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 CHAPTER XXXI

A FEW DAYS IN BROUSSA—THE TRUE ISLAM ATMOSPHERE

The Governor who, once more, "comes from Malta," has detailed a police officer to look after me during the five-days' visit unexpectedly imposed upon us, since there is no boat leaving before then. My journey from Angora to Constantinople will, therefore, occupy ten days instead of the regulation two or three.

We start out the first thing in the morning and do not return till dusk. I have never visited so many mosques, and their colouring seems even more exquisite than I have found it elsewhere.

Naturally, however, we first went to pay our respects to the Governor, who promised to give me certain special information next day. His konak, however, happened to catch fire soon after we left, and in less than an hour it was reduced to cinders. There was, fortunately, little wind, though, as we watched the flames from our hotel, one could feel no security that it might not spread all over the town and render us, too, homeless.

It was, as it happens, a brigand, descending by chance from the mountains, who had saved the whole town from destruction when the Greeks left it in flames, after demolishing their church and setting fire to their houses. Fifteen surrounding villages were, actually, burnt to the ground. The French proprietress of the hotel told me the town was not ravaged by Ottoman Greeks, but by the Hellenes. Their own Greeks cried bitterly at being compelled to leave, but were terrified into flight, many of them dying at Moudania or on the road.