opposite the houses and many yards away from them, were twisted out of shape by the heat. Throughout the night there was a general exodus of the population from the awful furnace. One saw families abandoning their homes carrying some clothes, bedding and other household goods, which were afterwards set alight by sparks scattered by the wind. Allied detachments were distributed about the various quarters of the town to prevent pillaging, to which the local hooligans and a certain number of soldiers belonging to one or two of the Allied armies devoted themselves. We were glad to be able to establish that no Italian soldiers took part in these operations, and the same may be said of the British. The military lorries, especially those of the British Army, accomplished admirable salvage work; all through the night and the following day they plied back and forth between the fire zone and the British camps outside the city. Our own lorries were for the most part engaged in clearing our clothing depot, which was the only military establishment in the centre of Salonica; fortunately the flames only just reached its outer wall, which was blackened, and a few days later it was possible to occupy it again. The premises occupied by the C.A.A. were also evacuated for a day or two, as they were at one moment in danger, but the fire never actually reached them. Luckily no military establishment was destroyed, save one or two depots of trifling importance. [Illustration: BULGARIAN PRISONERS.] [Illustration: IN THE “CASTELLETTO” TRENCHES. To face p. 180. ] The damage to the city was, however, enormous. All the hotels, very many business houses, all the best shops, a large number of stores and warehouses, the post office and other public buildings and a vast number of private dwellings, especially in the poorer part of the Jewish quarter, were razed to the ground. The banks were spared, and so also were the hospitals, and the flames never reached the new quarters where all the best private houses were situated. One of the most serious losses, because it was irreparable, was that of the beautiful church of St. Demetrius, historically and artistically the most important monument in Salonica.