The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

The Hebrew boy is generally educated in his father’s shop, but the girl is often given a good schooling, which raises her in mind and morals far above the man she marries—which is sad. Among the various large foreign schools at Salonica there is one for girls conducted by the British Mission to the Jews. It affords a means of learning English, which makes it a most popular institution; and it is within the reach of all classes, because pupils are taken at whatever they can afford to pay. But while the school has been conducted for many years, and an old Scottish missionary (who has recently died) preached to the scholars for half a century, there is yet to be recorded a single convert to Christianity. The old Scotchman once told me that he thought a good share of the blame for his failure was due to the example his own countrymen set. He said he hated to go into the street when the British fleet was in the harbour because he was invariably asked by some Israelite if he wanted to convert them to ‘that’—pointing at a drunken sailor. A drunken man is rarely seen in the streets of Salonica except when a foreign fleet is in the bay, and the ‘drunks’ are most numerous when that fleet is British.

The hundred and one bootblacks (all Jews) who infest the cafés of Salonica, and swarm about the hotels to pester the unfortunate inmates as they emerge, are in great glee when an Englishman appears. They mistook me for an Englishman, but whenever I sought to disillusion a native on this score, I was told ‘England, America—all the same.’ The Jews all speak a few words of English, learned, no doubt, from their sisters.

‘When comes the English fleet?’ is the first question a bootblack puts to an Englishman.

‘Do you want the English fleet to come to Salonica?’ I asked.

‘You bet!’ They must have acquired this from the American missionaries.

‘Why?’

‘English sailor get much bootshines; pay very well. Ten shillin’ me make one day—English sailor very much drunk always.’

Jews are always very fond of music, and they fill the cafés-chantants of Salonica on Saturday evenings. Extracts from ‘Carmen,’ ‘Traviata,’ ‘Faust,’ and like operas were being rendered by a small troupe of Italians at one of these places, to which the entrance fee was two piastres—about fourpence. But this was beyond the price of the populace, and the masses flocked to another place of amusement a little further down the quay, where no entrance fee was charged, and by purchasing one cup of coffee you could sit and hear the music the whole evening. Here there was a French artist whose répertoire was known by the whole town, and the audience made it a rule to shout for the songs they desired to hear. A certain duet about dogs and cats, in which the lady meowed and a sickly looking male partner barked, was the Jews’ favourite recital. Late one Saturday evening, when the singers stopped for a cue, the Jews in the audience began to bark, which was the recognised signal for the dog song. But there were a number of Greeks in the audience who wanted the lady to sing alone, and they set up a call for one of her solos. The respective parties attempted to shout each other down, which raised an unearthly din in the neighbourhood, and soon resulted in a pitched battle. But the cry of ‘Soldiers’ brought the conflict to an abrupt termination, and before the gendarmes arrived both the Jews and the Greeks were scurrying for their homes as fast as their legs could carry them.

The Jews are rigorous observers of the fourth commandment in so far as they themselves are concerned. Under no circumstances will one of them do a stroke of work on their Sabbath day. But they have no scruples against enjoying themselves by the labour of others. The small boats in the bay are owned entirely by the Jews, and all the week they hustle for Christian and Turkish patronage. But on Saturday evenings in summer they indulge in the hire of Christians and Turks to row them up and down the city front on the smooth water of the bay.

The various Sabbaths in Turkey are somewhat annoying to the traveller. On Fridays the Turkish officials will not visé passports or issue teskerés; on Saturdays the Jews refuse to shine your boots; on Sundays the Christian shops are closed. But neither the Turks nor the Christians observe their days of rest with the same rigour as the Jews do. Though it is impossible to get a teskeré from the Turkish Konak on the Turkish Sabbath, a note waiving the necessity of the document can be had for a consideration. We all know the Christian is not an over-strict observer of Sunday.