.LAND & WATER 
10 
he gasped brokenly. " My broth r there "-icrking his head 
toward the body of the man on the barrow- wf with me. 
Made plent\' nioney. Came back here an bought big lann. 
Wc-rich men here-plenty corn an sheep-much land- 
all we want. This vear good croi>-hiie prospect. Ihcn 
Constantino send soldier-take all-cow. sheep, goat, corn- 
not pav nothing. Three months just little corn an roots to 
cat My mother die— then mv wife— then my .boy and girl. 
Ye->t'day 'Talian come— bring plenty bread, plenty rice. 
But we eat too much. Stomach no good. Last night my 
brother an' his wife— both die. 1 very sick— very \yeak. 
You tell 'Mericans— we— I— Oh, God damn Cons tino— . 
He slid down into a limp heap at my feet. We put hm in 
the car and carried him to the Httle hospital the Italians had 
reopened in Ali Pasha's old fort, where, though we managed 
to get him attention ahead of the hundred or more similar 
cases that were waiting, they told us there was little hope 
of pulling him through. 
Nothing could have thrown a better light on the circum- 
scribed political outlook of the Balkan peoples than the fact 
that not only the inhabitants of the primitive villages, but also 
manv of those who had spent a number of years in America 
, or England, invariably seemed to take it for granted that 
the entry of the United States into the war would imme- 
diately be followed by the despatch of troops to help to attain 
whatever happened to loom in the mind of this or that in- 
dividual as the most necessary end. 
An Albanian 1 encountered in Koritsa. who had earned 
enough driving an express waggon in Brooklyn to return and 
set up a knick-knack shop in his native town, was convinced 
an American ai my should be landed at Valona for the purpose 
of pushing the Austrians out of all of Albania and setting up 
a National Ciovernment at Scutari. Similarly, a Macedonian 
Vlah, whom I chanced upon in tlie course of an evening walk 
in the hills above Fiorina, suix-rintending the milking of the 
flock of sheep he had bought with money saved from the 
profits of his coftee-cart in Baltimore, felt that the first thing 
an American force should do would be to drive the Bulgars so . 
far north that there could not be any repetition of such air 
raids as the one which wrecked his house and killed his best 
dog the previous week. A Serb, who did my washing at 
Scochivir, had no doubt that the American Balkan army 
should fight its way north from the Cerna Bend, while one that 
cut my hair at Banitsia was equally certain the Yankee 
advance had best be made up the Vardar. The reason for 
the " strategy " of each I understood when I discovered that 
the home of the first had been in Preleip and of the second iu 
Ghcvgelli. 
The Bulgar 
If the truth were known I think it might well turn out 
that, of all the Balkan peoples, the Bulgar was the one most 
impressed by the entry of America into the war. Of all 
Bulgarian overseas emigrants ten went to. the United States 
to one to any other country, and in the exaggerated imagina- 
tions of these and their friends, America constituted just 
about all there was of im.portance in the whole outside world. 
The actual significance of President Wilson's action could not 
possibly have spread very rapidly in Bulgaria, and yet even 
by the middle of May there had been a noticeable increase in 
the number of Bulgars deserting to the British armies on the 
Struma and Vardar, an increase which the Intelligence Officers 
had traced directly to the entrance of America. 
" It is a remarkable fact," a Brrtish officer engaged in 
interrogating prisoners said to me, " that of recent Bulgar 
deserters, fully fifteen per cent, have been in the United States 
at one time or another, and the number of the latter is on the 
increase. These ignore completely the technical fact that 
their country is not at war witli the United States, and say 
simply that they do not want to fight against America, and 
that they laid down their arms just aS soon as they had a 
chance." 
The French, Serbs and Italians were also reporting in- 
creased Bulgar desertions at this time, and it was at a prison 
camp of the latter near the Cerna that I had the opportunity 
to talk with a genial cobbler who had once worked in I'all 
River, and who, with his shoe-making tools under his arm, 
had sauntered over from the Bulgar lines the week before. 
He had come home, he said, to fight Serbs, not Englishmen, 
Frenchmen and Italians. He had been trying to "screw up 
his nerve to desert for some time, but hadn't got it to the 
sticking point until a friend— another rt turned Americansky- - 
had picked up a paper dropped from an aeroplane saying that 
America had joined the Allies. Shortly afterwards, taking 
advantage of the confusion following the sniping of an officer, 
he slipped out of a sap and over to the wire in front of the 
Italian trenches without being missed. He was in hopes, 
he said, of being turned over to " the American Army," and 
being sent to a prison camp in the United States," adding 
October 4, igiy 
naively that, while .the Italians were very kind to their 
prisoners, he did i'lot feel it was right to keep them there 
where it was so exposed to air raids. 
"What air raids ? " I asked. " Bulgar," he replied, adding^ 
that only two nights before bombs intended for the " dump ' 
and hospital had struck right in the midst of the prison-camp, 
and that if he hadn't been in the big dug-out he would have 
been killed. 
American Flags 
In all Salonika at the time of my visit there were only 
three American flags, one belonging to the Consulate, one to 
the Standard Oil Company, and one to a Mission School 
about five miles out in the country. Naturally, the starry 
trio were in great demand for all international functions where 
it was desirable that honour should be done to all of the 
Allies, and there was usually a considerable waiting list for 
each of them. Still more in demand was the lone copy of 
the music of the " Star Spangled Banner," which they never 
did, I believe, succeed in expanding sufficiently to make it go 
all the way round a full band. " America," to the air of 
" God Save the King,"' was the commonest substitute ; but 
I also heard " Yankee Doodle," " Dixie," and once — by the 
Serbian band, on an especially formal occasion — " My Home 
in Tenessee." 
The Jewish tailors in Salonika began turning out some very 
fearful and wonderful substitutes for the " Stars and Stripes " 
before long, the cheapest of these being made by painting red 
the light blue stripes of the old Greek flag and stitching a 
starry rectangle — likely to be of any colour — in one (and not 
necessarily any particular) corner. As an " improvisation," 
however, I am confident that no American flag since the 
first patch-work original has been worthy of mention in the 
same breath with the amazing banner which was thrown to 
the breeze of Mount .\thos on the occasion of my visit to one 
of the monasteries of that strange medixval comnmnity. 
As the first American to go to Mount Athos after the entry 
of the United States into the war, the kindly but simple Monks 
saw no absurdity in arranging another of just the same sort 
of " triumphal tours " with which they had been welcoming 
French and British Admiials and Generals. This included 
a'Te Deum for my soul in the ancient church of a monastery, 
a reception by the House of Parhament, and a series of formal 
banquets in various parts of the Peninsula. There were 
.Allied flags in abundance on all occasions, but it was not until 
the concluding feast at the rich and beautiful monastery of 
Lavra that the resourcefulness of the monks succeeded in 
supplying the much-lamented lack of an American flag. 
The banner which, greeted me at the little spray-wet quay 
and was carried at the head of the procession up the winding 
road to the monastery gate was a most imposing one, and I 
was especially struck with the bas-relief effect of the three or 
four snowy stars which peeped out between its ample folds. 
There was only one fault to find with it^t would persist in 
drooping 'and only wriggling snakily in the breeze that was 
snoring up from Gallipoli-way at a pace to set the other flags 
in the procession whipping to tatters. Why this was 1 did 
not understand until after it had been brought up to the 
banquet hall and spread proudly out — with a monk at each 
corner — for my inspection. Then it transpired that the red 
stripes had been stained with raspberry jam, the cerulean 
background of the stars with gooseberry jam, while the stars 
themselves were nothing more nor less than starfish, gathered 
at low tide, baked stiff in an oven, and whitewashed ! 
When the German Reichstag was opened yesterday week, its 
President, r>r. Kanipf, delivered a vigorous .speech attacking 
President Wilson for Jii.s letter to the Pope. " President Wilson,' ' 
he said, " repeats the old assertions of the ambitions and intri- 
guing attitude of our Emperor and our Government, which 
nevertheles.s, as is known to us all, niaiiUaincd the peace of the 
world for forty-three years in spite of all provocations." 
Dr. Kampf concluded his speech tlius : "To the C.erman 
people, for whom J^'rcsident Wil.son feigns to cherish so much 
Iriendship and so great sympathy, he has flunj; into their faces 
the worst insults which have e\er been inflicted on any people. 
We are speaking in the name of the whole people when we dechne 
such interference. We repulse in the strongest manner the 
attempts to create dissension, because Germany is sufficiently 
capable of ordering her affairs herself, and, indeed, to order therii 
in such a manner as corresponds with ( lerman needs and the 
character of the German people. At the fronts, whence a large 
number of our members have just returned, we have been able 
to admire the heroism of our incomparable soldiers, officers, and 
generals, who with iron stubbornness and unbroken spirit of 
attack have (faily accomplished the superhuman for more than 
the past three years. We were able to observe the magnificent 
order accomplished by the German (;cneral Staff. We were 
amazed again and again at the magnificent accomplishments of 
our Chief Army Administration, who, even in battles of defence, 
is never found wanting." The phrase " even in battles of de- 
fence " is illuminative. The speech was received with applause. 
