Many sights saw Tiadatha As he marched through Salonica, Cretan gendarmes with their long boots And their breakfasts in their breeches, In their great black baggy breeches; Turkish ladies clad in trousers; Tattered hamals bending double With a load of fifty oil tins; Many little limping donkeys, Little overladen donkeys, As they crossed the Rue Egnatia (Where St. Paul in bygone ages Used to do his bit of shopping). Tiadatha thought of Kipling, Wondered if he’d ever been there, Thought “At least in Rue Egnatia East and West are met together.” There were trams and Turkish beggars, Mosques and minarets and churches, Turkish baths and dirty cafés, Picture palaces and kan-kans; Daimler cars and Leyland lorries Barging into buffalo wagons, French and English private soldiers Jostling seedy Eastern brigands. On a hill near Lembet Village Came to rest the Royal Dudshires, And their tents sprang up like toadstools, All the camp was fixed by tea-time, All were settled down by tea-time. There was nothing on that hillside, Not a tree or habitation, Save a little shanty standing Like a palm tree in a desert— The Canteen of Back (Orosdi). There it was that Tiadatha Tasted Greek beer for the first time, Made a frugal meal of walnuts, Figs and Turk’s delight and éclairs, Paid and found that he was living Miles and miles beyond his income; Found his little lunch had cost him More than if he’d been to Prince’s. Rumour in these days was busy. They were going up to Serbia, They were going off to Egypt; Twenty thousand Greeks were ready (Rumour said) to down upon them, Scupper them within their flea-bags (Or, more pleasantly, intern them). Many hours spent Tiadatha Wondering what was going to happen. All that happened was a blizzard, Not a private soldier blizzard With some Christmas cardy snowflakes, But a perfect Balkan teaser, Sergeant-Major of a blizzard, Made of supersleet and hailstones, Every bitter wind of heaven Massed together for the business. As a shade is to a candle So is Uncle Time to trouble: Looking back we mostly find things Not so bad as once we thought them. Fifty Uncle Times, however, Could not shade for all who met it Memories of that Balkan blizzard.