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TOWN OF ALEXANDRETTA 449
Nor was the cook-shop such an indifferent place
after all. It was at least characteristic of the town
in style, and atmosphere, and customers. Turkish
officers and labourers sat side by side in the long,
low, whitewashed room, and the sights and smell of
cooking were always present. But I was served with
good inlaf, and the fish was freshly caught, and the
native wine drinkable, and the oranges from Dort
Yol, on the coast of the gulf, were as fine as could
be found anywhere. If the eating-houses of a place
are chiefly responsible for a chance visitors impressions,
Alexandretta was not badly served by this
native cook-shop.
Some people call Alexandretta a wretched hole,
but not so does one who has seen other Turkish
towns long enough to have grown accustomed to their
peculiarities. To him Alexandretta seems rather a
pleasant, bright little
place, much better than report.
It has even a sort of colonial look—widish streets, low
buildings, with plenty of space around them ; and
Australian blue gum and red gum trees here and
there, and even a few blossoming black wattle of
the same country. And you also come upon other
aspects which seem to be Egyptian, and due to the
influence of Ibrahim Pasha. See a low cottage or
hut, with a few aloes around it, all sheltered from
the hot white sunlight by tall date-palms, and you
find it quite African and un-Turkish, and also very
charming.
The town is called unhealthy—a place of mosquitoes
and malaria, owing to the marshes between
it and the mountains. But when Ibrahim Pasha
made it his chief Syrian port, he cut a canal, drained
the swamps, and malaria and mosquitoes disappeared.
The canal has not been maintained, and mosquitoes
and fever have returned ; but there is no other reason
why the town should not be healthy, for it has a good
situation, and abundance of excellent water which
breaks out from the foot of Amanus.
As the port of Aleppo and a wide country, there