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Show y.'flX URKEY in war times is K apparently a cheerful ' and carefree land, but i one has to dive under the surface at times Auk. to j5n(j an lmc:erCurrent I J like that of the Bos- V phorus itself. Old globe trotters are well aware that the surface current cur-rent of the Bosphorus flows merrily merri-ly from the Black sea down past the Golden Horn and into the Sea of Marmora, Mar-mora, while far below there is a coun-tercurrent coun-tercurrent going the other way and carrying the Salter waters of the Mediterranean Med-iterranean up to the doors of Costan-za Costan-za and Odessa. In the city of Constantinople one would suppose that was war unknown. Doubtless the heads that are under a million red fezzes have some inklings of it, but they do not think very hard. "You see," said a member of the Young Turk party, "this war is about the unluckiest thing that could have happened to the government. It was only a short time ago, as history is written, since the revolutionists came over from Macedonia and with very little ceremony lifted the sultan but of the chair of his fathers and deposited de-posited him in the provincial city of Salonica, where he remains even unto this day. ' "They did not let him take even his wives or his beautiful pair of i mouth and handles visitors and intruders in-truders with consummate sang froid. A company of gendarmes, very badly drilled and extremely awkward in appearance, ap-pearance, lines up at the curb. While an officer walks along and kicks their feet into some sort of position. Presently there is a clatter of horses' hoofs and three closed carriages car-riages roll up from the west. In them are women wearing white veils. There are also some children. These are from the imperial harem. The horses are unharnessed and led away, and then the carriages are trundled trun-dled by hand to positions against the curb east of the mosque. This important im-portant operation is supervised by the chief eunuch, a coal black Ethiopian over six feet tall, clothed in the black broadcloth of an undertaker, but wearing wear-ing the inevitable fez. Meanwhile the minister of war is lounging in front of the mosque entrance en-trance and apparently cracking jokes with another brilliantly bedecked officer. of-ficer. At any rate both are laughing, and so are most of the other military dignitaries. In a few minutes these officers are lined up in a diagonal direction di-rection from the mosque steps. The music of a military band is heard coming from the east. Then the sultan's bodyguard, a finely mounted mount-ed and well set up body of cavalry, comes up in a column of fours. When they pass the sultan's carriage drives ,77 '- XikW, $ H ;?ij i ! ft WP : ' ' white horses. He is an exile and a prisoner. So they put his brother in his place, and started a, new regime. "Now the new sultan is hardly more than settled in the Yildiz Kiosk when Italy declares war at 24 hours' notice and put up to the young government a most momentous situation. The young government cannot afford to be beaten. beat-en. It must fight to the bitter end. To be beaten means to be destroyed. The people of Turkey would trample it under foot." But of all this one cannot find a sign in Constantinople that is, not on the surface. Every Friday, for example, ex-ample, the sultan goes to a mosque to worship. The brass band from the barracks near by takes up a position just west of the entrance bo Hie mosque. Across the street in front of the military guardhouse privileged spectators assemble. The officer of the guard, cheerful and smiling, bustles bus-tles about with a cigarette in his up an open carriage, containing a somewhat portly, white bearded man, whose salute to the line of officers is something of the slovenliest. He lumbers lum-bers out and into the mosque, while the band from the barracks blow;s as hard as it can and makes a shocking series of discords with the infantry band at the head of the small column ol foot soldiers following the sultan's carriage. At the same time the muezzin pops out of his little hole away up in the minaret and intones the customary summons to the faithful to go to prayer. The faithful, however, remain re-main outside, because no one is allowed al-lowed to go into the mosque while the sultan is there. The whole ceremony is carried out in a cheerful and careless way. There appears to be no attempt to make any special parade of good humor. The thing just goes off as it might in the j piping times of peace. J If you ask a Turkish business man, he will tell you at once that the war is ruinous. He will tell you that there is positively no business at all. In the Grand Bazar the merchants sit cross-legged cross-legged and smoke cigarettes. They leap at a stranger like so many hungry hun-gry wolves and almost drag him into their shops. We left Constantinople at 5 p. m. on Sunday. The regular sailing hour is noon, but the vessels are compelled to start now at an hour which will bring them to the Dardanelles in the early morning. They cannot pass at night on account of the mines. It is at the ancient gateway of the Hellespont that one first realizes that grim war is not far away from Constantinople. The forts are all fully garrisoned and the quiet discipline of military routine rou-tine is in evidence. A 24-hour run from Constantinople brings us to Smyrna, the key to Asia Minor, the queen city of Turkey's Asiatic possessions, situated in a place almost ideally planned for attack at-tack from the sea. The gulf runs inland in-land 34 miles. It is bounded by bold mountainous headlands. Off its shores lie large islands, Mitylene and Chios, behind which an enemy's fleets can assemble unseen and make sudden descents. "There is no business at all," said a Smyrna merchant. "It is true that Constantinople has been affected, but it is very little. People continue to go there. But here everything has stopped. Why, you can buy our best rugs at your own price. We can't sell anything. We give things away. What can we do?" "We don't have the big caravans," said a Smyrna man, "and there is no business for them. The little caravans cara-vans carry necessities to the places not on the railway line. That's all. There is no business in Smyrna any more. I this war does not end we shall all be bankrupt." Behind Smyrna are many great ravines ra-vines in the hills. In all of them are the tents of soldiers. Driving along the roads in the mountains one occasionally oc-casionally meets a wagon loaded with wooden boxes. On the top of the boxes perches a soldier with rifle in hand and filled cartridge belt slung around his body. One realizes that he is passing a load of munitions of war. But everywhere there is a dead silence. si-lence. One hears no martial bugles blowing, no jangling of arms, no curt words of command. Only the squeaking siren of the little lit-tle brown boat in the mine fields advertises ad-vertises the fact that fear hovers over Smyrna. Yet her business 18 paralyzed, and in the hollows of her hills are camped 00,000 Turkish troops. |