Norwich bulletin., 1913-03-19
NORWICH BULLETIN, "WEDNESDAY. MARCH 1e, 1e1s

hauled across a flooded plain to Kara Agatch station.
 is Merely a Place.
 I use the word station in the sense of a place where the train stops; there wasn't really any building. You just stepped down into the mud and fog and went about in confusion of soldery, wondering alternately where you were and how you were going to get away from here Finally officer came and shouted the soldiers into line and marched them off: then the fog lifted a little and we espied a shanty, where we at once presented ourselves. A telegraph instrument was clicking; a fire smoldered against one wall, and tall young fellow in his under shirt was working over pile of papers. We and come to the right place. It was the adjutant's office.
 By the terms of the armistice Bulgar trains laden only with provisions might pass through Adrianople station unmo- tested; trains laden with clothing or ammunition or men, or anything not in the nature of food, could not pass. They had to make the same detour of the beleaguered city as before trace was established Kara -Agatch station was the point at which this detour began. Back of a hill we found a great trans-i port camp-hundreds of OK carts a fewt tents a few board shacks and about 800 hundred men. The old 1ieutenant-i ' colonel in command was very proud of the sanitary arrangements of his camp. ;! He made a path for us through crowd of hungry soldiers waving tin cups and showed us the soup and the stew cooking nj huge iron pots He took us to the well that had been dug, pointed out the sentry always on guard there to keep some hostile peasant from putting in poison, and explained the regulations prescribing the boiling of every drop Of water.
 
 As we walked back to the camp he was accosted by little old woman who came hobbling like an elf over the bare hill, grinning, nodding her head and crossing herself.
 What does she say?" I asked.
 sShe says she, too is a Christian"
 What else ?''
 She says we cannot know what joy it gives her heart to see such fine strap ping Christian fellows ""-7e into this land
 :. Yes and what else?"
 She says her son, who was impressed into the Turkish army when the war began, has escaped from Adrianople in this fog. She wants to know if we have seen him. the excitement of having spoken to the commandant himself, and proceed into the camp, there to seat ourselves for dinner at a board table under 8 1ednIO open at -DOlu 6LuS. A oo4olCi brought d shovelful of lives coals and dumped them under the table, that was our radiator. There was more heat though. to be obtained from the greasy stew while one easily per spired with the effort to chew the leathery chunks of charred meat in troduced to us as beefsteak. We ate heartily-ten officers and ourselves, all from the same pan, with slices of gril1ed bread by way of plate and nap kin. It was a banquet, and at the end ! tea was served to the two guests-a great luxury, 8. greater honor.
 Mud is the Chief Feature
 : ward sunset we were driven over to Kara Agatch, where we were to 1 pass the night. It is difficult to write 1 about the country hitherto known as Turkey in Europe without exhausting 1 the potentiality of the word mud. Mud l is the one great abiding fact of the ! land. I can even imagine that old | folks forced away by the fortunes of 1 ta Hly it IS the characteristic feature | of Kara Agatch village. We entered the i cluster of low houses after dark 1 remeber dogs barking, the voices of | children calling, the sweet odor of | wood smoke, the low murmer of talk, but chiefly I remeber, the slidiig and | joltfng and splashing and sticking in | puddles. and the strong smack of the horses hoofs as they dragged them al every step out of half half foot of mud.
 ra1 days, making it the base of our visT to the Adrianople positions in this part of Turkey are of four kindS-Turk, BuIgar Greek and