Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1918-10-11
Interesting Letter from
a MIDI Man
AUGUST 20, 1918,
u, s, Troops WOrgret Camp
Wareham, Dorset, Eng,

lllN ~ w llbAlll Hbu VI u NHNiNkN Va
address, rank and branch OF service,
and also to thank you for keeping in
touch with me, and 10 endorse what
other nen In the service have said of
the pleasure and comfort we all get
from letters from home and from the
/ old college,
1t is now over eighteen months since
! left the states, and during that time !
have been fortunate enough TO be able
to spend considerable time in France,
Belgium, Italy, Greece, Macedonia and
and recently, England, have had the
wonderful opportunity of visiting spots
rather out Of the line Of tourist travel
which are famo.s In antiquity, and
which could never have hoped to have
seen, For instance in tiny town in
| the Macedonian hills discovered what
is represented TO be the tomb Of Philip
of Macedon, now the site Of an ancient
Greek monastery where several hundred
Serbian refugees are cared Tor by the
American Red Cross, ! spent two
months in Salonika (the Thessalonica Of
Paul's epistle) and learned to appreciate
the humour Of his shaking the dust Of
Thessalonica from his feet " for ii is
certainly the dirtiest as well as the
most picturesque city have ever seen.
From my room in the Olympus Palace
Hotel, where Richard Harding Davis
wrote homesick letters TO his wife, /
could look down on perhaps as cosmo-
politan scene as can be found any
where in the world. Just at my feet
lies the harbor, bordered by the main
street Of the town, the quay is lined
with Greek sailing craft, gaudily decor
ated with green and red and gold paint,
the bowsputs projecting far over the
street, and the painted fgureheads
bowling almost at the windows of the
tiny tram cars which pass beneath, as
the boats rise and fall on the slight
swell, They bring fish and wine and
oranges from the Islands (the com
merce which throve between the Greek
lslands.and Athens and her colonies in
the Golden Age is not yet dead and the
odor of wine kegs and fish and ovorripe
oranges mingles in the air. Carts
drawn by diminutive Macedonian ponies
are unloading huge wine barrels on the
narrow street running away from the
sea beside the hotel, whence they are
rolled across the main street by bare
footed roustabouts, who wait for gap
in the interminable throng of army
motor trucks, oX-carts, ambulances and
tramways, (theY take no heed Of pedes.
trians) and then tumble them swiftly
through the traffic to the quay, and woe
be to the unfortunate person who gets
in their way. The narrow sidewalks
are used only by bootblacks, pedlers
and beggars, and in the street mingle
many nations, Here are Greeks, Turks,
Spanish, Jews and Macedonian Peasants
and the uniforms of the French, British,
Italian, Serbian Russian and Greek
armies and navies Eyes, the Serbs have
a navy of one converted excursion
steamer of which they are very proud,
japanese sailors, Csingalese, Algerians.
and Trench black troopers,
Out in the harbor beyond the line of
fishing boats, battleships and torpedo
boats are lying at anchor, their sullen
grey contrasting with the vivid white
and red and green of French hospital
ship beyond while a little to the right
swarm of lighters are lowering about
an old varicoored tramp like buzzards
round carcass. Far out at the en-
trance of the harbor the snowy top of
old Olympus seems to hang from the
sky. ! can understand how the ancents
thought it the home of the gods, for
from distance only its snow covered
peak is visible, and it seems to have no
connection with the earth.
But am slipping into the intermin-
ability of the Orient, started to write
you short letter, and | have devoted
four pages to the water front of one
city, and have only touched on it. How
! should like to tell you of the old Turk
ish city back on the hills, with its never
changing, ever changing life; of the
great Arch of Hadrian with its perfect
ly preserved carvings of some forgotten
triumphal entryof the old Roman wall
around the city, and of St. Sophia with
her Turkish Minaret, and with her won
derful mosaics, probably the most per-
feet specimens of Byzantine architect
ure in existence. should like to tell
you of the Turkish family with which |
boarded for over a month, and sing you
the weird chant the old priest of the
mosque close by walled to the four
winds four times daily from his minaret.
And should like to tell you of other
spots | have visited, of Thermopglae,
and of the Greek Islands, of Brialo, on
the Gulf of Corinth, with its gnarled
old olive groves at the foot of the
mountains, of Tarento and Livoino, as
well as the tourist cities of Italy and of
many quaint old town in France, but
there is limit to your patience, to the
censors endurance and to my time.
Why could write you volume about
the country within ten miles of this
camp. Of Lulworth Cove, where the
smugglers once throve, of COME Castle,
Of Wareham itself, with its ancient
buildings and Roman wall.
You see war has its good points, for
millions of young Americans in their
formative years are getting a chance
to see something of the world, and to
learn that the U. S. A. isn't the only
country on the face of the globe, though
I've not vet seen an American over
here who had changed his mind about
its being the best one, and he's hoping
some of US will be back thcre before
another year rolls by. With best re-
CARDS to yourself and all my friends at
old MIDI. am, Yours respectfully,
Bud ODER.
P.S. just heard that Prexy got the