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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



walls. It is, of course, well for the town 

 that it should have room to grow, as for 

 the country that it should be reclaimed 

 from the abomination of desolation. 



But, being an irresponsible and senti- 

 mental tourist, I was sorry to see those 

 old stones dislodged. I was sorry, too, 

 for the storks. They congregate so pic- 

 turesquely among the battlements of Yeni 

 Kapou that one wishes Saloniki might 

 take a tardy lesson from Florence and 

 save at least her gates. 



THE VIEW REMAINS 



However, no one can ever take away 

 the view, and that is the best reason for 

 climbing to this storied hilltop. They say 

 that Xerxes of Persia, to whom blue 

 water was a rare enough sight, sat here 

 long and admired the spectacle of the 

 underlying gulf, set jewel-like between 

 its hills, with Olympus towering white at 

 the end of the vista. 



If he did, I think better of him than 

 he otherwise deserves. I also highly ap- 

 prove the taste of the Turks in preferring 

 this part of Saloniki. Its hanging coffee- 

 houses are not so popular, to be sure, as 

 those of Besh Chinar, the quay, or the 

 Street of the Vardar. Yet one of them 

 I remember better than any other in the 

 town. Under its plane trees I had the 

 pleasure of hearing a certain famous 

 Turkish singer. The famous singer was 

 called Kara Kash Effendi, otherwise Mr. 

 Black Eyebrow. 



Mr. Black Eyebrow sat in a small 

 krosk, surrounded by a chosen company 

 of players on lutes and tambourines, who 

 attended respectfully the descent upon 

 their master of the divine afflatus. When 

 the divine afflatus descended, Mr. Black 

 Eyebrow put his hand to his cheek, as 

 Turkish singers do — I know not whether 

 to aid their strange crescendo — and 



poured forth the melancholy of his heart 

 in a manner which most westerners pro- 

 fess to find laughable. 



Whereby they prove again that what 

 we like is what we are used to, and that 

 few be they capable of taking in a new 

 impression. For myself, having long 

 been used to such singing, I could have 

 listened all day to the melancholy of the 

 heart of Mr. Black Eyebrow. It seemed 

 to form a singular medium of twilight, 

 in which the imagination played easily as 

 a bat. 



SO THE PERSIANS MUST HAVE SUNG 



So I thought the Persians must have 

 sung down there in ancient Therma, as 

 they gathered for their march to Ther- 

 mopylae. So sang, perhaps, the Moors 

 in Spain. And so the Janissaries sang 

 when they had driven the lion of St. 

 Mark out of that blue bay. 



As I listened to Mr. Black Eyebrow, 

 looking about me at the red fezzes, the 

 white skullcaps, the fur robes, and all the 

 other variants of the Saloniki scene, I 

 suddenly realized for the first time in my 

 life why it is that a macedoine in a 

 French bill of fare is a dish with a little 

 of everything in it. And I began to 

 understand, what no outsider can in his 

 own country, why the equilibrium of 

 races in Macedonia is so difficult to bring 

 about, and why any final equilibrium 

 must necessarily be in part an artificial 

 one. I could not help hoping that that 

 particular macedoine has been served for 

 the last time. 



At any rate, no one can deny that the 

 Greeks have an older claim to Saloniki 

 than any one else. Yet I could not help 

 feeling a little sorry for Mr. Black Eye- 

 brow and appreciating that not without 

 reason did he pour forth melancholy 

 from his heart. 



