The religious diversity of the Oriental Mediterranean made Salonica bristle with cupolas and towers.  The Greek temple threw into prominence the gilded bulbs of its roof; the Catholic church made the cross glisten from the peak of its bell-tower; the synagogue of geometrical forms overflowed in a succession of terraces; the Mohammedan minaret formed a colonnade, white, sharp and slender.  Modern life had added factory chimneys and the arms of steam-cranes which gave an anachronistic effect to this decoration of an Oriental harbor.  Around the city and its acropolis was the plain which lost itself in the horizon,—­a plain that Ferragut, on a former voyage, had seen desolate and monotonous, with few houses and sparsely cultivated, with no other Vegetation except that in the little oases of the Mohammedan cemetery.  This desert extended to Greece and Servia or to the borders of Bulgaria and Turkey.

Now the brownish-gray steppes coming out from the fleecy fog of daybreak were palpitating with new life.  Thousands and thousands of men were encamped around the city, occupying new villages made of canvas, rectangular streets of tents, cities of wooden cabins, and constructions as big as churches whose canvas walls were trembling under the violent squalls of wind.

Through his glasses, Ulysses could see warlike hosts occupied with the business of caring for strings of riderless horses that were going to watering places, parks of artillery with their cannon upraised like the tubes of a telescope, enormous birds with yellow wings that were trying to skip along the earth’s surface with a noisy bumping, gradually reappearing in space with their waxy wings glistening in the first shafts of sunlight.

All the allied army of the Orient returning from the bloody and mistaken adventure of the Dardanelles or proceeding from Marseilles and Gibraltar were massing themselves around Salonica.

The Mare Nostrum anchored at the wharves filled with boxes and bales.  War had given a much greater activity to this port than in times of peace.  Steamers of all the allied and neutral flags were unloading eatables and military materials.

They were coming from every continent, from every ocean, drawn thither by the tremendous necessities of a modern army.  They were unloading harvests from entire provinces, unending herds of oxen and horses, tons upon tons of steel, prepared for deadly work, and human crowds lacking only a tail of women and children to be like the great martial exoduses of history.  Then taking on board the residuum of war, arms needing repair, wounded men, they would begin their return trip.

These cargoes quietly transported through the darkness in spite of bad times and the submarine threats, were preparing the ultimate victory.  Many of these steamers were formerly luxurious vessels, but now commandeered by military necessity, were dirty and greasy and used as cargo boats.  Lined up, drowsing along the docks, ready to begin their work, were new hospital ships, the more fortunate transatlantic liners that still retained a certain trace of their former condition, quite clean with a red cross painted on their sides and another on their smokestacks.