Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule and there are pompous, self-important little Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the British M.P.’s in everything save physique and discipline, on duty at the street crossings, but instead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic they seem only to obstruct it.  When the congestion becomes so great that it threatens to hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries which rolls through the city, day and night, between the great cantonments in the outskirts and the port, a tall British military policeman suddenly appears from nowhere, shoulders the Greek gendarme aside, and with a few curt orders untangles the snarl into which the traffic has gotten itself and sets it going again.

Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, with its splendid mosques, its beautiful Byzantine churches, its Roman triumphal 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