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 CHAPTER VI

AUNT KALLIROË

There is no use pretending that there has ever existed the least sense of fraternity between the Greeks and the Turks. They had their quarters and we had ours. They brought their customs and traditions from the East, and we held fast to our own. The two races had nothing to give each other. They ignored us totally, and we only remembered them to hate them and to make ready some day to throw off their dominion.

I have never heard a good word for the Turks from such of my people as have not crossed their thresholds. It is almost unbelievable that for upward of four hundred years we should have lived side by side, ignorant of each other's history, and positively refusing to learn of each other's good qualities. With entire sincerity the Greeks daily relate to each other awful deeds of the Turks—deeds which are mere rumour and here-*say, and contain only a grain of truth, or none at all.

Each side did its best to keep the other as far away as possible. They had their resorts and