A.R.A., A.R.C., Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in fancy
uniforms of every cut and color; Turkish sherbet-sellers with huge brass
urns, hung with tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, slung
upon their backs; ragged Macedonian bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to
be the national industry of Macedonia), and hordes of gipsy beggars, the
filthiest and most importunate I have ever seen. All day long this
motley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow streets, their voices,
speaking in a score of tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the
smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, strong tobacco, rum,
hashish, whiskey, arrack, goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and
sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench which rises to high Heaven.

On the streets one sees almost as many colored soldiers as white ones:
French native troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal and
China; British Indian soldiery from Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and
Nepaul. The Indian troops were superbly drilled and under the most iron
discipline, but the French native troops appeared to be getting out of
hand and were not to be depended upon. To a man they had announced that
they wanted to go home. They had been through four and a half years of
war, they are tired and homesick, and they are more than willing to let
the Balkan peoples settle their own quarrels. They were weary of
fighting in a quarrel of which they knew little and about which they
cared less; they longed for a sight of the wives and the children they
had left behind them in Fez or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had
been kept on duty in Europe, while the French white troops were being
rapidly demobilized and returned to their homes, the Africans were
sullen and resentful. This smoldering resentment suddenly burst into
flame, a day or so before we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese
sergeant, whose request to be sent home had been refused, ran amuck,
barricaded himself in a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles