 years. 194 THE NEAR EAST and then Danilo, uncle of the present king, fell in love with a beautiful girl and repealed the law. At that time there was no parlia- ment or congress, and Danilo was the whole thing in government. Danilo married the girl and gave up the bishop business to another fellow. They had no children, so the crown again went to the nephew, Nicholas, who has a herd, and will be succeeded by his son, young Dan. For 500 years every Montenegrin, man and woman, has worn the same kind of a round red cap with a black border. The black is to remind them of the disaster to their old Ser- vian country and that they must have revenge on the Turks. They go in for gay clothes. The man wears blue loose baggy trousers which gather around the knees, white heavy stockings, and low sandal shoes. His waist- coat is blue or red, and embroidered as much as he can pay for or his wife can do. His top-coat is white or blue. His belt is a bril- liant sash with revolver and knife in the front. This combination of red, white and blue, with the arsenal between, is very effective. It \ii/^:^^^ 'If KiiKj Xirliolo.t, of Montcuc(]rn, ircre an American, he iconld be a feature on every CliaittaiKiiui jildtform." THE MITEY MONTENEGRO 195 does look a good deal like musical comedy, but it is no joke. The woman wears the same cap, sometimes with streamers. She has an embroidered blouse and bright - colored short full skirt which discloses the ankles and quite a little more. Sometimes she has sandals on her feet, but around home or at work she prefers to go barefooted. The costume has much possibil- ity, and as worn by the richer folks is strik- ing, — but there are very few rich people in Montenegro. The habit of carrying heavy loads on her back makes her figure less at- tractive than that of the man, w^ho walks very straight, very gracefully, and not very rapidly unless he is chasing a Turk or being chased by one. There are 250,000 people living in this mountain land, which raises onlj^ a few vege- tables, some tobacco, a little corn, a few sheep and goats. It is a struggle to get a living and the food is not very rich. Thousands of Montenegrins have to leave home to find em- ployment, but they will return when King Nick blows the horn. 196 THE NEAR EAST So far as I can see, the only industry at Cettinje is a cartridge factory. The Montenegrins want a Httle slice of fer- tile land on the south, including the city of Scutari, and in the recent war they won it from the Turks, only to be told they must give it up to the new state, Albania. Montenegro is closely allied to Servia and to Russia, by race and by religion. For over a hundred years the Russian government has given Montenegro a regular annual subsidy, in return for which the Montenegrins agreed to make things interesting for the Turks. They have certainly kept their part of the contract. But now that the Turks have been shoved nearly to the jumping-off place it seems to me that the original mission of the Montenegrin nation is accomplished. It will have to change its objective point. King Nicholas is leading the way, and there are several schools, including one for girls, the lat- ter being established by the Empress of Rus- sia. Of course when the Montenegrins get an education they will be dissatisfied and un- happy. The men will have to quit carrying guns and the women will be wanting to quit THE MITEY MONTENEGRO 197 the heavy work and stand up straight. The new troubles of Montenegro will soon begin. The little state which stood as the rock against which Moslem hosts broke themselves, will now have to construct itself along modern lines. It is almost a pity that this should be so, but it is inevitable. The Montenegrin today does not know what has happened or that he has fought himself to victory and out of a job. He must look for some other occupation and amusement be- sides hating the Turks and preparing for the next campaign. I walked down the streets of Cettinje and wondered what would be the real future of this remarkable folk who are living in the several centuries ago. The telegraph has come over the mountain. Up to a few years ago the news was repeated by criers from one end of the country to the other. If a battle was won, or if the king had the rheuma- tism, the fact w^as proclaimed publicly, and then reported by strong -lunged criers from one mountain to the next. Now there is a newspaper in Cettinje and a moving-picture show. When the present King Nicholas in 198 THE NEAR EAST 1878 defeated the Turks at Nikshitch he sat down on the battlefield and wrote a poem tell- ing all about it. He sent this to the queen, who read it aloud to the people from the front porch of the royal residence at Cettinje. The society news and the war news are all mixed together. It is said that King Nick knows all his sub- jects by their first names. But I imagine he gets the reputation by calling everybody either Nick or Dan, and he is almost sure to be right. On a little hill above the town is the monas- tery upon the walls of which the Montenegrins were accustomed to stick the heads of Turks as a sort of holiday decoration. In the old monastery a printing-press was put up a very few years after the invention of type. But the Turks came along and destroyed all of the plant which the Montenegrins had not melted into bullets. The Montenegrin does not have much fun. There is a small theatre, built by the king, in which the plays written by Nicholas are often acted. Their subject is war and patriotism. The men are too dignified to dance and the women are too busy. The government han- THE MITEY MONTENEGRO 199 dies the tobacco business and the men are continually smoking cigarettes. The women do not smoke so much, probably because there are not enough cigarettes to go around, but they have the right to do so and they exercise it. The houses are nearly all one-story stone, with red tiled or thatched roofs, and some of them have glass windows. A Montenegrin nearly fills the door as he stands in it, and is a wonderful picture of fine manhood. The Montenegriness, who is milking the goat or digging the potatoes, is not so prepossessing, but what would the Montenegrins have done without her.^ They would probably have starved, and they never would have the em- broidered clothes and the white stockings or the tobacco for the cigarettes. The Black Mountain Cettinje, Sept. 16. The name Montenegro means black moun- tain, literally "mountain negro." It was given because the mountains were black, which they may have been, but I doubt it. They are a gray lot of rocks ich in the times before we know about were probably thrown into these piles by some great volcano. There is a folk-story that when the world was created there was a lot of rocks left over. The angel, to whom they were given to be disposed of, dumped them all in one place, Montenegro. Up and over these peaks of stone the Monte- negrins had always refused to build any roads, because they would give an access by which the Turks or Albanians could enter the coun- try. A few years ago King Nicholas permitted the Austrian government to build a wonderful road up the Austrian part of the mountains and then on to the top and to Cettinje. The conservatives looked upon this innovation (200) THE BLACK MOUNTAIN 201 with much alarm, but Nicholas had his way. On this road we came from Cattaro, in Aus- trian Dalmatia, to Cettinje. The road begins at the dock in the fine natural harbor of Cattaro, and goes on an almost straight-up mountain-side for 3,000 feet, making the ascent by hairpin curves, and often one leg of the hairpin is almost directly above the other. The road is built of stone, with a wall along the outer edge. As we went steadily higher and higher, the panorama of the beautiful bay, the foothills covered with vegetation, the sea beyond and the mountains at either side, unrolled before us, inspiring, picturesque and awesome. Three thousand feet above Cattaro it seemed as if one could toss a stone down into the town. Then the road turns into a pass, soon reaching the vil- lage of Njegushi, then over other mountain heights and down the last few miles a thou- sand feet into the Cettinje basin. The road is regarded as the most wonderful piece of road-building in the world, and the view, which is continuous for hours as one goes up 202 THE NEAR EAST or down the mountain, is the finest I have ever seen. At Njegushi is the inevitable custom-house which awaits the traveler as he enters any country. Wearily we crawled from the car, and I submitted my passport to the officer in charge. "Americans don't have to have their baggage examined," he said with a grin, and soon we were talking good United States lan- guage to the chap, who had spent several years in California. He had come home to fight the Turks, was taken sick, and put on this job. As I have written, Cettinje is in a little basin, or what we would call a hollow, about a mile square, with a rim of mountain-tops a thousand feet high all around. Better than a wall and a moat and a barb-wire fence to keep out the intruder is this row of mountain crags and impassable canyons. It has enabled a few thousand Montenegrins to hold their own against armies many times their number made up of Turks, as good fighting men as there are in the world outside of Kansas. Time and THE BLACK MOUNTAIN 203 again this has happened in the 500 years of warfare, which now seems to be ended. The Montenegrins are not regular soldiers, but natural fighters, and take advantage of every help given by nature. They have always been good marksmen, and the frequent practice they got made it just the same as suicide for a man with a fez or an army with a crescent flag to try to cross the mountains. Cettinje is a straggling town of five thou- sand people who live in one-story stone houses with red-tiled roofs and bare stone floors. There is but one real street, and the stores are just what might be expected. King Nicholas has a two-story house with a front and back yard ; and the government building, in which are all the public offices from secretary of state to township trustee, is rather preten- tious. The Russian, English and Italian gov- ernments have handsome residences for their ambassadors, to impress the Montenegrins with the importance of those nations. The United States has no official representative in the country'. Montenegro has no diplomatic service, or any other service that takes money. 204 THE NEAR EAST King Nicholas runs the government as he would his own business, and he has no funds with which to pay traveling-men. In fact, the kingdom of Montenegro is al- ways broke. The people are too poor to pay any taxes, so there are none. The government makes a little money out of postage stamps and tobacco. Everybody smokes cigarettes, and the government has a monopoly on their manufacture. The patriotic Montenegrins contribute in this way to the support of their country. As the women smoke, they are de- nied that privilege possessed by women in other lands of telling their husbands that they should economize by quitting the smoke habit. I suppose there never is a woman whose men- folks smoke who does not consider it an awful waste of money and occasionally tells them so. The government pay-roll is small, there is no standing army, and contributions of money and guns have been "regularly and thank- fully" received from Russia and from promi- nent people and interests who have wanted to see the Montenegrins get along and the Turks kept busy. THE BIuACK MOUNTAIN 205 King Nicholas is not at home or I would go and see him, which I could do. He is always friendly with visitors who might have a little money to spend, and he is willing to take chances. I would like to see him, for I am told he is clean and healthy. All the royal people I have observed have been disappoint- ing. They are nearly always slobby and have something the matter with them, something hereditary which makes them look sallow and hopeless. It is quite a problem in Europe to keep the royal highnesses out of the idiot asylums and away from the Paris cafes. As a matter of fact, Denmark and Montenegro are furnishing the best stock of royalty in Europe just now, and the young folks in those royal families are in great demand for matrimonial purposes. Of course marriage in Europe, especially in royal circles, is always politics or business. One exception is reported. Helena, one of King Nick's daughters, was educated by an aunt in Russia. She was good-looking, and could talk French like a Russian or fire a gun like a Montenegrin. The heir to the throne of Italy met her in Venice, fell in love with 206 THE NEAR EAST her, and got his folks to arrange the match. She has made good as princess, queen, and wife, in Italy. The Montenegrin idea of humor is peculiar. This is what they call a joke : In one of the battles with the Turks a soldier brought in a prisoner. The commander told him to go and get another. He returned to the chase, and soon had a big Turk in soak. He was bring- ing in his man when a stray bullet struck his leg and down he went. The Turk thought his chance had come and started for the Montenegrin's throat. But Monte had his pistol out and up went the Turk's hands. Then the Montenegrin made the Turk take him on his back, and rode his prisoner tri- umphantly to headquarters. This happened a hundred years ago, but the Montenegrins still tell this as a good joke on the Turk. About one-fourth of the men in Montene- gro were killed or seriously wounded in the last year. There is hardly a family where one or more of the men-folks did not lose their lives THE BLACK MOUNTAIN 207 in the war. But this has been the regular thing for so many generations that it does not impress the Montenegrins so much as it does a visitor. The hatred of the Turk has been the real reHgion of the country, and now I am afraid the people will stop going to church. But to get an idea of the condition in Montenegro today — and it has been the same or worse any time in 500 years — imagine how it would be if in our state every man had been to war and that one-fourth had been killed or crippled. The voice of mourning would be heard everywhere. But apparently the Montenegrins almost rejoice in their suf- ferings and losses. Again they remind me greatly of my own Irish folks. When Pat comes home from the fair with his head band- aged, his nose broken and his back sprained, he refuses the offer of sympathy and proudly exclaims, "You ought to see the other fellow!" There is pride in the Montenegrin's heart, and if King Nicholas can negotiate the loan which he is now trying to place, there will be a high old time in Cettinje — a 4th of July celebration not regulated by a city ordinance to be safe and sane. Delightful Dalmatia Ragusa, Dalmatia, Sept. 21. On the map it will be seen that Austria has a shoestring addition running down the east coast of the Adriatic Sea as far as Montenegro, shutting off the old Turkish provinces and Servia from a glimpse of the sea. When the Allied Powers of Europe defeated Napoleon a hundred years ago, they revised the map to suit themselves wherever they could, and Austria took Venice and this strip of coast land called Dalmatia. Venice afterwards broke away, but Dalmatia has been held in spite of the fact that the population is not any more Austrian than it is English. The people are Croats or Serbs, and are Slavs by race and language. In the recent Balkan ex- citement they were very much pro-Serb, and when it looked as if Austria might get into the war game, public sentiment was greatly with the brethren across the border, not for Austria. The Vienna government filled the (208) DELIGHTFUL DALMATIA 209 garrisons calong the border with Austrian and Hungarian troops and sent the Dahnatian sol- diers elsewhere, just to avoid unpleasant events which might have happened. Very few Dalmatians speak the Austrian language. Just whj^ they voluntarily stick to the Croatian tongue is hard to say, unless it is for the same reason that we in America speak English, — we were born that way. The Croatian is a dia- lect of the Serb or Russian, with a few more consonants. A Croat newspaper reminds me of that old Irish story of Mike and Pat and the Chinese language. The two Irish lads took their laundry to a Chinaman and received his re- ceipt. Mike handed it to Pat and asked him to read it. "Faith and I can't read it," said Pat, "but if I had my flute I could play it." Our first stop in Dalmatia was at Cattaro, in order to make the ascent into INIontenegro. When we returned we stayed there several days to enjoy the restful quiet of a most de- lightful town. The tourist books pay little attention to Cattaro, and it has no hotels with elevators, steam heat and electric light, such 210 THE NEAR EAST as are proudly advertised in the modern cities. Cattaro is still a hundred years behind the times, with no indication of trying to catch up. But there is a clean and comfortable little hotel called the Stadt Gratz which fur- nishes good eats and a cheerful atmosphere, so that anyone who is willing to go to bed by candlelight and take a bath with a sponge will find it equal to the finest in Europe. For several hundred years Cattaro was right between the Turks and the Venetians, cap- tured and sacked every few years. But it finally became the last Christian stronghold on the coast, and even now its big walls and fortifications are the strongest in southern Europe. Within these walls, about forty feet thick and thirty feet high, is the little town. To enter Cattaro you must go through one of the three gates, and every night at 11 o'clock the gates are closed. I wondered what would happen if one were outside the gates after that hour, and then I wondered what anybody would be doing out after 11 o'clock. At that late hour the Cattaronians and their guests are fast asleep. No horses or automobiles are allowed within DELTCHTFTTL DALMATIA 211 the city. Just outside the water-gate, on the quay, there are carriages for hire and pack- horses, donkeys and dray wagons arc loaded and unloaded. But inside the walls of the city there are no streets big enough for wagons, and the transportation is all done by man- power. Imagine this little city of Cattaro, located on a strip of land a quarter of a mile wide between high mountain and deep sea, surrounded by massive walls, houses three and four stories high, narrow streets running in every direction except straight, and every- thing at least a century old, quaint and pic- turesque. Four thousand people live here all the time, and most of them probably think all towns are constructed the same way. We were there on a market day when the Dalmatian peasants w^ith their bright-colored costumes, and the neighbors from Montenegro and Albania, came with their products to the market just outside the city. The Montene- grins and Albanians are compelled to leave their guns and pistols at the border, and are thus deprived of much of their glory. But such a market with such folks and such cos- 212 THE NEAR EAST tumes puts a comic opera into a back seat for interest and entertainment. As an addition to the color scheme the Aus- trian government has a garrison of 5,000 men just outside the wall, and I think every regi- ment has a different and more striking uni- form. Among these soldiers and peasants with their brilliant raiment, a tourist in a gray suit and a straw hat naturally attracts attention, and I felt as important as a boy scout in uniform at a Sunday-school picnic. The greatness of Cattaro is in its harbor. The Adriatic comes in among the mountains so that it practically forms a chain of lakes, and Cattaro, twenty miles from the open sea, has a quiet, deep harbor which would be worth a billion dollars on the Atlantic. That is the reason why Austria wanted Cattaro and keeps it so well guarded. That is also the reason why Montenegro, just over the mountain, dreams of the day when Cattaro will be under the red, white and blue flag of the Black Moun- tain. The entire Dalmatian coast is a winter re- sort of central Europe. Its climate is like that DELIGHTFUL DALMATIA 213 of the French Riviera or our own Florida. In beauty of sea and mountain it is at least equal to the wonderful coast of Nice and Monte Carlo. The city of Ragusa is the chief at- traction, although Cattaro and other places are even more beautiful. But Ragusa has a history, ruins of Roman temples and a big first-class hotel. Its vegetation is almost trop- ical, with the palm, the oleander and the or- ange growing beside the cypress and the olive. It lies on a peninsula jutting out from the mountains, and the breeze from Africa's heated sands comes north up the Adriatic. Like Cattaro, it is a walled town, with curious little streets and odd architecture which make an artist thirsty with yearnings to copy the works of man as well as of nature. I never knew much of Ragusa, and yet for 400 years it was a more important figure in history than was Kansas. It had a nice little harbor and an enterprising commercial club long before Columbus went into the discovery business. In 1400 it got its independence and kept it for 400 years, the only town in that vicinity which was not conquered and annexed 214 THE NEAR EAST by Turkey or Venice. They wanted Ragusa, for it was an important place. The Ragusans had organized a repubhc, and its prosperity was a sore eye for the Turks and Venetians. But the Ragusans fought them off, and in spite of war, pestilence and earthquakes, all of which came to pass, they maintained their republic for four centuries, until Napoleon came and took them into his control. When the Napoleonic wars ended, Austria grabbed Ragusa and its day of independence was over. But the Ragusans themselves have not got- ten over their old ways. They submit to Austrian authority, but they turn up their noses at Austria. They run their own local affairs and pretend to a good deal of inde- pendence which they do not have. They en- joy the reputation of being "rich." In the old days to be a Ragusan was to be a pluto- crat, and the Ragusans of the present keep up the bluff. I know of no community in Europe where there are so few indications of poverty or where the people affect to despise the money of the tourist as in Ragusa. Of course much of this independence is "put on," or born in, but it makes a unique and rather DELIGHTFUL DALMATIA 215 pleasing citizenship when contrasted with the often servile and always poor class that is present elsewhere. A few miles away and almost in front of Ragusa is the island La Croma, with a won- derful old castle and a beautiful park. When Richard Cceur de Lion, king of England, left his realm to hunt adventure and Mohamme- dans, he was crossing the Adriatic in a small ship. A storm came up and it looked as if Richard would be put out of the crusading business. As was customary in those days, he made a vow that if he reached the shore alive he would build a church on the place where he landed. The wind and wave threw the boat onto this island, and Richard kept his vow by constructing the church and a castle which are still worthy of a royal resi- dence. Richard liked the country so well that he lingered a while and enjoyed himself fight- ing Byzantines, but finally he pulled out for Palestine, with everything he could carry, but he had to leave the island behind. An order of monks was established at La Croma, but in recent years the Austrian government has 216 THE NEAR EAST bought the place, which is remarkable for its beauty even on this beautiful coast. There is only one real street in Ragusa, and it goes through the center of the city. It be- gins at a wonderful old gate and ends at the gate leading to the sea. On both sides it is lined with shops that sell to tourists, every- thing from Persian rugs to glass beads, from ancient pistols to post-cards. It is a continu- ous fair all the year round, and is a separator of the man and the woman from the money. Again we have the bright-colored costumes. In Dalmatia a man has a right to dress him- self like a Christmas tree if he wants to — and he usually does. No lady considers herself properly attired unless she has the rainbow rivaled for color. The Austrian soldiers strut up and down the avenues and do their part in the play. The fragrance of flowers, the music of the gipsy band and the song of the sea as it beats on the rocks, fill the air with a gentle harmony. Ragusa is indeed a land of pure delight — and it has a good hotel. The Balkan Brethren MosTAR, Herzegovina, Sept. 22. For two good reasons we have not visited Bulgaria. The first was that the neighboring countries, Servia and Turkey, through which it was necessary to go to reach Bulgaria, would not let us pass. The second was that if we had slipped into Bulgaria by some roundabout way we would have been quarantined on ac- count of cholera, which is said to be doing business. Our experience with the carbolic- acid quarantine of Austria was sufficient along that line, and Bulgaria was not visited. Dur- ing the last three months Bulgaria has been at war with Turkey, and then with Servia, Montenegro, Greece, and Roumania. The tales that were told us of the terrible Bulgars were enough to ruin the reputation of any people. We have had to learn about Bulgaria from the neighbors, never a good source of information, and especially not with the bitter (217) 218 THE NEAR EAST feeling against Bulgaria now held by every other nation in the Balkans. But I do not believe all the stories of Bul- garian atrocities, or rather I think the atrocity business was so general in the Balkans the past year that it is not fair to give any one special mention or denunciation. Tales of cruelties, of massacres and of bad conduct are doubtless based on some facts, but my guess is that Servians, Montenegrins, Greeks and Turks were in about the same class with the Bulgarians. One must always remember that these peo- ple were under Turkish domination for 500 years, and were living and making war under the old rules. It has been less than 200 years since the French and Indians massacred Amer- ican colonists. Still more recently the English and their Indian allies committed all kinds of outrages on the exposed settlements of the Americans. I imagine the Americans were at least revengeful in their reprisals, and if the truth were known did some massacring on their own account. The Balkan people were only doing as they had always done and as THE BALKAN BRETHREN 219 the Turks always did, when they displayed fierce tempers and committed awful atrocities, and they always had the excuse of the other fellow having done the same thing or worse. Bulgaria was the last of the Balkan states to wriggle out from under Turkish rule. Ser- via has been practically independent for a century. Bulgaria got its first recognition in 1878, but was tributary to Turkey until 1908, only five years ago. Her people had 500 years of oppression to remember and to re- venge on the Turks. They are not nice, high- minded folks according to our standard, but they are the natural development under such conditions, and now that they are recognized as an independent people they will rapidly learn the ways of civilization and unlearn those of the Turk. The Bulgarians are a different people from their neighbors. They are Slavs and Greek Catholics and very much the same race, but they are a slower, steadier and harder-working people. The Servians and Greeks call them *' farmers," and they are, but that is their strength, for their country is fertile and they 220 THE NEAR EAST are industrious. They are unquestionably the strongest of the Balkan states. They led the hard fighting against Turkey and were en- titled to the largest share of the spoils. Prob- ably they wanted too much, and thus forced the others to combine against them, and Roumania, Greece, Servia and Montenegro were too strong for Bulgaria. In six months the Bulgarians made a great reputation, and then by breaking with their allies lost that reputation. It may have been justice or it may have been hard luck. In either event the Servians, Greeks and Montenegrins now hate the Bulgarians more than they do their ancient enemy, the Turks ; and on the other hand, the story is believed in Europe that Bulgaria is ready to join with the Turks to lick the Greeks and Servians. Every one of these little nations is now pre- paring for the next war. The people are do- ing this and not merely the governments. Bulgaria wants a little time, Greece and Servia are likely to quarrel, for they never have been friends, and the general opinion is that Bul- garia can whip either one if some one like Prcpariiuj fur the next ivar — "/// the miuntimr, ivatr/i the miiilc on the face of our Turkish friend." THE BALKAN BRETHREN 221 Austria or Turkey will hold the other fellow. In the mean time Bulgaria is establishing schools and buying up-to-date guns, so as to be ready. The Powers of Europe dread a war, because it might spread like a prairie-fire. Austria will stand with Bulgaria and Russia is apt to go with Servia. Thus far these big nations have done nothing but give advice and spend money mobihzing their troops. But an outrage on the frontier, or an insult to an oflicial, might be the spark in the powder- box that would start the bunch to shooting, and then nobody knows what would happen. In the mean time, vratch the smile on our Turkish friends. The Balkan states in their present situation are a good deal like what is known in Ameri- can pugilistic circles as a "battle royal." In this kind of a fight a half-dozen men are put into a ring and the fight is every man for him- self. The fighter who stands up the longest wins the prize. In the Balkan ring are Bul- garia, Servia, Roumania, Greece, Montenegro, and Turkey. Montenegro really should count as an ally of Servia. Albania is a small boy 222 THE NEAR EAST about to be pushed in. These states will pommel and fight one another until there is only one left, and he will get the prize — Con- stantinople and supremacy. There is also danger that two big chaps named Austria and Russia may jump in and knock down the last weakened fellows and take the stake them- selves. Every one of these nations is taxing its people heavily to prepare for this coming war, and every man from 16 to 65 is liable to be called to the colors. It is a distressing situation, and to one who believes in peace and arbitration and fair play it looks very dark. But the people over here in the Bal- kans, who have been in such a game ever since their ancestors came from Asia, are ap- parently anxious for the gong to sound that will start the big scrap. Except in a few small locahties like Bosnia and in Macedonia and Albania, the Turks are no longer to be found a hundred miles away from Constantinople. The Turkish merchants sold or shipped their stuff and the Turkish farmer and his family marched off with the buffalo and the donkey, carrying personal ef- THE BALKAN BRETHREN 223 fects hut leaving the land to the conquering Christians. No doubt they remembered the generations of oppression which they had in- flicted, and feared that there would be an evening-up. Only the quarrel of the Balkan states permits Turkey to hold Constantinople, one of the greatest locations for a commercial city in the world. The Turkish empire is still strong in Asia, and really ought to go over to that side of the Bospliorus and sit down. When that is done, Turkey will be stronger because of not being always on a strain to defend Constantinople. Aside from the habit of carrying guns and looking fierce, the people who live in the Bal- kan states are well behaved and kindly. Ex- cept in Greece the ruling race is Slav, and all are of the same religion. A family row is always worse than any other kind. Every one of these countries is establishing schools and modeling after the civilization of the West. They never speak of themselves as part of "Europe" anj^ more than did the ancient Greeks. They are getting their guns and military training from Europe, their no- 224 THE NEAR EAST tions of government from Europe, and soon they will be wearing stiff hats and tight skirts, just as they do in Europe. The big bankers of London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna are loan- ing money to the Balkans for Avar and for im- provements. Land titles, which were not good under the Turks, are being cleared and fixed, so that capital is preparing to exploit the Balkans as it has the Argentine Republic. The war-cloud is the only drawback to pros- perity, farm mortgages, high taxes, good roads, colleges, and works of art. A man could take a little money now and go into the Balkans with a better chance to make a big profit than he could anywhere in Europe, or perhaps in America. Far be it from me to encourage anyone to emigrate to this land of firearms and feuds. A section of Kansas land is worth more than any Balkan I have seen. To make a home and live happy ever afterward, I would prefer Arkansas or Breathitt county, Kentucky. There will be plenty of news out of the Bal- kans in the next years, and much of it will be obituary. Each nation is ready to fight at THE BALKAN BRETHREN 225 the drop of the hat, and each is wilhng to drop the hat if he thinks it is to his advantage. The Balkan blouse is a Paris-made garment, but the Balkan belt of many colors carries a loaded gun, and my observation is that a man or a boy with a loaded gun is sure to find some mark to shoot at. The presence of the Turk no longer forces the Balkanese to keep from open enmity. I was told a story illustrating the present situation. A Greek, a Bulgarian and a Turk were to- gether in a boat, and the subject of conversa- tion turned upon what they most desired. It was suggested that each tell the wish dearest to his heart, and the Greek began : "I am wishing that there will be many new graveyards in Bulgaria." The Bulgarian followed with his wish, that the Greeks would die like flies in the winter- time. "And what is your wish?" was asked of the Turk. "That both of j^our wishes come true." A Turkish Town MosTAR, Herzegovina, Sept. 23. This is a Turkish town, more Turkish than many of the towns in Turkey. Herzegovina and Bosnia are two small provinces which in the centuries gone by were often independent. But about the year 1500 the conquering Mo- hammedans swept over these two Balkan states, and they were Turkish soil until five years ago. At that time, when Bulgaria reached out and took a slice of Turkey on the south, Austria-Hungary moved in its troops and declared that Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 20,000 square miles of land and a mill- ion people, were annexed to the Austrian em- pire. It was so sudden that Turkey had no chance to resist and the other Balkan states could only get red in the face and protest — all of which had no effect on Austria. This an- nexation without war or fighting, left the pop- ulation intact, and over half of it is Moham- medan. The Austrian government has built (226) A TURKISH TOWN S^T railroads and started schools, but it has left the religious and race questions alone, so the Turks stayed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and did not leave when their flag went down as they did in Servia and Bulgaria. In Mostar there are 14,000 people, a ma- jority of them Turks, and it is said to be the best place left in Europe to see the Turk of the rural district in his natural ways. The sol- diers in the garrison are the gaily uniformed Austrians, but the Turks go back and forth about their work or their business, paying no attention to the soldiers or the change of sov- ereignty which has affected them so little. The women wear their yashmaks, cover them- selves from the gaze of men-folks, and in Mos- tar they add a black hood of stiff material which sticks out in front like the beak of a bird. I have no objection to the Turkish la- dies wearing as manj^ veils or as shapeless gowns as they please. But when they come down the street with those black beaks, and nothing in sight except a pair of eyes, they almost get on my nerves. One wonders whether they arc really truly women or some new specimen of a high-class animal. As you 228 THE NEAR EAST cannot remember any woman of your ac- quaintance who would hide her face and wear foolish clothes just to keep men from admiring her, they make a most uncanny impression on you as they slip noiselessly along the road. The street is lined with small shops. The Turk here is often an artisan who does silver inlaid work, hammers brass and makes those ornaments and utensils that are known every- where as Turkish goods. The merchant squats in his little shop and takes as much time as possible to make a sale. He will not hurry and he never seems anxious. But he will cut the price and expects to do so, the only ques- tion being how much. The Turkish farmer and his donkey are in with the vegetables his wife has raised, and the town Turkesses ex- amine the wares through their veils and bar- gain away, the only real pleasure they have in common with their Christian visitors. I have found no one in Mostar who can speak English, and so my information comes slow. Of course the hotel people and the of- ficials speak German. They tell me that a Turk is a good citizen who keeps his word and A TTTRKISTI TOWN '2'-20 is honest. He is not progressive. If you do not try to change him or his ways you will like him. If you want to reform his habits or teach him a better road to the mansions in the skies, he will not understand you and your work is lost. When the government orders in sewers or cuts off a contaminated water supply, the Turk is outraged, for he knows that so far as he is concerned he will go to Heaven when his appointed time comes, and he has no respect for scientific efforts to get an extension of the limit to his stay in this vale of tears. We expected to be frightened by the Turks, and at first I had to encourage myself by re- peating that no harm could possibly come to an American when an Austrian brigade was quartered within a mile and he had a passport, with a big red seal, safe in his inside pocket. But the Turks were kindly and apparently paid no attention to anything except a fairly legitimate effort to exchange old brass for real money. Soon we felt safer than we would around the union depot at Kansas City or on Broadwav in New York — and we were. The 230 THE NEAR EAST Turks are on the square with everyone, ex- cept, of course, when there is a war, in which case they are just hke their neighbors. Herzegovina and Bosnia have a chmate a good deal hke Kansas, and the products are about the same. The land is mountainous, but there are many good valleys and tillable hillsides. In fact, this part of the mountains is the best country I have seen in the eastern Balkans. The Austrian government has built a narrow-gauge railroad from the deep water at Gravosa through the Turkish provinces to Buda Pesth. Up to a few years ago there was no way to get into Herzegovina except to hire a mule, and then it was necessary to walk and lead the mule. I had never met but one American who said he had been in Mostar, and he walked through the country. But this way is now open, and the railroad will surely take to the old Turks many luxuries, comforts and bad habits of which they have never even dreamed. It will doubtless strike some people as sur- prising that in this old Turkish town, where there were no hotels or railroad or street- A TURKISH TOWN 231 cleaning a few years ago, it is now a pleasant place to stay, providing j^ou do not mind a few loud and piercing odors in the business part of the city. The fact is, Austria is a good housekeeper and makes its folks come to reasonable cleanliness. Then there is a gar- rison of 5,000 soldiers, and where there are 5,000 Austrians there will be a good hotel also, with plenty to eat and more than that to drink. A comfortable hotel comes as naturally to this new Austrian possession as a lumber yard to a new town opened in Kansas. The Austrian government may have its faults, but it builds good roads, constructs railways, and provides clean hotels in every place where it raises its flag. There may be better objects of government, but none now occur to my mind. The Austrians go on the theory that if 3^ou keep a man's stomach full and give him a good place to sleep, he will not start an in- surrection or make trouble for the police. On the railroad near Mostar I noticed women working on the section, and they were apparently doing a good job, tamping the bal- 232 THE NEAR EAST last or the rails, or whatever it is they do to the track. They were not Turkish women, but Christian women. The Turks do not let their women work on the railroad track. Probably they will sometime learn better and be as liberal with their women-folks as the neighbor who now condemns the Turk for making his wife wear a veil. There is so much in this world of ours that seems im- portant to us because of the point of view from which we make our observations. An Irishman contemplated an oak tree and a pumpkin vine. He noted that the big tree produced a little acorn and the vine a big pumpkin, and he criticized the Creator for such an illogical arrangement. "If I had the job," he said, "I'd make the big tree raise the pumpkin and let the little vine have the acorn." Then the Irishman lay down beneath the spreading oak for a nap. An acorn fell and hit him a smart rap on the face. He sat up, scratched his head and confessed : "The Creator knew what he was about. If that acorn had been a pumpkin I'd have had no head." A TURKISH TOWN 233 The point to this story is that perhaps it is not best to sympathize with the Turkish woman because she has to cover up her face. If she did not, she might have to work on the railroad. The fariaoing is still done with a wooden plow and a team of oxen. Fields are small and labor is plenty, so the need of machinery is not felt. Threshing is done by hand. But the main crops here are vegetables, tobacco, and corn, the same corn we have in Kansas. Cattle and sheep are raised cheaply, and are worth only about half as much as with us. A donkey is the best transportation, and one costs fifteen or twenty dollars. Day labor is about a dollar a month and board, the latter item being exceedingly plain. But everybody seems to have enough to eat of some kind, and so long as a man is satisfied with soup and potatoes, with mutton on great occasions, there is no need for him to worry over the condition of the country. The Turk is a tall, fine-looking chap who looks healthy and hearty and acts as if he had a cinch on this world and the next. He wants his tobacco. 234 THE NEAR EAST his coffee, leisure to think, and plenty of veils on his women-folks. It is so easy to be happy, if you are a Turk. The Near East Venice, Sept. 25. This is the old door to the Near East. As we came across the Adriatic and the oriental architecture of Venice loomed large on the horizon, I could not but think how for 700 years the Venetian Republic dominated the seas and coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean and its adjacent waters. It is hard to appre- ciate this fact. Less than 500 years have passed since the discovery of America, and that seems a long time. But from about the year 1000 to about the year 1700 Venice was one of the powers of Europe. Her ships car- ried the commerce between the East and the West, and did the carrying trade of the East. Commerce always brings wealth, and for 700 years Venice was as prosperous and as sure of everlasting power as the United States is today. The fleet of Venice stopped the Mo- hammedan advance and saved Europe to Christianity. The blind doge of Venice, Dan- (235) 236 THE NEAR EAST dolo, conquered Constantinople, and while that city was not permanently held, for cen- turies Venice owned or controlled the shores of the Adriatic and the islands of the ^Egean. Venice became eastern rather than western. Her trade was with the Near East and she was the most important city of that indefinite region known as the Levant. I have often read of the Levant, but never realized what the word meant. It is the comm^on name used by the people of the Near East when they speak of their collective individuality. The Levant is that country around the Mediter- ranean sea east of Italy, including Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, northern Africa, the Adriatic and iEgean seas, and all that in them is. It is a region of tropical conditions, blue skies, peculiar peoples and confusion of races. But it is a trade territory, and is as close together comm.ercially as the Trans-Mis- sissippi country is in the United States. A business house at Alexandria in Egypt will have branches at Constantinople, Smyrna, and Athens, with agents and connections in every city comprised in what I have described as the Levant. It is different from Europe, THE NEAR EAST 237 rather Asiatic than European, and it has been a httlc world of its own ever since the Greeks dominated its territory and when Paul and Peter and other apostles of Christianity trav- ersed its highways and byways organizing churches and preaching the gospel to all men. The Le\^ant is the birthplace of the world's great religions, the location of all the world that was known or is known about prior to the Roman Empire. Until the discovery of America in 149!2 the Mediterranean was the only sea in the world that was understood and explored. During the time from the begin- nings of Palestine and Egypt up to 1492 the Mediterranean was the greatest water in the world, the only one of which our histories tell us. When Columbus sailed the waters blue he not only discovered a new world, but he al- most put the Levant and all its commercial centers out of business. Every activity shifted from the Near East to the Great West. \'en- ice struggled on for a couple of hundred j^ears, but lost her prestige. The countries around the Mediterranean were no longer the place 238 THE NEAR EAST for an active business man. The smart fel- lows took Horace Greeley's advice long before Horace gave it, and went west to grow up with the country. They have kept on going, first across the Atlantic, then across the Mis- sissippi, then over the plains of Kansas and the mountains of California, until the march westward is now in the far east of China and Japan. All these last centuries the Near East has been standing still or going back, neglected by the outsiders and demoralized in itself. Now the Near East is going to come back. I am no prophet, but I have seen how booms start in Kansas, and that is what is going to happen in the Levant. The deadening influ- ence of Mohammed is being pushed aside, the old mines are ready to be worked, and as soon as civilization realizes the opportunities in the Levant those who now incumber the earth there will be moved off or regenerated, and the world known by the writers of the Greek phi- losophy and the Christian gospels will once more pulsate with real life. The great business of this territory is done by water, for the old commercial centers are on the coasts. But the railroads, the tele- THE NEAR EAST 239 graph and the motor car are pushing into the back country. What would Paul say to tak- ing a train for Ephesus? Wouldn't it jar old Demosthenes if he were present today and rode in an express train to Macedonia? How would Rameses feel when he heard the train whistle for Luxor, Egypt? And Haroun-al- Rashid, the hero of the Arabian Nights, would be shocked to a frazzle when the brakeman called "Bagdad." Up till five years ago Ab- dul-Hamid refused to permit telephones in Constantinople. But the wires are up now and the "hello girls" in central will soon know all the secrets of the harems. I saw the same motor car in Athens that I do in Hutchinson, and the way it honked would have given Soc- rates something to worry about. Every city in the Levant has a commercial club, a mov- ing-picture show, and a department of pub- licity. All the Levant needs now to enjoy a regular Kansas boom is a number of first-class funerals, a little more education, and better real-estate titles to secure farm mortgages. Venice is one of the interesting cities of the world. Everyone knows how it was started — 240 THE NEAR EAST by fugitives from the mainland of Italy, driven from their homes by the Goths and Germans. They took refuge on a bunch of islands in shallow water a couple of miles from shore. They built a city partly on the islands and partly on piles, with canals for streets, that do not have to be paved or drained. They elected a duke, or doge, and had a sort of re- public in which only taxpayers voted and a ring ran things just as they do in other coun- tries. Their location made them sailors and merchants and gave them immunity from the raids and ravages which destroyed the towns in Europe every now and then during the Middle Ages. Venice once had 200,000 popula- tion and has nearly that many now, not count- ing the tourists, who are a crop rather than people. In all the city there is not a horse except a pair of bronze horses which were cap- tured from the Turks. The traveling and trade around town are in long slim boats called gondolas, which would be tolerated nowhere else, but which the gondola union maintains exclusively in Venice. Gondoliers are just the same as hackmen everywhere, charging THE NEAR EAST 241 all you will stand, but they have the advan- tage that you can't get out and walk. Our hotel is on the Grand Canal, where the view is better and the rates higher. The only way to get in or out the front door is by gon- dola, and the water comes up to the top of the porch steps. At night the mosquitoes and the groups of singers keep us awake, but the singers gondola on when they get some money. Incidentally the Italian musicians never do anything lighter than II Trovatore, and are really very high class. I w^anted one bunch to sing something American, and secured the services of an interpreter to make the request. But they did not know anything about "In My Harem" or "Alexander's Rag Time Band," or the other classics which I suggested. I wanted to ask them to give us "Just as I Am, Without One Flea," but I refrained. I knew they could not do it truthfully, even if they made the musical attempt. Aside from working the tourists, or perhaps as side-lines to that profession, the Venetians have but two resources that I can discover — the making of glass beads and lace. The w^orkmen are paid forty cents a day for the 242 THE NEAR EAST very skillful glass work they do, and the women work their eyes out over the lace cushions for twenty-five cents a day. I feel sorrj^ for them until I remember that the union scale on tourists is high enough to make up for any deficit in the other industries. The schedule for something like a strand of glass beads seems to be about one lira (twenty cents) if you are Italian, two liras if you are English, three liras if you are American, and four liras if you are a chump, which many of us are. There are 15,000 houses in Venice, mostly built on piles. Under one church there are 1,200,000 piles. I did not count them, but took a Venetian's word for the number. It seemed to me he was piling it on rather thick, but he was not charging me by the pile, so I made no kick. The water in the canals is about ten to twelve feet deep and the canals are from ten to twenty feet wide, except the Grand Canal, which is 16 feet deep and 200 feet wide. These figures are correct, and my own estimate, except the depth, which I did THE NEAR EAST 243 not investigate, although every time I went out in a gondola I expected I would. There are two very interesting places in Venice — St. Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge. On the square is St. Mark's Church, the handsomest church I have ever seen, ori- ental in architecture and decoration. In front of the church is the square paved with stone and marble stolen from other cities which were captured by the Venetians wdien they were doing an honest business before the days of tourists. On one side of the square is the royal palace of the king of Italy, with the lower floor rented out to cafes and shops. The other two sides of the square are all shops. When the Venetians get anyone in the square it is impossible to escape without buying beads or lace unless you can fly. The other feature of St. Mark's Square is the pigeons. Several hundred years ago a doge won a battle and sent the news home by carrier-pigeons. The city council was so pleased that it passed an ordinance protecting the pigeons and provid- ing that they and their children's children should be fed at 2 o'clock every day at j)ublic 244 THE NEAR EAST expense. There are now as many pigeons re- siding around St. Mark's Square as there are piles under that church, and when 2 o'clock arrives they arrive also. They begin to come a few minutes before the hour, and when the clock strikes two they strike the pavement for the free lunch. The other spectacular place in Venice is the Rialto bridge across the Grand Canal, lined on either side with shops. It was once the board of trade of Venice, and you will remem- ber that full many a time and oft Shylock was jollied upon the Rialto by the smart-alecky Venetians. Next to the bridge is the market where the common people do their shopping, and where old clothes, sausage and macaroni allure the Venetian shopper as the lace and glass beads on St. Mark's Square do the folks from foreign shores. Back and forth across this old bridge and on the quay near by, have walked the Venetians for a thousand years, buying and selling, gossiping and politicking. In spite of the fact that their ancient glory has departed and they now do business with centimes instead of ducats, it is easy to see THE NEAR EAST 245 them as natural-born traders and skillful sell- ers at the best prices to any comers. Venice was an independent state from the time of its founding, about 800, until Napoleon arrived in 1800 and annexed it to his general collection of countries and peoples. When Napoleon was defeated and his property di- vided, Venice went to Austria. But the Ve- netians were not happj^ in being clean and orderly and Austrian. They organized in- surgent parties and kept rebelling until 1868, when they were handed over to Italy as the result of a war, and they seem perfectly satis- fied with the present arrangement. THE JOURNEY'S END This ends a journey to the Near East. It is a wonderful country of curious peoples, and has as much possibility of what the poets call "hell-raising" as any other part of the globe. There are more cross-purposes, ancient feuds, 246 THE NEAR EAST hostile religions and belligerent races in the Near East than anywhere else on which the sun shines. All that is necessary to start a fight is to get out in the street and holler. Through all the various peoples, with their different churches, customs and languages, runs the oriental air of mystery and fatalism. Likewise there is a harmonious odor due to the lack of sanitation and the use of perfume instead of soap and water. The Near East has a special charm for the tourist from the West because of its history and its queerness, its art and its age. It w^as once a great little world of its own, and now that it is discovering itself and preparing to progress or perish, it is a study for the scholar and a problem for the prophet. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. HEtrO IDURl SEP 21387 REC'D LDURl OCT 26 1994 Form L9-75m-7,'61 (Cl437s 4)444 58 01210 7446 idCl) .,,,rn. Dcr.inNAi 1 inRAfiV FACILIT-C AA 000 738 570 i DR 15 M82n 1913 ill I 1 Hiiiil w m