The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I: Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai PeninsulaCollett, Herbert Brayley
History
The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I: Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai Peninsula
Collett, Herbert Brayley
Australia. Australian Army. Battalion, 28th; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Australia
The island has many rugged barren hills--the highest near to where the
Australians were camped being Mt. Therma, which attained to 1,130 feet.
In wandering about the valleys and villages, the West Australians noted
the quiet demeanour of the inhabitants. The males had a somewhat
brigandish appearance in their dress of top boots, divided skirts,
sheepskin coats, and astrakan caps. With so many strangers about, it
would seem that great care was taken of the younger women. Very few of
those between the ages of 16 and 30 were seen. The few that were visible
had rather fine eyes, but otherwise were quite unattractive. Their usual
dress was European, but made up of cheap prints with a shawl or coloured
material tied round their heads as a covering.
The houses are square-built of stone, with no verandahs and little
window balconies in some of those of two stories. In a few cases, the
exterior walls were plastered and whitewashed or else painted with
colour of a violent blue. The windows and doors are small and the rooms
scarcely high enough to permit of one standing upright. The building
stone is granitic and of several colours, which, combined with the tint
of the moss on the roof tiles, gives an unusual effect to the general
appearance of the dwellings. In Kastro, the streets are of the width of
a Perth right-of-way and have shops on either side. These business
houses vary in size from half that of a street coffee stall to the
dimensions of the little grocery shops on the corners in our suburbs.
Here, besides fruit, might be bought a lot of cheaply made English and
German goods at prohibitive prices. Local wine and brandy were
procurable, also "Black and White" whiskey, which had been made in
Greece and bore a spurious label. This last was brought under the notice
of the military police, who compelled its withdrawal.
The products of the island seemed to be grapes and a few other fruits,
walnuts, wheat, barley, and a little cotton. Poultry were reared in some
numbers, and the eggs mainly went to the monasteries on the mainland, at
Mt. Athos, where the rules of the Order resident there forbade the
admission of females of any species. At one time the authorities on the
island derived a considerable revenue from the sale and export of a
certain red earth which, with much religious ceremony, was dug out at
stated times of the year and sealed in small packets. This, applied
internally and externally, was regarded as an antidote to poison and a
cure for snake bite.
A few flocks of long-wooled sheep roamed the hillsides. Many of these
were black. For tilling, primitive wooden ploughs, fitted with an iron
share, were used. These were drawn by oxen or, sometimes, by an ox and a
donkey, both animals usually in a very decrepit condition. The ordinary
means of conveyance was a curious old covered cart--also drawn by
donkeys.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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