The Days of a Man 1914 



that he had just paid 500 drachme to secure his re- 

 lease from the army. First he was going back to "Old 

 Greece' 3 to see his people, and then return to the 



American i i t i 11 



greatest country in the world, where a man could 

 make of himself whatever he chose. He had in fact 

 been promised his former job as steward on a coast- 

 wise steamer southward from New York! 



From Demir Hissar to Salonica, every station had 

 its group of refugees. At the burned town of Kilkis 

 only an array of tents appeared. Not far beyond, the 

 road passes sapphire Lake Doiran, a center of camel 

 breeding. It then crosses the hills and runs down a 

 "Thessa- narrow rich valley to Salonica. There we found 

 quarters in the cosmopolitan 'Hotel of Mount 

 Olympus," directly facing the great peak, once the 

 home of the gods. To the south stand the also 

 classical heights of Pelion and Ossa, which in imagi- 

 nation the ancients used to pile one on the other. 



Salonica is splendidly situated and will sometime 

 be one of the great ports of Europe; but the waste of 

 war, the arbitrary cutting off of the back country, 

 and the piling up of tariff and other charges were then 

 making it almost impossible for the people to live. 

 Plainly bankrupt, Greece was intending to support 

 herself on the wealth of her half-ruined acquisitions. 

 In the French Journal d' Information of Salonica, for 

 April 22, 1914, I read the following: 



Salonica is now passing the most critical moment in its history. 

 The Government of Athens treats its new provinces like the hen 

 with golden eggs: impost taxes and increase of customs duties 

 follow continuously and with an insolence and nonchalance 

 quite stupefying. The Turkish taxes are maintained, even those 

 not known in Greece, while other Greek taxes are imposed without 



: 600 n 



