arches, and the
brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which overshadows and makes trivial
everything else, yet the strongest impressions one carries away are
filth, corruption and misgovernment. These conditions are due in some
measure, no doubt, to the refusal of the European troops, with whom the
city is filled, to take orders from any save their own officers, but the
underlying reason is to be found in the indifference and gross
incompetence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks answer this by saying
that they have not had time to clean the city up and give it a decent
administration because they have owned it only eight years. All of the
European business quarter, including a mile of handsome buildings along
the waterfront, lies in ruins as a result of the great fire of 1917.
Though a system of new streets has been tentatively laid out across this
fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to rebuild the city, hundreds
of shopkeepers carrying on their businesses in shacks and booths erected
amid the blackened and tottering walls. All of the hotels worthy of the
name were destroyed in the fire, the two or three which escaped being
quite uninhabitable, at least for Europeans, because of the armies of
insects with which they are infested. I do not recall hearing any one
say a good word for Salonika. The pleasantest recollection which I
retain of the place is that of the steamer which took us away from
there.

Before we could leave Salonika for Constantinople our passports had to
be vised by the representatives of five nations. In fact, travel in the
Balkans since the war is just one damn vise after another. The Italians
stamped them because we had come from Albania, which is under Italian
protection. The Serbs put on their imprint because we had stopped for a
few days in Monastir. The Greeks affixed their stamp--and collected
handsomely for doing so--because, theoretically at least, Salonika,
whose dust we were shaking from our feet, belongs to them. The French
insisted on viseing our papers in order to show their authority and
because they needed the ten francs. The British control officer told me
that I really didn't need his vise, but that he would put it on anyway
because it would make the passports look more imposing. Because we were
going to Constantinople and Bucharest, whereas our passports were made
out for "the Balkan States," the American Consul would not vise them at
all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Roum