Still, with fixed determination, the walk party pushed on, blowing and perspiring. One remembered one's duty to get fit. At the pine woods one longed to be alone for an hour—a forgotten pleasure—but we were marshalled like geese. It is a pleasant spot of young pines and pleasantly murmuring grassy glades, strewn in places with pine needles, that gave additional exercise by making one fight for a foothold. Through the opening in the pine wood one saw the mountainous horizon that ringed us round. Kastamuni was out of sight somewhere beneath us.
The next day I actually turned out to rugger for our house, as left wing three-quarter. The delight after all one's sickness in feeling one's legs really attempting to run was so encouraging that one Brabazon and I, for dinner, divided a bottle of German beer. This is to become a custom. We played three spells of ten minutes each, and quite enough too—with a ball stuffed with wool, as we had no bladder. Kastamuni is totally hilly, and the footer ground over a mile away, is uneven and stony, but the best we can get. Correct collaring is barred, but we go croppers just the same. On Sunday we went bazaaring, and were allowed to attend church at 6.30, when we sang hymns from memory. The text was: "You are sons of God." We hope to make a little chapel here, by and by.
Hailstones as large as hazel nuts, but not so large as in Kut, made merry music yesterday over the town. The streets then become drains and gutters, as they are intended to. Besides being an economy, it cleans the streets.
What a quaint town this is! All water is drawn from springs or wells. There are no lights of any kind, except, possibly, some faint glimmer burning from a police station. There are no trams or much vehicular traffic, donkeys being the chief transit. In the early morning one hears the ancient Biblical solid-wheeled oxen cart groaning on its turning axle beneath the weight of a huge tree trunk brought in for firewood. At night the distant tinkling of bells sometimes reaches one as the goats come back. And, later still, over the sheets of darkness in deep, pulsing waves, like the voice of a dark and mysteriously moving spirit, floats the muezzin, which is taken up from mosque to mosque until the whole town echoes with the cry.
I have had some rough chessmen made out of bits of wood, and am settling down to discipline my mind again to some sort of methodical thinking. One feels that some such effort as this stands between us and oblivion.
September 1st.—I am feeling very much better than I have since those awful floods came in Kut that left me legacies of rheumatics, and Heaven knows what else. We play rugger three times weekly, and eat huge teas. One of us makes cakes, another carpenters, another makes jam, and yet another has started tailoring. My present hobby is to get fit and clean my windows and "bazaar." I am putting on flesh, or rather, fat, and must be now a half stone more in weight. But my digestion is still weak, nerves bad, and a periodical pain from my spine.
We have been to a Greek dentist (?) The awful stuff we ate in Kut played havoc with my teeth, which were in rather good condition before. This fellow proposes to crown about half of the back ones, is willing to accept a cheque, and talks frequently in French. These are his distinguishing qualities. He seems everything. Moreover, he will take a live nerve out and think nothing of it. Sometimes he pretends to kill it by pushing in small supplies of something or other which the nerve likes so much that it fattens on it, with the result that it grows so rapidly that soon one's whole body exists as an appendix of the particular nerve! The Turks looted his rooms lately. He has now, in consequence, only a rickety, straight-backed kitchen chair, two bottles, a wheel and string, and about four picks, with which he is very adept, using both ends of each. Altogether the Greeks here are a most disappointing, shifty lot. Poor Greece! where Pericles once lived, and which now exports currants—as they say.
Roumania is in the war at last. Turkey is pretty well on her last legs; but then, like her carts and donkeys, she always seems good for another few yards. With returning fitness I begin to hate, loathe, detest, and abhor this soul-smothering life. The way the Turk in authority treats us, his ignorance of his own mind, his partiality for intrigue and roguery and robbery, as also the way he runs his country, proves him unworthy of Empire. The brains and finance of this country are absolutely Greek or Armenian. The Turk holds the sword, and arrears of mismanagement he puts right by a periodical massacre. He is barbarously ignorant and misinformed. The most worthy fellow is the common soldier, who has some idea of manliness and of service, but the officer and official is a double-edged scoundrel, a smiling, dishonest, lubricous sneak, and totally untrustworthy, also a bad soldier.
The Armenian I would describe as the Jew of Turkey, hence his unpopularity. He hoards money, is indifferent to the military needs or other aspect of the development of the country, except the financial one, and is not without treachery. The Greek is also more able and better educated than the Turk. With the Armenian he does the penmanship of Turkey. He supplies surveyors, artisans, architects; but he, too, cannot go straight. In fact, I would rather trust a Turkish soldier than any Greek or Armenian. Hundreds of years of oppression have dried up their springs of independent action, and the Armenian goes about in constant fear of massacre; the Greek just escapes it. They have no thought whatever of throwing off their yoke or leaving the country, although they have nothing in common with their oppressors, and their religious divergence is as wide as it can well be. They hate the Turk, yet choose to suffer. Even among the children we see the tyranny of the Turk. A diversion of ours is to watch the children playing near here. Tiny Turkish boys maltreat and bully big Greek boys and girls, who dare not retaliate.
The explanation of the sorry state of Greece and of the Greeks and Armenians here I believe to be the utter selfishness of the people and their want of public-spirited men. But, if only because they are less unenlightened than their oppressors, reform should be possible to them, and although on looking at the Greeks of the land from Aleppo to Kastamuni, they seem an indifferent lot, still they have in them the seeds of culture and the ardent wish for civilization. On this, then, I believe we can build. The Turk is an interesting study. He is half child and half savage. His predilection and habits are like those of a child. He takes offence at small things, like a child. Like a child, he responds to small favours. And Germany is the last country to take the Turk successfully under her wing. England, I believe, alone could do it. We could utilize the Turkish talent for soldiering and practical affairs, removing from their midst these over-corrupt officials and Government, whom they detest. We should win their confidence by applying rigid and accessible justice between them and the Greek and Armenian, who would find unswerving adherence to law and order unavoidable. Religious toleration we could grant, and I believe that within a few years, Turkey would settle comfortably under our influence, and learn to trust us. But as it is, the country is rotten, the habits rotten, and so many wretched corrupt Turks are in authority, that one feels inclined to sweep them all away.