May 31, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Salonika and its Weather 
By H. CoUinson Owen (Editor of The Balkan News). 
13 
IT may be laid down as an axiom that he who has spent 
a full year in Salonika feels as though he has been there 
ten. it seems ages since I first arrived in Salonika on a 
precociously hot afternoon in early spring, and an hour or 
so afterwards was conducted by a friend to the Olympos res- 
taurant for dinner. A considerable experience of cosmopoli- 
tan dining establishments did not prepare me for the extra- 
ordinary mixture oi people who were gathered in the large 
room overlooking the busy cjuay. The dinner was indifferent, 
but the air was vibrant with the strenuous conversation of some 
hundreds of people all talking together in at least half a dozen 
languages — when they were not calling loudly for the waiters 
or summoning them with insistent handclaps. And the 
diners were dressed in a striking medley of uniforms. The 
Serbs had just arrived on the hrst stage of their return home- 
wards, and formed a large proportion of the gathering. 
There were British, French and Greek (it was before the time 
of the Russians and the Italians) and all sorts of nondescripts 
whom f hf newcomer could not possibly hope to distinguish. 
Individual conversation in that sustained uproar Was 
impossible, but the novice, all alive for first impressions, bent 
forward eagerly to catch all that his host had to say : « 
" You see that man at,the next table — the dark chap, with 
the strong hawk-like- profile ? That's the fellow who 
assassinated Mahm')ud Shcfket Pasha ! " 
Oh, joyand rapture ! I was a little hazy as to the precise 
circumstances of the late Pasha's death, but impressed 
beyond measure at the idea that I was dining at the next 
table to his distinguished slayer. Could anybody have desired 
a more fitting introduction to the romantic atmosphere of 
Salonika ? And the assassin went calmly through his dinner 
as though he had not the shadow of a crime on his conscience. 
In a week or so I was painting out the assassin of Mahmoud 
Shefket Pasha to new.arrivals, who were all suitably impressed 
-and paid due tribute to the sponsor wh6 knew his Near East 
so intimately. Hoon one got quite used to the assassin, 
because one saw liim lunching or dining somewhere or other 
every day. He was merely one of our stock Hnes, to be 
dismissed with a casual reference ; and then suddenly he 
disappeared from circulation, and his hawK-Iike profile was 
seen no more. Hut whether he was really the assassin of 
Mahmoud Shefket Pasha, or whether successive generations 
of new arrivals slandered him most unjustly, I have neyer been . 
able to discover. 
****♦. 
At the moment of writing, higii summer has come back 
with a leap to Salonika. A hot wind blew suddenly up the 
Gulf somewhere about mid-day ; the picturestjue medley of 
sailing craft which thrust their noses over the sea wall at once 
I became surprisingly agitated; a most unusual "popple" 
' appeared on the water ; and before lunch was half way through, 
bouncing hearty waves that recalled the front at Brighton 
or Blackpool, were leaping over into the road ; and the tram- 
way lines on the Front (or the Quai de la Victoire or Odus Nikhi 
or whatever one may choose to call it) were submerged under 
two feet of wjiter. Durijig one period of five or si^ weeks, it 
was the custom every day to interrupt lunch to watch the 
daily Boche aeroplane being shelled by the Allied guns. 
To-day the sudden hot wind brought an unusual spectacle 
and everybody crowded to the club balcony to see British 
lorries and French camions and pushful young Fords 
belonging to all nations.ploughing their way through the flood 
that had blotted out our main street. 
It may be only what military experts call a diversion, and ■ 
not real summer at all, to be followed by a sudden attack of 
more cold or rain. Either way would be disagreeable. The 
rain brings mud; and what Salonika is like in the mud could 
only have been adequately described by Dante and 
illustrated by Dorc 'fhe only happy people under such 
circumstances are the drivers of motor cars. They smother 
every pedestrian in a grape and canister fife of flying " quidge," 
i and attain extraordinary skillin reaching particular targets. 
" And as to the heat — who that went through the boiling ordeal 
of last summer can look forward with equanimity to the next ? 
It is no joke living in a climate where the clinical thermometers 
burst from sheer joy. But the general impression is that the 
mud season is over, and that the heat and dust season will 
soon be firmly established once more. 
It seems an age since Vcnizelos Street and the Place de la 
Liberte were filled with British soldiers- in sun helmets and 
khaki shorts, and when brown-baked subalterns came in from 
up country and told us stories of 120 dcgi in their " bivvies." 
Until the last few days the furry coat that makes its wearer 
look vcrv much like a performing hear has been greatly in 
vogue, and the jump from fur garments to bare knees may 
be only a matter of a week or so. To-day I saw an officer 
in a motor car wearing blue sun goggles. One pair of blue 
goggles does not make a summer, but he is certainly the 
harbinger of the languid days when ij: will be an effort even 
to raise to the lips the refreshing citronnade glacee. 
Heat is romantic. How many youngsters, their imaginations 
fired by tales in the boys' papers, have grown up to mature 
age with the secret conviction that to wear white ducks and 
a pith tielmet, with for preference- a six-shooter thrust into 
the hip-pocket, was the finest thing that life could hold ? 
For thousands of those who were once youngsters, the dream 
has come true, even if a khaki shirt and shorts have ti^ken the 
place of the more becoming white duck. From bank and 
counting house and factory they have been translated to a 
land .where there are fierce wolves in winter and fiercer mos- 
quitoes in summer. And the youngsters of the next generation, 
instead of merely reading of these things, will hear of them 
from the lips of ^leir own romantic dders. We are preparing 
a wonderful store of fiiture enterprise. The next generation 
will go out to seek it. with an appetite as keen as that of Francis 
Drake and his bright sashed sailors. 
***** 
All this was written some little time ago; and the interval 
showed that the hot wind that came up the Gulf was only a diver- 
sion after all ; for only a few days since we were subjected to an 
attack from the famous Vardar wind, which came down 
from the Russian steppes bringing a plentiful snow-fall to the 
front fine, and causing a temporary outbreak of fur-coats in 
-Saloriika. But all the same, we know now, quite apart from the 
calendar, that summer is really about to come upon us, for 
an Army order has decreed that sun helmets are to be worn, 
which is sufiicient proof for anybody. Li^e the man with 
a new chronometer, who remarked complacently that the sun 
was three minutes behind time, the order may have anticipated 
the sfjasons by a-4^ or two; but it is an excellent thing in war 
time to look a little alifad. And in any case, the helmets, 
with their neatly folded puggarees, arc very becoming. 
We may not in the past have been a military nation, but 
the British have always had the real sense of uniforms, and 
unrivalled opportunities for comparison in this respect exist 
in Salonika. As to our sun helmets, they are just right. 
No man can look insignificant in one and nearly all men look 
splendidly martial. The officers and men of the British Army 
here, many of whom learned their soldiering in France, some- 
times feel very exiled. They belong to one of the " far-flung" 
fronts, and often think enviously that people in France are 
twelve hours from London. But at least the men in France 
never have the priviiege of doffing the tin hats of the front 
line to put on a suri helmet when they are behind. It is some 
small compensation for those who know nothing of the boon 
of short leave and a quick passage to Blighty. 
And by the time these notes reach the place of all our dreams, 
the constant blue sky of summer will be with us, and the 
white dust storms will rise uj) on the Lembet road with e\ery 
puff of wind. Already the perambulating " lemonade mer- 
chants " have been with us for several weeks — wonderful 
men who carry a huge metal receptacle shaped something like 
a Chinese pagoda. over their shoulders ; a beautiful work of 
art as they no doubt consider it, adorned with spirals and rings, 
and bells that tinkle. Round their waists they carry a broad 
leather belt that supports a tray containing half a dozen tum- 
blers. In their right hand is a metal jug containing water. 
This is to wash out the glasses. The lemonade merchant 
works with the swiftness and precision of a gun team. A 
quick and economical jet of water washes out the glass, and 
then with a skilful " hike " of his shoulder a stream of lemon- 
ade comes pouring out of^the dragon's mouth, that serves as 
spout to the pagoda, into the poised glass. Like the famous 
expectorating American, the litnonaiagki never misses. On a 
really hot day he will get rid of his six glasses and stand idle 
and waiting inside of a circle of ingurgitating customers, all 
within the space of about ten seconds. The linwnalaglii is a 
common sight all over the Near East, but he is an unfaihng 
source of interest to our Tommies. 
* * * * • 
At the momejit of sending tiiis to the censor we are suffering 
from a two days' concentrated downpour of rain which has 
completly washed out the adivities of the limonatagki and 
brought the mud season at its worst back to Salonika. But 
after all, there is a limit to the number of changes of weather 
that can be dealt with in one article^moreover it is certain 
tliat at any moment the limonalaghi may come definitely into 
his own and be with us constantly until October. 
