hern edge. While not
quite so extensive as the Pinsk Swamps, they are quite as impassable,
from a military point of view. In the center of this region of bulrushes
and stunted forests is an open sheet of shallow water, Lake Enedjee.

Nearly all this swamp land is submerged, but here and there are small
islands. For some years the Turkish soldiers garrisoned these islands
during the mild winter months, living on them in rush huts. In the
summer they would withdraw into the near-by foothills. But one summer
several hundred Comitajis descended into the swamps and took possession.

The stunted forests and the bulrushes here are traversed by a maze of
narrow waterways, just wide enough for a punt to pass along. When the
soldiers returned in the fall, they started out for their islands in
strings of punts. Presently they were met by volleys of bullets that
seemed to come from all directions out of the bulrushes. Some, in their
panic, leaped out into the shallow water and sunk in the mire. The rest
retired.

For years the Turkish soldiers attempted to drive the Comitajis out of
the swamp. First they surrounded it, watching all possible landing
places, but the outlaws had supplies smuggled in to them by the
peasants. Then the Turks began bombarding with heavy cannon, which, of
course, was futile, since they could not distinguish the points at which
they were firing. And finally they gave up molesting the Comitajis, who
continued making the swamps their headquarters until the Young Turks
came into power. Then, believing that a constitutional Macedonia was
finally to be granted them, all the Comitajis laid down their arms.

It is a peculiar fact that Saloniki, one of the largest cities on the
peninsula, with a population considerably over a hundred thousand,
should represent none of the national elements of the country. For
though Bulgars, Turks, Greeks, and Serbs may be found there, an
overwhelming majority, nearly 90,000 of the people, are Spanish Jews.

Walking along the streets, it would be easy to imagine oneself in Spain
or in Mexico; on all sides the shouts of peddlers, the cries of cabmen,
the conversation of pedestrians, are in Spanish. With a knowledge of
that language the stranger may make his way about as easily as in his
own native country. These are the descendants of the Jews who were
driven out of Spain by Torquemada and his Spanish Inquisition and were
so hospitably received by the Sultan of Turkey.

Saloni