‘Ah, yes; Almoon. Your husband’s writer does not form his letters well.’
The woman pays two more metaleeks.
Some time later she returns again. The intelligent man of letters recognises her this time, and employs his trained memory.
‘“Most beloved of my wives,”’ he begins, ‘“I hope you are well. I am——”’
‘Effendi,’ the woman interrupts, ‘this letter, I think, is from my sister.’
‘Ah, you should have told me!’
Another hole in the wall, the keeper clinking coin—no doubt as to his race, he deals in money. He charges a piastre (twopence) for changing a lira, but silver coins are bought by him at current value. In Turkey a gold piece seems to have no fixed value; but actually it is the price of silver that varies. In Constantinople a pound Turkish is worth 103 piastres, in Salonica only 101, but in Uskub it brings 105, and in Monastir 107 or 108. Obviously the thing to do is to buy silver coin in Monastir and sell it in Salonica. Imagine getting twenty-three shillings in change for a pound in Liverpool, twenty-two in Manchester, and twenty in London!
Over the opening of a larger booth bunches of blood-coloured skull-caps hang by long black or blue tassels a foot or more in length, resembling at no great distance the scalps and scalp-locks of Red Indians. White Albanian caps and Turkish fezzes are also on sale, and a row of heavy brass blocks, like closed mouth of cannon, line the front of this formidable-looking shop. These last are presses for fezzes, which are put in shape for two metaleeks.
Lemonade booths, faced with rows of huge bottles containing green, red, and yellow drinks—limes, blood oranges, and lemons corking the respective bottles—and other permanent shops line the hill road and flank the covered bazaars. But the real fair is held only once a week on the open space above, where the Turkish garrison performs its silent target practice.
Tuesday is the market day in Uskub, and the scene behind the ancient fortress above the Vardar, in view of the surrounding country for many miles, is alone worth going to Turkey to see. The vast hilltop is littered with native goods for sale or exchange, and crowded with men and women in gay and gruesome garbs. Albanian shepherds and their lean dogs mind flocks of fat-tailed sheep, their spectral wives, in faded ghost gowns, sit selling hand-worked waistcoats of gaudy hue; Christian peasants who have come afoot or on asses or driving primitive ox-carts, display all sorts of country commodities, from new grain to ice (in the summer time) from the white peaks in the distance; Turks have a little rough lumber (there is not much in Macedonia); and Turkish soldiers, among the most ragged men in the concourse, dispose of horses, old boots, hunks of bread, gathered—who knows how? Tziganes are always on the horse market. A photograph shows a bargain being made, a third man, a Turk, swearing a Bulgarian and a gypsy to an exchange of cows.