The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-01-22
Greece Far From Thought
of Disarming as Huge
Mobilization About Plains
of Philippi Prove to Mill
tary Eye.

VI Eu111pp1 EIOV0 W NALL
tary Eye.
| CavaIIa, Greece Jan. 22-what sa-
lonikt was fortnight ago, Cava1la
has become today-the base of the
Greek armies in Eastern Macedonia,
the military headquarters from which
Greece must defend the territory she
conquered from Bulgaria two years
ago-if it is to be defended.
| The quays of the port are cluttered
with big guns and their ammunition.
The steep, narrow streets are blocked
wits soldiers. Long trains of mules
laden with the irnpediments Of war,
climb the winding ways between
oveEhanging. }Turkishg houses, bound
for Drama, for Seres, for the Bull
garian frontier. For all her removal
| of, soldiers from Sa1onfkt, Greco is not
| disarming. Nor, judging from the
| appearance of Cavalla, has she any
intention of leaving the rich land she
wrested from the Bulgars in the last
! war in any danger of falling into
! Bulgarian hands again.
| 1t is easy to understand the Greek
desire to keep CaValla; not that it is
| really~a Greek city, as every Greek
| is so ready to assert so passionately,
for it Is far less Greek even than
| SaIonikf But certainly it is not Bull
garian, either. It is Turktsh-Turk-|
fsh, with a leayen of Salonikfs ad-
mixture of Observation-Disclosures Jew
ish blood and some slight relic of the
Venitian occupation of the middle
ages. But being just that, it can
readily be turned into Greek, Bull
garian, Serbian or what not in a few
years time. The Turkish element is
as always infinitely adaptable.
There is no very positive reason
why Caval1a, and the district it serves
should not be Greek. Every smoker
of a Turkish cigarette holds between
his fingers the reason-from the
Greek point Of view-why it should.
For Caval1a is the port of export for
one of the richest tobacco-g growing
tracts in the world. Not as rich as
certain districts Of Cuba; but never
theless exporting over a hundred
million drachmae worth of tobacco
per annuna-more than $4,000, 900
worth, with very primitive means of
cultivation and Shipment
For there are no railroads out of
Cavalla to the plain of Phi1Ippi which
from being the battlefield of the
army of Marc Anthony, victorious
over the armies of Brutus and Cas-
sius in B. c. AZ, has become the
gateway of the tobacco-growing
country of Mecdonias The only way
to Drama is by the Lion auto
mobile transformed into q stage
coach, which makes daily trips
when the roads permit. And at
Drama is the nearest railway connec-
Greece by a Greek port, it must be
brought over the mountains on mule
back, sewn up in neat little bales.
Nor is the port in its present stage
adequate to a proper shipment. The
bay of Cavalla is rather an open
roadstead than an harbor, though with
a, little more it could readily be i'm
proved. The existing quays are in
adequate. Even the smaller ships
must lighter their cargoes to \ and
Ivy
calculated to improve the tobacco,
which is frequently wet in the course
of transference.
The town lies on the skirts of
semi-circlei of barren hills that seem
to crowd it into the sea. Like so
many of the Aegean towns, it bears
in it's general character the imprint
of Venitians. It might be an italian
town-Ama1f; for preference-wtth its
blue and yellow and pink houses, with
red-tiled roofs, climbing the steep
hillsides in the shadow of the Venitian
citadel and the splendid Ven1tian
aoueduct that dominates the city. Only
the frequent minarets of the Turkish
mosques, and the great many domed
edifice built by the Egyptian Mos
lens mark the Turkish character of
the place from afar. The latter was
constructed as free school for or
phan boys. To-day the same founda-
ton gives hundreds of poor a daily.
ration of bread and soup.
The gate of the citadel is guarded
by a soldier. A correspondent APP
preached him with a, box Of cigarettes
and his thirty-six words of Greek In
side the gateway another soldier
lounged listening to the hating col
Ioquy Finally he stepped forward.
''Say, don't you speak English ?'' he
asked
The correspondent admitted the
soft impeachment. The soldier was
n hal
seem to be no end in the Greek
army. An arrangement was quickly
made, the commanding officer called
his cheek still bandaged from an
<unhealed wound received in the last
war. He in his turn spoke German.
Permission to visit the fort was,
promptly given.
Within, the courtyard was full of
tents, the whole place alive with
Greek soldiers. One offered a neck
making in his idle hours for
drachma.
I'VE got too much time" said the
New York Greek. ''Not got 'nough to
do. Better fight The court of the
old castle was badly drained The
sanitation of the camp n1an1feStly ru-
dimentary. Leaning over a wall,
similar odor rose from the Wretched
! Turkish novels clustered under the
| walls Below, far below, one could
| see sixteen men with four long poles
| from which was swung by ropes a
swayinG ton of wine. Hands on one
another's shoulders, interlaced to keep
precarious step, they shuffled un-
steadily up the muddy slippery main
street. Descending porters, bent dou-
] BILE under four bales of tobacco piled
| high on the back of each, squeezed
| against the walls to let the grunt1ng
| wine carriers pass. Long trains of
mules loaded with hay hustled other
| caravans loaded with wood, while the
turbaned drivers swort at one another
| and at the mules.
From above, there scarcely seemed
| to be any streets of shops-a11 were
bazars, open to the ground, the shoe