of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east,
outlined against the Ægean's blue, I could see the peninsula of
Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos,
reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of
a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which the eagles killed.

[Footnote A: Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn from an
article which I wrote some years ago for _The Independent_. E.A.P.]




CHAPTER IV

UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT


Salonika is superbly situated. To gain it from the seaward side you sail
through a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos and Olympus. It
reclines on the bronze-brown Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young
Greek goddess, with its feet laved by the blue waters of the Ægean. (I
have used this simile elsewhere in the book, but it does not matter.)
The scores of slender minarets which rise above the housetops belie the
crosses on the Greek flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the
city, though it has passed under Christian rule, is at heart still
Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth of the 200,000 inhabitants are of the
ruling race, for Salonika is that rare thing in modern Europe, a city
whose population is by majority Jewish. There were hook-nosed,
dark-skinned traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back as the days
when Salonika was but a way-station on the great highroad which linked