With the Serbs in Macedonia

A CALAMITOUS CITY 37
dinners unconcernedly. Then gradually they
began to wake up, and so did the inhabitants,
who had crowded into the narrow streets to
watch other people's houses burn. It dawned
upon them that their streets and their houses
would come next, and there began an exodus
the like of which has seldom been surpassed.
and this was no
Salonica is no ordinary city,
ordinary fire. Its progress was appalling.
The hopes that it would be confined to the
narrow streets of the Ghetto, and that when
it came to the broader streets of the modern
part of the city it would be checked, were
doomed to disappointment. It leapt all
barriers. It was not a case of houses catching
fire from neighbouring houses ; whole districts
burst into flame at once. Hear the Balkan
News :
''
The Vardar wind blew before it a
sort of forced draught or incandescent wave,
which played on the houses a hundred yards or
so in advance of the actual flames, and prepared
them nicely for the burning, so when the next
spark of fire came along the buildings began
to burn furiously.*'
was in favour of the fire and
Everything
against the efforts of those who attempted to
control it. There was a scarcity of water even
for such futile appliances as were to hand, and
the narrow streets were blocked by an utterly