.

ril Tate tke Higk Road

B Y

ROBERT

HENRY

Chicago

WILKIN

REGNERY

BLAKE

C O M PA N Y

19S3

Copyright 1953 by Henry Regnery Company. Copyright under International

Copyright Union. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library
of Congress Catalog Card Number: 53-9619

T o
Harvard and Western Reserve

Law Schools
for

driving me to this adventure

IllTiistratioiiis
Frontispiece
The author before the Palace Tomb, Petra

Following page 182

The Citadel in the heart of Aleppo, Syria

Petra, the city chiseled in the rock
The Colossi of Memnon at Thebes. Author climbing onto
the base

My "guide" staring at the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

On the Rock of Alamut in the Valley of the Assassins
The Tomb of Omar Khayyam at Nishapur. The poet is buried
under the stone shaft in the foreground
Fellow travelers in the caravanserai at Ferrah, Afghanistan
Walled in by mountains, Srinagar bestrides the River Jhelum
in Kashmir

Contents
I. A n c i e n t G o d s a n d M o d e r n D e v i l s
II. In the Footsteps of Alexander

76

III. Harried in the Holy Land

11 9

I V . Gypping the Gypos

141

V . Sunset at Babylon

152

V I . Paradise Enow

VII. Jewel of India

V I I I . The Road to Mandalay
IX.

Jeeping Across China

X. The High Road Home

166

2 0 0

248
273
299

ril Take ike Oigk RoaJ.

ANCIENT GODS AND

MODERN DEVILS
STORMING THE ACROPOLIS

From
hlin
i roof
Priaeand
usIfield,
sg
i hte
dmygolden
firstgoinalthe
n
iG
reesun,
ce.
Far a
across
shining
Attic
it stoodthe rock-loaf Acropolis, crowned by the columned
Parthenon. I was within range of the wonders that had called
me from home.

Only a few months before, the professor in law school was

droning on about wills and administration. I slumped in my
seat and felt a law office and suffocation closing in. Then

through the open window came the smell of mown grass and
warm earth. In a tree outside a robin chirruped to her young

to fly. From far away came the vagrant wail of a train whistle.

The calls were gentle at first, but as I listened, they swelled

to a chorus, singing the name of Greece, of India, of lost cities
in Afghanistan. I slammed shut my law books and fled the
classroom.

A few days later, I was the lowest ranking seaman on a

Greek tramp in New York harbor. She was a rusty old hulk,
and her decks were heaped with fallen booms, broken tackle,
barrels, boards, rubbish, but her name was the S.S. Odyssey
and she was bound for Greece. Poor Odyssey! Like her name
sake, she had troubles, not the least of which was my attempt
to ram her into Staten Island when, as a seaman of full fifteen

minutes at sea, I was sent to steerthrough the New York

Narrows!
1

Then there was Morphine John who twisted the wrong

wheel in the engine room so we hosed the decks with our

drinking water. All faucets had to be padlocked. Our clothes

hardened with salt. Unable to shave, we all scratched beards.

And worse, the Odyssey, touted to make twelve knots, could
bestir herself to no more than seven and a half. In headwind

and high seas, she slumped below five.

When one of the engines had to be dismantled, the cur

rent sometimes moved eastward faster than the Odyssey. It

was embarrassing to have our wake come up from behind,

curl around us, and go to sleep. For a while we couldn't pass

the garbage that we threw overboard. The twelve-day crossing
stretched to nineteen days, and we were still 540 miles from
Gibraltar! All this might not have been so bad had not the
refrigerators run out of ice.

But there was always Leonidas, the only other crewman

who spoke Englisha Greek going home to his family after

jumping for his American citizenship with the 100th Para

chute Regiment. When the rest of us were staring blankly at

a meal of fried eggs au rotten, Leonidas snapped double and

bobbed and stomped about the deck beating his fists upon

his head and howling with glee, "Oh, my aching back! Am

I having fun!" There was nothing this ritual could not dis
solve into laughter.
Now it all lay behind like insulation between me and the

chill of that classroom. I had hornswoggled my release from

the S.S. Odyssey, said goodbye to Leonidas and his family in

Piraeus, and, ready for what the high road might bring, swung

aboard the Athens "subway" to storm the Acropolis.

But when I emerged in Omonia Square, the Acropolis
loomed nowhere between the buildings. I saw a hill and
scrambled up. From its top I could see almost all Athens,

but no Acropolis. There was a higher hill adjoining, sur2

mounted by a tiny church. Running up, I found myself on

Mount Likavittos.

From the belvedere before the church I could look across

the whole white city and there at last was the Acropolis, a
thumb of rock thrusting a temple at the sky. I jolted down
the hill, threaded through the streets, past the white Olympic
stadium, the sunken Gate of Hadrian, the lofty columns of

the Olympium temple, and circled up the foot of cliffs to

the saddle between the Areopagus and the Acropolis. Here

I was confronted by a terrace of walls. Marble stairs pierced

a gateway and swept up the Acropolis into the eolonnaded

arms of the Propylaea. Lured by the temples against the sky
I started up, ignoring the police at the gate.
"Hey," one yelled, "you must have ticket!"
What! A ticket to storm a fortress? Well, maybe, provided
the bribe was not too high.
"Poso costeze?" I demanded.
"One thousand drachmas."

"One thousand!" I screamed, not realizing it equaled fifteen

cents. Anyway, it seemed unethical to pay when there was a

wall I could climb over, so I started edging along the base
of the Acropolis, looking for a place to scale.
A whistle shrieked. The gate guard was scowling and ges

turing "eome." "These men want see you," he shouted,

thumbing to six other scowling faces. I heard the clang of
a dungeon door! But as I approached, one of the guards
smiled, "If no money, welcome to Aeropolis, free."
I bolted through the doors and scrambled up the grooved

steps toward the Parthenon, poised on the rock dome above.

Slowly mounting the mighty steps, I stood at last in the most
glorious ruins in the world.

Already a bell was clamoring for visitors to leave. I would

have to hurry. I ran along the stupendous colonnade. Every

angle gave new wonder and delight. It was late afternoon, and

the level rays of the sun, streaming through the lofty doorway,
flooded the entire temple. Here was the sanctuary of Time
itself. In the golden light, unseen and unheard, hovered the
gods and heroes of twenty-five centuries past.

"Hey, American!" shattered my reveries.

A badged official was charging me across the marble floor.
Arrest after all! I hurried away, ignoring his shouts, but he
overtook me. I didn't know what I had committed, but,

judging from his frenzy, it was serious.

GRECIAN

G R AT I T U D E

Instead of handcuffs he gave me a smile. "Since you have

no money, I show you Acropolis free."

I was so grateful not to be arrested I let him lead me back

to the Parthenon from which I had fled. As we went he told

me its story.

In the dim and distant ages of the gods, goddess Athena

vied with Poseidon for patronage of the city. The ancients

decided the city should be named for the god making the most
valuable gift.
Poseidon stabbed his trident into the Acropolis dome. Up

gushed a well of salt water. "I'll show you the well," said my
self-appointed guide, "in Erechtheum there, through cleft in
the floor." But Athena presented the city with an olive tree.
"There its offshoot grows, in the iron fence, beside Porch of
Caryatids."

The ancients preferred the olive tree. When it was hot, it

would give the citizen shade and boughs for fans; when cool,
firewood to keep him warm; when dark, oil for his lamp.
When he was sick, the oil was a medicine; in athletics, it
could be rubbed on limbs. If hungry, olives and oil were
his meat and drink.

So the city was named Athena and there on the Acropolis

4

a temple was erected in her honor. But before it could be

completed the Persians captured Athens, burned the temple.

Then in the Golden Age432 years before ChristPericles

ordered Iktinos and Kallikrates to erect a new temple without

peer in all the world and to fashion it of snow-white marble

as lovely, as graceful, as chaste as the goddess there to be
enshrined. Great Phidias carved a frieze of the life and labors

of the goddess. And in the center of the east room, Phidias

modeled a thirty-nine-foot statue of Athena. She stood helmeted, shield at knee in one hand, and, in the palm of the

other, winged Victory. Her robes were gold, her face and
arms ivory, glowing like flesh and blood in the shaft of light
through the ceiling.

My guide showed me proofs of the skill of Iktinos and

Kallikrates. The long steps that appear so straight are, when

sighted at eye level, delicately curved. The colossal columns

which seem so erect are actually tilted inward so the temple

stands like a man with feet apart to brace against gale and

earthquake. The floor which looks so level is slightly domed

to drain off water. The drums of the columns were fitted so

precisely and fluted while standing that even today a razor

cannot be wedged between.

Since the Parthenon was built for a goddess, it was designed

to stand exquisite and perfect for all ages. But two hundred
and fifty years ago, the Turks turned its sanctuary into a
powder magazine and the besieging Venetians lobbed a shell
through the roof. What stands today was largely reassembled.
Before I had heard half enough, guards herded us from

the Parthenon, down the steps and off the Acropolis. I wanted
to hide and stay longer, but with the guide it was impossible
and he led me along with his stories.

In Constitution Square I stood with him as he waited for

a s t r e e t c a r.

"Do you know," he asked, "why I offered to guide you

free?"
I did not.

"It was because the guard yelled at you so rudely. I did not
want you to think all Greeks so discourteous to a person

simply because he has no money. Besides, I recognized you

as an American, and I wanted to show my appreciation for
your country's friendship and generosity to Greece."

As he mounted the tram, I called out, "What's your

name?" He handed back his card, and on it I read, as he

disappeared: John Stathopoulos, licensed guide for the whole

of Greece, 6 Nikes Street, Athens.
THE AGROPOLIS IS MINE

Propped over late supper at a sidewalk cafe on Independ

ence Square, I stared across flat-roofed Athens to the Parthe

non on moonlit elevation.

I wondered if perhaps Athena too were not lonely on that

glorious night.

After coffee I found my steps circling irresistibly up the

road to the Acropolis. Perhaps I was mistaken, but the unrea

sonable impulse to be alone in the Parthenon that night must

have been kindled by Athena herself earlier that evening. I

could explain such a desire in no other way, for now the
gates were locked and guarded.
As I approached, I could see light from the watchman's

window streaming across the steel spears of the gate. The

walls towered above me and I turned away. But the murmur
of lovers keeping trysts with human maids, made me realize
that when a goddess calls mere gates and walls must be no
obstacles at all.

Emboldened, I noiselessly climbed a mesh fence and spi

dered up the rocks toward the base of the walls. Just then a
f ,

dog barked. I froze. Ahead recessed among the rocks was a

low hut. Flames flickered on the window pane. Voices mum

bled within. I slipped back to the fence and crouched in the

shadow of a tree until the dog went back to sleep. Then I

began to inch up the rocks above and behind the hut, very
slowly, one foot at a time, lest I dislodge a stone onto the
roof or wake the dog.
As I mounted I felt all Athens watching. At any moment
I expected a shout to transfix me. But at last I surmounted
the boulders where they jut highest against the walls. From
here I chinned myself up on a marble prow and rose to my
feet before the exquisite eight-pillared shrine of Athena Nike.
Built to commemorate the three great victories over the
Persians, at Marathon, Salamis, and Flataea, it was surnamed

Temple of Wingless Victory in hope that victory could never

again take wing from Athens.
I went on to explore the Propylaea, the grand entry porch
of the Acropolis plateau. Suddenlya sentry box! I leapt
behind a column.

Nothing happened. Slipping from shadow to shadow to

the box I peered in. Deserted. The sentry was making his
rounds or waiting in some shadow. There had recently been
a revolution in Athens. There was still civil war in Greece.

The rebels has once seized and defended the Acropolis. No

doubt the guards would shoot first and challenge afterwards.

Cautiously I crept up the long, open slope of stone be

tween the Propylaea and the Parthenon, wondering where

the sentry might be. Reaching the Parthenon I clambered up
the mighty steps. As my eyes came level with the marble

floor, I spotted two men sitting in the center of the temple.

I faded back down the steps and crept around the temple to
peer into it from the side. It was empty. Were they in pur
suit? I flattened against a pillar and watched in both direc7

tions. Nothing but the moonlight streaming along the colon

nade, nothing but the screeching of night birds overhead!
I cra\vled back to the west door to look again. There the
men still sat! But as I moved my head, they movednot
men at all, but the silhouettes of cypress trees beyond the
temple.
From the Parthenon I stole over to the Erechtheum, and

explored it in vain for guards. Then I made a stealthy circuit

around the brink of the Acropolis walls. Many sentry booths,
but not a sentry. I was alone. The Acropolis was mine!
A NIGHT WITH A GODDESS

Abandoning caution, I teetered along the cliffs, pausing

here to peer down into the amphitheater of Dionysos where
the dramas of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes had been
enacted, or there to pinpoint the site where Lord Byron lived,
or again to stare into the eddying pool of light that was
A t h e n s b e l o w.

My wandering brought me around to the Porch of Posei

don. Here I examined the hole in roof and floor where Zeus

hurled down his thunderbolt. Inside the roofless temple I

crawled around the rim of the well where the jab of Posei
don's trident broke forth salt water. Outside, I plucked a

sprig from the olive tree Athena presented the city and
arrived below the Porch of the Caryatids where six maidens
hold the roof on their heads. "How lonely they must be
neglected there for twenty-five centuries."

So up I sealed until I stood on the railing with them and

could meet each face to face. It must have been a strange

sight in the moonlight as I edged along the balustrade, cling

ing to each maid as I stepped round her, lest I fall to the
rocks on one side or into the floorless porch on the other.

Although half a thousand Olympiads old, with cracked

8

heads or broken necks and arms missing, there was a poised

and graceful beauty about them still. All were charming, but
the loveliest was she standing left of center. Her nose was gone

and the stumps of her arms were three times the girth of
mine, but she stood there so demurely, knee bent, head
slightly bowed, and with such sweetness and modesty upon

her face, that I half believed her warm and breathing after

all. Taking the olive branch I had picked from Athena's

tree, I laid it on my Caryatid's shoulder in admiration for
that vanished and forgotten girl who posed for the statue
so many centuries before.

As I returned to the prow before the temple of Wingless

Victory whence I had ascended the Acropolis, it was very late
and I was sleepy. Time to descend. Or was it? Why not spend
the night? Sleep in the Parthenon! Perhaps Athena herself
would appear! Or I would witness some festival of the gods!
What more glorious chamber could I have than that match
less temple, open to the stars, in the very courtyard of heaven!
I scrambled back, and, after touring again the colonnade

and through the moon-blanched sanctuary, I lay back on a

block of marble near where Athena's statue once stood, and

fell fast asleep.

Hours later I awoke, bewildered and in dread. Huge black

clouds, boiling up from the sea, scudded across the sky just
overhead, blotting out every ray of the moon, every glimmer
of a star. The pillars of the Parthenon crouched about me
like tall ominous birds with folded wings. An angry wind

shrieked and flapped around the fluting of the columns and

tore at the blocks of marble as though to hurl them down
upon me. Sand, whipped from the stone, stung my face and

gritted in my eyes. I turned up my collar, slid my hands in

my sleeves, but I could not quell my ehattering teeth.
I retreated into a corner. But the wind had no direction.

It blew straight down from the clouds and drove in chilling

9

blasts through every eraek in the marble walls. I ran from

one side to the other, hid in the tiny room in the west wall,
hugged the columns, but there was no escape.
What had happened? What had changed the tranquil
Parthenon into the terrifying chimera it was. There was only
one answer. The gods, outraged that a man should dare

sleep in the very temple of Athena Parthenosthe Virginhad commanded the wind and the storm to tear down the

temple and hurl it upon him rather than suffer her to be

compromised.

Already I had defied the gods too long, tempted their

mercies too far. I pulled my coat tightly about me and ran,

stumbling and breathless before the scourging wind, through

the Propylaea with green lightning jabbing at my back, to the
head of the wall, over, and down the rocksdown from the

Acropolis, down from their vengeance, down with my life

from a night with a goddess.
W H E R E X E R X E S S AT

"And that is Xerxes' Hill," I had heard a man saying to

a young lady on Mount Likavittos.

Ever since I had seen the picture in my history book of

the Persian King and all his court sitting on a hill, watching
the Battle of Salamis, I had wanted to find that hill and sit

where Xerxes sat. I took the electric railway out of Piraeus,

along the shore to the foot of the mountain I thought was
Xerxes' Hill.

The wind blew as I scrambled up the rocks and I had to

climb on all fours to keep my foothold. On the top I looked
for the throne I had been assured was still there. I saw noth

ing. Running along the connecting ridge, I mounted a higher

hill, and a higher one. Then I saw ita cylinder, flat on top,
sheer of sides, jutting up from a peak. I could not believe
1

Xerxes would construct such a monument simply to sit on

for an hour or so. Then, as I made my way across the inter

vening saddle I saw that the tower was not man-made at all
but had been cut from the rock by the sawing of the wind
and rain.

Crawling up the back I emerged on top just as the sun

was setting behind the mountains of Salamis across the straits
which lay like a ribbon of water below. I leaned in the wind
and watched the sun splash the sky to scarlet and sink in a
fan of flame behind the distant peaks. No one needed to tell
me. This I knew was Xerxes' Throne. I sat back and, in the

fading light, imagined what Xerxes had seen.

It was the twenty-third of September, 480 years before

Christ. For the past ten yearsever since Marathonthe

whole of Asia had seethed with the vast preparations of the

King of Kings, to the cry of "Remember the Athenians!"

From Bulgaria to India, from Russia to Arabia, Xerxes called

upon his vassals until, according to the Greeks, the host was

two million strong (probably 200,000). So mighty was the

multitude that it could not be transported by sea. From
Tarsus the horde started snaking across Asia Minor. Yet
neither could such a monster be supplied by land. The

Phoenicians, Egyptians, conquered Greeks of Asia, all sub

ject sea peoples, were levied upon for warships1,207 by

Greek count (likely about 700). When the snake reached

the Hellespont, it crawled across on ships lashed together.
When it reached the Isthmus of Athos, a channel was shov
eled out between mountain and mainland for its armada to
pass.

In their fright, the Greek city-states formed the Pan-Hel

lenic League, and the Athenians voted to build a navy of two
hundred triremes. Sparta, with the strongest land army, lorded
the League and decided to abandon northern Greece, build
a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth, and fight it out on the
1 1

Peloponnesus. Nevertheless Leonidas, King of Sparta, sallied

into northern Greece with ten thousand allied troops to meet

and delay the Persian onslaught. At Thermopylae he took his

stand in the slim pass and cut back all attacks, until a traitor
led the Persians by a secret pass through the mountains to
fall upon the Greek rear. Sending the bulk of his army to
meet this stab, Leonidas with 300 Spartans and 1,100 allies

stayed in the trap. They held the main attack until slaugh
tered to a man.

The same day, the Persian armada charged the Athenian

fleet at Artemisium and drove it southward. By land and
sea the Persians rolled on. What hope had the puny Greek

states in their path? Thebes and other of the Greek cities

threw in with Xerxes and sent their armies to swell his ranks.
The Athenians were terrified. The Pan-Hellenic army stood

south of the Corinthian wall, leaving Athens unprotected to

the north. The small Athenian army could not hope to stem

the Persian tide single-handed as at Marathon. What to do?

Tlie Oracle of Delphi was entreated.
"Put trust in wooden walls," it answered.

Aristides argued this meant the walls of the Acropolis, then

partially wooden, but Themistocles, foreseeing rebellion in a
siege, twisted the oracle to mean the wooden walls of ships.
His logic prevailed. The Athenians abandoned Athens, trans
ported their families to neighboring islands and took to their
ships. When Xerxes charged in he found none but a hand
ful of heroes left to defend the shrines and sacred places on

the Acropolis. The Acropolis was promptly stormed, its de

fenders cut down.

Meanwhile the Athenian fleet hovered in the straits be

tween Attica and the island of Salamis. Their captains de

bated whether to stay and fight or flee to the Peloponnesus.

If they fled, Themistocles threatened to abandon them and

1 2

sail with their families to new homes in Italy. Again Themistocles prevailed.

Carefully he laid plans for defeating a Persian fleet three

times the size of his. First he sent his faithful slave to be

captured. Information was tortured from him: "The Athe

nian fleet is preparing to flee!"

Eager not to let the Athenians escape, Xerxes divided his

armada and sent half to cork either end of the straits. For

the Athenians who still dallied with the idea of running, it

was too late!

To witness the splintering of the Athenian navy, Xerxes

had his throne carried to the summit of the very hill on
which I sat. Here he climbed with all his court and much

of his army to eat, drink and relish his triumph, little dream
ing he had already fallen into Themistocles' trap.
Timidly the Greek fleet tried to slip out of one end of
the straits. Pounced upon by the Persian watchdogs, the
Athenian fleet back-watered for dear life. Elated by such
easy victory, a cloud of Persian sails swelled in pursuit,
thronging into the narrow channel. Tighter and tighter they
crowded, pushed by the mass behind, until from sheer multi
tude, oars locked and splintered, hulls groaned and cracked.
In the narrowest part of the strait, where not a fraction of

the Persian armada could deploy, the Greeks on signal

wheeled and charged. Disorganized by pursuit, the scattered
vanguard of the Persian armada was the first to feel the

bronze rams of the Athenian triremes. Persian squadrons

pressing to their aid only further jammed the channel where

they lost the advantage of their overwhelming number. Into

the pack the Greek prows drove. Blazing arrows rained among
the massed Asiatic sails, setting whole squadrons ablaze. Vas
sal crews of the Great King had little stomach to face the
attack of free men fighting for their homes. They tried to

turn and escape but only exposed their soft sides to the sharp
13

Greek rams. Those that did manage to flee only hindered

those swarming to the rescue.
By the time the Persian squadrons at the other end of
the channel learned of the engagement, half Xerxes' armada
was routed, burned, boarded, captured, sunk. Tliemistocles
was free to wheel his entire fleet to meet the helter-skelter

attack of the other half racing through the straits.

The struggle was not long prolonged. Before his horrified

eyes Xerxes saw his vast armada melt away in the face of
his "trapped" enemy.
Just as I sat watching the sun set, Xerxes had sat on the
same hill and watched his dream of European empire turn
to darkness.

His fleet sunk, burned, scattered, and the Greeks surround

ing him from the sea, he could no longer feed his army in
a scorched and angry land. In rage he stormed back to Athens,

burned the city, cast down Athena's temple and, leaving

Mardonius in command, skulked to Asia.

When one statesman suggested the Athenians accept

Mardonius's offer of alliance, he was lynched and his family
stoned. Pursued by the now united Greek army, Mardonius
was overtaken and attacked at Plataea. Here he himself was

slain with most of his army, thus damming up for centuries

the Asiatic flood which had threatened the spring of Western
culture.

For an hour in the deepening night, I saw, or imagined

that I saw, in swirling panorama not only the locked fleets
of Greeks and Persians, but all the fabulous events of life,
love, wars and heroes that had taken place in lands about me.
There was something kingly, godlike, in the vast command
of time and space it gave. I felt that I was one with every
thing and every person each in his own time and placeat
once the hearer of Homer, the ship of Themistocles, and
the veined rock of Xerxes' Throne. Sun and wind and land
14

and ocean and the inverted universe above, all were mine.

I needed only to reach out and draw them in.

As the last streak of light drained from the sky behind

Salamis, I too, like Xerxes, had to abandon my dreams of
empire and descend to crawl the plain with men.
AN

IDYLL

OF

M A R AT H O N

On Xerxes' Tlirone I had resolved to be done with cities

and heed the call of the high road again. Having witnessed
the great naval battle of Salamis, I decided to roll time back
still fartherto the Battle of Marathon.

A day or so later, the driver of the daily milk truck from

Athens dropped me at the flat, stucco cafe of the only eitizen
in Marathon who spoke English. When big Jim Peppas heard
me thanking the truck driver in English, he grabbed me. He
had lived twelve years in Chicago and had not seen an Ameri
can in a year.
He sat me at a table, clapped his hands, and instantly
several waitresses had food before me. When I marveled at

the prompt service he lamented that it was his only com

pensation for siring seven daughters. Was I looking for a
wife?

After supper I asked Big Jim where I could spend the

night. His household was so overwhelmingly feminine, he
was sorry I could not bed with them, but I could go to either
hotel or jail.
'Til take jail," I told him.
He stepped into the dark street and returned with a khakiuniformed policeman. I went with him into the night, and
at the police station, where gun slots looked down every
street, he admitted me to an important personage reading
by kerosene lamp. It was the chief.
There was much glancing at me while the policeman told
15

the chief whatever Big Jim told him. After cross-examining

me in Greek and getting nothing but English answers, he
signified I was not eligible to occupy one of his cells. I would
have to stay at his home. He led me to a two-storied stone

house in a garden by the edge of town. Here his wife insisted

I join them in my second supper and would not permit me
to leave without breakfast in the morning.
Not being able to make either the chief or Big Jim under
stand that I was looking for the battlefield, I set out to find
it myself. I was in no hurry. Wandering along I went be
tween olive orchards, cypress groves, and the peaceful gardens
of the Plains of Marathon. At one villa workers were turning
down presses upon olives and pouring fragrant oil into huge
earthen jars. I lay in the shade and watched before idling on.
A mile beyond I climbed up to watch men working in
a white scar on the mountain side. With jacks and crowbars,
they were splitting great masses of marble from the moun
tain. Then, guided only by their eye, they chipped them
square and smooth. One was splitting out a block for a
statue. Another was shaping a headstone for a grave. Several
were squaring huge oblong blocks for a church in Cairo. I

lay an hour or so watching them, imagining it was twentyfive centuries ago and I was witnessing column and cornice
of the Parthenon taking form before my eyes.
From my perch I could sweep the plain. In the distance,
a mound jutted above the tree tops. It could be only one

thingthe grave of the Athenians. When I pointed to it, the

stonecutters said, "Tymbon."

Sliding down to the road I started toward it. A passing

truck took me along and dropped me off before a sign which
read Tymbon. Down an avenue of cypress trees I strolled to

a tall pyramidal mound of earth and scrambled up the steps.

From the summit I commanded the entire Plains of Mara1

thonlying like a crescent between the mountains and the

sea.

Here nearly twenty-five centuries agoten years before

Salamis and Plataeathe Persians camped one hundred thou

sand strong, their triremes foresting the beach with masts.
They were the scourge Darius cracked at the Athenians for
sending twenty warships to aid the revolt of Ionian Greeks.

When the latter captured and burned Sardis, capital of the

Persian satrapy, Darius had shot an arrow with all his might
into the air, swearing that, as inevitably as the arrow fell, he
would have vengeance upon the Athenians. He appointed a
special slave to cry to him every time he sat to meat, "Remem
ber the Athenians!"

Darius was "remembering." The Persian army now had

already vaulted to the mainland and was tented at Marathon,

threatening unprotected Athens while the Athenian army

looked down from the hills behind me into the Persian camp.
Desperate pleas went to other Greek cities. But the Persian
name paralyzed men with fear. Let the Athenians perish!

Why provoke the invincible Medes? The famous Pheidippides ran 150 miles to Sparta in 48 hours only to return the

answer that religious festivals prevented the powerful Spartan

army from marching before full moon.
What to do?

On the hill above was the spot where eleven men held
history's most decisive council of war. Ten were the elected
generals of the Ten Tribes; the eleventh, Gallimachus, had

been voted that year's War Ruler. Run or fight? They must
decide.

WITH

DEMI-GODS

AND

HEROES

Deserted and friendless, ten thousand Athenians eyed a

host ten times their strength. In that black hour only one
17

ally oflfered help. On hearing that Athens was threatened,

tiny Plataea, unsolicited, marched her entire army to aid the

city that once liberated her. The Plataean army was only one
thousand strong, but it arrived on the eve of battle, one thou
sand men brave enough to stand with friends against the
dreaded Persians.

Still five generals shrank from attacking the Persians, so

overwhelming in number, so invincible by renown! Wait at
least for the Spartans.
Five to five. The vote of Callimachus, the War-Ruler,

would decide. "It now rests with you, Callimachus," said

Miltiades, "either to enslave Athens, or by assuring her free
dom, to win yourself an immortality of fame ... for never,
since the Athenians were a people, were they in such dan
ger. ... If they bow the knee to the Medes . . . you know
what they then have to suffer. ... If we do not bring on a
battle presently, some factious intrigue will disunite the Athe
nians and the city will be betrayed. . . . But if we fight
before there is anything rotten in the state of Athens, I
believe, provided the gods will give fair play and no favor,
we are able to get the best of it in the engagement."
Callimachus cast his votegive battle!
Behind the cover of the hills, Miltiades, elected chief gen
eral, arrayed his troops. History held its breath.
Should Athens fall, Sparta for all her heroism could not
long resist Darius, bolstered by all the Greek armies that
would march to his standards. Beyond Greece was only in
fant Rome, battling the Etruscans without and torn between
plebeian and patrician within. The Europe to be would have
borne the stamp of Oriental despotism.
On the day of the battle, Miltiades did something never
before attempted. He weighted his wings at the expense of
his center. Once arrayed, he waved his army forward. Rolling
i 8

into sight of the surprised Persians, the Greeks broke into a

trot to close the mile of no man's land before the Persian
horse could bridle and gallop against them.
When the Persian soldier saw the thin Greek line waver

ing down the hils without bowmen or cavalry, he judged

them mad. Anticipating slaughter, swordsmen from Nile
to Indus, horsemen from Red Sea to Hindu Kush, spear
men from Danube and Oxus, archers from Ethiopia, bow

men from Euphrates to Gaucasus, all the motley cohorts of

the Great King, sprang to arms. Goming into bow range,
the Athenians broke into a run to be under the rain of ar

rows as briefly as possible. The Persians had no time to

complete preparations.

In charged the long, disciplined rank of the Greeks a

wall of shields from which long spears jutted and behind

which gleaming helmets, breastplates and leg guards offered

almost impenetrable targets. The first rank of the Persians,
their bodies naked of armor, carrying only wicker shields and

short spears, went down at the touch. Masses of Persian

bowmen found themselves useless once enemy was locked
with friend. The swarms of Persian cavalry, once mounted,

milled around. They could not turn the Athenian flanks,

anchored on a swamp to the left and a bouldered hill to the
right. The Athenian wings were so strongly manned that the
Persian flanks crumbled before them like wheat to the scythe.

The Great King's half-hearted vassals from Egypt and Scythia,

from Jordan and Tigris, took heed of their lives and fled.
But in the center stood blocks of native Medes and Per

sians. Rallying from the Athenian onslaught, they counter

charged with their renowned ferocity. Long lances splintered
and were lost. Short spears and scimitars rang upon helms
and short swords. The thin Greek line wavered and fell back,

closed up, wavered and fell back again. The tribes of Aris1 9

tides and Themistocles (of later fame at Salamis) were spread

too thin to withstand the onrush of massed Persian veterans.

Once their front was broken, the heavily encumbered Greeks

were no match for the leaping, dancing, scimitar-slashing
Medes. The Athenian center reeled back in rout.

But, as Miltiades had planned, the heavily weighted Athe

nian wings crushed all before them. Rather than have their
commands disorganized in wild pursuit, Callimachus on the
right and Miltiades with the Plataeans on the left, halted

their troops and, quickly wheeling their front, charged in

from both sides on the yet victorious Persians. Suddenly

finding themselves in the jaws of Miltiades' pincer, the Me

dian ranks recoiled in confusion. Fighting with their famed
skill and bravery, the Persians struggled to organize a front
in two new directions. Then Aristides and Themistocles, col
lecting and rallying their routed tribes in the tunneling val

ley, again as Miltiades had planned, charged with new hope

and fury into the third side of the Asiatics.
The Athenians were fighting for homes and altars. The
very field of Marathon was sacred to the labors of both Her

cules and Theseus. There stood the Temple of Hercules. And

in the crescendo of battle, when the issue hung in doubt, it
is said that Theseus himself, in gleaming armor, appeared in
the van, whooping to the Athenians and leading the charge.
Individual Persians, Sacians and Medes fought with cour
age and agility, freely squandering their lives rather than sur
render the fame won by so many victories. But their short
spears, wicker shields, and unprotected bodies were no match

against the long lances and body armor of the Athenian hoplites. Forward the Asiatics rushed singly and in squads, to
impale themselves on the ranks of spears, trying at all costs

to break the phalanx and bring their swift scimitars into play.
But they were not trained to maneuver in concert as were

the Greeks, who always fronted an unbroken wall of shields

to the enemy.
As evening drew near, the masters of Asia could resist no
longer. The survivors turned their backs and fled for their
ships. "Bring fire! Bring fire!" the Greeks cried as they laid
hold on the vessels. But here the Asiatics turned with ter

rible fury upon the scattered Greeks and fought them off as
the boats were launched. Brave Gallimachus, the War Ruler,

clambering over a gunwale, was impaled with a spear. The

brother of Aeschylus laid hand on a stern and had his arm

axed off. Abandoning burning, captured ships and their em

battled rearguard, the greater part of the Persian fleet slid
to sea, leaving 6,400 bleeding on the plain. The Athenians
picked up their own dead192.
Datis, the Persian general, did not lose his wits. With the
remnant of his hundred thousand, he sailed straight for un

defended Athens. But Miltiades, noting shield flashes from

Greek traitors on Mount Penteli, rallied his warriors and did

the impossiblemarched through the night the full twentysix miles back to Athens. When dawn broke and the Per

sian fleet rounded Gape Sunion and sailed into Piraeus har
bor, the exhausted but triumphant victors of Marathon were
arrayed on the beach. Unwilling to meet them again, Datis

sailed away, dispelling for all time the myth of Persian in

vincibility.

According to custom, the Athenian slain of each year were

returned to Athens for burial. But for the heroes of Marathon

an exception was made. They were buried in the midst of the

field where slaughter was thickest, and over their graves grate
ful citizens raised a mighty mound. About it they up-righted
ten columns, one for each of the ten tribes. Six centuries

later, you could still read there the names of those who fell.

I lay back upon the grave and closed my eyes. To my

ears came the neighing of ghostly horses, the clash of sword
2 1

on shield, strange oaths in ancient tongues, all the shock

and tumult of embattled warriors. And to my mind came the
picture of Aristides that night after the battle, camped
before the white pillars of the Temple of Hercules while

about him on the Plains of Marathon flickered the campfires of his tribesmen as they stood watch on the field of the
slain. I recalled the lines that Byron had written on that spot:
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free.

Byron's dream had come true. And yet that very day, I
reflected, as I was watching the Persian defeat at Marathon,
a new battle was sounding within the gates of Hellas. The

drama was too near for me to miss. Tomorrow I would step

back into the present and go where new Salamises and Mara
thons were being fought.
In the meantime, I fell asleep among the victors of Mara
thon.

NO SOLDIERS, NO POLICE, NOTHING BUT

GUERRILLAS

From Marathon I intended hiking to Delphi to ask the

famous oracle where to go and what to do next. But the
truck I hailed was going to Larissa instead.

I looked on my map for Larissa. It was hundreds of miles

north of Delphi and, wonderful to behold, not far from

Mount Olympus. Why should I consult mere agents of the

gods when I might climb Olympus and commune with the
twelve ancient gods in person?

But at the mention of Olympus everybody aboard made

long faces, threw up their hands. "Po, po, po," they ex-

claimed. "Beyond Larissa are the guerrillas. If you go to

Olympus you will never come back alive."
"Is that true?" I asked the truck driver.

"I don't think they'll hurt you," he said. "I had dinner up

there last Sunday, and I'm still alive. Tlie guerrillas won't
bother you unless you bother them. You come with me and
I'll take you up where there's no soldiers, no police, nothing
but guerrillas."

I threw my knapsack in the back of the truck and climbed

aboard. Late the following afternoon we arrived in the bar
rack-town of Larissa. Here the driver got me a ride on another
truck leaving in the morning for Kozani and passing over the
flanks of Olympus.
A policeman, hearing of my destination, said in English,
"You will find the place where the twelve ancient gods used
to live now inhabited by twelve hundred modern devils. If

you leave for Olympus tomorrow, next year I'll go and find
your grave."

I laughed at him and waved away his pessimism, but while

we were talking I heard drums. In the street, I saw a military
band and a long parade of soldiers, their rifles slung muzzle
downward. The drums rolled long and then the big bass
boomed as the marchers took a step, paused, then stepped
again. The procession crawled by, swaying from side to side
to the slow beat.

Behind the band came a platoon of Greek soldiers, carry

ing wreaths and baskets of flowers. In the center, six bare

headed men struggled with a coffin. The coffin was open and
the sides were very low. In it, rigid and white, lay a Greek

soldier. Across his forehead and nose, a black and blue gouge.
"What happened to him?" I asked.

The policeman raised his bowed head. "Killed by guer

rillas," he intoned, "yesterday on Olympus."
23

CHIEF

OF

THUGS

At Elassona where the floor of the plain tunneled into a

gorge leading up to the Olympus Plateau we were stopped

by poliee and told we would have to wait for a convoy of
soldiers to take us up toward Kokinoplos.
Five mornings later we were still waiting. When I inquired

about walking to Kokinoplos, I was told that Karya was the

best place to climb Olympus. But Karya, it was whispered,
was the headquarters of the terrible guerrillas. That only
made it more intriguing.
It was market day in Elassona. The villagers from all the
country round about were in town to trade their products.
With a Greek-American friend I roamed the market looking

for a villager from Karya. At last we recognized one and

hailed him.

An hour later, with him and his wife, I set out toward the
town of Tsarifsani, visible along the base of the hills only a
mile awaythe first stronghold of the guerrillas.
But I got no farther than a hundred yards outside Elassona
when I was halted by police at a stone machine-gun nest and
sent back to the commandant. "You come back next year
and visit the twelve ancient gods," he advised. "I don't want
to be responsible for what the guerrillas will do to you on
Olympus."
"You're saying I'm under arrest?" I asked.
"I'm saying, for your own safety, stay here and go on to
Kozani by the first convoy."
It was very definite I was not supposed to go to Karya, and
I wondered why.
About noon, military trucks roared into the square and
soldiers came running from every direction with machine
guns and mortars and piled aboard. When twenty or thirty
trucks had gathered they sped down the road in the direction
24

of Tsarifsani. Rifle and machine-gun fire broke out imme

diately in the hills beyond.

The telephone line had been cut, and when soldiers went

out to repair it they were ambushed by guerrillas.

Reinforcements were rushed to the battle. I hurried to

the maehine-gun nest to watch. Mortar shells burst on the

mountain side.

Amid the rip of machine-guns and brr-oom of shells, a

stubnosed British truck came hurtling back down the road.

Held upright beside the driver was a soldier with a blood

splash for a face. As the fight chattered on into darkness, five
more wounded were bounced down the road.

Later as I was walking into Elassona a group of people

from the same truck convoy hailed me from a restaurant and

I joined them. I started to tell them about the battle and the
six soldiers wounded. They made signs for me to be quiet and
indicated with their eyes the table behind. There I saw two
men in uniform. By their white shoulder cords, police. I did
not understand why, but I said no more about the fighting.
When the policemen finally left, Thomas, the truck owner,
told me the two policemen had attempted to get familiar
with the two girls at our table. They feared the policemen
might use some pretext, such as my telling them casualty
figures, as an excuse to take the girls into "custody."
"Nonsense," I said, "police don't do that sort of thing."
But not five minutes later a policeman in white cap, belt
and pistol cord stepped in the door. He said something to
the girls. They got up and went with him, a terrified look on
their faces.

"What's it all about?" I asked Thomas.

"Well, it's just as we told you. The girls are being taken
to police station and it doesn't look like official business."
"Let's go with them," I suggested. We jumped up from
our soup and hurried after them.
25

So as not to lose the girls when they turned into the police
station, I hurried ahead of Thomas and followed them into

the courtyard and up a stairs.

As the girls stepped into a room, the door closed behind

them and there were belches of laughter, but when I pushed

open the door and stepped in, wearing an American flag on
my sleeve, a sudden silence fell. The chief of police swallowed,
smiled, and asked if he could help me.
"Oh no," I said.

Wliat was I doing there?

"Nothing."

Well, how did I happen to come?

"I don't know. I was simply dining with these two young
ladies when they were ordered to the police station. I thought
I was wanted too."

"Oh no," was the answer, "only the girls."

The chief was obviously confused, but he collected himself
enough to ask for the girls' identification booklets, which he

leafed through very professionally. At length he handed them

back.

"Endoxi," he said. "Sorry to have bothered you."

As we turned to go I noticed Thomas was not vsdth us.
He was not downstairs nor in the street outside. We returned
to the restaurant and he was not there either. No one had
seen him.

We finished our cold soups and waited. Finally someone

nudged me, and I looked toward the door. There was Thomas.
One cheek bone was scuffed and swollen and there was a cut

under the other eye. "What happened to you?" I gasped.

He told his story. When I stepped ahead of him into the
police station, two policemen grabbed him.
"What are you doing here?" one demanded.
"I came with the American," Thomas answered.

"We sent for the girls, not for you," the other said, smash
ing him in the face.

"After this, mind your own business," said the first, spin

ning him around and pounding him again.

For Thomas there was nothing but submit. A complaint
would only bring greater abuse. I could understand then the

despair of a people when officers of the law themselves cham

pion lawlessness. But bandits though they were, they would
not dare touch an American.

Taking out pen and paper, I stomped back to the police

station, pounded up the stairs to the office of the chief of
police.
"What is your name?" I asked him. He did not under
stand and would not understand.

"That's all right," I said, "I don't need your name. The
date will identify you in the story I write back to America.
You don't mind if I use your desk to write it, do you?"
Pushing back his papers, I spread my own and sat there for
an hour writing down the outrage I had witnessed.

He and his lieutenants played nervously at cards, but at

length he got up and left the room. What he did, what he
told his triggermen downstairs I did not know, but now that

my anger was cooling down, I was getting worried. How easy

it would be to shoot me and blame the guerrillas.

When I finished the story I addressed an envelope and

sealed it, though I did not intend to send it for I knew it

would never get out of town. As I started through the dark,

deserted streets, steering around doorways and the ends of
alleys, I realized what a foolhardy thing I had done. Instead
of going to the hotel, I ran to the tent of my friends of the
armored car platoon stationed in the square. If no accident
befell me that night, I would catch the first truck out of

Elassona in the morning, rather than wait for the revenge

I felt sure the chief of thugs was cooking up for me.
27

ALONE IN THE LAND OF THE GUERRILLAS

Luckily, the convoy of soldiers formed the next morning

and I set out with Thomas and the trucks up the minecratered, wreck-strewn canyon road for Kozani. But I was
more determined than ever to climb beyond the ranges to

Olympus and see why the guerrillas were there.

Once free of the police and in the middle of guerrilla coun

try, I would jump out and strike up for Olympus.

All morning and into late afternoon our convoy wound

higher and higher into the vast grassy hammock slung be

tween the mountains of Olympus and Hassian. Here the col

umn of sixty trucks and armored cars stopped to ford its
way under a dynamited bridge. Cutting off to the right was
a thin asphalt ribbon.
"The road to Kokinoplos," nodded Thomas. I dragged my

knapsack from the truck and, hailing some civilians on the

trail, struck up toward Olympus. But soon Thomas shouted
after me: "Come back," he said. "I don't like the looks of it."

Thomas had always maintained I'd be safe. I didn't know

what he had seen or heard to change his mind. I could only

take his word. Back I plodded, heaved my knapsack aboard,
and rode heavy-hearted up over the mountainous edge of the
hammock, leaving Olympus with its legends behind, aban

doning forever my meeting with the gods.

Over chops and wine that evening in Kozani I asked
Thomas why he had called me back.
"I wasn't afraid for you," he said. "I was afraid for me

when the police heard I put you down in guerrilla country."

I knew then what I had to do.

The next morning I walked to the Kozani Army campus.

"When is the next convoy going back to Elassona?" I
asked the major.
"Morning after tomorrow at eight," was his answer.

I dreaded to double back to Elassona, to risk again being

mangled by mines or being cut down by ambush, and then to
walk alone and helpless into the hands of the guerrillas. I was
told there were Yugoslavs on Olympus. Recently Yugoslavs

had shot down an American plane, killed Americans. The in

dividual guerrillas might be good men, but no telling what
orders they were obeying. But if I gave up, how could I ever
get over the shame of spooking from Olympus without even
coming to grips with the mountainwithout even seeing a
guerrilla?
Two mornings later as the trucks and armored cars col
umned up, I sat in the cab, knapsack on lap. I offered myself

a dozen excuses to back out. It was winter on Olympus. I had

no warm clothes. I was already forbidden by the police.
But when the convoy began to roll I was still sitting there.
I would jump off in tovm. Once through town, I decided to
get off at the inspection station just outside. Once past it, I'd
catch another truck back from Servia. Why should I walk
i n t o t h e m i d d l e o f a b a t t l e fi e l d ? I n t o t h e h a n d s o f t h e e v i l -

rumored guerrillas? Surely the gods would forgive me.

That evening as we surmounted the high cliffs from Mace

donia and ground down into the Olympus basin once more,
I wondered what I would do when we reached that bridge
where the mined and impassable road branched up toward
Kokinoplos. Would I actually drag out my knapsack and
strike out in the rain and the dusk for Kokinoplos, five hours
deep in lawless land?
Inevitably the dreaded moment of decision arrived when

at the bottom of the gulch ahead I saw the broken bridge.

The truck stopped as the vehicles ahead forded the stream.
"Well, let's get out," I said to myself, and laughed because
I knew I would not.

Then two Greek civilians came down the road. I hopped

out and asked them if they were going to Kokinoplos. No,
2 9

Kokinoplos was in the other direction. But I was out of the

truck, and, except for the rain, the countryside looked wide
and open and very peaceful. It was impossible to imagine
danger in such a tranquil settingthe shepherds with their
flocks on the rolling hills and white Olympus standing
serenely in the background. A convoy would not be going
back to Kozani for another week. At the end of a week I
would still be fevered to climb that mountain. There was

only one cure. I snatched out my knapsack and charged

blindly up the tarred lane toward Kokinoplos.

I did not stop or look back until I reached the crest of

the first hill. From there I watched the last truck of friendly
soldiers plow slowly through the water under the fallen
bridge, leaving me behind.
About me sheepdogs barked angrily and a black-robed
figure watched sullenly from a nearby hill. As I turned toward
Olympus and started up the road in the rain, I felt very much
alone.

STRANGER

AND

GUEST

THE

SAME

WORD

In many languages, I remembered, "stranger" and "enemy"

are the same word. I was afraid I might be challenged by
some hilltop sentry and shot before I could recite I did not
understand Greek.

When I saw a black-hooded man walking ahead I paced

to overtake him. Even if he were a guerrilla, better to meet
one informally than have to explain my presence at the muz
zle of a rifle.

I called a cheery, "Kalle spera," and to my relief a grayhaired, kind-looking old man threw back his hood and smiled

at me. I told him I was headed for Kokinoplos. Was he

headed there too? No, and since it was a' five hours' walk,
I'd better come spend the night at his house.

The first village as we turned off the road looked very

picturesque on the rolling green hillside with snow-skirted
Olympus behind, but as we entered I saw it was but the stone
skeleton of a village. All the houses were burned, roofless and
hollow. "The Germans," he nodded.

The next village, Bazarlathis, still presented a few shingled

roofs to the drizzle. My companion led me to a house sur
rounded by a barnyard of goats and sheep and upstairs to
a veranda. As I was ushered into the single room, his old

mother, his wife, his four sons and four daughters jumped
up, spread fresh blankets on the floor, took off my shoes and
sat me in the seat of honoron the floor nearest the fire.

Immediately friends filed in to meet the stranger. A bottle

of ouzo was lifted from the cupboard and drinks were poured.
While we drank a toast to Greece and America, a supper of
fried pork and rice was set before me. A villager who had

been to America came in to act as interpreter, and questions

about Greece and America were volleyed. After the guests left,
I was given a sort of couch while the other eleven members
of the family curled up on the floor to sleep. The next morn
ing, after a breakfast of hot goat's milk and black bread, my
host asked again where I intended to go.
"Kokinoplos," I told him.

He looked serious. I had better reconsider and go back to

Elassona while I still could.

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"They are bad men in the mountains," he said.

I closed my ears to his warnings and started up the broad

yellow trail over the rolling green meadows for Kokinoplos.

I did leave my knapsack behind, for he convinced me that

the guerrillas, if they did not actually kill me, would steal all
I carried.

For all my host's warnings, however, the greatest dangers

I encountered were dogs.
31

At the first stone farmstead a shaggy white mastiff snarled

at me from the gate posts. I had always found a bold front
the best defense against dogs. I fixed him with my eye and
swerved straight toward him, twitching the shepherd's crook
the Bazarlathis interpreter had pressed on me for that pur
pose.

I expected the dog to turn tail and run. Instead he rushed

me. I raised my club. That infuriated him. He sprang. I
smashed him down.

Around and around he ran trying to catch me off-guard.

Around and around I spun, jabbing my stick at his nose.
When I tried to edge down the trail, he was leaping at my
back in an instant. I could do nothing but crouch there,
wheeling in every direetion to beat him off.
At length a woman rushed from the house. She caught
up a stone, raised her arm to throw and the huge, angry beast

clamped his tail and galloped off yelping.

With this example, I approached the next farm fearlessly.
When two dogs, even larger and more wolf-like than the
last, raced out, I calmly scooped up a stone and raised my
arm. But instead of clamping tail and yelping, they leaped
on me. I could whack them off with my stick, but only one
at a time. Just as the dogs were deploying, one on each side
for a simultaneous assault designed to finish me, a woman
again sallied to my rescue.
Luckily I encountered no other farms before I reached
Selosa village sprawled where green meadows meet the
rocky buttresses of Olympus.
To Greek dogs at least, stranger and enemy are the same
word. Immediately I was swarmed by twenty or thirty growl
ing, snapping beasts, my stick useless, stones futile. I was
spinning around like a whirling dervish, flailing in every di
rection, when a child ran out and the dogs slunk away.
A man happened by who spoke English and he led me
32

through town to a store. There, seated on a crate, I was

given a glass of ouzo while villagers filed through to shake
hands with the American stranger.
I was asked if I wanted some bread. When I answered,

"Lego" (a little), the mayor and elders escorted me down an

alley to one of the houses still roofed. There I was ushered
upstairs and seated on the floor by the fire while a pie pan
of fried pork cubes and browned potatoes was set before me
on a low table.

As I ate, the mayor complained that of the twelve men in

the room six had just been released from five months in
Larissa prison. They said they were held without charge
until two American officers released them.

"Are you Communists?" I asked.

They laughed. "No, we are 'democrats' of the Agrotico
Komma (Farmers' Party). That's why we were arrested."
When it was time to go, the whole village gathered for
goodbyes in the grassy plaza. Two boys were dispatched to
guide me to Kokinoplosand to beat off dogs on the way.
I ended up having to beat off the boys. As soon as we were
out of sight over the first series of ridges, the boys began de
manding money. When I "didn't understand" they halfplayfully plucked pen and note-book from my pockets. Halfplayfully, I tripped them with my crook and recovered my
property. Half-playfully, they yanked at my camera. Halfplayfully, I clouted one with my stick. Half-playfully, they
started stoning me. Half-playfully, I gave them a lesson in

baseball by sizzling "strikes" at their skulls. Not so playfully,

my "guides" ended tagging along behind out of range of my
pitching arm.

At this awkward juncture a man appeared over the next

ridge. He wore a tan rain-coat and felt hat. Obviously not a

"native." Probably a guerrilla! And what might my "guides"

33

tell him? As the stranger came flapping down the ridge, he

threw np clenched fist and yelled, "Bros!"
Not to be outdone, I threw up clenched fist and "Brosed"
him right back.

Lean-faced, clean-shaven, with hair growing over his ears,

he introduced himself as Comrade Corthoclas, a surgeon

from Athens. The "dirty fascists" had driven him from his
practice because he'd voted "Democratic."

I sympathized, told him I'd made the same mistake myself.

This clinched it. We were "comrades."

Then I mentioned how much my guides had helped

helped themselves! His eyebrows arched and he turned to

machine-gun them in Greek. The rest of the way to Kokinoplos, they escorted me like acolytes.
It was raining and nearly dark when we climbed the
last ridge into the stony streets of the stone-roofed town
under a bouldered knee of Olympus.
I was wondering where I would spend the night when the
only man in sight grabbed my arm and ushered me into the
first house. The family sat me beside the hearth, took off
my wet shoes and put a glass of ouzo in my hand.
Along with dozens of other people, a man who had lived
in America came in to shake my hand and welcome me to

Kokinoplos. I explained I intended to climb Olympus and

wanted a guide. The crowd pointed to the intelligent blond

youth beside me. "Sagea," we touched glasses and agreed to
set out at five the next morning. Meanwhile I was to spend
the night at his house.

I had laced my shoes and was bowing toward the door

when someone stepped in. A hush fell on the laughing crowd.
An aisle opened between myself and the stranger. Before me,
in a long black overcoat, loomed a man with a bronze, veined

face, black hair, and a brambly black beard. He eyed me

34

steadily. Rasputin, I thought, but concluded he was one of

the twelve ancient gods.
"Are you English?" he asked. "What do you want in
Kokinoplos?"
"I'm an American and I want to climb Olympus."
Immediately his face brightened. Had I any identification?

I handed him my passport. He came to the page stamped

by the Piraeus harbor police when I signed off the Odyssey.
When he spotted the king's seal, I thought I was done,
because I'd heard that the mountain people hated the king.
To my surprise he pointed to the blue cross and crown and

said, "Endoxi," handing back my passport with a big smile.

"I hope you enjoy your stay in free Greece."

At the house of Georgios, the guide, I was given the same

warm welcome I received in Bazarlathis, Selos, and the other

house in Kokinoplos. I was seated by the fire, my shoes were

unlaced by a daughter and a glass of ouzo was put in my hand.

When it was time for bed I was given a board platform while
my host and six members of the household bunched under
blankets on the floor.

I had not yet met the guerrillas but where were the
thieves? the bad men? the abuse I was to receive? Instead,

only in guerrilla country did I begin to realize what I later

learned was true, that in Greek "stranger" and "guest" are
the same word.

WITH

ANGIENT

GODS

In the blackness of 5:30, after sharing a can of UNRRA

milk and a piece of bread, Georgios and I started our pilgrim
age to the twelve gods of Olympus.

The rain that slashed all night, now had stopped. As we

rounded the buttress above Kokinoplos, we could see the

snow-domed peak shimmering serenely in the starlight. At

the summit, like gods indeed, burned two brilliant white

planets.

As we ascended a steep gorge slicing up the mountain, the

holly bushes were at first wet with rain. But soon water
changed to ice, and ice to vanes of frosted snow. The leaves

and branches of bush and tree dazzled whitely in the clear

air and tinkled softly as we brushed against them. I remem
bered that Christmas was not far off and I was a long way
from home.

Up the canyon wall we zigzagged across precipitous roofs

of snow. We were snaking up a wall, stomping footholds in

the icy crust, when the sky turned to grayto scarletto

gold. The valley below was still silted in darkness. Then one

by one, Apollo's spears of light struck the distant peaks of

Pieria, Kamvounia and Pindus. At first, the gigantic shadow

of Olympus blanketed the world below. Slowly it receded

down the slopes and was soon retreating across the valley
before a flood of crimson light.
By noon we had gained a saddle between two high peaks,
one of which I was certain was Mitka, throne of Zeus. When

I asked Georgios which it was, he pointed across a vast halfcrater to another peak so far away it appeared lower than the
rest. There was Mitka. To gain it, we would have to circle
clear around the rim of the crater, and scale each of the five

peaks that toothed the edge. I wondered if the day was long
enough and, even more to the point, if my energy would
hold out.

Georgios shook his head. Mitka was too far, the snow too
deep! We ought to descend before clouds and night and
wind-whipped snow obliterated our tracks and trapped us on
the peak.
I agreed with him. But then I thought of coming all the
way from America to climb Olympus, and of being now so
close. "Let's climb an hour more," I begged him.
^6

It was slow going. The crust was thick enough to hold my

weight if I walked flatfooted, but when I turned a foot for
balance or rocked up on a toe, the crust would shiver and
I would sink hip-deep in drifts. Very carefully I would creep
back on top, only, in a step or two, to crush back through
again. At the end of an hour, we had climbed only the second
tooth. From there appeared a new bay in the crater to edge
around and a new tooth to scale!

Georgios pointed to clouds washing up the mountainside.

The weather looked bad, he said. "Only one hour more," I
promised.
At the end of that hour Mitka appeared as far as ever.

Two teeth still sawed my path, and between them dropped

a trough deeper than we stood in two hours earlier. The
sight finished me. I slumped in the snow, knowing I'd never
reach Mitka, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Resigned

to defeat, I pulled a week-old crust from my pocket and

started gnawing. Except for a piece of bread and a lump of
sour, white cheese at sunrise, I'd had nothing to eat since
bread and milk at Kokinoplos.

When Georgios saw me eating, he pulled a loaf of fresh

bread from his bag and unwrapped a huge piece of white

cheese. Upon devouring these, with gulps from Georgios'

canteen, I felt I could sprint to Mitka. When Georgios
warned once more that night would catch us on the cliffs,
I chanted, in my limited Greek: "To reach here, nothing. To
reach Mitka, triumph!" This I repeated whenever he urged
turning back.

Atop the next peak I was tired as ever, but only the final
fang remained. "Fifteen minutes more," I swore to Georgios
as I stumbled down the last deep trough.
Forty-five minutes later, floundering in drifted snow and
clambering over rocks, we surmounted the final peak. I scaled
37

a stone cairn and rose, tired but exultant, on the throne of

Zeus at last.

From Zeus' dais I expected to behold all the nations of

earth below me. But alas, the world beneath was flooded
with clouds. I was marooned on an island of snow in an

ocean of milk. Yet, was it not, after all, the realm of the

godsa continent in the sky, a land above clouds, the very

kingdom of heaven?

On Olympus! A life-long dream fulfilled! For an hour I

stood there, and in the bright sun and crystal wind feeling
such exultation I attributed it to the presence of Zeus himself.
Finally, emboldened, I prayed for one boon and then
leaped down.

As Georgios and I came running and sliding, jumping and

tumbling, trailing a spray of snow like an avalanche down the

mountain, the clouds evaporated and full-mooned Diana

swelled behind Olympus and seated herself tranquilly upon

her throne, beaming our way across the domes of snow and
guiding us down the frosty forest trails.

In this I saw proof that Zeus was pleased with my pilgrim

age and smiled upon the boon I had askedthat somehow,

somewhere, the twelve ancient gods of Olympus might intro

duce me to its twelve hundred modern devils.

I had not long to wait. At dawn the next morning a shep

herd knuckled on the door and slipped me a note.
It read, "If you want to meet the guerrillas, come with this
man."

WITH MODERN DEVILS

I was so tired after climbing Olympus I intended to spend

the day in bed, but I did want to meet the guerrillas. I
pulled on one shirt and one pair of pants and stood ready
to depart. The messenger warned me, however, to put on all
my clothes. I was not coming back.
38

What was even more ominous, outside, he turned me over

to two men, one earrying an Enfield rifle and the other a

Sten gun. Sinee they were wearing British-type uniforms,

I eoncluded they must be Greek soldiers. "It won't be healthy
if the guerrillas catch them up here!"
But as we walked through Kokinoplos dozens and dozens

of similarly dressed men gathered to view the American and

it dawned on me they were not Greek soldiers at all. They
were the dreaded guerrillas!

I gave one and all a merry kalle mera, and shook hands all
around, even mustering an occasional, "Gomrade." I wanted
to get in their good graces, so if they killed me it would not
be in gruesome, lingering fashion.

Several of the guerrillas kept repeating, "Photographia?

Photographia?"
"Sure, sure," I nodded, and popped open my camera.

After careful squinting to get them all in, I pressed the

button. But I'd forgotten to cock the shutter.

"Just a moment," I laughed and started sighting again.

But some guerrillas began sidling out of the picture, and,
before I could click it, a person of authority stepped before
the lens.

"No photographia," he waved. Some guerrillas feared being

recognized. I felt like a spy caught in the act.

As my guides led me to the edge of town, it became obvious

the guerrillas I was to meet were not in Kokinoplos. After
my thirteen hours on Olympus, I had a pulled muscle in my
thigh and creaked all over.
"How far must I walk?" I asked.

"Two hours," was the answer. I almost collapsed. Five

hours later my guides and I, with a band of guerrillas we

overtook on the trail, rounded the knee of a ridge and saw,
tucked in the park-like lap of a canyon, a great, square, two39

storied, stone building. Why such a splendid structure in

such an inaccessible grove so high on Olympus? The guerrillas

pointed and explained, "Monasteria."

As I was dragging up the stream bank that cleft the lap,

a man wearing a sheep-lined helmet stepped from the wel

coming guerrillas and snapped my picture.

"I'm Jean Durkheim, Free French journalist." He was of

medium height, brown-haired, fleshy, thirty-five, with long
pointed nose and chin, and a high, balding forehead. He
was wearing U.S. Army trousers and combat jacket (acquired
fighting under Patton) and steel-toothed ski boots ("liber
ated" from a German officer).

"Congratulations," he pumped my hand. "I ze first, you

ze sec-ond journalist to join ze Andartes!"

I denied that I was a journalist but accepted the distinction

that, if I were, I'd be second.

"What did you call these guerrillas?" I asked Durheim.

"Andartesfree menas they call themselves. They claim

only fascist papers lahel them partisans or guerrillas to link
them with Tito of Yugoslavia."

"You're in luck," he continued. "You hit a very rare day.

Ze Andarte generals from Thessaly and Macedonia are here
for a conference."

He led me into the monastery cloister, up a flight, along

the encircling veranda to a low door. I ducked through into

the hypnotic eyes of the black-robed, bramble-bearded man

who questioned me in Kokinoplos. "Papa Thomourides,"

Durkheim introduced, "chaplain of ze Andartes of Mace
donia."

In the small, paneled room, sitting cross-legged before the

fire, frowned a lank man of forty, his jaw like a bull-dozer

blade. Shirt open at the throat, he wore an unpressed, pocketbulging Greek officer's blouse, knee britches, laced shoes.
40

"General Kissavos," presented Durkheim, "Commander of

Thessaly."

Through a French interpreter and Durkheim he asked for

my passport. I slipped it from my jacket and held my breath.
I had no visa to Greeceonly the stamp of the Piraeus Harbor
Police when I signed off the Odyssey as a seamanl He
studied it a moment and handed it back with a satisfied
grimace.

Presently two aristocratic officers stooped under the lintel.

Both were short, wore fore-and-aft caps, thigh-length over

coats, riding boots and britches.

The foremost, gray-haired, fifty-five, cap cocked on a shaggy

eyebrow, with his bushy mustache twisted to points, was Gen
eral Keketsis, Commander of Macedonia.

A pace to the rear, steel-haired, fifty, very dapper in beltless British blouse, scarf tied at throat, trimmed mustache,

and coat caped from shoulders, was General Voras, Secondin-Gommand of Macedonia.

Kissavos had the scowling, unkempt look I expected of a

Communist guerrilla commander, but Keketsis and Voras
looked too well groomed to be either Communists or guer

rillas. They had instead the distinguished swagger and poise

one expects of king's officers.
I asked if they were Communists.
No. Keketsis and Voras were Radical Democrats. Kissavos

claimed the Farmers' Party.

A round table six inches high was placed before the fire.
We all crossed legs around it. A mess kit brimming with

bean soup was handed each of us. A huge round loaf of

black bread and a bowl of fried chicken were centered on the
table.

"What're your real names?" we asked.

Kissavos nodded to Keketsis and Voras, "Georgios Proto-

papas, Thomas Tselephis-and mine is Georgios Blanos."

4 1

"Can we take your pictures?"

"Certainly."
Kissavos wanted to know how I would label his.

"General Kissavos, Commander of Thessaly," I answered.

"Fine. A fascist paper labeled my picture, 'Butcher of
Olymbos.'"

"Now that you're in free Greece," asked Keketsis, "what

do you want to do?"
Durkheim and I looked at each other.

I suppose you've read in the fascist press," continued

Keketsis, that we're all Bulgars and Serbs. How would you

like to go to the frontiers of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and

see for yourselves we're all Greeks?"
"Splendid," said Durkheim.

"How'll we get there?" I asked.

"On Andarte automobiles," laughed Keketsis, slapping his

foot to mean we'd walk.

"Count me out," said I. "Lame and stiff as I am, to walk

seventy-five miles to the nearest border is unthinkable."

"Perhaps you'd like the Andartes to escort you to Thes-

saloniki (Salonika)," suggested Kissavos.

'What! Do you mean the Andartes can take us into

Salonika?"

Certainly. And what's more, so the fascists won't shoot

you and blame the Andartes, we'll deliver you to the doors
of the French and American consulates."

Here was a trip that sparked the imagination of both of

us, a sneak through fifty miles of government territory, into

the streets of Salonika, the very stronghold of the Greek army.

An hour later we issued from the monastery on the first

leg of a trek that was to take us, a month later, after battles,

blizzards, ambushes and escapes, long days of waiting and

longer nights of walking, into Salonika at last.
4 2

L I K E T H E D E M O C R A C Y O F Y U G O S L AV I A

On the trail from Spermo Monastery Durkheim and I

quizzed our grinning, fleece-haired guide.

He was twenty-one, lived in Elassona, was married and had

a seven-month-old son. Both wife and son were in Larissa

prisonbecause he was an Andarte. His mother was dead,

but his father was in a concentration camp on Pholegrandros

Island.

"Why did you turn Andarte?" asked Durkheim.

He told his story. He was not a Communist, but a Farmers'

Party member. When he went to vote, there were no ballots
for "democracy," so he voted for the Kingbecause a police
man with a tommy gun was standing behind him and he was
afraid he'd be thought a Communist if he didn't vote at all.
Even so he was arrested three days later, taken to the police
station and beaten with a clubbecause he was recognized

as an Andarte who had fought the Germans. Two days later

when he could walk, he fled back to the mountains and the
Andartes.

"How much you paid?" asked Durkheim.

"Nothing," he laughed. "We get food, and, if we capture

a fascist, a uniform. I capture coat at Olympiada. Andartes'

life no good."
"Then why not go home?"
He hunched. "I beaten before. Now I be killed."

Our trail crawled up and down ridges that radiated like

spider legs from the white back of Olympus. In one crotch

we threaded through the ruins of Skamya. The twenty per

sons who still lived amid the rubble where two-hundred once

dwelt, gathered in the plaza. Their village was burned, they

complained, not by Germans alone, but by Greeks of the
security battalions organized by the Germans. The com4 ^

mander who burnt their village was Stylianos Gounatas, now,

at that moment, vice-premier of Greece.

At dusk we descended on the stone-roofed village of Karya,

embraced by ridges and overlooking a field-checkered plain.
At Andarte headquarters we were met by Elefterios Papastergion, known as Golonel Olympissios, commander of
Olympus.

He was medium in height, dark, bronzed, good-looking,

with a Hitler mustache under his nose and wearing a green
ish German uniform, his trousers stuffed into short German

boots. He carried a Mauser in a leather box slung from his

shoulder. He had fought the Italians in Albania as a sergeant,
the Germans as a lieutenant, then had fled to the Andarte.

As Durkheim and I sat against the wall, slupping bean

soup, Golonel Olympissios pressed the field phone against his
ear. A battle! His Andartes were attacking the village of
Deleria.

After a long conversation shouted back and forth along

the wire, he sat down to cold soup. He smiled one-sidedly.
His Andartes had been driven off by artillery fire and rein
forcements from the nearby town. Three men wounded.
"What happens to the wounded?" I asked.

"Our worst problemtransporting the wounded. But they

will be packed here to the hospital."
"You have a hospitaland doctors," I marvelled.
"Yes, I'm a doctor," said a tall, broad-faced man in uni
form.

He was from Elassona. He asked not to use his name,

since his wife was in prison in Larissa. He had succeeded in
voting "democratic" while the French, English and American

observers were in Elassona. But that night he was dragged

to the police station and clubbed nearly dead. After a month,

when he was able to get about, he was imprisoned in Larissa.

On release three months later, he was beaten again. Two days
4 4

later, when he could get out of bed, he escaped to the

Andartes.

"I've a doctor friend in Baltimore," he smiled, "who thinks

I'm a Communist simply because I'm an Andarte."

"Well, where are all the Communists we hear about?" I
asked.

"In Athens, Salonika, Patras, Volos, in the industrial cities.

We are mostly from nearby villages and belong to the Farm

ers' Party. Communists are rare among the Andartes."
Colonel Olympissios and all in the room agreed. Each
claimed to be of the Farmers' Party and not Communist.
The truth of this seemed borne out the following evening

at a banquet spread by the village of Karya in honor of the

first two journalists to visit the Andartes. Significantly, sitting
at the head table in the place of honor was the bearded,
black-cassocked village priest. When he stood to say grace,
the hands of nearly all the thirty men moved in the sign of
the Cross. Communists don't bless themselves.

I noted only two who did not. They were Konstantinos

Daeloulis, the scowling chairman of Larissa E.A.M., and
Niekos Almis, the eager, balding, scholarly president of
Larissa Council, E.A.M. Next day Durkheim and I went to
interview them.

They identified themselves as political commissars in area

command of E.A.M. (National Liberty Front), the coalition

of left wing parties (Communist, Farmers', Radical Demo

cratic, Democratic Union, Socialist, and Liberal Democratic)
formed to lead the fight against the Germans. Tire Andartes
are E.A.M.'s military arm.
"Are you Communists?" I asked.
"Naturally."
"Why naturally?"
"Well, the Communist Party is the largest in E.A.M., so
m o s t E . A . M . o f fi c i a l s a r e C o m m u n i s t s . "
45

"What are the Andartes fighting for?" Durkheim asked.

"We want foreign aid to Greece stopped, a true amnesty
for Andartes, German collaborators to be expelled from Greek

army, government and police, a new, free election, and repre

sentatives of all parties to be included in Parliament."
"Must the king go?"

"Not necessarily, but the government must be truly demo

cratic."

"But there are many eoncepts of what is truly democratic,"

I pointed out. "Do you want a democracy like that of Eng
land, or France, or Russia, or the United States?"

"We want a Greek democracy."

"Well, we know, but like which foreign democracy would

you model your Greek democracy?"
"Like the democracy of Yugoslavia," answered Daeloulis
and Almis nodded assent.

So back I went to the Andartes, the soldiers who are doing

the fighting. "Say," I said, "do you know what your E.A.M.
bosses just told me? They said you're fighting for a democracy
like Yugoslavia."

"What!" gasped the doctor. "Yugoslavia's no democracy!

We're fighting for a democracy like the United States."
It was obvious that most of the Andartes actually aiming
guns and killing Greek soldiers felt they were doing it for
entirely different reasons than their E.A.M. bosses. Gonfusion

spread not only through Andarte ranks, but throughout

Greece and even into the army. In Elassona Greek soldiers

asked me, "Are we really fascists?"
The source of this confusion was the German invasion.

Many patriotie Greeks felt it their duty to fight the invaders,

and took to the hills. There they were organized and armed
by E.A.M., then called ELLAS. The soldier's politics were
unimportant as long as he wanted to kill Germans. Young
Greeks floeked into ELLAS.

46

But, like E.A.M., ELLAS was a leftist coalition, dominated

by Communists. After the confusion of early occupation.

Communist control became more apparent. Communists

were noted in all key positions. While non-Communists re
tained glamorous military commands, the Communists sat
back in offices where the real control was and guided the
whole movement.

It wasn't easy to recognize the Communist hand, and those

sharp enough to detect it and resist were soon lost in the
promotion shuffle. Malleable non-Communists rocketed to
the top. Disillusioned Andartes found difficulty getting out.

They were shot as deserters by the Andartes and as traitors

by the Greek collaborators. In the end, it was mostly extreme
radicals whom the Andartes managed to hold. Though they

called themselves "Farmers," and "Democrats" they were in

spirit, if not in letter, Communists.

That ELLAS was for all purposes Communist became ap

parent to most Greeks. The Germans could recruit them by

crying, "Join Tagmata Asfilias! Save Greece from Commu
nism!" Greeks generally hated Gommunism worse than Ger
mans. And Greek police and army men had families to feed.
In their raids Andartes were particularly brutal on families
of these "fascist collaborators." And the "fascists" in turn re

taliated on homes and families of "Gommunists" known

fighting in the hills.
When the British landed on the heels of the Germans, it

only increased confusion. The British and Americans all

along supplied arms, officers, money, advice, naval and air
supportand barrels of decorations and commendationsto
ELLAS. But the British recognized the Gommunist hand.

They had just seen the Gommunist Partisans capture Yugo

slavia. They felt the long-standing "pan-Slavic" drive of Rus
sia toward ports on the Mediterranean. Tliey refused to see
Greece become another Yugoslavia.
4 7

But what to do?

If they kicked out the German-appointed mayors, police,

and Tagmata Asfilias, there would be a vacuum which the

Communists, with army and organization, were poised to fill.

So the British left Greece much as the Germans organized it.
They shuffled heads a bit, brought in officers from Greek

forces under Montgomery, but made sure to keep in power

those who knew how to hate and fight ELLASBritain's
former ally.

Frustrated, ELLAS marched on Athens, and its men were

mowed down by British tanks. A treaty then supposedly dis

banded ELLAS but actually sent it underground. ELLAS's

alternative hope of capturing Greece through obstructionism

in Parliament was frustrated by the election. What arms they

had surrendered were turned over to rightists. In villages,
police and magistrates took opportunity to punish Andartes

for having burned their homes and killed their families and

friends during the German occupation. Some Andartes fled

back to the hills. This gave ELLAS an opportunity to crawl

from underground as the new E.A.M. The latter dignified
banditry by former Andartes by calling it war, quartered men
in some villages, pillaged others. Andartes who remained
behind proved a useful fifth column. Police retaliated on all

former Andarteswith reason, and without. To have fought

the Germans became synonymous with being a "Commu

nist." All former Andartes were driven back to the hills. To

eat they rejoined the Andartes.

No wonder the Greeks were confused. All over Greece were

police chiefs, mayors, officials like Gounatas who had been

photographed in German uniform or parading for Hitler in

Athens. Then there was the perplexing presence of British

troops, the spectacle of British tanks shooting Greeks, as well

as the innumerable instances of police brutality, retaliation,

48

and stupidity, to which lacerated backs among the Andartes

t e s t i fi e d .

It took a pretty dispassionate Greekand a dispassionate

Greek is a contradiction in termsto perceive that even if
the British hadn't landed, even if all police were saints, all

"fascists" expelled, all Andartes reeeived like heroes, and all

parties admitted to government, even if E.A.M. got all it
sloganed for, the Andartes would still be fighting until the
Gommunists achieved their real goal which was, as Daeloulis
said, to make Greece "like the democracy of Yugoslavia."
TRAPPED

One afternoon as Durkheim and I loafed around head

quarters, Golonel Olympissios beckoned us outside. We

watched as the Andarte cavalry, twelve men on horses and

mules, filed down out of town. Their missionto dynamite
one of the three highway bridges a half-mile outside army-

held Tyranavos. I had trucked across the bridges on the road

to Elassona. The bridges were almost end to end, and the
middle one was camped by soldiers.

The next morning two game-cock officers in boots and

spurs strutted into headquarters. They had "jumped" the
bridge. The soldiers had seen them ride up, but evidently
they were "demoerats," the officers said, for they did not
shoot until the Andartes were galloping away after the ex

plosion.

"What did you use for explosives?" I asked.

"Twenty mines tied together."
Later in Salonika the British consul told me the Andartes

had once captured a dump of Greek army mines.

When I looked into headquarters our third morning in
Karya, I saw a weleome sight. Slumped beside the door, my
4 9

knapsack! I dreaded to think what means the Andartes used

to capture it from my former host in Bazarlathis. Durkheim,

not knowing how kind Mr. Efandoupoulis and his family had

been to me, had suggested the Andartes go in with tommy

gun and demand it.

Olympissios assured me they'd had no trouble, and since

I found no blood stains, I coneluded its recapture was peace

ful.

Durkheim and I eould now foot out on the second stretch

of our mysterious and intriguing slink into Salonika. But for

the past two days the bickering of small arms had drifted
up from the Vale of Tempe beyond the foothills. Now eame

the cough of machine guns, the concussion of cannonading,

and the whining and barking of Spitfires, bitten off by the
brr-room of bombs.

We were no more than a mile out of Karya when an

Andarte came puffing up the path. Soldiers had captured the

trail ahead, blocking all escape to the Aegean Sea. We would

have to double back to Kokinoplos and try to slip around

the other side of Olympus.

By two we had reached the monkless monastery of Spermo

once more. Generals Kissavos and Keketsis were gone. It was

almost deserted. We were told a thousand soldiers were

surging up the valley toward Olympus. They had already cap

tured Olympiada below.

By evening we were slopping along in the rain not far above

Selos when a half-dozen Andartes came scrambling up the

trail. Twelve trucks of soldiers had just roared in from

Livadion and captured Selos, perhaps Kokinoplos. Our trail

passed just above Selos. We would wait until dark and try
to slip by.

As night eongealed, we started stumbling forward again.

We calculated we were skirting above Selos, when up from
the trail ahead a rocket streaked to light up the mountain
50

side. We froze in our tracks, certain it was the signal for

machine guns to blast out. But the red ball arched silently
back to earth and sizzled out among the holly bushes.
Whatever it meant, one thing was certainwe'd almost
floundered into an army outpost!

The pattern was only too clear. Earlier the soldiers cut all
escape on the Aegean side of Olympus. Now they had cap
tured Selos and Kokinoplos, blocking any retreat around this
side of Olympus. All day long across the plains and up the

valley below, the soldiers had been advancing. From three

sides the army was closing in on our arc of Olympus. As

Durkheim argued, we had a chance to escape above Selos

and perhaps Kokinoplos in the dark, but, by morning's light,

none. We would be trapped with our backs to the snow in
the vortex of the biggest battle the Andartes ever saw.
Even so, Johnnie, our wide-eyed guide, refused to go on
and I agreed with him. It meant death if he were caught.
And besides I had not been in a battle in a long time.

Wheeling, we slipped and staggered back up the rocky,

muddy trail. We overtook several dozen men and women
stumbling listlessly along. They were the villagers of Selos,

fleeing the police as they had once fled the Germans. The
men were cloaked in heavy, water-repellent, goat-hair parkas.
But the women were hunched in blankets, now soaked and
clotted with mud. Some wore high heels or flimsy house

slippers. Many trod blindly over the rocks in stocking feet.

They had nowhere to get out of the rain, nowhere to spend

the freezing night. When they were far enough from Selos
they simply huddled.in bunches, waiting for the rain to stop,
waiting for the night to lift, waiting for seven years of war to
end. Even should the police depart, they would have nothing
to return to, for the police, they said, would steal their
furniture, drive off their flocks, and burn their homes.

Our guide led out for the shack of the last Andarte out-

post to spend the night. It was so black and foggy we

groped for a half-hour over the knoll where he knew it to

be until we stumbled on ita low, stone sheep-fold.

We had just puffed up a fire and were sunk comfortably
in the hay when Andartes, driven back by soldiers, began
stumbling in. Soon the hut was very crowded. The Andartes
would be fighting for their lives by morning, so we relin
quished our berths and sloshed two hours back to the mon
astery.

Here Colonel Olympissios paced amid his staff and a jam

of refugees. Karya had likewise been captured. Durkheim and

I found space on the floor of a monk's cell and spent the

night shivering, he balled in a raincoat and I in a poncho.
Before light, Johnnie yanked us to our feet. "Bros!" Catch
ing our knapsacks, we tumbled out of the monastery into a

long line of Andartes and civilians slogging up the trail toward

Karya. In an hour we halted and the Andartes fanned out on

the slopes about, crouching behind rocks, in ditches, sighting

rifles and machine guns into the lake of fog below.

By dawn the crack and hammer of fire broke out from the

direction of Selos on one side, from Karya and the hills of

Tempe on the other, as well as from the depths of fog before
us. Only the cold, snowy slopes of Olympus above were open
to us. The Andartes, I feared, were trapped and doomed, and
Durkheim and I with them.

T H E B AT T L E O F O LY M P U S

I hunched under an overhanging rock as rain dripped from

my nose and trickled down my neck. The slamming of

machine guns and the baa-whoom of artillery came nearer

and nearer. By noon the last tatters of fog drifted up the

slope and a machine gun ripped just over the nose of our
ridge. Close!
52

I lifted my poncho to peek out. The Andartes watching

from a neighboring rock were gone. I scrambled out. There
was no one in sight. I ran to the trail. It was empty.
The soldiers were attacking. The Andartes had fled. But

where? I sped down the trail toward Karya. Maybe the

Andartes had fled the other way!

Then high in a ravine I spotted an Andarte's shoulder

.^ehind a rock. I clambered after him. There they all were

retreating up the mountain for a stand closer under the snow

line.

Atop a boulder Durkheim and I stood with Colonel

Olympissios, surveying the battlefield. In the distance lay
Olympiada, captured by soldiers the day before. With Durkheim's binoculars we could see three houses smoking in the

village and another blazing in the adjacent countryside. On

a nearby ridge, Andartes were crawling behind rocks and
crouching over their guns while in the valley sparse waves of
tiny soldiers spread upward. When the soldiers had struggled
up the steep mountainside to within five hundred yards an
Andarte volley staggered their ranks. Tliey dived behind rocks,
fell under bushes, tumbled down slopes. Soon they were

firing back with Bren guns and rifles, but the Andartes had
the advantage.

Suddenly a mortar shell puffed on the ridge-searching

out the Andartes. As another and another shell blossomed,

closer and closer, the Andartes got up and, chatting together

and reloading their rifles, strolled back to the next crest, leav
ing one man with a Bren gun and one with a tommy gun in
the foundations of a demolished sheep-fold.

Several mortar shells splashed near them and then the sol
diers started swarming up the grassy hillside below. The
Andartes fired. The troops dove for cover, some close against
the hill, some spilling back over the previous crest. Several
more mortar shells erupted about the Andartes and the sol53

diers could be seen sprinting up the grassy slope. The two

Andartes spit a last few bursts at the dodging soldiers, then

left the foundation, pausing to light cigarettes as they ambled

after the others.

In time the soldiers, by creeping along the under side of

the hill, closed on the foundation from both flanks, but when

they charged in for the kil, the two Andartes were concealed ^
on the next knob firing at them once more.

The soldiers set up a mortar behind their captured knoll.

We could see the streak and hear the pop as they arched
shells toward the nose above. The mortar and soldiers were

in view of Andartes behind machine guns on our ridge, but

our gunners exercised admirable self-control until an officer

on a white horse pranced onto the knoll. That was too mueh.

A machine gun on a rock overhead spat out. Instantly the

officer dived from his saddle and dashed, crouching and stum

bling, over the hil. The horse romped off with reins flying.
By evening soldiers had claimed all the opposite ridge
except where it connected with Olympus. For the last eight

or ten Andartes to escape to our own slope they would have

to cross a long back of grassy meadow. I was wondering how

they could escape in full view of the soldiers, when all the
guns on our slope cracked into the opposite hillside. The

soldiers once more dived for safety. Then the last few An

dartes left their gun positions and idled across the open field
into the brush of our own slope. By the time the soldiers

crawled from hiding, they found onee more their prey had
fled. The troops then turned their guns on us.

Relentlessly the soldiers were closing their trap. Every

ridge the Andartes surrendered, every ravine abandoned, let

the army noose tighten about us and made eseape more and
more impossible.

Deepening twilight might halt the soldiers that night, but

in the morning nothing the Andartes could do would pre54

vent the final clamping of the jaws, followed by a last terrible

mop-up.

Durkheim and I, being "journalists," might escape, if we

could hide until the wave of vengeance and slaughter passed.
But what about the Andartes and refugees? For them there
c o u l d b e n o s u r r e n d e r.

I looked at those about me, but in their faces I could not

detect the doom and despair I felt certain was in their hearts
after having fought and lost the battle of Olympus.
ESCAPE

THROUGH

THE

NIGHT

"As a result of today's battle," smirked Olympissios from

behind our boulder, "the fascists have lost heavily, while
we've not lost a man. In fact we've gained two hundred re
cruits."

"Two hundred recruits," Durkheim exclaimed.

"Sure, from homes the fascists burned."

"Well, you may have gained two hundred recruits today,

but aren't you afraid you'll lose them right backand more
when the army closes the trap tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," he laughed, "they'll find, for all their trouble,
they've captured an empty mountain."
"But how can we escape?" I asked.
"Mystico stratiotis," he clicked his tonguemilitary secret.
As darkness condensed around us, Andartes from all the

outposts of Olympissios's command came creeping in. We

started slushing toward the monastery of Spermo.
From the knee above the monastery lap we saw three camp
fires on the opposite ridge. Soldiers blocking the trail! Cau
tiously we tip-toed forward, trying to slip between them.
Suddenly a dog barked angrily. A star shell popped into the
sky to come swinging down, turning the night to silver. We
froze. I expected machine gun fire to come streaking up the
55

trail. Silently the shell paraehuted among the dripping trees.

Darkness again. But a multitude of dogs kept barking.
In breathless silence we stood in the drizzle while scouts

probed the darkness for an escape. Black figures groped their

way to Olympissios. A command was whispered along the
column. Leaving the trail, we plunged straight down the
mountainside toward the very center of the army noose. There
was no trail, just sharp jumbled rocks, mud and thorny vines

that clawed our clothes and faces. My shoes were ripped

across the toe on rocks. Several women had their pumps
torn off and were barefooted.

Deeper and deeper into the valley we slid. The campfires

of soldiers blazed in an arc before us. The slightest sound
would bring a deluge of bullets upon us. I cursed Durkheim's

hobnailed boots which clanked and scraped on every stone.

Every muflfled cough brought a burst of angry ssh's. The timid
noise of a man snifHing sounded like escaping steam.

The night was utter blackness. The only way to stay in

column was to follow the sound of steps ahead. When the
column halted, I plowed into the man in front, and the man
behind butted into me. Often I waited for the man ahead

to move on only to find it was a bush and I had lost the

column. Frantically I plunged ahead, stopping and listening

until the faint rattle of rocks led me back to the Andartes.

Once, the rear of the column got separated from the front.

A messenger went running and falling along the line trying

to halt the head of the column until the rear could find us.

In the V of a ravine ahead we could see two campfires.

The Andartes waded into a stream bed and started to sneak

between the fires. But floods had washed the earth away,
leaving only huge boulders. We flounded among them, the
hobnails of every boot clashing and clawing. When the
steel-shod mules started down, their shoes clanking and spark
ing, I could think but one thingit was horses' hooves that

betrayed Cortez to the Aztecs before the massacre of La

Noche Triste. Suddenly a green signal star arched through

the sky above us. The signal for soldiers to open fire!
Tripping and falling we scrambled to get out of the stream
bed. Through the water, up the bank and across a plowed
field we scattered. Our feet stuck in the soft mud and came

free with loud sucking gulps. Gummy earth clung to our

shoes making them so heavy that when it fell off we were
thrown to the ground. On all fours we scrambled on.
No shots. Perhaps no one heard us after all. Or more

likely, no outpost dared antagonize such a mass of shadows.

We reassembled on a hillside where we could look back on

the scattered fires, and fell down to rest. At last we could

breathe freely and even chance a cough.

Hour after hour we fled that night, up hills, down valleys,
across wide plains. We circled villages, skipped across roads,
filed past barking dogs, tight-rope-walked a girder of a blasted
bridge, headed always toward the silhouette of a distant moun
tain range.

Midnight trudged by. Into a wide river we plunged hipdeep bucking the current to the other side. My socks filled

with gravel. The sole of one shoe stubbed loose from the
upper. No time to empty socks or repair a shoe. We were
racing to get off the plain before daylight and Spitfires spotted
u s .

At three, we were halted for breath in a sunken lane. I

was lying baek on my knapsack hoping my shoulders would

spring in place when someone hissed, "Horophilaki,"
police!
In that instant I was face down in the mud along with all
the Andartes. Bolts slammed on rifles and maehine gun bi
pods were flung out, as the Andartes squirmed into firing
position.
57

Lifting my head I saw against the sky a great line of armed

men advancing.

Ambushed! Betrayed! Then the Andartes began crawling

to their feet. The strangers were not "police" but other
Andartes fleeing Olympus.

With the two bands joined, Andartes seemed to stretch

to the earth's edge in each direction. But I don't suppose
there were more than 250.

During a halt I came upon an Andarte face down between

the legs of a mule. He was obviously dead, probably killed
in the last stage of the battle and being secreted away when
he slipped from the mule. Another Andarte tried to lift him
and he slithered from his arms. I was even more convinced

he was deaduntil the second exhorted him to get up. He

had merely dropped of exhaustion. I knew how he felt.

In the black of six a.m. we reached the foothills of Hassian.

Here our force split into squads. Fifteen or twenty of us

climbed directly to a mountain-lap village. The leader of

our group, with Durkheim and me, banged on the door of a
low stone house.

In spite of being aroused from their sleep, the household

seemed glad to see our mustachioed Major Macreanos. We
were received with ouzo and a fanned-up fire. Just as day
was graying beyond frosted windows, we crawled into the
floor-spread blankets vacated by the family, and I, for one,
spun into the leaden sleep of one who had trudged thirteen
and a half hours with the devils of Olympus.
INTO

THE

ARMS

OF

NEMESIS

Leaving Olympissios and his Andartes to fight their way

back to Olympus, Durkheim and I, escorted by Major Ma
creanos, a Captain Lambros, Johnnie and several others, set
out to circle around Olympus for Salonika. By easy walks we
58

circled from village to village through the Hassian mountains

until on the third day we elimbed the shelf where sits Metaxa.

Here we were guests in a typical goats-downstairs-familyupstairs house. Our host was the village cheese-maker. We
were served an endless variety of delicious cheeses washed
down with rosin-scented wine.

As I pulled off my shoes, I could see light where the soles

had ripped from the uppers. I was wondering how I was go
ing to walk as far as Salonika, when a visitor caught them up
and disappeared. Next day he set them before me. Though
they were stitehed and patched, nailed and spliced in half a

dozen places, they had regained the shape of shoes. I was

ambulatory again.
In the room with us lived the young local commander of
the Andartes. Even at dinner he sat with tommy gun across
his lap.

"You look like a priest," I kidded, pointing to his bushy

beard.

"I am priest," he replied. "Fascist bishop defrocked me,

took parish, police jailed wifeso I join Andartes."

Two days we waited for the trail ahead to open. On the

evening of the third, the "priest" mustered a heavily-armed
band of Andartes beneath our window. Joining them, we

paused to sing, "EAM, EAM, EAM," and then filed up the

mountainside into the clouds.

"Why the night march with all the machine guns?" asked
Durkheim.

"Might be shooting," replied Macreanos. "We're going

through outpost of the horophilaki."
Jogging down out of the clouds we wound through a wide
basin where the rocks and scattered trees were glazed with
ice and glinted scarlet in the sunset.
It was black night by the time we reached the distant
rim and zigzagged into the clouds once more. We emerged
59

at length on the brink of a cliff overlooking a vast, level sea

of clouds. Far in the middle we could see a pool of light

where the city of Kozanfeast its reflection into the sky.

Word was whispered back, "Step quietly," and the twisting
column slowly sank once more into the fog.
At times our band was completely submerged. At times
only a line of heads emerged together with the muzzles of
rifles and bipods of Bren guns. Again the layer of mist was
only knee deep, and upon it our file of armed shadows glided,
silently treading the wispy air as if suspended in space, like
figures in a dream. I could tell by the feel under foot we were
crossing a tarred roadno doubt the highway through the
pass between Thessaly and Macedonia. Nearby, I knew, sol
diers lurked in their gun pits, waiting to cut down nightprowling wraiths like us. But they crouched beneath the fog,
while we, sailing upon it, drifted past them.
For hours we floated in silence, until at length the shadow
of buildings loomed in the mist about us and a wave of talk
ing and laughter carried down the column. We were safe in
Lava.

The tommy-gun-toting priest gathered his gunners about

him and, before the skeleton of the burned church, they burst
into "Elefterya," (liberty) to which Durkheim and I joined
our shouts. Soon the whole village assembled and our rousing
songs must have carried through the night, past the ruined
castle on the cliff, down to the horophilaki stationed in
S e r v i a a m i l e b e l o w.

In pre-dawn blackness the following morning we stole out

of Lava, past sleeping "police," and, after seven hours on
goat paths, reached Pologratsonos.

After lunch, as I stuck my head through my poncho to

depart, I asked our host how far to the next village.

"Three hours in good weather," he answered. "Five in

bad."
60

"What do you mean, bad weather?"

"Snow and wind."

I expected the three-hour walk, for although raining lightly,

it was not freezing, and there was no wind.
"Weather ean't get bad that soon," I comforted myself.

Our trail led upward by easy switchbacks into slopes of

pine forests. When dark surrounded us we were still padding
pine-needle trails, and cotton snow was sifting through the
branches.

By the time we issued from the tunnel of pines, the snow

had become a thick fur. A violent wind buffeted us. For all

the whiteness, the night was black and Macreanos and Lambros switched on their flashlights to finger their ways over
slippery rocks and drifted canyon trails. For us without
lights, the trail was a pitfall. Every few steps my feet whisked
out from under me and I crashed among boulders.
Struggle as I might in my smooth-soled shoes, I could not
keep up with hobnails and flashlights. More than once I fell
behind, until the shadow of the last man merged into the
swirling curtain of snow. Running, slipping and falling, I
would fight my way up to the light, where, struggling with
exhaustion, I would watch it recede into the whirl once
m o r e .

Soon we left the shelter of the canyon and emerged on the

hogback of the mountain. Here a furious wind obliterated
even the ground beneath our feet with horizontal streams of
snow. Any landmark that might have been on the mountaintop was lost. There was neither shape nor color anywhere.
In terror of being left behind, I scrambled up with Cap
tain Lambros and refused to let him get more than a yard
ahead of me. When his light turned faint, I forged ahead to
where Macreanos swept the snow with his light in an effort
to follow the trail. Two of the party, who were to lead us to
Katafyghion, had hurried on before and were long since out
6 i

of sight, leaving only drifted footprints for us to follow. I

wondered what we would do when Macreanos's light also
failed.

In crossing a ravine, Durkheim slipped and struck his

head. While we waited for him to recover, snow sifted into

the footprints that led to safety. At length, with the aid of

an Andarte, he got to his feet and we plunged on. Once out
of the ravine, the trail vanished completely. We backed to
the freezing wind while Macreanos circled to pick up some
rumor of the trail. Every print had drifted over. We struck
out and luckily picked up footprints again. Another few hun
dred yards and they vanished once more. As Macreanos raked
the snow with his light, I watched Durkheim bow his head
on his staff and sink slowly into the snow while two Andartes
struggled to hold him.
Now the trail was completely gone. I did not realize how
serious our plight was until Macreanos began yelling into
the howling wind in hope some house might be nearby, or
our guides in earshot. All took up his cries, but our shouts
were sucked away in the gale.
I was wearing summer khaki, depending on my poncho to
shed the wind and the exertion of walking to keep me warm.
Once I stopped, I was impaled by the icy blast. My billed
cap had blown away. Without cap, gloves, or woolen clothes,
I felt I could not last another hour, let alone survive the

night in the open.

Again Macreanos, relying upon instinct, headed into the
spheral whiteness and came upon a few fence posts. Perhaps
we were near a village. Just then Durkheim collapsed. Ma
creanos ordered two men to stay with him. He would forge
a h e a d t o fi n d t h e t o w n a n d r e t u r n w i t h a m u l e . M a c r e a n o s

and one Andarte dove on, and I, afraid of freezing if I

paused, stumbled after them.
Following along the scattered fence posts and yelling as
62

we went, we came to a tree-lined trail, which led past a stone

shed to a wall, to scattered buildings and finally to a lighted
window. We had reached Katafyghion at last. With my last
strength, I crawled into a house where some Andartes were

billeted and lay like a melting icicle before the fire. Macreanos
hurried back with a squad of Andartes to bring in Durkheim.
As we dined before the fire. Major Macreanos related that
Zeus, Mars, Poseidon and the male gods lived on Olympus

while Athena, Aphrodite, Nemesis and the female deities

dwelt on Pieria. When he said, "We are now on Pieria," I

wondered if Athena, still angry because I spent a night in her

Parthenon in Athens, and now finding me on her very door

step on Pieria, had not ordered the wind and snow to avenge
her honor. I would have to be careful.

When Major Macreanos told me I was to accompany

Johnnie to another house for the night, I wrapped in my

poncho and plunged back into the blizzard. We staggered
through the wind and snow, past German-burned houses
and a gutted church and knocked at a door. A girl's pretty,
round face appeared in the crack. She exclaimed, "Johnnie!"
and welcomed us into an inner room. Here she introduced

me to her doe-eyed older sister. They sat us on boxes by the

pot-bellied stove and unlaced our frozen shoes. A sunkenjawed woman brought in bean soup, bread and cheese. Two
young men arrived in heavy shepherd's woolens to laugh and
talk.

After a while, it was time for bed and all departed except
the two girls. They said to turn our backs while they un
dressed for bed. We did. I thought it a bit odd, but it was
cold elsewhere in the house. "They plan to don pajamas
here," I reasoned, "then dash to their room." Instead, the

older girl slid into one of the beds.

"Tha eto zesto tern earn akemoso maze mou," she laughed,
tossing her head (it would be warmer if you slept with me).
6:;

Instantly I remembered we were on Pieria. And who lived

there with Athena? Yes, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution.

"Den katalavis Ellenika," I answered (I do not understand
Greek). No matter how many times she repeated her invi
tation, holding the blankets baek, I still did not understand

and crawled into the other bed with the grizzly Andarte.
WE

L AY

IN

AMBUSH

Two mornings later the blizzard howled itself out. We

shoved the door open against drifts and set out on a three-

day series of marches which brought us to Daskeon. From

there we struck out one morning with high hopes of soon
reaching Salonika.

Between Daskeon and Risometa a messenger came puffing

up the trail and handed Major Maereanos a tiny sealed paper.
We had been striding along, but now Maereanos sat on a
rock, cut the seal with his long fingernail and read the mes
sage.

The Andartes had blown up a truck of horophilaki the day

before, killing four and maiming ten. When the police
climbed up to levy revenge on Milya, the Andartes were wait
ing and met them with bullets. The police called up soldiers
and fought on to capture Retine. Scuterna was to be next,
and Scuterna was the second town ahead.

We retreated baek to Daskeon. Here we met the Arhegio

(commander), a thin-faced, fortyish mite under huge red
mustaehios. With him we stood next morning at the edge of
town to view the arrival of the "grand battalion" from north

ern Greece. A strafing Spitfire had scattered them crossing

the Aliakmon River far below, but at length they came, two
hundred strong, stringing up out of the canyon, singing as
they came.
"The fascists will bum no houses in Scuterna tomorrow,"
64

gloated the Arhegio as he perched on a stone, writing mes

sages.

That afternoon we walked with the advance guard to

Risometa. The following morning at five Maereanos awak

ened us and we stumbled outside to fall in with a stream of

Andartes filing toward the front.

In a woods just before dawn, the Arhegio gathered his

captains about the fire in a shepherd's lean-to and traced his
order of battle. By daylight we had descended to a ridge
curved like a horseshoe around the village of Seuterna. Here
along the sky line, the Arhegio deployed his companies where
they looked down on the roofs of Seuterna from three sides.
He paced along the crest in his tan cape, pointing to his lieu
tenants to sight a machine gun behind this rock, set up the
heavy mortar on the reverse of that knob, deploy riflemen in
the edge of those trees. When the ambush was laid, he
squatted against a tree and with his binoculars watched down
the valley for the prey.

Eight o'clock. No movement yet. Eight-thirty. Still no sol

diers. By nine we were convinced they were not coming. Then
someone yelled, "Horophilaki!"

Sure enough, in single file, against a snow field far down

the valley, stretched a line of soldiers. Through his binocu
lars Durkheim counted thirty men file by, followed by a
couple of mulesone platoon. Then three platoons and more
mulesone company. Then three companies and many mules
one battalion. Then two battalionsa thousand men, and

maybe more behind them. On our hill were 250 Andartes.

Could we survive such odds?

Horophilaki were still filing through the distant field when

the head of the column rounded a buttressing ridge and

started up the wide trail into Seuterna.
The Andartes called the troops horophilaki, but only to
muster sufficient hatred. I knew they were soldiers, not
6q

police, and wondered how many of my friends from the cafes

of Elassona, the army camp of Kozani, the truck convoys I
had ridden throughout Greece, were among those blindly
walking into the trap. I wondered how many Andartes were
sighting their guns at brothers and cousins. I wondered if

any Andartes realized that the triumph for which they fought
so gallantly would make Greece a Russian vassal just as surely

as a victory for Hippias at Marathon would have made

Athens a Persian vassal.

Below, the long trail into Scuterna became gorged with

soldiers. Slowly the vanguard probed the outskirts. Just as
the main body touched the rim of the village, the Arhegio
waved his hand and the Italian megalo polivolo on the slope
pounded bullets overhead.
A wave of firing rocked around the horseshoe hill. In the
trail below soldiers dropped, mules staggered and in an in
stant, but for a few fallen figures, the road was empty. With
a pop and a swoosh the Andartes lobbed mortar shells below.
As the first machine gun blatted out, the reserve Andartes
lining the trail behind us sent up a triumphant shout and
burst into the strains of "Yrondae O Olymbus" (Ring out
O Olympus). When one of the captains ran to the crest and
with a wave of his arm yelled for his company to follow,
another cry went up. Andartes charged laughing past us, one
in a jacket, shouting he would capture himself an overcoat,
another slapping his stocking feethe would shoot himself a
pair of shoes.
As the soldiers recovered from their initial surprise, ma
chine gun and rifle fire began cracking back. One group of
soldiers swung around to our left in an effort to slice in be
hind us, and a group of Andartes went running and shouting
to a nearby hill to fight them off.
From the small splatter of return fire, it seemed the An
dartes were vvinning and a messenger from the Arhegio ran

out. The Andartes were jubilant and I thought a withdrawal

had been ordered, but instead it was a charge. They were

delighted with the prospect of capturing guns and uniforms.

The signal was not given, however, for just then the soldiers'
fire increased until it was whacking and whining over us from
three sides. Suddenly, WHAM, and the screech of fragments
overhead. A mortar shell! In the distance we could hear the

hollow pop as more shells zoomed into the air. We flopped

in the wet snow as they came wobbling down to land with
shuddering blasts about us.

Heavy fire began spraying in from our left flank where sol
diers were attacking the four or five Andartes holding the

adjoining hill. If the army captured that hill, they could

shoot into our backs and cut all retreat.

Already shots from that flank were splatting into the mud

of our road bank. Rather than wait until completely trapped,

I started to map a route of escape. On the hillside behind

I saw civilians from Scuterna fleeing up the slope. "They

must be taking the last route open." Suddenly bullets kicked

up snow all around them. I realized we were already cut off.
I N F U L L R E T R E AT

Deep in the valley echoed the ominous boom of a cannon

and another, and another. Immediately shells whined down

overheadtwenty-five pounders this time. We bellied into
the snow and mud, gritting our teeth, hoping, hoping, hoping

they'd not explode on us. I squirmed into a roadside ditch

hugging the mud. A distant boom. A shriek overhead. The
earth jumped under us and chunks of dirt thudded on my
back. A hit just above us! The next? Again the shriek from the

sky. A geyser of earth on the hillside below and the scream of

ragged shrapnel. Missed! The bursts stomped away.

As we crawled to our feet a volley of rifle shots whacked

67

into the trunks about us. A bullet eracked snow from a

branch by my ear. Aimed at me! I submarined back into the

mud.

A messenger ran up. "The horophilaki are advancing. Send

light mortars forward." Without faltering the mortar squad
scampered down the face of the hill with bullets spurting
snow about them. When I dared raise my head, I expected

the snow blotched with wounded. But all had escaped in

miraculous Andarte fashion.

From the sound of the bullets we could tell which direction

they were going. If away, there was only one crackof the

rifle. If toward us, two cracks, first the bullet pounding

through the air, second the report of the rifle. As long as
the bullets snapped before they reached us, we knew the sol

diers were far away. But when they began cracking so close
they dented our eardrums, we knew the soldiers were clos
ing in.

A messenger dashed up. The army was deploying a third

battalion on our weak left flank. The Arhegio could spare
only a Bren gunner and four additional riflemen to meet
them.

Worse, the artillery had spotted our command post, for

more and more shells erupted around us. The Andartes

would have to retreat. But our only routeup the hill behind
was already under fire. Only one thing could save us
darkness.

"Night can't be far off," said Durkheim comfortably.

When I looked at my watch it was only one-thirty. We would
be wiped out before nightfall.

After what seemed an infinity of hugging the ground,

Durkheim announced, "Must be three. Ze Andartes can hold

them now." I looked at my watch. One-fifty! Three hours

until dark. We could never last that long. It was going to be

68

humiliating to be killed in someone else's fight. And on the

wrong side at that.

Just then a blast of warm air came riding up the mountain

and condensed into a cloud about us. The firing died out.
Surely, the Andartes would run for it now.
They began running all right. In the wrong direction. A
cry echoed through the fog. "The fascists are retreating!"
Reserve Andartes plunged through the mists to pursue. We
could hear them yelling: "Soldiers of Greece, the Andartes
are your friends. Desert the fascists and fight for freedom!"
"That's how I became an Andarte," said one of the re

serves sitting in our ditch. "I was a soldier at Skra. Because

I fought the Germans, the army never trusted me with a
rifle. Gave me mules. When the Andartes closed in, I joined
them. Same with my buddy here."
But no soldiers deserted that day.
For a half-hour in the smother of the fog we strolled hap
pily along the ridge, convinced the soldiers had fled. When a
mortar splashed nearby, we concluded the soldiers were cov
ering their retreat.
Suddenly the fog evaporated. Terrific bursts of machine
gun fire raked the hill. We dove to the ground and wriggled
for cover. Far from fleeing, the soldiers had crept up on us.
Alarming volleys crashed in from our left flank. Durkheim

asked if it was four. My watch pointed three.

Time and again the fog boiled up from the valley to
smother the squabble of battle, only to roll away, leaving the
soldiers aiming at us with renewed accuracy from new van
tage points.

To escape the rain during one fog-bound recess, many of

us crawled into a grass shack on the very crest of the ridge.
Under the corn shocks, we were able to get warm first time
that day.
69

Before we knew it, the fog dissolved, leaving the building

in full view of the gunners below. But we were too com

fortable to leave. All was well until an Andarte absently

stepped out the door.
^'Oyhi," we shrieked.

Instead of running, he leapt back into the shack. Instantly

machine gun bullets crashed through the walls. In that in
stant twelve new doorways were made in the thatch. One

Andarte was shot through the calf of the legthe only casualty
that day. He lay in the wet snow moaning and kicking up
leaves. A white horse was brought forward and the wounded
man was lifted into the saddle and led to the rear.

"When it gets dark are you going to withdraw?" I asked

the Arhegio.
"No need to withdraw," he answered. "With 250 Andartes
and little ammunition we have withstood the attack of 1,500

horophilaki with much ammunition. Except for one Andarte

wounded, we've not lost a man, while the horophilaki lost
many."
The next day we were to learn how many. A fleeing civilian
from Scuterna said he counted fifty dead soldiers loaded into
trucks. Another informer reported that in the past three days
125 soldiers had been carried into the nearby hospital.
Even so the soldiers had fought out of the ambush, driven
back the Andartes, captured Scuterna, and partially sur
rounded our command post. Any moment I expected them
to charge in and balance the score.
As the day got gloomier and gloomier the fighting which
so often threatened us with disaster simply ebbed to occa
sional bursts. About five, the Arhegio motioned Durkheim
and me to follow. With several of his staff we started up the
hillside to the rear. It was still light and I expected a storm
of bullets to jump the snow around us as around the civilians
7 0

that morning. But for some reason, not a shot was fired as we
trudged over the hill top.
About half a mile behind the lines we came to a thatch

shack filled with straw. Durkheim and I and a handsome cap

tain took possession, while the Arhegio and Macreanos en
tered the adjacent house.
Though raining, it was freezing. We were all wet, and no
blankets. Deeper and deeper into the straw we burrowed try
ing to get warm. The straw was mostly chaff and my shiver
ing kept sifting it down my neck, up my sleeves and into my
eyes, ears and nose. I could not breathe without sucking new
drifts under my collar.
I felt the most uncomfortable man alive, until I envisioned

the Andartes still holding positions back on the ridge with

out roof against the rain or even prickly chaff against the
cold. Nor did their fighting and danger end with sundown.

Through the night machine guns ripped the stillness, mor

tars burst the darkness. One sizzling fragment, we learned,
cleft an Andarte skull.

How long we shivered there, listening, I do not know.

Finally the captain shook himself off and vanished into the

black. The shooting seemed to creep nearer and increase.

Alarmed, we got up. Had the Andartes fled and left us? Feet

sloshed in the mud not far away. Perhaps they were soldiers!
At length an Andarte groped in to us. "Bros, we're leaving!"
We stumbled after him.

Whether by accident or intention, the shack we had just

left began to blaze. Soon the stone house flamed up. Prob
ably the home of a "fascist." No one paid heed.

With its cherry-red glow on the clouds and the whine of

shots behind, we slushed up the trail in full retreat from the

ambush of Scuterna.

71

WE

LAUNCH

THE

ANDARTE

N AV Y

"To escape to Salonika now," Major Macreanos told Durkheim and me, "you'll have to go back to Olympus."
"Back to Olympus," Durkheim exclaimed, "just t^vo weeks
ago soldiers drove us off Olympus!"
"Yes," he answered, "but they left three days later and now
Colonel Olympissios and his Andartes are back as strong as
e v e r. "

Except that my feet were coming through both shoes, I

was ready to march to Olympus. But when Macreanos men
tioned we'd go by way of Katafyghion, the trip was off.
Katafyghion was the village atop Pieria where, the week be
fore, Nemesis and the blizzard had nearly finished us.
Macreanos went into a corner with the Arhegio and talked
in whispers. The Arhegio twisted his red mustache and

frowned. Finally Macreanos stepped to us: "If willing to

take a chance, we can get you to Salonika in one, two, at
most, three days."
"Fine," I cried, as visions of wine and steaks danced in my
head. "When do we leave?"

"Tora," was the answer, which literally means "at once."

In Greek practice it means "tomorrow" or "next week." We
spent a day and night in Risometa. Meanwhile my shredded
shoes were delivered to the shoemaker. He patched between
the patches and once more my footwear was lightproof.
The next day was Christmas, and the sun, in celebration,
appeared. The Vermion mountains across the Aliakmon Can
yon shone with snow. The peaks of Pieria above us glistened
in ice and the pine trees about us sparkled with frost. We
hoped to walk far on such a day, but Daskeon, one hour
away, was as far as we gotexactly where we were six days
before.

Durkheim and I speculated on how the Andartes intended

72

getting us to Salonika in three days, two of which were al

ready gone. Deepest seereey surrounded the subject. We were
told not even to mention Salonika among ourselves. From
one village we took a four-hour round-about to another only
an hour away.
The next day when we left this village our Andarte escorts
departed in one direction while Durkheim and I, with a
civilian guide, took off in the opposite. We circled a moun
tain to join the Andartes once more, then set out in an en
tirely different direction.
It was clear by this time that the secret was somewhere
in the Aliakmon Canyon. We slid to the bank of the river.

There seemed to be nothing unusual. The Andartes yelled

to watchers on the other side, "Is it safe? Any strangers in the
vicinity?"

When assured all was clear, they went to a thicket along

the shore and tore away branches. There was a huge new
rowboat!

The river men we brought along to shoot the rapids took

one look at the new boat and at the Aliakmon which, from

recent rains, was a boiling torrent and said we couldn't cross.

Tomorrow, maybe.

Rather than climb all the way up the canyon to the village,
Durkheim and I, with two Andartes, invaded a shepherd's
shack, built a fire, tossed down corn sheaves to lie on, and

spent the most comfortableflealessnight in a month with

two grey wolves padding and sniffing about the door.
By afternoon the Aliakmon had shrunk from a flood to a
river, and with ten or twelve men, we jogged down to launch
the Andarte navy. As soon as we slid it into the stream, water
began spraying from bottom and sides. The boat was built
of worm-drilled planks.

After an hour of stuffing rags into cracks and jamming

twigs into worm holes, the four boatmen, standing ankle7 ?

deep in water while four men bailed, declared her seaworthy.

We waded with her far up-stream and, with a great shout,

leapt aboard, lurching the S.S. Sieve into the current.

The oarsmen paddled furiously with shovels. The boat
bucked and pitched as it hit the boiling rapids. Over one

submerged boulder we tossed broadside into a deep trough.

A lip of yellow water curled over our gunwale. We started to
capsize. But we passengers, crouched in the center, threw
our weight to the opposite side and the gunwale emerged
the boat kneedeep in water, but still afloat.

The boatmen beating the water with their shovels and the
rest of us bailing with our hands, we splashed to reach the
bank before being swept upon the rocks below. Running
among the boulders was an Andarte. A boatman wound up
and heaved our bow line, but the Andarte tripped and we
went spinning toward the dragon-teeth downstream. The
boatman yanked back the line and heaved again. Luckily
another Andarte, stationed further along, caught it, snubbed
it on a rock, and the S.S. Sieve crashed ashore to sink com

pletely as we leapt out of it.

An hour's climb into the mountains brought us to a small
village. The next day was Sunday and Durkheim and I feared
arriving in Salonika and finding the French and American
consulates closed. The police tried to block our meeting the
Andartes, and, now that we had, we feared they, or some
hot-heads, might shoot us. The fact that American joumalist,

John Polk, was later shot and his trussed-up body dumped
into Salonika Harbor when he tried to visit the Andartes

proves we had someone to fear. It was probably wise we

delayed until the next night.
By now my twice rebuilt shoes were in ribbons once more.

The only sound parts were the patches and they were going.
When I showed them to the village shoemaker, he threw
7 4

up his palms. There was nothing solid enough to anchor a

nail or hold a stitch. I would have to walk as was.

Just after midnight in the black of Monday morning, we

slipped out of the village for a destination that was to take

three hours. Six hours later, after climbing amid rain and
rocks, mud and snow, through a high pass and then winding
down into a wide plain, I arrived with the balls of both feet
on the ground at the highway a mile outside the soldier
stronghold, Veria. In the grey of dawn we shook hands with
our guides and they vanished back into the mountains as we
w a v e d d o v m t h e fi r s t b u s i n t o S a l o n i k a .

1%

I I

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALEXANDER

S A N C TA

SOPHIA

MADNESS

T awoke, pillowed against my knapsack on the wooden

bench. The Orient Express was ehugging along a cliff, in
and out ancient city walls overlooking an expanse of blue
water. The blue water, I knew, was the Sea of Marmara, and

those palaces, mosques and towers rising along its shores

were the fantastic panoply of Istanbul. The mighty dome and

minarets lifting from the hill above and floating over all, be
longed, I felt sure, to the oldest continually used building in
the world.

Emerging from the station into the trolley-clanging square,

I set my eyes on that dome on the horizon and steered up
the maze of streets toward it. As I issued into the Roman

Hippodrome I saw before me the vast cluster of masonry

balloons staked to earth by four tall, sharp minarets. No mis
takeit was Sancta Sophia, the great basilica built by Em
peror Justinian 1,400 years ago.
I rushed into the churehyard and through the lofty bronze
doors, only to be coat-tailed by a guard. He held out his
hand for twenty-seven kirus. It was a mere ten cents, but I
pulled my pockets inside-out and was shrugged on in to
explore the wonder and the mystery of that ancient church
in solitude.

I had expected a gloomy austerity in the fourteen-century-

old building. Instead, long beams of light streamed through

the many windows on the south and revolved in unison
76

across the swirling red, green, and yellow marbles of the walls
and columns. Overhead, kindled to life, mosaic saints looked

down from vaults and domes and galleries.

From the height of the swelling dome, two hundred feet
above the floor, hung a long chain supporting a huge chande
lier that spread like an arbor over the marble pavement.
Around it hung smaller chandeliers. On the rim of each were

dozens of small glass bowls for oil and tapers. Hundreds of

similar bowls lined the walls, rimmed the galleries, ran
around the walk circling inside the dome. Imagine the mag
nificence, when as a Moslem mosque on the Night of Power
all those hundreds of tapers were lighted and flickering, tier
upon tier into the height of the dome, while, beneath, the

faithful knelt on carpets and bowed in waves towards Mecca.

Gazing upward, I marveled at the task it must be to set

aflame that myriad of tapers and wondered how torches were
carried to that loftiest catwalk circling inside the dome. I

could see no ladder. Somewhere steps must spiral up through

the walls.

"Where are the steps to the dome?" I asked a roving guard.

He pointed the finger of his flashlight through a chained
door. There a tiny stairs screwed up through a buttress.
Would he unchain the door and let me climb into the
dome?

"Omas," was the answer, "it is forbidden."

The more I peered into the height of the vault, thinking

that there was the oldest, most famous roof on earth, the
more I was urged to climb up to itforbidden or not.
Later, as I idled along the colonnades that once fenced
the forecourt of Sancta Sophia, I noted how the central dome
floated like a bubble on smaller domes and half-domes that

swelled in series up to meet it. From the lowest roof, one

could scale them one by one to that last golden spiked ron
dure. Wherever the walls were too high for a man to chin
7 7

himself, there leaned a ladder. Only one step was missing,

between the ground and the first level of roofs.
As I circled I noticed how the earth butted high against

the north wall, and suddenly my route was clear: a low ledge,
a plank, the roof of the first portico. Then the guard blew
his whistle for closing time and I was escorted beyond the
fence. But too late! Already I had fallen prey to a mentor

from the past motioning me to follow his shadow into the

silence of the great dome above.
RENDEZVOUS AGAINST THE SKY

One night not long after I was leaning on Galata Bridge,

staring across the Golden Horn to the domes and minarets
of Istanbul. From the horizon, the moon, like the languorous

eye of a houri, cast a subdued lustre on that dome against

the sky. My steps followed across the bridge and up the hill
where Sancta Sophia stands.

I hurried along the spear-fenced churchyard and slipped

into the shadow of an unused gate. Just as I heaved my shoul
der against it, a figure stepped from the main gate not thirty
paces awaya Turkish soldier carrying a rifle! Before I could
escape he started toward me. As he did, I stepped out toward
him. He let me pass, and when I looked back, he'd turned the
corner. Perhaps it was safe now!

Bucking my shoulder against the gate I squeezed inside.

Ahead the civilian guard was reading under a bulb in his

hut. Stepping in the grass from pillar to pillar I eased out of

the orb of his light, and into shadow of the church walls.
At the north corner I climbed the ledge I had reconnoitered

in daylight, and reached toward the roof of the portico. I

was four feet short. Wondering what to do next, I noticed

I was not the first person in fourteen centuries to think of

climbing Sancta Sophia by that low corner. Someone had

driven large square spikes between the stones right where I

needed them.

Hanging a wooden frame on one spike, and using the

others for hand holds, I scaled up to the portico. Pulling
myself up to the next roof, I clung around a ticklish corner,
walked along the narthex roof, under the flying buttresses to
the foot of a towering wall. There, a repairman had left a
ladder. Once up it, a steel stairs took me to the roof of a semicupola, from which, with the aid of a board, I clambered up
terraces of masonry to the great half-dome and thence to the
base of the central dome itself.

From this height I could look out over all Istanbuland

all Istanbul could look back at me. A street light flooded the

whole side of Sancta Sophia. People waited at the tram stop

just below. I felt as conspicuous as a spider on a tablecloth.
Any moment I expected someone to glance up and shout
and point to me spread-eagled on the masonry.
As I clutched from window to window around the base

of the dome I came to an open sash. Shining my flashlight in,

I saw the catwalk I had looked up to in daylight from the
church floor hundreds of feet below. I was near my goal at
last.

My borrowed flashlight was a hand-generating one that

made a grinding noise whenever the lever was squeezed. Un
der the amplification of the dome, in that echoing basilica, it
whirred like a siren. I expected to hear the pounding feet of
guards on the pavement below. But evidently the watchmen
were out of earshot, guarding the entrance, never dreaming
their sanctum could be invaded from the sky.
GOLD

AND

GHOSTS

Stepping in on the stone walkway, I shook the handrail.

It seemed secure. I peered over into the well of night below.
7 9

As my eyes became accustomed to the blackness, shapes and

shadows took a thousand forms.

I thought of all the workmen who had fallen to their deaths

lifting the dome. I thought of all the funerals that in four

teen centuries had dragged across its floor, of all the em

perors, sultans, kings, crusaders, conquerors who lay buried

beneath its marble. I thought of the legendary bishop who

still sits enthroned in chasuble and miter behind a great
walled-up door waiting to step forth on the day Sancta Sophia
again becomes a Christian church.

The ghostly multitude milled among the pillars on their

nightly haunts. I stared wide-eyed down at them as they
paced noiselessly across the floor, soared into the air, tiptoed
along the handrail by me. I buzzed my flashlight at them.
They disappeared; but, when the light died out, the phan
tasmal swarm still was there, spiraling through the colossal
r o o m .

Plunging my growling light into my pocket I slipped

silently around the walk, my back pressed against the wall.
Suddenly my toe kicked some broken glass. I held my
breath, but when I heard no tinkle on the pavement below,
I moved ononly to freeze in terror when the crash and

clatter finally reached me. Only then did I realize what a

long fall it was to the marble below.

As I looked out at the dome in the dim light, it appeared

almost flat, as though floating on air. I could distinguish the
iron chain that held the spreading chandelier off the floor 206

feet below. I wondered that its weight did not turn the wide
dome inside out.

The dome of St. Peter's in Rome is bigger but there Michel

angelo used two domes, one inside and supporting the other.
Over Sancta Sophia, Antonius of Tralles and Isidore of Milet

cast only a single shell two feet thick which must support its
own weight and that of the many chandeliers.
80

Although the dome is not even now a complete hemi

sphere, it is 30 feet higher than it was when Justinian built it.
Twice, in 557 and 989, earthquakes turned it inside out and
it was rebuilt higher than before. I could see a segment that
had once fallen out and the architect had miscalculated the

curve in refitting it. What if the earth should tremble now

and the mighty dome above me buckle and the lofty arch
under me crumble as they had before. I stepped on spider
feet around the walk, not wanting to disturb the equipoise
of that bubble of masonry.

When I again dared the roar of my flashlight, I pointed it

at the face of the dome above me. I had seen the mosaics

below, but in the dome where few would climb I thought

the builders of Sancta Sophia would resort to paint for deco
rations. Under the beam of my light, however, the dome
sprang into brilliance where, in patches, the greens, blues and
golds of the original mosaics still flashed from the vault. If
such care had been taken to embellish even such remote sur-

faees of Sancta Sophia, I wondered what colossal masterpiece

of Byzantine art occupied the focal point of all the church,
the center of the dome. Whatever it was, a resplendent cross
or resurrected Christ, it now lies buried beneath a paint and
plaster inscription from the Koran, waiting for some future
generation to uncover and marvel at.
As I examined the mosaics before my face I saw they were
not composed of colored stones, but of squares of glass of
brightest hues which gave to the flowers, scrolls and pictures
an everlasting freshness. Most unbelievable of all, I saw that
the background on all the vaults and arches, conches and
pendentives was not just yellow, but composed of crinkled

leaves of yellow metal set in glass. Sancta Sophia, I realized,

was lined with gold!

81

ESCAPE TO ASIA

Upon completing my ghostly circuit, I pressed my palms

against that most celebrated dome on earth, took a last look

down into that well of blackness, and stepped back through

t h e w i n d o w.

As I braked down the lead sheeting of the roof I came to

a buttress where an archway gave access to a brick stairs zig

zagging deep into the core of masonry. Down it I spiralled
and emerged amid the glorious mosaics of the Emperor's
Gallery, high above the floor. I took off my shoes, tied them
to my belt, and set about to find my way out.

I disappeared into the wall once more where a ramp

switched downward. I hoped I would come to a door that
would furnish escape from the haunted tunnels.
But as I jogged further and further down I feared I was

descending beneath the floor into the great siege cisterns into
which many a victim has disappeared. I was grinding my
flashlight noisily as I padded down. Suddenly I rounded a
corner and saw light streaming under a door. I had blundered

into the back of the guard's room. I clamped my growling

flashlight to my chest and listened breathlessly. In the room
beyond I heard the guard shove back his chair.

Not waiting an instant longer I spun around the corner

and ran up a ramp. No use being quiet now. I ground down
on my flashlight and whirled on, stumbled up the stairs,
dashed across the Emperor's Gallery to the other passage.
There I hesitated in the doorway to listen. No soundonly
the thumping of my heart. Maybe the guard had heard me,

maybe not. The sooner I left Sancta Sophia the better!

I bolted up the steps, climbed back to the dome and lis

tened again at the open window. All was quiet. I trembled

back across the bridge of the southeast arch, trying not to

notice the sickening drop below. Once across I put on my
87

shoes and jumped from roof to roof, from cupola to cupola,

stumbled down steps, slid down ladders, ran under buttress,
until I eased on my stomach over the edge of the last portico
and touched with my toe the top of the wooden frame I had
placed there.

Once on the ground I felt safe. I walked around to the

front of the church. Near the main church doors I came to

a large excavation where archaeologists had unearthed the

marble steps and column bases of the original Sancta Sophia
built by Constantine in the middle of the fourth century.
I was stooping to peer into the pit when I heard steps on

the gravel path. Looking up I saw a guard. I toppled behind

a broken pillar and lay there rolled up, hoping he would pass
by without discovering me. But light from the alley was pour

ing through a hole in the trees and pointing like a searchlight

at me. If he kept coming he would have to step over me.
Should I run and get shot at, or play dead and get caught?

Just as he was on top of me, he stopped, then started back

the way he had come. Perhaps he had seen me and was going
for help. He did not turn toward the guard's house, but into
the rows of pillars in the churchyard.
Though I watched for many minutes, I did not see him

again. Maybe he was aiming at me from behind the pillars.

I could stand the uncertainty no longer. Leaping up, I

scrambled over the blocks and columns back to the north

portico. In the dark I stumbled into a tangle of reinforcing

steel that bounced and rattled with enough racket to bring a

regiment upon me. Abandoning caution, I dashed across the

open field to the fence in the rear, scaled it and tumbled into
the alley beyond.

Running to the street, I swung onto a passing tram which

I rode to Galata Bridge where I fell in with stragglers hurry
ing aboard the ferry to Asia.
8:!

SEVEN LEAGUE BOOTS

The first thing I had done on reaching Salonika after my

month with the Andartes was to sit on a curb and cut the

last shreds of my shoes from my feet. Luckily, in my knap

sack I had a pair of oxfords.
Being impecunious and without strong shoes is a double

misfortune, for shoes are vagabond transportation. I could

not afford to buy shoes, but I could afford less to ride
wherever I went.

Then, in a window in Istanbul I was arrested by a fine pair

of ski boots. Durkheim had had ski boots, and while I was

limping along on wet, bleeding feet, he was striding happily

over the rocks forgetful he had feet. Ski boots were what I
wanted.

The proprietor brought out every pair in his shop. None

were large enough. He had me stand in heavy socks on a
piece of paper while he drew a pencil around my feet. He
would build me boots.

Five days later my boots were finished, but when I tried

them on, they felt too small.

"Just the right size," insisted the proprietor. "Only take

walk in them."

So I headed my boots in the direction of the Grand Bazaar

in whose tunneled streets I was promptly lost. I was rescued
by a shopkeeper who administered thimbles of Turkish coffee
and gave me a clew by which I could thread my way out.
But by this time I noticed my heel was blistered and with
every step my toes jammed into the front of my shoes. When

I reached the shoe shop I was stumping along on raw flesh.

I demanded my money back. The shopkeeper said no, but

for another 25 lira (about $10) he would build me larger

boots.

When I explained to him, however, how little I could

84

afford the boots in the first place, how badly I needed them,
how far across the world I had to walk to get home, he not
only agreed to make me a new pair for nothing, but took
m e o u t t o d i n n e r.

I was going to take no chances with my second pair. I

climbed to the loft where the master sat on his cobbler's

bench and picked out the wooden lasts and design I wanted.
For a lining I selected pliable calf's skin with its smooth side

in, and covered it with heavy cowhide, smooth side out.

I had him stitch six times where he would have been con
tent with twice. Where I had seen shoes on the mountains

wear out, I had him hand-stitch with waxed cord for extra

strength. I had him put an extra heavy loop of leather on

the back for tugging on the boots. I watched him as he
stitched on by hand two layers of extra-thick buffalo-hide

soles. Tlien, with wooden pegs, I had him attach a third

thickness. I wanted no nails to work into my feet as so often
on Olympus, and none to rust and come loose. The wooden

pegs would get wet and swell, holding the soles tighter than
e v e r .

The heels were built up in the same way, and beveled along
the front so that mud would not cling in the arches. Around
the top of the shoes I had a thick piece of felt inserted to
permit free flexing of my ankle even when the shoes were
tightly laced. In the toes of the soles I had him imbed metal

plates anchored with brass screws to take the push of walk

ing. Around the heel was a cleat shaped like a horseshoe.
The soles themselves were clustered with large hobnails
to give me a grip on the ground and to keep the soles from
wearing out. Around the toe of the soles, to protect them

from stubbing against rocks and to reinforce them in ski

harness, I had a strip of brass screwed fast.

After channeling the back of the heel for ski harness, the

master shaved the edges of the soles with glass, waxed them
8^

all over and smoothed them new and shiny with a warm iron.
Together we tugged the wooden lasts from inside the shoes,
threaded thick yellow laces through the eyes, and they were
ready to wear.
I pulled on a heavy pair of woolen socks given me by the
Andartes and slid my feet into the smooth interiors of the
shoes. They were spacious and comfortable. When I laced
them up, my feet felt armor-clad and indestructible. All they
needed was a trial run. I turned them toward the outskirts
of Istanbul and set them loose.

Clanking like medium tanks, they carried me to the Adrianople Gate and scaled along the Wall of Augustus to the
Golden Gate. There they clawed out steps up into the battle
ments and down into the dungeons of Seven Towers. When
at last they had carried me home to Kadikoy there was not
an ache or blister on my feet. I had, I knew, a pair of seven
league boots at last.
THE

RETURN

OF

THE

M O U N TA I N

In Kadikoy, on the Asiatic bank from Istanbul, where I was

the guest of Homer Kalchas, I was studying a map of Turkey
and noticed, "Mount Olympus." The name caused a twinge
of conscience.
Back in Salonika when the British Consul heard I had

climbed Olympus, he invited me to dinner. He had climbed

Olympus twice, but never in winter.
Over cordials, Mr. Peck brought out his photographs.
"That, as you know," he pointed to a picture, "is Mitka,
the summit."

"That the summit of Olympus!" I exclaimed. "But there's

the summit I climbed." I pointed to another photo.
"That's Shalion," he shook his head, "thirty-nine feet lower
than Mitka."
86

I had climbed the wrong peak.

"What!" I now exclaimed. "Is there a Mount Olympus in
Turkey?"
"Sure," said Homer, "a five-hour sail down the Marmara."

"Well, let's go! I've a score to settle with Olympus. What

matter if it's Turkish instead of Greek?"

"But the Turkish Olympus is a ski resort."

"All the better," I retorted. I was remembering photo
graphs of movie starlets at Sun Valley. "If Zeus is as bright
as a god should be, we'll find him wintering there."
"But you can't get there except on skis. I've never skied
in my life."

"Neither have I, and it's high time we learned."

"Guess you're right," said Homer. "Let's go."
We caught the morning boat to Mudanya, bussed to the
old Ottoman capital, Bursa, rented skis at the Alpine Club,
joined forces with Mitat, a young Turkish teacher, and

Wanda, a pretty Bulgarian refugee, and by four o'clock were

trudging up toward Halfway House at Kirezli.

By dark we were wading in deep snow. Homer, conditioned

to teaching school, was lagging badly and Wanda was strag
gling behind him. When we left Bursa I thought it odd a
mountaineer on a burro should be waiting to ride with us.
Now, as Wanda and Homer lagged further and further be

hind, he rode along in front of them, side-saddle on the burro

and idly swinging his feet. As he figured, he soon had a fistful
of lira and Wanda the burro.

In the black of seven o'clock we struggled into Elma

Cukuru, where the mountaineer and his burro lived, and
Wanda was once more afoot.

In another hour the snow was so deep the burro that had
been carrying our skis and rucksacks could no longer breast
his way through. Tired as we were, we had to shoulder our
87

rucksacks, clamp our feet in harness for the first time and
learn to ski.

After twice sliding backward down the first slope, I still

had enough energy to struggle to my feet and learn to walk
the herringbone on skis. But for Wanda and Homer, with
out my conditioning in Greece, the first few falls almost
finished them. With the skis loeked to their shoes, they
couldn't get baek on their feet.
Homer had particularly slippery and unruly skis. Every
time he stepped forward he slid backward. When he tried
to walk the herringbone he ended in a ball of snow. In
desperation he tried plowing through on foot. That was
worse. He put baek the skis.
It was an hour after midnight by the time we inched into
Halfway House at Kirezli. We stoked up the stove, made
tea and beef sandwiches, and fell into our bunks.

Though it had taken us nine hours to come from Bursa,

it had been glorious. Every hour revealed new beauty as we
glided across the snow, wound through the aisles of drooping

pines, and slipped in and out the shadows cast by a low,

cradle moon.

O LY M P U S

REGAINED

The next day dawned clear and bright. We arose in the

middle of the morning, rough-waxed our skis to keep them
from slipping backwards, and in four hours pushed to the
Kayak Evi (ski house).
The Kayak Evi was a wide-roofed, stone lodge, imbedded
in the side of a snow bowl high on the side of Olympus. It
was between semesters at Roberts Gollege and Istanbul Uni
versity and a number of students were vacationing there.

Though the nearby hotel was more luxurious than the doubledeckers and long dining tables of the Kayak Evi, it could not
88

match the latter for merriment. The old and the rich went

to the hotel, the young and the lively to the Kayak Evi. Board
and bunk was twenty eents a day.

Visitors to the Kayak Evi came from all over Europe.

Homer was a Greek, Wanda a Bulgarian, Mitat a Turk, Rene
a Spaniard, Meme a Romanian, and so on. Every day new

parties would ski up from Bursa. Every day some friends

would ski down.

The largest group was the Turkish Olympic ski team, sta
tioned at the Kayak Evi for a month's training. They ate
together at a long training table and after every meal sang a
boisterous skiing song in which the whole dining room joined.
I came out strong with the only part I could learn, which was
"hiss, hiss, hiss" to imitate the sound of skis through snow.

One evening the ski team started the Turkish refrain,

"Isterim." They chanted "We want, we want, we want," over
and over, completing the demand with "chocolate," "or
anges," or whatever they fancied. Thereupon they would pick
up someone and parade with him on their shoulders until
he produced the appropriate ransom.

Once filled with candy, fruit and gum from everybody's

rueksack, they began requiring a song, danee, or stunt of
their victims. A comely Turkish girl lisped "That Old Black
Magic." A juggler did stunts with dishes, tables, chairs. With
the aid of oranges, the ski captain twisted through the "Dance
of the Seven Veils." Every Turk was required to dance his
village dance.
Finally the team gathered around me and carried me to
the center of the floor. "We want, we want," they chanted,
"your village dance."
I was at a loss. They could not understand what kind of
village I eame from that had no sieges, no saekings, no vietories, no plagues to dramatize in a danee. In desperation I
gave them a loud, tuneless Marine Hymn.
89

The day I had set for my pilgrimage to the summit of

Olympus dawned elear and windless.
Mitat agreed to aceompany me. On our skis we planked
back and forth up the ridge above the Kayak Evi, above the
last protruding tree top, to the rim of a wide snow basin.
Down into it we swooped, whirling snow behind. Then,
slapping our skis in the crust once more, we diagonaled up
its side to a high crest where a refuge hut was buried in snow.
From there the route took a precipitous dive down an icecrusted and boulder-spiked cliff.

It was no place to learn to ski. I stuck my skis in the snow

and cautiously lowered myself by hand and foot down the

cliff. Mitat kept his skis on and beat me to the bottom by

bouncing down on his back. The steep ascent beyond was too

glassy for skis and Mitat jammed them in the ice and stomped
on afoot.

As we labored up and tumbled down the intervening peaks,

clouds began to wash up like a flood from the valleys until
we were submerged in a bright white fog. Mitat said, "Well,
we had better go down."

"Why? The fog isn't hurting us. We won't get lost as long
as we can follow our tracks back to the Kayak Evi," I said.

"But in this fog we won't be able to see anything from the

top."

"It's not what you see from the top, it's what you feel.
Anyway, one thing I've learnednever let the weather scare
you out. Coming?"
He came.

By one o'clock we reached Zirvc"the top." The clouds

were gone, the air was clear, the lands of earth rolled away
beneath to the Sea of Marmara on one side and to the frosted

peaks of distant mountains on the other. Not a snowflake

stirred. Nothing broke the silence of the mountain solitude.
From just overhead the flaming sun bored down.
9 0

"Let's get a sunburn/' Mitat cried. We spread our jackets

on the snow and sprawled on them. Hours later, our backs
burned red and hot, we buttoned on our shirts and went

running, leaping, sliding and tumbling down from the moun

tain throne.

At the ski shelter we clamped on our skis, and launched

ourselves at the Kayak Evi miles below. We spun to a stop

on its roof just as fog wrapped it in for the nightMitat with

a broken ski, me with a splintered pole. We crawled into its

warm light and I stretched out by the fire, content that we

had ascended Zirve, had conquered Olympus.

T H E " O L D " M A N O F T H E M O U N TA I N

Two days later I was skiing with Rene, the Spaniard, above
the Kayak Evi when a gray-haired old man, bareheaded and
wearing only a light blouse, ski-poled to the brink of our

ridge. Rene introduced him as Ekrem Karay, the old man

of the mountain. He had lived a hermit nine years on Olym
pus.

I registered what I thought was proper astonishment, and

Ekrem Karay jump-turned on his ski poles and shot down

the mountain side. But I was not watching Ekrem. Along the
ridge skied a girl, her face tanned by the sun, her hair flowing
in the wind, her movements graceful and easy. Had this wild
and lovely creature strayed from one of the peaks of Olym
pus? I called a cheery evening greeting. Like a true goddess,
she disclaimed to answer and, instead, jump-turned on her
skis and bolted after Ekrem.

"Holy Zeus, don't speak to her," hissed Rene. "She's

Ekrem's mistress, and he's as jealous as a mother hen."

"What!" I cried. "Ancient Ekrem has that young nymph
in love with him!"
q i

We overtook them at the hotel and invited them to have

a brandy and tell us how they beeame hermitstogether.

"Well, not a brandy," said Ekrem, "but we will have or

ange juice. I fell once when skiingjust after having a beer.

Haven't had a drop sinceand haven't fallen either."

"No wonder I've taken so many spills." I tipped my brandy
to Rene. "But, Mr. Karay, how'd you become a hermit?"
As a boy, he lived in Erenkoy. In the summer he played
on the seashore and looked up to a mountain a hundred
kilometers beyond the treetops. What an enchanted placeto have snow on it while the sand at the seashore burned his
feet!

Not until he was a man did he learn the name of the

mountain, and make his first pilgrimage to Olympus.

Summer and winter he kept coming back. He found less
and less time for his duties as school principal in Ankara.

When offered a bare living as meteorologist on Olympus, he

left wife and grown son, changed his name to the most beau
tiful thing he knew, Ekrem Karay (Moon on the Snow), and
climbed into the mountains never to return.

He was tired of struggling with men and machines in city

cages when there was elemental nature, the wind and the
rain and the snow, to wrestle with. On howling winter days
he liked to find himself without wood and food so he could

pit himself against the fury of nature in a struggle for life.

With his own hands he built his house from the rock of

Olympus. He made it small and efficient, content with a snug

bed, a warm shower, a place to cook, a chair.
Until three years ago he lived alone. Then, one summer's
day, pretty, twenty-year-old Yegene brought her school class
up to Olympus for a picnic.
Souls of such unusual stamp are so rare it is a miracle they
ever met. There was complete and instant sympathy and
9 2

understanding. He captured her imagination and her heart.

She admired his fierce aloofness from the ridiculous rigmarole

of social existence. It was the life she too had dreamed of.

Could she join him on the mountain?

At first she missed the theater, the dances of Bursa. But in

her love for Ekrem, the tranquillity of their mountain home

and her new-found enthusiasm for skiing, city life soon lost
its fascination for her. Now she never wants to leave her

Olympian paradise. The year before she had won the Turkish
women's ski championship. Ekrem has been the men's
champion for years.
In the course of our talk I asked Ekrem if he had ever
climbed Zirve.

"Oh, yes," he answered, "many times, and Kara Tepe as

well."

"What's Kara Tepe?" I wanted to know.

"Kara Tepe's the top of Olympus."

"What?" I cried. "How can Kara Tepe be the top when

Zirve means 'the top'?"

Everyone thought it was the top until a survey discovered

Kara Tepe was 150 feet higher."

I was crushed. For the second time I had missed my

rendezvous with Zeus.

I had no choice. I must go back up Olympus a third time.

APPOINTMENT ON KARA TEPE

Mitat had already descended to Bursa with his broken ski.

The next day Homer had to teach in Istanbul and I had to

renew my Turkish visa. Existence is an eternal struggle to pre

vent regulations, boat schedules, customs and relations from

interfering with our lives. My place, I knew, was back on the

mountain top. Homer would have to return to Istanbul alone.

My Turkish visa would have to expire.

When I explained to Rene that Zeus was waiting for me

on Kara Tepe he deeided to come along.
Early the next morning we planked up toward the throne
of god. Ekrem had said we could recognize Kara Tepe by the
black rock of its summit. But in the dead of winter it was

white like every other peak. In fact, we did not really care
which was Kara Tepe. The sky was blue, the sun brazen, and
the white peaks above were mysteriously alluring. In the
exuberant mountain air we determined to climb them all!

At the cliff beyond the shelter hut I did not leave my skis,
as on my first ascent. Though it looked like suicide, I stuck
my skis over the precipice, and shoved off into space. I lost
my balance the instant I touched the glassy pitch, but I shot
down so fast I did not have time to fall until I hit a snowdrift

at the bottom. I cartwheeled up the opposite slope almost as

far as Rene.

Though we did not have to climb Zirve to get to Kara

Tepe, we felt so good we climbed it anywayfor the fun of

sliding down the other side. Down into a vast snow basin we
hurtled, two tiny figures with long shadows, tracing with our
skis two graceful curves. Here was the lap of Olympus. On
three sides peaks swept upward. On the fourth we could have
swished right off upon a sea of clouds.

We picked the furthest and the tallest peak and climbed

it in two hours from Zirve. We found the top strewn with
gigantic boulders which, under the white winter cap, might
have been black to give the peak its name, black hill. But
when, standing in the wind under the black sky, we noted

that the top of every other peak was below the horizon, I
knew that at last I stood on Kara Tepe, the summit of Olym
pus.

When I am standing on a mountain crest.

Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray,
9 4

My love for you leaps foaming in my breast,

Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray.*

ONE

PINT

OF

BLOOD

After a month in Istanbul, I bought a third-class ticket on

the Taurus Express for Ankara. As I waved goodbye to my

good friend Homer and the train crept out of sight of the
domes and minarets along the Marmara, I felt I was thrusting
alone and friendless into a vast empty world. But before
melancholy could set in, a Turkish lad asked if anyone was
sitting in the seat across from me. I said no and put up the
knapsack which I had left there.
Within a few minutes a Turkish soldier, a University of
Ankara student, an old farmer and several boys were clustered
around trying to talk in mixtures of Turkish and English.
Finally they asked me where my lunch was. I said I had none,
so they unfolded theirs and insisted that I join them. I had
a banquet of fried fish and chicken, rice balls in cabbage
leaves, oranges, apples, and Turkish delight. They then de
cided my seat was too short and traded it for a longer seat
I could stretch out on to sleep.
I had always thought of Ankara as a city with architecture

like a World's Fair. It didn't interest me. I wanted to get

through as quickly as possible. My train got there one morn
ing and I bought a ticket on the next train outthat night.
To kill the twelve hours I wandered up the "midway"
until I spotted the Stars and Stripes flying over a building
the American Embassy. There in the waiting room I sat
scribbling all afternoon and into the evening.
It was eight p.m. when a young man and woman looked
in on me. They introduced themselves as Marjorie and Paul
and wanted to know what I was doing there all by myself.
* Hovey, Richard, "Love in the Winds" (1864-iQoo).
0 ;

"Waiting to catch the Taurus Express to Adana," I said.

"Well, this is no place to wait," they declared. "Come
have a sip with us."

At Marjorie's apartment a crowd was gathered.

"Do you know what this crazy American intends to do,"
Paul announeed. "He's going to leave Ankara after being
here only twelve hours and having seen nothing of the city."
They all agreed that was bad.
"As a citizen of Ankara for the past three years," Paul

went on, "I shall take it as a personal offense if you snub my

adopted eity with only a twelve-hour visit. There's plenty of
room at my apartment. You must stay at least over the
weekend."

"If you remain," Marjorie tempted, "you're invited to my

l u n c h e o n t o m o r r o w. "

"And tomorrow evening, I'm giving a party," said Nuhip,

a Turkish officer. "You must stay for it."
"And the day after, I am giving a luncheon for the secretary
of the Romanian Embassy," Paul continued; "of course,
you're invited. And that night a good friend is having a supper

party. I take the liberty to invite you to that as well."

"You are most kind, and Ankara sounds very gay," I said,
"but I already have my ticket and the train leaves in two
hours. I must go."
"Don't argue," Paul said. "You're going to stay. Give me
your ticket. Nuhip and I will drive down to the station and
get your money back."
Actually there was no reason why I should not stay in
Ankara. I had nowhere to go and all the time I wanted to
get there. I handed him the ticket and settled back.
A week later, weeds were growing along the roads from
Ankara, and there was still another luncheon, another dinner,

another party. Whenever I fingered my rucksack, a phalanx

of protest barred the way. Moreover, I had found an audience.

q6

Here in Ankara, Joan regularly reeeived from home the

articles I was writing for the Cleveland Plain Dealer; and I
enjoyed basking in the sun of my one reader. The sun, how
ever, was intermittentthere was Gordon, handsome, English,
aflBuent, and her doctor to boot. He prescribed she see no one
but him. I determined to leave.

"You can't leave," cried Joan at my third farewell party.

"What do you mean?"
"Gordon says I need a transfusion. He offered his blood,
but he's no healthier than I am."

Here was an appeal I found hard to resist. I had to admit

that the blood of my rival, Gordon, could not bring back the
color to Joan's cheeks nor charge her figure with new energy.
The more I studied the problem through the bottom of my
glass, the clearer it became that I had a duty to this American
girl so far from the springs of American blood.
We raised our vodkas in farewell to another train I should
have taken.

I had no illusions that I had won her, however. In three

days when I was gone Gordon still was there to enjoy the
beauty to which I had contributed. But though she would
cast on him all her smiles, I knew that the flush of her cheek,

the warmth of her hand, the pulse of her heart could never
be entirely his. A part of her was mine forevernamely, one
pint of blood.
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT

From Ankara there was only one direction for mesouth

on the royal road of Alexander the Great. But ahead lay the
ranges of the Taurus Mountains, pierced by only one pass,
the deep and narrow Gilician Gates. There Alexander ex

pected the Persian host was lying in wait for him. There I
expected the Turkish army was lying in wait for me, for the
Q7

Cilician Gates were in a military zone and wandering for

eigners were taboo. Before attempting the passage, I felt

compelled, like Alexander, to make a digression to nearby

Gordium. Not only was Gordium the capital of King Midas

of the Golden Touch, but also the city of the Gordian Knot,

the untieing of which would unlock all the gates in the

world.

From my train I dropped off on the banks of the River

Sangarius. To the north bare hills rolled off into mountains.
Glimbing a steep hill where I imagined the citadel of King
Midas once stood, I sat down on a rock in the midst of fables.

According to legend, Zeus directed the Phrygians to crown

the first man to pass in a wagon. Rattling along and dozing
in his cart, came the peasant Gordius to be seized and set
upon the throne. On the spot he founded the city, Gordium,
and dedicated his wagon to Zeus. An oracle revealed that
whoever could untie the cornel-bark knot binding the wagon's

yoke to its tongue would become master of the world.

For a century the great and mighty tried in vain to un
weave the ingenious knot.
Then came Alexander. His father, warlike Philip of Maeedon. His mother, weird, visionary, half-wild Olympia. His

teacher, Aristotle himself. His bible. Homer. His playground,

t h e b a t t l e fi e l d .

At sixteen, he crushed a revolt of hill tribes. At seventeen,

he led the charge that broke the Sacred Band of Thebes.

At twenty he was king, leading a thrust into rebellious Greece,
followed by a stab across the Danube into central Europe
and a stroke at mountain tribes in Albania. Then a hammer

blow back in Greece where he leveled Thebesexcepting

temples and the house of Pindar, the poet. Still at twenty,

the Diet of Gorinth appointed him captain-general of a
Pan-Hellenie crusade against the Persians. At twenty-two,
with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse he vaulted the Hellespont
q8

and marched straight to Troy. Here he burnt saerifices on

the burial mound of Homeric dead, ran naked around the

monumental pillar, exchanged his shield for that of Achilles.

Wheeling, he galloped across the Granicus and, through a

cloud of javelins and arrows, charged the Persian Army.
In gleaming helmet, with white plume, Alexander rode

before all. A heavy javelin pierced his cuirass. He yanked it

out and surged on. Persian chieftains Rhoesaces and Spithridates spurred forward for the honor of slaying Alexander.
Dodging Spithridates' ax, Alexander drove his lance into the

gilded cuirass of Rhoesaces. His lance splintered. Meanwhile,

Spithridates swung his battle ax with all his might upon the
helm of Alexander, cleaving through the iron to the scalp.
As Alexander slumped in his saddle Spithridates swung again,
but in that instant Black Clitus chopped off his arm in mid
air. Recovering instantly, Alexander gashed Rhoesaces aeross
the neck.

Their two leaders gone, the Persian eavalry turned in

flight. Meanwhile Parmenio waded the Phalanx across the
Granicus and charged the Persian foot. The Asiatics reeled

back and soon took to their heels after the disappearing

cavalry.
Posing as liberator, Alexander marched down the coast of
present Turkey, reaping the old Greek eities as he went.

Sardis, eapital of the Persian satrap, threw open its gates.

Miletus, once the queen eity of the Greek world, fell to siege,
as did Halicarnassus, city of the Mausoleum, one of the seven
wonders of the world.

Turning north through the mountains, and overturning

citadels as he came, the conqueror stormed into winter quar
ters at Gordium.

Friend and foe were filled with speculation. Would the

petulant Macedonian attempt the Gordian Knot? If he failed,

his troops would feel foredoomed. Undaunted, Alexander

9 9

paraded with a great multitude to the temple where the wagon

was preserved. Alas, the bark was so stiff, the knot so intricate,
the ends so well concealed, that he broke his nails with as
little success as anyone. Yet not to be humiliated before so

many, he stepped back and sundered the knot with a stroke

of his sword. "As by my sword I have untied the Gordian

Knot, so by my sword I shall conquer the world."
I leaned back on the hilltop and mused on the solving

power of that blade. Unlike Alexander, I carried no sword

to cut a Gordian Knot, not even a knife. What did I carry?

I felt through my pockets. A few coins, a wallet, my camera,

a pen. I unscrewed the pen and revolved it before my eyes.
Here was fountain of youth, magic wand and flying carpet,
here was destruction and salvation, sword, bomb and corner

stone, all in one. The pens of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
conquered more continents than Alexander's sword. The pen

of Marx destroyed more lives and property than any bomb.

The pen of Mark Twain brought everlasting boyhood. The
pen that framed the Gonstitution touched into existence
more wealth, power, and well-being than any wand. Even
my pen, in its own way, could whisk me from the age of

Alexander to the dawn of Armageddon. It had actually car

ried me from America to Gordium, all the while converting

words into steamship rides, railroad tickets, skis, food, any

thing I might need. I was better armed than Alexander,
better provisioned.
A few strokes of my pen and I was standing like Alexander

in the temple of Zeus. Before me, Gordius's cart, its wheels

high, solid, its bed staked for hay, its yoke lashed to the long
tongue by a plaiting of bark. Alexander had cut the Gordian
Knot with his sword, but I could actually untie it. All I
needed was to move my pen and the knot fell unravelled at
my feet.
Then, like Alexander, I strode down from the hill, conl O O

fident that I carried in my hand the key to the Cilician Gates

as well as to all the gates of earth.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALEXANDER

There was only one third-elass car in the train south and
it was so erowded I decided to ride in the vestibule. A Turk,

however, seeing I was American, made his companions

squeeze a little eloser, and I managed to slip like a wedge
between them until I reached the seat.

I then noticed I was sitting between two of the raggedest

human beings I had ever seen. Their clothes were patched
so many times and the patches patched with so many differ
ent colors that none of the original cloth showed through.
When the conductor stopped for tickets my raggedest
companion had none. As he was dragged off to jail he held
out his cap to the passengers on the way. By the time he
reaehed the door he had the price of a ticket. He squeezed
back beside me.

At lunch time my compartment mates got down their

baskets and unwrapped food in their laps. Taking my refusal
on sanitary grounds as Oriental-style reluctanee, they plunked
ehunks of white eheese, olives, rolls and sweet stuflFs in my
lap. Hunger soon downed my squeamishness and I fell to
with both hands.

When night came my ragged friends began to seratch and

squirm until I imagined I too was being invaded. Retreating

to the baggage'ear I stretched out on a pile of bales and slept

soundly until morning.

The sky was just turning gray when I slid baek the door

of my private car and peered out. The air was clear, and above

the snowy peaks the last few stars were running before the
sun.

The train was rolling through a village posted Pozanti.

1

Here, my map showed, the railroad and highway forked, the

railroad tunneling down a nearby gorge, the highway winding
through the Cilieian Gates.

If I was going to storm the Gates I would have to get

off and walk. My ticket was good clear to Adana, and, too,
I might be arrested if caught wandering about a military
zone. Yet, the Gilician Gates were the very throat of the

ancient world. Engineers opened them 1,000 years before

Ghrist. Through them had marched Gyrus the Great, Xenophon's Ten Thousand, St. Paul, Gicero, The First Grusade,
and, most important for me, Alexander. I could ride a train
any time. But nowhere in the world could I step in the foot
prints of so many heroes.

Pitching my knapsack from the moving car, I leaped after

it.

I strode up a valley checkered with plowed fields, green

pastures, and walled in by snowy peaks. Dawn was just
fanning out behind the mountains, daubing their pinnacles,
-one by one, with scarlet.
The modern way followed the ancient Roman road. Some
of the old arches, covered with ivy, still spanned the stream,
some still carried auto trucks, as they had the Roman siege

engines. On one hilltop in the valley an old fortress stood

where defenders of the pass had fought off invaders both
before and after Alexander.

In modern times the Gilician Gates are as strategic as ever.

In World War I the Germans built a highway over the old

Roman road to supply the Turkish-German armies in the
Middle East. In World War II the Roman road was rebuilt

again, by the British. Today the Turks have made the area
a military zone and restrict it from prying foreign eyes. I
wondered what obstacles lay ahead.

After six hours walking I rounded a bend and saw in the

1

09.

mountain wall before me a great rent, a slice of sky running

from clouds to earth.

I was entering, I knew, the famed Cilieian Gates. Now,

within a few inches one way or the other, I was treading
where Alexander trod.

INTO

THE

LAND

OF

SPRING

Ahead, the road dove into a dim defile where it was ap

parently pinched off between the crushing weight of the cliffs.
There seemed barely breadth for the small stream to funnel
through. So slim the corridor, the road had to be blasted into
the face of the cliff.

Two boulders, like gigantic tops, stood in the stream, their

bases undercut by the sawing of the water. On the summit
of each I saw the foundation stones of some early work of
man. Perhaps St. Paul walked through the pass on a viaduct
supported by those two rocks. Or perhaps some antique king
had actually built a gate from wall to wall and pillared it
on those rocks. High on the side of one was an ornamental
tablet. This, I learned, was chiselled by Alexander to com
memorate his historic passage through the Gates.
Leaping from stone to stone to the center of the stream,
I could distinguish the Greek lettering under the lichen. But
in twenty-two centuries the stream has cut its bed so far
below the inscription that one can only squint up at it, too
far away to read.
As I idled down that alley, craning up at the cliffs leaning
together in the sky, I wondered why Darius made such feeble
e f f o r t s t o c l o s e t h e G a t e s t o A l e x a n d e r. A h a n d f u l o f P e r

sians could have repulsed the Macedonian phalanxes. Mere

pebbles dropped from such height would have struck the
Greeks like bullets. Plunging boulders could have felled com
panies with bursting fragments.
103

Realizing this, Alexander forged ahead with picked Mace

donian highlanders intent on surprising the defenders at
night. Spies warned the Persians, and they mounted their
ramparts. But when they sighted the white plume of Alex

ander creeping through the darkness, fear dissolved their

spines. When Alexander reached the choke of the pass, he

found it as deserted as I. I had not seen a house, ear, horse

or human being all morning.

Once I was through the Gates, the kilometer stones began
to lag. I became increasingly aware I had rushed into this

adventure before breakfast. When I came to a village where

I might get food, it was on the opposite stream bank, and
I was too tired to cross. But not the policeman. He charged
across the bridge and captured me. Why was I wandering
through a military zone? Where had I left my ear?
I pointed to my feet. They were my ear.
He could not understand. A person claiming to be an

Americanand therefore fabulously wealthywalking! Very

suspicious. I was a spy or crazy.

When I explained I was following the footsteps of Iskander

(Alexander), he was convinced of the latter and salaamed

me quickly on my way lest I become violent.
As I ambled through the second village, the entire police

force of three men stealthily surrounded me. They had been

warned of my approach. I was led before a magistrate.
Where did I get the forged American passport? How had
the Ruskis (Russians) smuggled me into Turkey? Where was
the map of the Cilieian Gates I had drawn?
My capture was taking a serious turn. Then a large picture
on the wall gave me an idea. I dug out my seaman's card.
I pointed to its decorative anchors, wheels, ships.
"That means I'm off the battleship Missouri," I announced.
"I missed my ship in Istanbul and am hurrying cross-country
to eateh it in Beirut."
104

The Missouri had recently visited Istanbul, just in time to

cool the hot Russian demand for bases in the Dardanelles.

Now streets, restaurants, children, all over Turkey, were

named Missouri. Its picture was everywhere, even in that
magistrate's office in the Cilician Gates.
"The Missouri/' he exclaimed in awe. "You actually sailed
on the Missouri?"

In reply I pointed to the USN stamped on my dungaree

pocket.
That did it. The magistrate sprang up, gave me his seat,
had tea and Turkish delights set before me and invited me

to honor the village by staying the night.

"No, worse luck, the Missouri has steam up and is about
to depart Beirut. I have to rush along."
With profuse apologies that they had no auto in the vil
lage, they escorted me to the edge of town and salaamed me
o n m y w a y.

When I left Pozanti at dawn the kilometer stone had

read 102. Nine hours later I was sitting on number 68 when

the first truck came winding down the road. Thirty-four kilo
meters (21 miles) was a long walk before breakfast and I was
feeling it. I stepped in the road, waved down the truck, and

climbed to a perch high atop its load of lumber.

It was a beautiful ride that afternoon down out of the

Taurus. On the forward slopes of the mountains I could see

the fabulous Cilician Plain spreading to the sea. As we
descended through the foothills we left behind the winter
of the mountains, of Ankara, of Istanbul, and glided out into

the land of spring. Green fields carpeted the floor of every

valley and spread across the plain. Frogs peeped in the
marshes and birds sang in the hedgerows.
At a road juncture one sign pointed to Adana and another
to Tarsus. The truck was going to Adana. But Tarsus, I re
membered was the birthplace of St. Paul, the place where
i c ;

Alexander nearly died of fever, and where Antony met Cleo

patra. Pounding on the cab, I jumped to the road and,
shouldering my pack, strolled into Tarsus.
W H E R E A N T O N Y M E T C L E O PAT R A

There was something wonderful about Tarsus, something

in its warm spring beauty, something, especially, in the length
and brilliance of its past, that broke open the springs of
rejoicing.

There was a tel, a hill, behind the American College where

I stayed. Though over two hundred feet high, the tel was
built by piling house upon ruins of house, generation after
generation. Here the American Archeological Expedition
burrowed into the city's history 5,000 years.
Tarsus is now a town of 30,000. But in St. Paul's boyhood,
it was a Roman capital of half a million.

Here had stood the famous statue of Sardanapalus, cursed

in the Bible for its inscription: "Behold the tomb of Sardana
palus who built Tarsus in a day. Eat, drink and make merry
for nothing else is worth this"a snap of the statue's fingers.
Here too Alexander had lain dying of fever. A letter ar
rived warning that his physician had been offered a kingdom
and Darius's daughter to poison Alexander. Alexander handed

his physician the letter with one hand while drinking his
medicine with the other. In three days he was well.
All that remains of Tarsus' Greco-Roman grandeur are a
few marble columns planted as fenders to ward the hubs
of ox carts from gouging the corners of mud houses, or as
rollers to pack the clay of "modern" roofs. Sometimes, when

it rains, holes sink in the earth, as in the American College

yard, where you can peer into marble chambers of Alexander's
day.
What fired my imagination most and lured me to Tarsus
1

was that here Antony met Cleopatra. I wondered if perhaps

somewhere on the banks of the Cydnus, or in the bazaars
or olive groves, I too might meet a Cleopatra.

I balanced along the rubble of the city walls Harun alRashid built. I mingled among visitors at the tomb of
Caliph Namun. Like the Saracens on their yearly raids I
sallied out the Gate of the Holy Wars, and returned under
Saint Paul's Gate. I followed fragments of the aqueduct that
once poured water from the mountains. I scrambled over
the colossal block of concrete known as the Tomb of Sar-

danapalus. I visited the spot where Emperor Tacitus died

and Emperor Julian was buried. I wandered through the
streets, peeked in courtyards, idled through the orange and
olive orchards, even went swimming where Alexander caught
fever beneath the falls of the Cydnus, but nowhere did I de
tect the face or figure of a Cleopatra.
Then one evening as shadows lengthened, my idle steps
led me up Tarsus' tel. From there I could see the Taurus
mountains to the north floating above clouds and flaming in
the sunset. About me, in a golden mist, spread the Cilician
Plain. The whole land was lush and warm and fertile. Antony
could have chosen no fairer place to meet Cleopatra.
Standing on the hilltop in the sunset, I could see it all
as it had happened. Antony, angered by the plotting of the
Queen of Egypt, ordered her to answer to him in Tarsus
where her Macedonian ancestor, Ptolemy, once camped with
A l e x a n d e r.

Cleopatra came, but in her own time and way. As Antony

waited on his throne in the forum, she sailed up the Cydnus
in a barge with purple sails. Her maids, veiled as nymphs and
graces, were the crew. They stroked with silver oars to the
music of flutes and fifes and lyres. She herself, adorned as
Venus, lounged in silken pillows upon the gilded stern un
der a canopy of cloth of gold.
1 0 7

When the music and perfume of this apparition reached

Tarsus the whole town flocked to the river bank, leaving
Antony deserted on his throne.

Cleopatra sent for him to dine with her. In high dudgeon

at her effrontery he stalked aboard. He started by upbraiding
her and ended by presenting her with Phoenicia, Cyprus,
Syria, parts of Arabia and Judea. She had conquered the Con
queror, and led him back with her to Alexandria.

There he spent a winter lolling in luxury and drinking the

Queen's love. When rebellion called him to Rome, he re

mained long enough to defeat his brother and marry Augus

tus' sister, Octavia.

But wearying of gentle, virtuous Octavia, he sped to Antioch for a second rendezvous with Cleopatra. Sending
Octavia a letter of divorce, he married the beautiful Egyp
tian and confirmed her and her son by Caesar as joint rulers
of Egypt and Cyprus, and bequeathed the eastern Empire
to the son and daughter Cleopatra bore him.

Angered at the attempt to shift the capital from Rome

to Alexandria, and by the abuse of his beloved sister, Augustus
sent four hundred galleys against Antony.
With five hundred ships Antony and Cleopatra met him
at Actium. But Agrippa outsailed and outfought the Egyptian
triremes, forcing Antony to flee in a rowboat to Cleopatra's
ship and thence to Alexandria.
There he withdrew to the island of Pharos to await the

vengeance of Augustus. In the face of the Roman legions

Cleopatra's African host evaporated. When Cleopatra locked
herself in the doorless tower built as her tomb, Antony
thought she was dead and stabbed himself. Before expiring,
word reached him Cleopatra lived. He ordered he be carried
to her and she drew him up into her tower where he died
in her arms.

Cleopatra, dreading to be dragged through Rome chained

1 oR

to Augustus' chariot, arrayed herself in her royal robes and

put an asp to her bosom. Thus ended one of the greatest
romances of history, one begun in Tarsus within the very
shadow of my hill.

I stood looking down into the excavation known as "Cleo

patra's Room," where here and there, piek and shovel had
bared a fragment of that ancient tryst, while about me the
sinking sun squandered its glory on the lonely plain.
BESIEGED BY SARACENS

It was a lemon-colored spring morning when I shouldered

my knapsack and struck eastward from Adana for Issus. I
made the mistake of asking the right road and was kindly
directed down the wrong road. After following a dirt lane
for an hour, I could see I was headed elsewhere.

To short-cut back to the road I was treading ties across a

railroad trestle when two Turkish soldiers charged from the
guard house and grabbed me. To their Turkish jabbering, I
could only give English answers. They blew whistles and
started probing my knapsack. An oflEcer ran up. Did I have a
pass?

I showed my passport.
"Oh, American." His face brightened and he sent one of
the soldiers to guide me back to the highway.
After walking for another hour, the only thing to heave in
sight was a wagon drawn by two trotting horses. As it passed,
I tossed in my knapsack and bounced aboard.
Three of the passengers were smiling and friendly. The
fourth was a Turkish soldier. He eyed me sharply. "Ruski,"
he growled and made signs of tieing my hands to my neek.
He was very proud of himself for having caught a danger
ous Russian spy, but the "Russian spy" was helpless from
laughing.
I C Q

When the soldier demanded to look in my knapsack, I

told him to soak his headhe was unarmed. When he threat

ened to take me back to the police in Adana, I was delighted

for the story of being jailed as a spy. He settled for a look

at my passport. After studying it upside down for half an

hour, he came to conclusion I was an American. His face lit

up. He made exaggerated motions of untieing my hands. I

was free. We were friends.

When the wagon turned in to a clay village, I walked an

other hour until a truck came by. A foreigner walking! It
screeched to a stop. The driver was going to Ceyhan. I did
not know where that was, but I went along.
Before I left Adana, my host. Doctor Haas, slipped a

lunch in my bag. It was now noon and I was looking for

some grassy stream bank where I could jump off and have a
picnic in the shade.
Then in the distance I saw a castle perched atop a moun
tain. As the road wound closer and closer, the fortress looked
more and more romantic, with towers and turrets, crenella-

tions and bow slits and wall within wall soaring to the peak.

Just the place for lunch!

But formidable still are the defenses of the castle. Around

the base curled a wide river. The next bridge was in Ceyhan.

By the time we reached Ceyhan, the castle-crowned peak was

so far away, it looked like a thimble. But upon assurances I

could walk it in an hour, I crossed the bridge and set out
cross country.

Two and a half hours later, having fought off packs of

dogs and curious shepherds and getting wet to the hips ford

ing streams, I crawled panting to the postern gate of Yilan

Kallesnake castle, from the way it snakes along the crest.
But the sill of the gate was six feet above my head.
With no archers twanging arrows from the flanking towers
and no crusaders pouring burning pitch from the galleries, I
T

was able to scale the wall, gripping the chinks between the
stones and hauling my knapsack up on a rope.

Lunch was forgotten. I wanted to run everywhere and

climb everything at once. I sped through the rooms in the
towers, shot arrows through the slits at the besiegers below.
I spun up stairs to emerge on turret tops and pour boiling
lead on Saracens assaulting the walls with battering rams.
I rushed along the walls and catapulted stones at the enemy
struggling up the mountain sides, and with poles overturned
assault ladders laden with heathen.

From the room above the main gate, I raised the draw
bridge and tripped the portcullis in the face of the infidels.
From the height of the fore towers, I hurled boulders on the
heads of the attackers scrambling over the three walls below.
I peered into cisterns, blinked into dungeons and paced
through vast storerooms.

When I had climbed every stair and scaled every wall, I

mounted the highest tower and with feet dangling over the
parapet, ate my lunch of cheese, bread and hard-boiled eggs,
throwing olive seeds at eagles wheeling in the sky beneath.
From my perch I could look down on the ribbon of the
Ceyhan as it looped about my mountain and meandered off
into the limitless, green plain. Far on the horizon, 1 could
see another isolated peak like my own, crowned with castle
towers.

So tranquil the scene, so serene my contemplation, I should

have stayed the night, had a day long thirst not forced me
to surrender my citadel and descend a captive to the plain.
At sundown I was tightrope-walking across the railroad
bridge discovered below Yilan Kalle when Turkish soldiers

again bolted out and pinioned me. They dumped my knap

sack on the ground and were fingering through its contents
when an officer sallied to my rescue.

On the highway once more, I waved down the last truck

1 1 1

of evening and rode back to Ceyhan where a policeman

immediately collared me and rushed me to the police sta
tion. Finding nothing in my bag more lethal than dirty
socks, I was escorted to a supper of stuffed peppers and a
bunk in a caravanserai. There I soon fell asleep dreaming
I was a lone crusader defending Yilan Kalle against a host of

scimitar-swinging Saracens bent on looting my knapsack of

atomic bombs.

INTO

THE

B AT T L E

OF

ISSUS

Next morning when I inquired the shortest way of walking

to Issus, the Turks thought me joking. When I told a taxi
driver I had no money, he insisted he take me free and drove
as far as the railroad station. Thanking him, I started down

the road. He kept running after me, trying to tug me back

to the station. He could not believe an American really meant
to walk.

As the train chugged past, passengers crowded the win

dows to see the "rich" American walking and carrying a pack.

I looked at them, cooped in a rattling, sooty train, and I

breathed deeply the spring fragrance they were missing.

I was in no hurry. Over this road Alexander marched to
meet Darius. Just ahead they fought the Battle of Issus.
I walked until past noon and had not yet reached the site.
I was sitting in the shade of an arched Roman bridge cooling
my feet in the stream when a truck ground down the road.
I scrambled up just in time to flag it.
Toward evening the road tunneled up between ranges of
hills to a fortress sprawling like an island in the pass. The
driver pointed and said, "Toprak Kaleh"mnd castle.
Under its walls we crept to the height of the pass and saw,
below, the blue Gulf of Alexandretta. There on the ribbon

of plain between mountains and sea Alexander had met

1 1 9 .

Darius. I was entering upon hallowed ground. Down into the

plain we coasted. We came to a wide streamthe Pinarus
the very heart of the battlefield.
"Time to get out and walk," instructed my Spartan con
science.

"Don't be a fool," purred my luxury-loving flesh, "you're

tired and hungry. It's almost dark. The truck's going clear to
Alexandretta, and there'll be no other. You'll spend a cool
night in the open."
The truck was grinding up the far bank of the Pinarus,
leaving the battlefield irretrievably behind.

"Great gods of Olympus," I groaned with indecision.

That instant there was a frightful clatter. The right front

fender cartwheeled into the ditch.

Until then, I little realized the pull I had with the gods.
Now I neither had to miss my ride nor spend the night in
the open.
While the fender was being wired back, I climbed the slope
and stood where I could sweep the plain from mountains to
sea. As shadows deepened my eyes began to focus back across
the plains of time. I caught movement in the field below me
a gleaming helmet, a flashing sword. Greek warriors, rank
on rank, emerged from the thickets and in a waving line two
miles long rolled toward the Pinarus. On the far bank among
the shrubs I detected an interlocking wall of shields, raised
scimitars, jutting spears, bending bows. The Persian line
crouched waiting.
For the past two years, ever since Granicus, Darius had
been assembling his multitudes. From every race and clime
troops converged to his standards, Indians, Medes, Persians,

Egyptians, Ethiopians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Arabs, Jews,

Afghans, Georgians, even Greeks. So immense was his host
(600,000) he could calculate its multitude only by marching
it over plots of known capacity.
1 1 ^

The pomp and magnificence of his array was dazzling

flowing turbans, golden helmets, brilliant capes, silver ar
mor, gem-hilted scimitars, stallions in silken livery. Poised
in the hills like a rainbow cloud were ten thousand horse

men of the elite Immortals, and even these were overshad

owed by the pride and splendor of the fifteen thousand

Kinsmen. Darius himself, in an enormous chariot with gilded

wheels and flying royal banners, was stationed in the center,

surrounded by the white-horse Royal Guard, behind a pha

lanx of Greek mercenaries. He sat crowned upon a high
throne for all to see, dressed in striped vest, purple cape and
a golden belt from which hung a scimitar, begemmed and
shining like a slice of the moon.
Below me, the Macedonian line advanced within several

arrow flights of the Persian array, and sat down. The Persian

ranks stood nervously in arms, not knowing what to expect.

Two days earlier the Macedonians had marched south
across this plain, chasing rumors that Darius was massed be
hind the Syrian Gates. Suddenly the Persian host had de
bouched through the Amanic Gates, on Alexander's rear.

The Macedonians were trapped but Alexander was jubi

lant. In the narrow plain, Darius could face no more war
riors into line than Alexander. The sea on one side and the
mountains on the other would curb the Persian multitude

from engulfing the Macedonians. Alexander countermarched

to battle.

He had perfected the most efficient fighting machine on

earth. By giving each rank longer and longer spearsas long

as twenty-four feet in the rearAlexander doubled the depth
of his phalanx into a solid block eight men deep and two
thousand wide, yet enabled every man to bring his spear into
action at once. Thus every front man had protruding before
him the spear points of seven men behind. Walled with
shields before, roofed with shields from arrows overhead, and
114

bristling with 16,000 surging, jabbing spear-points, Alex

ander's phalanx could mince all before it.

But he did not rely upon his phalanx for victory, any more
than a football team relies upon its "line" for touchdowns.
Alexander had his "baekfield" too. To tear a hole in the

enemy line he had three thousand fast, compact, powerfullyarmed Hypaspist infantry. To run interference through the
hole and block out reinforcements, he had the swift and

terrible Thraeian horse. To "carry the ball" to victory behind

the enemy lines, Alexander himself led the mounted, elite,

heavily-armed King's Companions. Guarding his flanks like

"ends" on a football team he had the Agrarian Light Infantry
and Cretan Archers on the right, the Thessalian Horse and
Allied Light Troops on his left. Poised for their famous "off
tackle smash" the Macedonians sat out of arrow range of the
Persians.

TOWARD THE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD

Suddenly a thing happened to throw the Macedonians off
balance. The elite Persian Kinsmen and Immortals galloped
from the hill flank to the shore. Their massed charge across
the beach would overwhelm Alexander's Thessalian Horse

and Allied Light Troops protecting his left. He detached his

Thraeian Horse from its "half-back" position and sent it
galloping across to reinforce his left wing, followed at a trot
by regiments of Cretan Archers. The shore flank must be
held at all costs.

Then on the mountain flankthe very slopes about me

I detected swarms of Persian light infantry, threatening Alex
ander's rear if he advanced. Below I could see regiments of
Agrarian highlanders break themselves from Alexander's ranks
and surge up the slopes toward me, sending flights of arrows
before them. The Persian conscripts fled over the hilltops.
i i " ;

Now Alexander, distinguishable in white plume among

his dismounted Companions in the baekfield, gave an up

ward swing of his arm. Across the plain resting warriors
sprang to their feet. An onward sweep of Alexander's arm
started them trotting forward. Then I noted a strange thing
instead of charging straight ahead, the whole Macedonian
front sidled obliquely toward the mountain wing of the Per
sians. The Macedonians were shifting into their deadly "un
balanced line to the right."

Suddenly from the prospect of a head-on collision all along

his front, Darius found his mountain flank threatened by

the main weight of the Macedonian onslaught. Too late now
to shift his strength.

Coming within range of a cloud of Persian arrows, the

Macedonian warriors broke into a run. With a glide they

splashed across the Pinarus and were fighting up the Persian

bank. On the mountain slopes Darius was swiftly outflanked.
There his front ranks began to tumble back, sending a wave
of confusion into his vast reserves.

But in the center the phalanx of Greek mercenaries was

ensconced behind a wooden barricade on the bank of the

Pinarus. They hurled the Macedonian phalanx back into the

water. Surging forward again at spear points with the mer
cenaries the Macedonians slowly overturned the barricades
upon the foe.
But then what Alexander feared happened. The Persian
Kinsmen and Immortals, unmolested on the shore, galloped
across the Pinarus through a hail of Cretan arrows into the
Thracian and Thessalian cavalry attempting to screen Alex
ander's weak flank. Outnumbered dozens to one by proud

Persian knights, Alexander's horsemen were battered, slaugh

tered, driven slowly back. If they gave way, the battle was

lost. Only a quick victory on the mountain flank could save

them.
lift

It was too soon, but he had no choice. "Charge," Alexander

waved to his Hypaspists in reserve. Like three thousand half

backs all at once, they lunged into the Persian flank. Half
a million reserves were of no avail when the awful cyclone

plowed into that narrow front. The Persian line splashed open
like water to a cannonball. In that moment, Alexander

vaulted upon Bucephalus and roared the King's Companions

at a gallop through the gap. Inside the Persian lines, he
wheeled and charged downhill straight for Darius in the cen
ter, the Hypaspists following at a run. Attacked from front
and rear, wildest confusion gripped the Persian ranks. Darius,
seeing the Companions swooping upon him, yanked his
chariot around to flee as Alexander crashed into the mass of

troops trying to protect the King of Kings.

Persians and Macedonians boiled together in the wildest

confusion. Driving close to Darius' chariot, Alexander lunged

at him with a lance. A dozen Royal Guards flung themselves
before him. Alexander was struck across the helm, hacked

across the back. He wheeled to fight off his attacker and in

that instant Darius lashed out with his scimitar, gashing Alex
ander painfully across the hip. By the time Alexander could
cut down his assailants, Darius had been swirled out of reach

and was whipping his horses toward the rear. Just then the

charging Hypaspists caught up, plowing into the Persian

horses as their riders were exchanging blows with the Com

panions. Soon the remnant of the White Horse Royal Guard

was galloping after the fleeing Darius.
Alexander cheeked pursuit and spurred the Companions to
aid his Thraeian and Thessalian Horse being slaughtered on
the shore. There the victorious Kinsmen and Immortals

turned to meet Alexander's charge and, although attacked

from both sides, fought ferociously. They hurled back the
still outnumbered Macedonians and were on the verge of
driving behind the Macedonian phalanx when word reached
fVipnr

h^ic]

fi e r i

Far to the rear, they caught sight of the terrified King

leaping from chariot to horse to race the panic-stricken moun
tain wing for the horizon. Not to be deserted, the gallant
Kinsmen and Immortals abandoned their victory and bolted
after the cowardly King, adding fuel to the fear already surg
ing among the multitudes. In the frenzy of man and horse
to escape the superhuman Macedonians who could rout such

a host, as many were ridden down and trampled to death

in the narrow Amanic Gates and at Toprak Kaleh as were
slaughtered by pursuing Macedonians. By nightfall 110,000
Persian dead littered the plain, clogged the road, glutted the
passes. Scattered among the dead were 450 Macedonians.

Though Darius escaped, his whole camp and stupendous

treasury were seized. As Alexander was bathing his wound in
the scented bath prepared for Darius, word reached him

that among the silken tents of the Great King cowered

Darius' mother, his beautiful queen and lovely daughters.
Sending them assurances Darius still lived, and ordering they
be shown the same respect as before, Alexander entered the
Royal pavilion to sit down to Darius' supper. Before him
were deep-carpeted floors, silken tapestries, smoking censers
of gold, lamps of silver, spiced meats and rice upon low
tables inlaid with ivory and surrounded by quilted pillows
of softest down. Alexander exclaimed, "This then is to be
king."

"This then is to be king," I echoed from my hill as I looked

down into the pool of firelight around Darius' camp and
throughout the plain watched the myriad of torches move
and flicker as Macedonian warriors searched among the dead
for fallen comrades, wounded friends. Just then the truck
driver called to shatter my vision. The fender was repaired.
Then I, like Alexander, turned southward and rolled on down

the road, toward new adventures in my own conquest of the

world.
11 8

I l l

H A R R I E D I N T H E H O LY L A N D
NEVER A GIRL SO MODEST

Aleppo was like an illustration from the Arabian Nights

^ with its honey-colored walls rising out of the desert, its

domes and towers, its camel caravans coming and going, its
covered bazaars, its scents of coffee, dates, and spices, the
click-clack of looms, the clomp of blocking linen, its streets
where goldsmiths, potters, eobblers, and wheelwrights still

ply their trades in the same shops as in Ali Baba's day.

In the heart of the city, sitting like a golden crown on a

hill, was the fabulous Citadel. One could dream a thousand

years and never conjure anything so fantasticthe castellated

towers flanking its glaeis slopes, the stone road soaring on

arches across the moat to the lofty gateway, the cloud-touch
ing throne-room looking down from grilled windows, the

domes and palaces rising beyond the toothed and buttressed

battlements.

I shall never forget Aleppo under a full moon-the air like

glass, the night like day. Long after the city was asleep, I

roamed the streets under the arches, between the walls, find
ing in the patterns of light and shadow, in the silence, in the

empty streets a wonder that lured me from corner to corner,

from tunnel to tunnel, always with the promise of even more

exotic visions beyond.

Inevitably my steps led me to the Citadel, along its walls

and up its highest minaret. From there the city lay glowing
11 9

beneath me, softly, mysteriously, like a jewel in the palm

of the desert.

There was such magic in the scene I half expected a genie

to appear before me or a carpet to come drifting by my
tower to bear me away to Baghdad or Damascus or to drift
idly over courtyards where I envisioned harem beauties from
the Arabian Nights writhing in veils to the music of lute and
tambourine.

Indeed, all that was needed to make Scheherazade's tales

come to life in Aleppo was a glimpse of some of the darkeyed Oriental beauties with which her stories abound. But
I soon abandoned hope of seeing such beauties, for every girl
was hooded in black.

I was bewailing my disillusionment one night at the pen

sion.

"If you really want to see a beautiful Oriental girl," said

Hosain, a Syrian who also lived there, "you must see Fatima
at the theater." No sooner spoken than Henderson, a British
major on leave, Hosain and I were at front tables.
A man quavered a long, tuneless, bagpipe sort of song. A
fat woman sang more of same, waving a handkerchief. Then
the lights dimmed, the drums pounded, the tambourines
clinked, the clarinet quivered and out from the curtains
swayed bare-foot Fatima.

She wore a two-piece gown of transparent silk. Her tiny

bodice was doubly circled with golden sequins. Her graceful
arms were covered with a split veil of blue bound by brace
lets to her wrists. Rippling from a wide belt of golden spangles
low about her hips were pantaloons of sheerest silk, caught

by circlets at her ankles. A long split up each leg showed her

knees with every step.
Around and around she stepped, undulating her hips, shak

ing her shoulders, lithe as a willow wand, as sensuous as the

serpent in Eden. But though her body was clad as if in
1 2 0

gossamer, falling over her face from a crown of golden coins

at her temples was a heavy veil.
"Isn't she beautiful?" rhapsodized Hosain.
"Beautiful?" I asked. "How do I know? I can't see her
face."

"Must you see her face?" he asked in amazement.

"Naturally. Let's invite her to our table and get her to un

veil."

"Unveil!" he gasped. "She might come to our table, but

unveilnever! She's a very modest girl."
"I can see that," I admitted, "but I'll bet you a beer she's
not too modest to also show her face."
The bet was on.

So as not to miss her, we moved to a table where we could

see behind the curtain to the door of her dressing room. It

was not long before the door opened and out slipped a lovely

dark-eyed girl to retrieve her bag behind the curtain. Though

she wore a nun-like street dress, there was no mistaking her
silhouette. She was Fatimaand unveiled!

"Pay me," I cried to Hosain. "She shows her face!"

At this all eyes snapped toward her. Alarmed to find her

self exposed to male glancesand without a veilshe turned
crimson and, with a pretty gesture of maidenly modesty,

caught up the hem of her dress and lifted it to her eyes.

After that I could only pay Hosain the forfeit, for although
I had caught her unveiled, I had to concede that in all my
life I had never seen a girl so modest as to lift her skirt to
hide her face.

TEMPLE OF THE GIANTS

From Aleppo, President Carleton of the American Uni

versity offered me a ride two hundred miles to Beirut.

It was the most luxurious ride of my travels with a whole

1 2 1

sedan to stretch out in as we dipped over the macadam at 50

miles an hour.

By afternoon two mountain ranges loomed ahead, the

Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon. Up the valley between them
we purred until out of the waste land before us rose six
colossal columns. We were nearing Baalbek, sacred city of
the Romans. Here the ancients had erected to Jupiter,

Bacchus, and Venus the most splendid temples in the em

pire.

The temples stood on a plateau looking across the valley

to the white-headed Lebanons. A monumental flight of steps

led us up the plateau to where toppled granite pillars once

supported the Grand Entry Porch. A doorway tall enough
to let the clouds go through, admitted us into a hexagonal
forecourt, surrounded by a colonnade. Here, recessed shrines
look down on a goldfish fountain in the center.

A triple gateway ushered us into the Great Gourt beyond.

In the center on a stone dais reared the High Altar of Burnt

Sacrifice. Behind it a broad flight of steps ascended to the

temple of Jupiter, looking down on all. Of its magnificence
nothing remains erect but six gigantic columns.
Were it only for the daring of its plan and the grandeur of
its mountain setting, the temple-crowned acropolis of Baalbek
would be a wonder of the world. But most startling of all
is the size of its building stones. Each column of the fore-

porch, as tall as a cedar of Lebanon and as thick, was carried

in one piece 600 miles from the pink granite quarries of
Egypt. Also from Egypt were dragged the green porphyry
columns that once graced Baalbek but which Justinian looted
to support the Emperor's Gallery in Sancta Sophia.
Eriezes carved in blocks as big as houses were set on col

umns sixty feet in the air. And yet these stones were toys, and
the feat of lifting them mere play, compared to the colossal
blocks used in building the wall around the plateau. These
1

stones, piled like bricks one on top of the other, are sixtyfour feet in length and thirteen feet in height and breadth.
They are the hugest building stones in the world. One block

sixty-eight feet long, fourteen feet on a side, and weighing

over 1,500 tons, still lies in the quarry a half-mile south, wait

ing to be transported to Baalbek. Today no one can imagine

how such a stone was moved.

If you ask the natives how that great block got where it
is, they will tell you when Baalbek was built the earth was

inhabited by giants. A pregnant giantess was carrying the

monstrous stone to Baalbek on her head when she was seized

by labor pains, and dropped it where it lies. To this day it is

known as the Stone of the Pregnant Woman.

After seeing Baalbek, I am inclined to believe in giants too.

WORN-OUT WELCOME

We emerged from the clouds high on the Lebanons to a

sunlit view of Beirut gridded below on the rim of the blue

sea. We zigzagged down upon the city and through it to the

campus of the American University hanging on the hillside,

shaded with palms, cedars, and cypress and looking out on

the Mediterranean.

As we walked across the campus. Dr. Carleton met a

Lebanese whom he introduced as Mr. Azigh, professor of

mathematics.

"Do you happen to know a good pension where a wander

ing journalist might stay?" asked Dr. Carleton.

"A journalist," perked Prof. Azigh, looking me over. "Well,

if he doesn't mind a studio couch, he's welcome to share my

quarters."

"Oh, a couch is fine," I said, "but I intend to be here a

few days and I don't want to inconvenience you."

123

"No trouble at all," he waved. "Just make my room your

headquarters and eome and go as you please."

"Very well, provided you put me out if I stay too long,"

I said, never dreaming he would.

That evening Prof. Azigh and a friend talked politics.

Though I tried to be attentive, it was difficult since the con
versation was mostly in Arabic. I did learn that Prof. Azigh
and his friend were influential members of the Greater Syria

Party, its aim the union of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, TransJordan, and Iraq. The party leader had just returned from

Brazil where he had been exiled during the war for being

thought a fascist. Just because the party emblem is a cross

with crescents radiating from its arms like a swastika does not

make the party fascistie, I was assured.

But fascistie, communistic, democratic, royalist, or mug

wump, political parties of whatever flavor little interested me.

I was in Beirut to live and not argue how to live.

The next day, with Ken Mitchell, an American on the

staff, I roamed the city, strolled the Corniche and sipped
Turkish coffee in a cliff-side shop overlooking the sea. That

evening I joined a party at the home of an American pro

fessor. The next morning I spent swimming, the afternoon
watching a soccer game, the evening smoking a hubble-bubble
in a Beirut night spot and cheering the dancing beauties.
Except for occasional glimpses about the campus, I saw
little of my host. Prof. Azigh, according, I thought, to his
intention that I make his room my headquarters and come
and go as I please.
When I returned to the room the third night I found the
door locked. He had gone to bed forgetting to leave it un
latched. I knocked. No answer. I pounded. Still no answer.
He was out.

I knew his friend down the hall had a key. I borrowed it

1 2 4

and let myself in. When I flicked on the light, there was
Prof. Azigh in bed after all. A very sound sleeper!

Next morning when I heard Prof. Azigh rattling around,

I raised up, and said, "Good morning, professor."
He mumbled something in Arabic as he gathered up an
armful of books and slammed out. I concluded it was simply

too early for a professor to be civil and dropped back to

my pillow.
He stuck his head back in the door. "Are you leaving to
day?" he asked.
Only the day before he'd persuaded me to wait over to
have some film developed.
"Why, no. Tomorrow," I answered. "Why?"
"I wanted to tell the maid to make up that couch."

On second thought, I guessed I would be going after all

at least to other quarters.
Later I met an American friend and told him what hap

pened. "What do you suppose I did to cause Prof. Azigh such

a sudden change of heart?"
"I don't know," he answered. "But last evening Azigh
asked me if you were really a journalist. He said all you ever
did was swim and go to parties and soccer games. You never
visited public buildings or museums, never talked with gov
ernment officials or political leaders, never even took the
trouble to interview him as a leader of the Greater Syria
Party. He thought you an impostor."
So that was it! I could not blame Prof. Azigh. I could
imagine how little my capers jibed with his picture of "the
journalist." And I could sympathize with his disappointment
as it dawned on him that the noble title had been usurped
by a penniless vagabond.

A R M O R E D C A R I N T O T E L AV I V

"You can't go to Tel Aviv," a Haifa policeman told me.

"The eity's under martial law."
"I know," I said, "that's why I want to go there."

"Even if you succeed in getting through the British block

ade, the Jewish terrorists will shoot you, thinking you Eng
lish."

"Not if I am wearing this bulletproof armband," I said,

produeing my mueh-worn American flag.

I walked as far as the first gas station. There I met the

driver of a truck going clear to Tel Aviv.

Before we reaehed Tel Aviv we were halted at a cordon

of barbed wire, tanks and machine gun emplaeements circling

the city. The barrier was dropped for the truek to enter since
it was carrying food, but I was sifted from the cargo.

"I can't let you in even if you are an American," the Eng
lish lieutenant told me, "but how about a beer?"

As we sat in his tent over a quart, I discovered he was a

tank officer. I had been in tanks in the South Pacifie. We

left our beers and crawled all over the Sherman parked at

the bloekade swapping growls on how badly allied tanks are

designed.

"Say," the lieutenant confided at length, "if you really

want to get into Tel Aviv, why don't you see the Publie Rela
tions Colonel? He can give you a pass."
He hailed a jeep and told the driver to take me to First

Division Headquarters. There I rapped at the Colonel's hut.

"Deueedly sorry," he apologized, "but we're permitting no
o n e i n t o Te l A v i v. "

I was beginning to think he was right. Besides it was al

ready twilight. I decided to go to Jaffa for the night. Though
adjoining Tel Aviv, Jaffa was Arab, and not under martial
l a w.
1

I stood at First Division gate waiting for a truck going to

Jaffa. An armored car swayed around the huts. The guard
stopped it. "Can you take this Yank to Jaffa?" he asked the
d r i v e r.

"No, but we're going close."

"Any place closer than here is O.K.," 1 said, slinging up
my knapsack and climbing on.
The driver closed and bolted all the doors and lowered the

windshield armor. The bow gunner loaded and swiveled his

Bren gun. They told me to get in the turret. I thought this

taking the terrorists too seriously simply to be going to Jaffa,

but I slid in behind the second Bren gun.

All was peaceful as we barreled down the road. Approach

ing the outskirts of a city, we encountered several road blocks.

When the British soldiers saw the armored car, they dragged
back the barbed-wire hedgehogs and waved us through.
As we roared along the streets and tipped around corners,
I noticed that people on the sidewalks either ignored us or
eyed us sullenly. Finally at a busy cross-street, the driver
jammed on the brakes, rocking to a stop. "This is as close as
we go to Jaffa," he yelled.
"Fine," I said, jumping to the street and glancing at the
rows of modernistic shops and apartments, "but where am
I now?"

"Tel Aviv," he yelled as he roared away.

Tel Aviv! No wonder the driver insisted I get in and but
ton the turret! No wonder pedestrians eyed me murder
ously! Of all places to get out of a British armored carin
the largest Jewish city on earth!
I had better get out of the vicinity before a sniper picked
me off as a British spy.
I hurried down the street flashing my American armband.
I did not know where to go or what to do. I could not even
find a hotel because I could not read the signs. At length I
127

spotted a window painted Palestine Post and retreated in

side. Here I was reseued by David AgronskiMartin's brother

who got me a room at his hotel, took me to dinner, and

made me feel weleome in Tel Aviv.

STONED IN JERUSALEM
The next day David Agronski was driving to Jerusalem.
"You care to ride along?"

"Sure. I lucked into Tel Aviv without a pass and I hardly

expect to luck out without one, but it's worth a try."

At eight o'clock we set out in his tiny Morris Eight. At
the edge of Tel Aviv we were halted at a British road block.
Helmeted tommies were working down the line of cars, check
ing all passes against their lists. I was caught.
The soldiers inspected up to the car ahead, then dragged
aside the barbed-wire barricade and waved them through.

Losing track of how many they had inspected, they waved

us through too, stopping the car behind.
My patrons of Olympus be praised!

In Jerusalem I got a tower room in the palatial Y.M.C.A.

and set out to find the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Passing the half-demolished King David Hotelwhere the

Stern Gang delivered British headquarters a truckload of
TNT instead of milkand climbing up to the old walled

city crowning the opposite hill, I entered Jaffa Gate. Imme

diately all landmarks disappeared behind the walls of the
narrow, crooked streets. I must have taken a wrong turn
for half an hour later I emerged to a glimpse of daylight
somewhere, I surmised, near Dung Gate. Spying a man in
Western dress I asked for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
He was a Czech. He would conduct me there personally.

As we strolled along, a crowd of children gathered, run

ning along with us in a hubbub of squeals and shrieks.

128

"What friendly children," I was remarking when ker-plunk

a rock bounced off my back. That was the signal for a hail of
stones to come arching toward us. My companion charged
the children scattering them into doorways and around cor
ners. As soon as we turned our backs, they were swarming
around us again, throwing more stones, dashing in to spit at

us, shouting. The louder they shouted, the more children

poured from gateways and alleys. I felt utterly helpless. No
adults came to the rescue. They just glowered from doorways
and windows.

Several times I managed to frighten off our assailants by

reaching for the pistol I pretended my camera to be. When
they saw I was bluffing they charged in bolder than ever.
Finally two blue-capped, club-twirling British policemen
rounded a corner. The children scuttled like roaches and we

hurried into a friendlier quarter.

"What's eating those kids?" I asked the Czech. "Did they

think we were English?"

"No, what they were shouting means 'Christian dogs!' Do

you know what gate that is?"
"No."

"St. Stephen's Gate."

"St. Stephen, the first martyr?"

"Yeah, that's where he was stoned."
"Well, come on. Let's go down and pay our respects.

We've just been initiated into his fraternity."

D E A D LY T H E D E A D S E A

From the height of the Mount of Olives I caught my first

glimpse of the Dead Sea.

It smoldered beneath layers of stratified air 5,000 feet be

low in the valley of the Jordan. It looked warm and sunny
down there, whereas Jerusalem was clouded, windy, and
129

cool. Just the place for a swim, I thought. Next day, I was
jouncing down the road to Jericho.

After an hour, a truck picked me up, and, standing in the

wind, I coasted down the Judean hills, down 1,274 feet be
low sea level, down to the bottom of the world.

It was a corpse of a land. In the hollow of its sunken chest

lay the Sea of the Dead while bowing up from it were naked
ribs of hills. The sun rays glanced off the blackened rock
and ricocheted from wall to wall, heating the stagnant air.

From the sea a vapor rose to smother in the heat like the
white-washed glass of a hothouse.

For the flood the Jordan and a dozen other streams poured
in, there was no outlet. It was all cooked away in the kettle
of hills. The Palestine Potash Co. had only to spread the
water in vats, and within hours the sun lifted tons of it into

the air, leaving only the mineral crust. The potash was
shipped to fertilize the world's gardens. The salt in moun
tains was sluiced back into the sea. What can be witnessed

in the vats has been happening over the whole surface of the
sea for eons.

Near the Potash Company there was a settlement of

workers. I asked a passer-by for a good place to swim. "No
where within a hundred miles," he laughed, and I thought he

was joking"but there's a beach just down the road."

As I walked in the sun I thought my brain would fry under
my skull. I set my eyes on the water ahead and hurried
toward it.

I began to wonder what I would use for trunks when I

noticed Arab girls swimming nearby attired in nothing but
beautiful coats of tan.

Since my own coat of tan was very spotty, I rented shorts

at the bath-house. Then, bolting across the burning sand, I
took one step in the water and launched like a torpedo into
the air. The instant my toe had touched the water I knew I
1 2 0

had made a mistake. But no turning back in midair. Down I

splashed.
Yowee! The water was like iee. I thrashed to the surface

to catch my breath and only then learned just how bad a

mistake I had made. Opening my eyes, someone jabbed his
fingers in themor so it felt. I was blinded. Frantically I
ground my knuckles into my sockets, but succeeded only in
rubbing in the salt. I wanted to dash out of the water before
I froze, but I could not see the shore. Even when I learned

to keep my wet hands from my eyes, the salt still trickled in

from my hair.
If possible to sink in that water I would have drowned

before I could open my eyes and sight a course for the beach.
As I finally crept out, shivering and exhausted on the sand,
I surmised that in that land of miracles and divine retribu

tion it had been God's punishment for the unseemly glances

I had stolen at His handmaids as they bathed nearby.
Nor did I go near the water again, for I remembered how
God punished the unrepentant sinners of Sodom and Gomor

rah, perhaps under those very waves. I was afraid, since the
Arab maidens persisted in splashing about the shallows, that,
next time, God in His justice might make the Dead Sea even
deadlier than before.

GITY GURSED BY THE PROPHETS

Lost in the Desert of Sinai, in the Mountains of Sier,

stands a rose-red city half as old as time. It is called Petra,
meaning rock, because it is built of rock, chiseled into rock,

surrounded by high rock walls, and entered by a crack in the

rock two yards wide, two miles long.

The Bible says it was Esau, swindled of his birthright, who

first planted Petra in the bowl of the mountains and engen
dered there the Edomites who nursed eternal hatred for the
131

children of Israel. When Moses came, leading the Israelites

out of the desert, he sent up to Petra to beg water and safe
passage. His ambassadors crawled back with hands cut off
and tongues torn out. Then God commanded Moses to strike
the rock. Here for a moment he doubted, losing his right to
enter the Promised Land. When he did strike, water gushed
forth. Today the spot is called Wadi Musa, Valley of Moses.
You can still drink of the spring.
But the descendants of Esau sallied forth and drove the

Israelites back into the desert. Before God, Jeremiah called

upon Petra most terrible destruction. "O thou that dwellest

in the clefts of the rock, that boldest the height of the hill,

though thou make thy nest as high as the eagles, thence

will I bring thee down." And Isaiah prophesied, "Thorns

shall come up in thy palaces, nettles and brambles in thy

fortresses, and I shall make of thee the court of lizards and
the haunt of owls."

How the men of the strongest city on earth must have

laughed as they continued chipping an even stronger city.
Petra stood on the crossroads of the world. The tinkle of

its water and the safety of its walls made it the Mecca of

commerce. Up from Africa with ivory, apes and alabaster,

down from Syria with Damascus blades and Aleppo carpets,
across from India with tea, teak, and spices, over from Arabia

with pearls and peacock feathers, the caravans of the world

converged on Petra. Up from the blank desert they rustled

through the dim defile to emerge with dazzling suddenness

on the marble pavings of Petra.
Here could be found, indulged, and displayed, every lux

ury and vice of the world. Its women were famous for beauty
and abandon. From Petra came the infamous Salome who

fandangoed in seven veils for the sainted head of John the

Baptist. Even Solomon when he came to Petra to select ivory
1 5 2

and alabaster for his temple, carried back to Jerusalem a score

of Petrarean beauties to liven his harem.

For ages Fetra grew in wealth and splendor, as impervious

to the curse of God as to the attacks of men.

Alexander the Great besieged but could not conquer the

roek-bound nest. Rome had to buy its submission by making
it capital of Araby.

With Rome, the glory of Petra rose, but as the Roman

navy swept the sea of pirates, commerce took to ships while
the caravans between Gonstantinople and the East short

cut through the oasis city. Palmyra, further north. Bled of

their commerce, the once rich merchants of Petra turned

thieves and pirates and swooped upon the few remaining

caravans, driving them to wider and wider detours.
By the time the Crusaders erected a fortress there, Petra
was nothing but a rural town. Once the Crusaders left, it
vanished. For seven hundred years the world forgot where
Petra was, doubted there had ever been such a city.

Then Burkhardt in the early 1800's heard of an enchanted

city in Arabia. He went, found the pass, followed through
the narrow gloom, saw light ahead, and beyond the light,
a city all carved and pillared from the cliffs that bound it. He
had discovered the lost city of Petra, still as perfect, still as
brilliant as in the days of Solomonand almost as impreg
nable.

A battle of World War I was fought there. Lawrence of

Arabia with a handful of men ambushed the Turkish army
in the eraek and defeated it as the Petrarcans had defeated
A l e x a n d e r.

In 1922 a wandering Arab stepped upon a turning stone

and dropped into a secret vault. He climbed out with his
turban full of gold, pearls, emeralds, judged of the age of
Solomon. The Bedouin reported the floor heaped with them,
133

but he died before he could locate the room again. A king's

ransom still waits beneath some turning stone.

Since I was down to my last eight dollars, I decided to

go there and find the treasure.
INTO THE DESERT OE SINAI

"What," exclaimed Mr. Feacey of the Potash Co., "you

intend to go to Petra alone! You'll be killed. Nothing but
Bedouins on the way. Not even a road. The standard price
for murder among those fellows is twenty piasters (eighty
cents).

"I don't care if you don't have any money. To those birds
a pair of shoes, a shirt, anything, has value. You're liable to
end up a eunuch tending some sheik's harem."
Mr. Eeacey had lived in that country thirty years, traveled

all through it. He ought to know. I decided to spend the

night in Jericho and think it over.

I was walking into flat-roofed Jericho when, parked at the

cross streets, I encountered two British armored cars and a

bus. "Where're you going?" I asked a driver.

"Amman."

Amman was the capital of Trans-Jordan and on the way

to Petra. "Got room for a passenger?"

"Sure," said the lieutenant, "plenty in the bus."

"Do you mind if I ride in an armored car?" I started to

ask when I noticed the bus packed with Royal Air Force girls
bound for a dance at the R.A.F. station in Amman.

"On second thought, I wouldn't want to cramp you lads,"

I said, squeezing into the bus where I had seventeen pretty
girls all to myself.

In Amman, I dropped off at an Arab hotel. The lobby was

crowded as I gathered my papers together and began writing
on a corner of the manager's table. All eyes followed my
134

every move. A huge Negro got up and leaned over me, watch
ing the ink unravel. Running across his forehead and down
each cheek were three parallel scars, sliced in to test his

courage. Had he winced, the cuts would be ragged, dishonor

ing him for life.

Crouched opposite me was a hawk of a character watching

me through his brows as he mended his robe. Every time he

thrust the needle through the burlap his lips curled in a

leeras though he were ramming a sword through an infidel

probably me. He turned out to be one of my three room

mates.

Beneath his cloak each wore a studded, curved dagger on

one side, a pistol on the other. "Maybe Mr. Feacey was right
about crossing Sinai."

Nevertheless, heartened by morning, I started to walk to

Petra. On climbing out of the gulch where Amman lies, I

found a lonely sign pointing across the sands. Maan, 150

miles.

As I walked out of town two boys who had learned English

in a mission school followed. "There are evil men in the

desert," they warned. "If you must go, hire a plane."

At length, a jeep came skiddering up out of the canyon.
This is how I am going to walk to Maan," I laughed, waving
to the jeep.

In it sat a British major and two soldiers. "Sure, Yank,

we're going to Maan. Hop in."

Nine hours later, sometimes driving by compass, sometimes

following the Sultan's Hejaz railroad, seeing nothing but

Beau Geste forts and burning out a trailer bearing so we had
to leave a man to guard it, we arrived at the oasis of Maan,
There at a deserted R.A.F. field I dined out of tins and

bunked on the floor with the British survey party, and struck
out next morning for Wadi Musathe Valley of Moses.

KING

OF

PETRA

The defenses of Petra are formidable still.

I encountered the first obstacle at Maan. The driver of

the only auto in town wanted five pounds ($20) to drive me

to Wadi Musa. I started to walk.

I was not a mile out of town when I met Petra's second

line of defensea lake of heat waves. It was twenty-five miles

to Wadi Musa and not a tree or drop of water between. I

retreated to the shade of a wall where I sat waiting for a

truck. All day and nothing but a man on camel passedhis

wife trotting behind. By next noon, however, a truck appeared
in which I splashed across the mirages and up into the hills.
All the way from Maan the mountains on the horizon ap
peared as barren yellow hills, but as we nosed over the pass
above Wadi Musa I could see, below, a range of tortured,
black-red crags soaring above Wadi Araba below sea level
beyond. Among those weird mountains was Petra.
"Nothing can stop me now," I thought, as I alighted from
the truck and jogged down into the Wadi. Nothing? A police
whistle blew. Several men shouted and an Arab Legionnaire

galloped after me. I was led back to the sun-baked fort where
a tribute of one pound was demanded. I produced a Marine
identity card to "prove" I was a "soldier" and passed free.
An Arab Legionnaire, smiling something about "bandits,"
vaulted onto a white horse, loaded his rifle and rode along
as I sauntered down into the tightening gorge. I was glad

for my Arab friend, for as I crawled over an ancient dam and

continued down the gorge, he hailed me back. Pointing to
a thin eraek in the cliff, he squeezed inside. No wonder Petra
was lost seven hundred years!
I had read about the Siq, how narrow and deep it was, but

never in my most bizarre dreams did I imagine it as fantastic

as it really is. Not just a narrow canyon, not a V-shaped gorge,
1^6

it is actually narrower at the top than at the floor. The sky,

when visible at all, is a crumpled ribbon of light hundreds of

feet overhead. Inside is twilight, the only sound the crunch

ing of white gravel under foot.
Not just a few hundred yards long like most passes, it tun

neled on for two miles, every part as narrow and as deep as

the entranee.

More unbelievable still, a craek of light appeared ahead

and I saw pillar and eapital, niche and statue, cornice and
eagle carved into a sun-flooded cliff. We crawled out before

a building so gigantic I could scarcely reach the first step. It

was the Treasury of the Pharaoh, so-called because the orna

mental urn at its summit is believed to be filled with gems.

I would never know, for it was too lofty to reach. The

Bedouins had shot it full of pits trying to split it open.

Turning at right angles, the Siq narrowed again, then burst
into Petra. My heart was seized, my eyes filled, I could not

breathe. Before me lay a Greeian amphitheater carved out of

the cliff. On each side spread in stately panorama, tier on
tier, sculptured palaces, tombs, shrines, dwellings, monu
ments, statues. Swirling across the face of all, like frozen

flame in saffron and vermilion, in ivory, indigo and green,

was the pattern of the living roek.
Like Lilliputians in a world of giants, we crept through
the city, peeping over thresholds of temples, eraning at flights
of stairs. Past the gigantic amphitheater, we erawled, in front
of the colossal Palace Tomb, through the crumbling Trium
phal Arch, to the Great Temple.
Everywhere the silence of the city resented intrusion.
Oleanders and thistles bloomed in the streets. A step on the
pavement rang from wall to wall. A salamander slithered
across a palace sill. An eagle rose sereaming from a pediment.
All else was silent. Nothing moved. The curse of Isaiah had
137

come true. "I shall make of thee a court of lizards and a

haunt of owls." Once-proud Petra was a tomb.

But Petra was not utterly deserted. Beyond the Great
Temple I found several conical tents where the Maan hotel
maintained a camp.
Rather than stay in the tents I set out to take up residence
in a palace. I considered the Palace Tomb, but I shied from
sleeping where a corpse had decomposed. The Urn Tomb
was stately, but still a tomb. In the center of the valley, rising
like a castle was a high peak. Above the amphitheater I found
a flight of stairs and climbed up past Crusader towers to
emerge on the summit where the peak had been chiseled level
for an altar. From what better place could I reign over Petra?
There on the High Altar of Sacrifice, I unrolled my blankets.
Only a jackal came trotting by to challenge my sovereignty,
but he was more startled than I and fled.

As night fell and the moon floated over the deep silence of
Petra, decaying courts and colonnades stood perfect again in
the silver light. The vast barriers of time dissolved and I felt
in the air around me the desolate ages when the owl and the
jackal were the city's only chroniclers. But they were late
comers themselvesout from the Siq I saw ghostly caravans
appear and weave down thronging streets. I heard the oath
of the stonecutter and the moan of the warrior, the sound of

drum and flute and dancing girl. And there, in timeless splen
dor, I saw King Solomon of Israel and Judah, and Pharaoh
from the land of Egypt.
As I fell asleep with my face in the stars, I felt like a king
indeed, not only of moonlit Petra and its phantasmal multi
tudes, but of a realm that extended to the ends of the earth

and beyond.

138

FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

When dawn awoke me I was thirsty and hungry. I rolled

up my blankets and hurried to the camp for breakfast. Here
I was relieved of all but my last three dollars. I would have
to find that treasure under the turning stone and fast!
I sallied into the labyrinth of canyons, crept in and out of
tombs, stepped cautiously through tunnelsanxious not to
fall upon the treasure too abruptly. Goming to an intriguing
stairway in the rock, I followed up ledges, through ravines,
across ridges, over mountain tops, for mile upon mile, higher
and higher. At length I crawled out on a platform of rock
looking down into a beautiful round meadow half embraced

by cliffs on the face of which rose the Monastery of El Deir.

Forgetting my treasure, I scrambled up the steps to the
pinnacle. There I sat with my feet stirring space, looking
down into the valley of the Dead Sea and at the black, red
and yellow crags tumbling before me. On the mast of the
tallest peak, I could detect a tiny white dome. It was the
Tomb of Aaron, brother of Moses.

As I surveyed the extent of Petra, I realized that with the

price of only two more meals in my pocket there was little

likelihood of locating the gem-filled room before I starved.

My sole hope for more money was in Gairo where I might

find a check for stories ventured with the Cleveland Plain

Dealer. I had to get to Cairobut miraculously!

As I trudged back to Wadi Musa I wondered how I could
get even to Maan, when at the fort I spotted Major-General
Churchill getting into his command car. I had met him on
E l D e i r.

"Going to Maan, Sir?"

"Righto. Hop in."
Even so, how would I ever cross 250 miles of Sinai desert
with only a dollar fiftyand not even a road!
139

I was alighting at Petra Hotel, Maan, when a blue coat in

the garden caught my eye. No! But there he wasLieutenant
Commander Miller, U.S. Navy.

"What are you doing in Maan?" I cried.

"Been for a look at Petra. Now headed back to my post
as Assistant Naval Attache in Cairo."

"Ah, Cairo," I sighed. "How I wish I could be wafted there

on some magic carpet."

"You're a Naval Reservist, aren't you? I see you're wearing

Navy trousers."
" Ye a h M a r i n e . "

"Well, come with me. My flying carpet is due at three."

Gods of Olympus be praised! At three there was a roar
as a Navy Beechcraft tipped on its wing over the hotel and
glided to a landing at the old R.A.F. strip.
By five o'clock we had winged across the sand trap of Sinai
and the green belt of the Nile, circled the Pyramids and
skimmed over domes and minarets to a landing at Cairo.
An hour later I emerged from the American Express office
with a five months' armful of mail. I located a long, somber

envelope and from it ripped a check for my stories. I was

rich! Across to Shepherd's Hotel I reeled. There, after crawl
ing out of a deep bath, I propped myself up in bed and began
reading and re-reading my way through a yard of mail, for
getting supper, impervious to sleep, until dawn found me
folding the last pages of that greatest of literatureletters
from home.

140

I V

GYPPING THE GYPOS

A LESSON IN EGYPTIAN

T leaned on Kasren Nil Bridge in Cairo, and stared up the

wide, restless Nilethe Nile of Abraham, Joseph in Egypt,
the Sphinx and the Pyramids, of Moses in the bulrushes, of

Caesar, and of Antony and Cleopatra. Here was the ripple

of history, the lap and babble of time. Here along the Nile
the known and unknown life of man merged in neverending
glory. I decided to leave Cairo and follow the Nile back
toward its beginnings.

Before I could get away I received notice of a parcel in the

postofEce.

Next day the parcel could not be foundnor the next

nor the next. I would have given up had it not contained a

fountain pen that wrote without refilling. Already two bottles

of ink had spilled in my knapsack. I needed the inkless pen.
Each day I went backto Chief Clerk, to Custom's Agent,
to Supervisor, to Inspectorand each day received the prom
ise, "Tomorrow." On the tenth day, the Postmaster finally
admitted, "Some official has stolen your pen."

"Thanks to Olympus I still have my old pen," I said as

I stepped from the postoffice.

Immediately I was swarmed by the usual hawkers, sharpers,

venders, bootblacks, procurers trying to sell everything from
Pyramids to Spanish fly. After several blocks of stony silence,

I was able to freeze out all but two little boys selling lottery
tickets.
141

I had heard such friendly little fellows liked to snatch the

watch from your wrist or the wallet from your pocket. I took
off my watch and buttoned it with my wallet in my hip
pocket.

When the lads started tugging me to see this or buy that,

I was savvy. I promised a bashed head to the next lad to

touch me.

Then I made the mistake of asking where I could buy a

sun helmet. The bigger boy cried, "Over there," and pointed
so as to flap his lottery tickets in my eyes, at the same time

tripping against me. Simultaneously the smaller boy bumped

me from the opposite side.

I flung out both arms, sending them spinning, and slapped

my pocket to make sure my pen was still there.
They'd gotten it. And the pocket still buttoned!

I grabbed for the bigger boy. He twisted away. I lunged

for the smaller. He was already on the run.
In steel-soled boots I clattered after them. They separated.
Which had the pen? I chose the larger, yelling, "Grab him!"
to the policeman on the corner. The policeman just leaned
on his shotgun and grinned as the boy ducked by him and
danced through the traffle.
When I reached the policeman I wanted to yank away
his shotgun and beat him with it. Instead, I broke down
laughing.
I had lost two pens, but netted a story. I chuckled off
the wealthier with my lesson in Egyptian.
GYPPING

THE

GYPOS

Just as an American is a Yank, an Englishman a Limey,

so an Egyptian is a Gypo. A Gypo is a man devoted to living
without working. This is an ancient and honorable profession,
practiced by Shakespeare, Golumbus, Alexanderall writers,
142

conquerors, explorers. In a humble way, I consider myself

a Gypo too.

But professional perfection is attained only by the few with

an authentic genius for laziness. Tliey, finally, are able to reach
the ideal state where they never work at all.

In Egypt the profession elaims most devotees and is prac

ticed in most refined form. A man will insist on guiding you
across the street. A porter will grab the book in your hand.
A bootblack will dash mud on your shoes for baksheesh to
wipe it off.

Skilled practitioners will gouge out an eye and claim alms

for the blind. Some will walk on the sides of their feet and

cry: "Baksheesh for the cripple." True masters will offer noth

ing, show nothing, ery nothing, but simply sleep across the
sidewalk with hand held out. Even among the poor eating
is habit forming.

The moment I landed in Egypt the cry, "American!" went

up and I was mobbed ever after. The Gypo figures, if he
makes himself obnoxious enough, the normal traveler will

pay him to go away or hire him to keep other Gypos away.

Unable to afford either, I was constantly besieged. To the
Gypo, "poor American" is a contradiction in terms.

Of necessity, I launched a one-man campaign. When the

Gypo tried to take me for a piaster he met his match, simply

because I had no piaster. The dragoman thought me un
principled when I refused him baksheesh for dogging me all

the day through the National Museum. The bootblack called

me a gangster when I failed to tip him for removing the mud

he threw on my shoes. Simply a ease of Gypo meets Gypo.

Then one day I trollied aeross the Nile, along palm-fringed
gardens and canals to the foot of the great sand bluffs where
the Pyramids stand.

I was promptly attaeked by two dozen Gypos who pushed

me, pulled me, and beat one another for the privilege of
14^

pestering me. To escape, I rushed into the tunnel of Cheops,

but was tripped by uniformed Gypos. They wanted money.
"All right, I'll climb the Pyramid."
But another Gypo ankled me. "See bloodstain. American

fell and killed last year. Must hire guide to climb Pyramid."
"Very well, I'll hike to the Sphinx."
At this most of my persecutors deserted me for softer vic
tims, but one tagged along demanding baksheesh every foot
of the way. As I entered an inner room behind the Sphinx,
my would-be guide slammed an iron gate and locked it. Now
I would have to pay him. He danced up and down antici
pating comfort for life.

My exploration completed, I approached the gate. "Bak

sheesh," he cried, sticking his hand through the bars. "Bak
sheesh."

Raising one steel-shod foot I planted it with all my might

against the lock. In a rain of fragments, the gate swung open

and my gaoler fled.

After that he followed at a distance screaming he'd call

the police unless I paid him for the lock.

There was only one solution, come back at night when

no one was about.

That night I returned on the last tram.

It was midnight. The desert lay empty under a full moon.
The Pyramids rose in massive serenity. But as I mounted the
bluff a man sprang from a palm cluster crying, "Must have
guide, master. Must have guide."
"Do I?"

I beckoned the Gypo down two rows of tombs. At a

gloomy corner I stopped and looked in each direction. We

were alone. Then slowly I wheeled on him, gurgling in my

throat. My eyes rolled white, I blew froth from my mouth
and lifted claw-like hands. The man shied against a tomb.
With a piercing shriek I jumped for his throat.
144

He went up in the air like a broken spring and bolted down

the aisle with me gluttering and whimpering at his heels. By
the time I reached the end of the tombs there was nothing
but silence and the desert. I chinned myself up the stone ter
races, one by one, to the summit of the Great Pyramid.
The earth lay around me like a burnished wheel. Resting
my camera on a stone, I aimed down at the Second Pyramid,
opened the shutter and lay back for a few minutes' wait.
Slowly, as my lens gleaned the night air, a delicate change
began on the surface of the film. There on the grain, the
picture began to form. The wan mystery of the desert emerged

and burned, pearl-like, along the clear-cut barriers of shadow.

Like the unfolding of a flower came the moment of the per
fect negative, the moment when the picture would say, "I,
the night of Egypt, can reveal these things." But the moment
came, and passed. Behind the lens, a swarm of termites fell
upon the shadows and they crumbled. Suddenly I started

from the sleep into which I had fallen. Daylight! I closed the
shutters on a blank, climbed down, and hailed a truck rolling
southward up the Nile.

Tlie Nile is wonderful to behold, a foil of blue curling

through a garden of green, walled in by the yellow hills of
the desert.

I thought as we dipped below sight of the Pyramids of

Giza we would see no more monuments until Luxor, but

the ruins of Memphis rose ahead, then the massive Step

Pyramids of Saggara and an unbroken series of other pyra
mids, temples, tombs.

By evening we reached Beni Suif where I produced my

Marine identity card to "prove" I rated half-fare and spent
the night trying to sleep standing in a third class coach.
At six when I slumped off at Luxor, feeling as though I
had walked the 500 miles from Gairo, I was pounced upon
by three dragomen.
14?

A dragoman is supposed to be an interpreter, but in prac

tice his job is to drag guests to his employer's hotel. Twisting
from the dragomen's clutches, I lay down on a bench and
pretended to sleep. Perhaps they would go away. This violated

some union rule. They danced and yelled, pulled my feet off
the bench, tried to lift me by the collar. A crowd gathered
to stare at the American who could apparently sleep through
all this.

Unable to brook their stares, I caught up knapsack and

fled, hoping to shake my tormentors. No luck. "They gave
chase, each trying to tug me to a different hotel. For pro
tection I dodged into the first hotel I saw. As I crawled

upstairs to bed, all three demanded baksheesh for guiding me

there and called me robber for giving them none.
Invigorated after my nap and armed with a sturdy club,
I fought my way to where the pylons of the Temple of Karnak
loomed above the palms. Tliere at the end of the Avenue of

Sphinxes a policeman demanded thirty piasters ($1.20) to

look inside. More than that was owing to me for pens and
annoyance. I circled to Ptolemy Gate where I slipped inside
to begin a morning of hide-and-seek with the guards through
vast forecourts, among the hundred or more columns of
Hypostyle Hall, around the Sacred Lake, and into the exotic

chambers of the largest temple ever built by man. I enjoyed

it thoroughly, not only for the fun of flitting through the
labyrinthine passages of that 600-acre temple, 2,000 years
abuilding, but especially because I relished gypping the Gypos.
S T E A L I N G A M A R G H O N T H E VA L L E Y
OF

THE

KINGS

As I stepped from the butterfly boat at Thebes, I struck

outthrough the usual mob of guides, donkey boys, souvenir

salesmenfor the Colossi of Memnon, two gigantic pharaohs
146

sitting on the horizon. After a mile of clenched silence the

donkey boys saw I really meant to walk, the souvenir sales
men I wanted none, the guides I needed no guidingthat is,
every guide but one.

Finally I said: "If you think I'll give you a piaster for
annoying me all morning, you're mad."

"Just as you like," he said, trotting along, "just as you like."

Seven miles is not far, but on the road to the Valley of the

Kings, under the African sun, a mile stretches toward in

finity. In addition, I had acquired the pace of a Greek Andarte
half-way between a running-walk and full gallopespecially
up hill. The usually slow-motion Gypo was dragging tongue
in no time.

From the Golossi of Memnon I loped over to the Temple

of Queen Hatshepsut whose double terrace of colonnades
looked across the Nile from the base of the Theban cliffs.

I was just stealing up the long ramp when Abdul, my "guide,"

called the guard who demanded a ticket. Having none, I de
parted, surprised that Abdul was rash enough to follow.
There were two trails into the Valley of the Kings, the
easy way around the cliff, and the hard way over the top.
For Abdul's benefit I took the latter, and since he was not

puffing enough at the top, I galloped to the spike of a neigh

boring peak for a view of the green ribbon of the Nile.
Just as I was sliding into the Valley of the Kings to explore
a tomb or two before the guard discovered me, behanged but
Abdul called him and he demanded thirty piasters of me.
Since there was nothing to see above ground but a desert
gorge, punctured with tunnels, I paidthirty piasters Abdul
would have to sweat out.

In the National Museum, Gairo, I had seen the room full

of gold and games found in King Tutankhamen's tomb. One

of his mummy cases of solid gold was worth $3,000,000. Yet,

147

in comparison, he was a pauper, his tomh shallow and un

adorned. He reigned too briefly to amass a burial fortune.
Imagine the tents, chariots, and furniture of solid gold that
ancient grave robbers found in the vast and resplendent
t o m b s l i k e R a m e s e s I I ' s a n d S i t u s I l l ' s . Tu t a n k h a m e n ' s t o m b

had long escaped, its entrance secreted beneath another en

trance. There his mummy still lies in the outer and least val
uable of four golden caskets.
It was high noon when I set out to walk the seven miles
back to Luxor in time for lunch.

At the top of the cliff above the Temple of Hatshepsut my

Egyptian shadow was waiting and trotted beside me.

"Want to buy alabaster sphinx, master? Look, jade scarab

from Tut's tomb. Buy stone lamp from Rameses' temple?
See basalt miniature of Colossus of Memnon?"

"Beat it," I snorted.

"Have all, ten piasters."

"I wouldn't have them for a gift."

"O.K., five piasters," he said, trying to shove the scarab

into my pants pocket.
I elbowed his ribs and grabbed for my new pen. He had

it half out my shirt pocket.

Half-way down the mountain Abdul yelped and started
dancing around, holding his foot. A rock had just mangled
his foot, he said, and he kept sucking air through his teeth
with each step.
"Needn't bother limping," I said. "I've seen the act before.
It's not worth a piaster."
"Just as you like," he whimpered.
He was still limping when we reached the Nile. The sand

was burning his feet, the sun his head. He was apparently
near collapse.
As I waited for a felucca he moaned, "Salaam Allah cum."
148

"Allah cum sdaam," I touched my forehead. But Abdul

just stood there.
"I'm going," he threatened.
"Fine," I said. "Should have gone five hours ago."
"But haven't you baksheesh for me?"

"See, didn't I tell you you'd want baksheesh and didn't

I tell you you'd get none?"
"But fourteen miles, master, in hot sun!"

"Of course, I might have thrown stones at you," I said,

stepping into the felucca, "but who am I to prevent you
walking fourteen miles, if you wish? When I warned you no

piasters, you said, 'Just as you like,' remember, 'just as you

like.'"

As the butterfly boat tilted from shore I gathered from the

look on Abdul's face it was not "just as he liked."
I

SWIM

THE

NILE

Standing by Luxor Temple and looking to the sandy beaeh

across the Nile I judged it no more than half a mile. Easy,
I thought. But when I mentioned swimming it, my hearers
laughed. "You might swim the Nile, but you won't live to
tell of it."

"Nonsense," I said. "It's not so wide."

"Oh, not the width," answered a resident of Luxor, "but

the current, the whirlpools."

"Even if you reach the other side," added another, "there's
the bilharzia, the Nile parasite. Its kiss is death."
"In the Forces," a British soldier elaborated, "if a bloke

falls in the Nile 'e's packed to the 'ospital. If 'e baths in it

'e's court-martialed."

That did it. I abandoned all hope of swimming the Nile.

Stillhow could I leave Luxor, the Nile unconquered?

Day after day I watched the natives bathing in the river
14Q

and then one evening I saw an Egyptian youth thrash right

out into the current.

If it's safe for natives, why not for me? I would swim next
day.
In the morning I hurried to Gaddis' Camera Shop to get
my Egyptian friend to take a picture as I swam.
"No, no, don't do it," protested Gaddis. "The Nile's too
dangerous."
"Old wives' tales," I said. "I saw an Egyptian swimming in
the Nile last evening."
"In front of Luxor Temple? About six?"
"Yes, why?"
"You know where they found him?"
"Found him! Where?"

"Two miles dovmstream. Drowned and half-eaten by fish."

I did not swim the Nile that day.
But as I watched the natives still cavorting about the shal
lows I argued that simply because one man gets panicky, tries
to fight the current and drowns is no reason to be frightened
from the Nile. Still, it wasn't drowning that worried me.
I dreaded the bilharzia.

Then one afternoon as I was standing on Luxor bank long

ing to plunge in and splash to an end of torment on the other
side, an Egyptian near me sighed, "Is another river like Nile?"
"None as glorious," I admitted, "but the Amazon is wider,
and the Mississippi longer."
"Oh, not size. Does other river taste as sweet?"

Just then a dead camel with two vultures ripping at it

floated by. "What," I gasped, "you don't drink that poison?"
"Certainly." He pointed to a man filling a goatskin water
bag and another scooping up water and sucking it from his
palm.
"That does it. If an Egyptian can drink the Nile, I can
swim in it. Watch my clothes," I said to two English

soldiers and, stripping to my shorts, I ran down the Luxor

Temple steps and plunged in.
A swirling current near shore sent me spinning down
stream. Thrash as I might I could get no more than a yard
or two from the bank. Ahead, a mass of boulders jutted into
the stream. My swim was about to end right there, when the
current, veering from the rocks, rode me out into placid
w a t e r.

Sighting a course for the distant bank, I kicked out with

an easy breast stroke.

Soon I began wondering whether the Egyptian had been

eaten by fish before or after he drowned. I kept thrashing my

feet to discourage premature diners.
Then it occurred to me if I drifted far enough down stream
I would come to Crocodilopoliscity of crocodiles! Maybe
I had better not splash so much at that.
Anxious to reach shore, I changed to a crawluntil I
shipped a mouthful of water and got visions of the deadcameland the bilharzia.

Returning to breast stroke, I paddled on toward Hatshep-

sut's colonnade at the foot of the Theban cliffs. Finally my

toe kicked bottom and I waded up on the sand.

The actual swimming was easy, but after my eight days

of torment, buffeted by warnings and beset by good advice,,

the Nile was the longest, hardest s-wim I ever had and yet
the most glorious.

1^1

S U N S E T AT B A B Y L O N
LIVING

D A N G E R O U S LY

"/^oing toward Baghdad?" I called to the driver of the shiny

black Buick standing on the Suez ferry.

"A Yankee accent!" he exclaimed. "I'm Ganadian. Headed

for Beirut. That's on the main Damaseus-Baghdad road.

Come along!"

"What luek," I thought, as I settled in the cushions, lis

tening to the radio.
When he launehed his Buiek into the desert, I began to
w o n d e r.

"Still," I reasoned, "anyone who drives this fast, has got

to be good, or he couldn't have lived so long."

I tried to forget that this might be his first turn at the

wheel.

The macadam had been laid in haste by the British when

the German Afrika Korps was pounding at El Alamein. No
time to iron out the waves that leave you sitting on air as you

dip over them. At moderate speeds these swells gave the

sensation of riding a roller-coaster, at Dr. Manic's speed, of

being emulsified in a cocktail mixer.

At the tops of these hummocks the front wheels would
soar into the air a yard or so and fall back to the road just
as the back wheels were being launched, with the result that

the ear scuffed along on its nose fifty yards or more until the
rear wheels finally crashed back to earth. In the rear seat I
was batted between floor and eeiling like a paddle ball on
152

a rubber strand. One time as I sprawled on the floor after

rebounding from the dome, Dr. Manic looked around and
said, "If you want to sleep, why don't you stretch out on
the seat?"

Dr. Manic had a unique method of passing oncoming cars.

He drove straight at them down the wrong side of the road

at the same time waving them off the pavement with a sweep
of his arm. It was surprisingly effective against jeeps and
civilian and staff cars. With its huge chromium grill the
charging Buick must have looked like a rampant dragon
with its teeth bared. Drivers veered in terror into ditch or

desert, surrendering the whole Beirut road to the apocalyptic

Buick.

Against full-grown trucks the system left much to be de

sired. The gigantic Macks were particularly stubborn, and

well they might be, for the slightest kiss of their girder of
a bumper would have collapsed our Buick like a folding
camera. But Dr. Manie reekoned neither size nor breed of

his opponents. To show his unconcern as the two vehicles

roared head-on, he would take both hands off the wheel to

peel a banana or wipe his spectacles. Just as I slid to the

floor to let the truck's bumper ride overhead. Dr. Manic,

with a great oath, would swerve back to his side of the road.

"Damned British," he would curse. "They already own half

the world and now they want the whole road."

Dr. Manic was not the nervous type that steps on the ac
celerator, becomes alarmed at his speed, and tramps on the
brake. He mashed the accelerator to the floor and simply left
it there. In fact, he had nothing but contempt for most of
the controls. Once he turned around and said, "This is the

way to drive." He had the dashboard throttle pulled full out,

his knees were crossed under the steering wheel, one arm lay
across the back of the seat, and he was flicking his cigar out
the window with the other.
153

The car did comparatively well without interference from

Manic.

At length we came to a sign: "Dangerous curves for the

next forty miles."

"These bends'll slow him up," I gloated. What a mistake!

He must have read somewhere that racing drivers accelerate

on turns, for instead of putting on the brake he mashed the

throttle. The tighter the turn, the harder he pressed, with
the result we came out of most tums on two wheels. This,

I suppose, saved rubber on the inside tires. The highway,

however, was designed to accommodate two cars going for
ward, but only one going sideways. Even Dr. Manic could
foresee complications if a car should appear from the opposite
direction. To eliminate this danger he blew his horn.
Vehicles in the Sinai are scarce as trees, and although the

chances of hitting one are remote, the odds can be narrowed

by a persistent driver like Dr. Manic. We had been rolling

for hours without seeing a car when far ahead on a straight

away we sighted a truck. Unfortunately it was travelling in

the same direction, which increased the difhculty of scoring a

good clean hit on it. But "Tally-ho!" and after it.

In speed, the truck was no match for the Buick and we

soon closed in for the kill. At first I thought Dr. Manic was

planning a simple smash into its rear. At the last minute he

abandoned this as lacking finesse. Instead, he hung behind

until the driver made signs of turning off into the desert.

Instantly, Dead-eye sprang to the attack, his Buick aimed

at the truck's middle. Only his own bravado prevented a

perfect hithe could not resist blowing a last-instant battlewhoop on his horn. This made the victim swerve, and the

score was only a glancing blow.

Dr. Manic was understandably furious when we walked

back. The damage to the truck was merely a scuffed fender

154

and a bent bumper, while the whole side of the month-old

Buick was clawed as if side-swiped by a gang-plow.
After several hours trying to collect $600 damages from
a British corporal in a desert outpost, Dr. Manic decided to
drive on. With the naive idea that an accident is all it takes

to make a driver of a madman, I climbed back into the car.

But apparently the Buick now offended Dr. Manic's aesthetic

sense. He drove on toward Beirut as if trying to balance his
composition with a matching crash on the other side.
By the time we reached Jerusalem I had lived dangerously
long enough. I pulled my knapsack from the Buick and
started walking once more down the road to Jericho.
EVER BEEN TO JERASH?

"Ever been to Jerash?" Flying OfEcer Winborne asked me

over coffee one evening in the R.A.F. mess in Amman.
"No, what's Jerash?"
"One of the ten cities of the Decapolis. More spectacular
than Pompey! Only it's been lost for seven hundred years
and few have ever heard of it. You can't leave without seeing
Jerash."
Next morning we were at the bus station in Amman.
We learned, if the bus did not come by eleven, it would
arrive between twelve-thirty and two.
At two the bus was still not there. We had already missed
lunch and the prospects of getting to Jerash and back that
day were fading fast.
"Looks as though we'll have to spend the night in Jerash,"
I said.

"Night in a Roman ruins! Not a bad idea," answered

Winborne.

At two-thirty the bus swung around the plaza. Hurriedly

Winborne and I paid our thirty cents and clambered aboard,
1??

for the driver raced the motor and said he was leaving at
once.

Fifteen minutes later he cut the engine and entered a

restaurant for lunch. When he emerged he crossed the igni
tion wires and started off. Winborne and I settled back, re

lieved we would reach Jerash in time to take pictures before

dark, but at the end of the boulevard, the driver wheeled
down a side street and made a circuit of the town, his co

pilot hanging out the door shouting, "Jerash, Jerash, Jerash."

When we again reached the bus depot, the driver pulled
apart the ignition wires and went back to finish lunch. When
he rushed out again we thought we were off at last, but once
more we wheeled, shouting, through town.
It seems the driver would not leave without a load, and

was trying to trick prospective Jerash travellers into thinking

the bus was actually leaving. No one was fooled. The bus
remained empty until the third spin through Amman when
it suddenly filled to over-flowing and we steamed up out of
the eanyon.
In the barren hills an old Arab with a flock of sheep waved

from road-side. The bus stopped and the old man got in. I
was wondering what would become of his sheep. Foolish
wonder! The flock bounded right into the bus after him.

Once we got our heads out the windows, it was quite com
fortable, each with woolly sheep for a footstool.

As we turned off the tarred highway onto the remnant of

a Roman road there was an explosion and the bus sagged on
one side. Blowout number one.

Blowout number two popped twenty miles further along.

At such times or when the driver simply parked for a ciga

rette, the passengers spread to the hillsides to eat the picnics

prepared for such events.
Once, a boy on a magnificent white Arabian stallion rode
over the hillock before us and we snapped his picture against
1^6

the pastel shades of distant hills. The boy was delighted.

He galloped up to his father and brothers where they grazed
their herd of camels. Tlie old patriarch with his retinue
behind him descended to the road and, bowing to us with
a touch to his forehead, said, "You are strangers on the road
and night approaches. I entreat you honor my humble tent
by sharing a meal and passing the night."
The old sheik gestured to a cluster of long black tents
on the hillside. I had heard of the fabulous Arab hospitality,
a sheep roasted whole, a feast of twenty courses. I was for
accepting until Winborne whispered that as guests we would

have to down sheep's eyes and camel's milk. Remembering

an urgent appointment in Jerash, we thanked our generous
friends, and swung aboard as our bus chugged by.
WEEK-END ROMANS

Who built Jerash and when, no one knows. In the eroded

stream bank can be found the knives and kettles of Iron

Age kitchens 1,000 years before Christ. Near the city walls
you can pick up spearheads of Bronze Age defenders 4,500
years ago. And in caves overlooking the stream can be culled
flint hatchets and arrowheads of Stone Age citizens.
Jerash was already ancient when Alexander annexed it,

Emperor Hadrian beautified it, and Crusader Baldwin II cap

tured it. Why the city grew and flourished, what supported
it, no one can explain. The hillsides are too rocky for cultiva
tion, the site is near no caravan routes. It had no great in

dustries, and the iron mines of Ajlun were twenty miles away.

It was dark by the time we saw on the hilltop ahead the

Triumphal Arch of Hadrian silhouetted against the moon.
Winborne and I dropped off the bus and walked in awe
along the U-shaped Hippodrome. On the ridge above stood

the Temple of Zeus framed in boiling white clouds. Scooped

157

out of the hillside rose the semicircular tiers of a great amphi

theater, looking down on a colonnaded stage.

We were drawn through a vast circular Forum surrounded

by pillars, down a street of columns to the center of the city.

Here we saw a lighted window in a flat house amid the
ruins and climbed up to ask where we might spend the night.
"If you're friends of Mr. Harding," the caretaker said, "I
can give you the keys to his house."
"Mr. Harding is Director of Antiquities. I'll phone him,"
said Winborne. Soon, with blankets and lantern, we were

led to the pillared Porch of Dionysius where on holidays stone

nymphs had spouted wine into sidewalk basins.
Mounting the temple stairs we came to a cubical, stone
house standing on a bluff overlooking the city. There we
would spend the night.
Crossing the stream to the Arab village, we bought a basket
of eggs, cheeses, fruits and potatoes and cooked ourselves a
feast which we ate by moonlight on the second-story porch.
The years spun and dropped into an ancient slot. We looked
down on what would one day be the ruins of Jerash.
Greeks and Romans thronged the sidewalks, chariots raced

the streets. The two amphitheaters were almost deserted, for

at the aquacade beyond the walls the notorious Maiumas
water festival offered, among other attractions, mixed bath
ing.

Only a few of the more devout moved up the grand processionway toward the Temple of Artemis. An inclined bridge
carried them across the stream and up flights of stairs to the
colonnaded courtyard, where in the center, from behind the

pillars of her lofty temple, Artemis, the virgin huntress,

looked down on all.

There we went to sleep and awakened to roam courts and

halls flooded with golden dawn.

Perhaps it was the solitude and grandeur of the ruins,

158

perhaps the tranquillity of the hills, but when it was time, I

descended to Amman inexplicably refreshed.
IN

THE

GARDEN

OF

ALLAH

1 was trudging up the canyon out of Amman, when a truck

of red-scarved Arab Legionnaires stopped.
"Where're you going?" called the English Lieutenant.
"Baghdad," I answered.
"We're bashing into the desert for a couple of days' shoot
with anti-tank guns. Come on along?"
"By two days I planned to hit Baghdad," I answered.
"Maleish," he shrugged. "What matter?"

"Come to think of it, maleish," I replied, and slung aboard

my knapsack.
We joined a dozen other trucks towing guns, and turned
off into the rolling, yellow sea of the desert.
Lt. Bullock drove while Lt. Dwyer stood in the observer's
cockpit, with me behind the cab, and a sun compass on the
roof between us. Taking a heading of one hundred and ten
degrees we led the formation across the roadless waste. Be
hind, each truck swung wide to avoid the dust boiling from
the vehicle ahead.

By late afternoon we had raced across seventy miles of

desert and saw rising out of the heat waves a mirage of
castle buttresses and walls.

As we churned closer I saw it actually was a castle and

on its ramparts soldiers paced!
It was as if we had suddenly plunged into the midst of
the Crusades. The Fleur-de-Lis of Louis IX stood in bas-relief

upon the walls while on the battlements marched the sons

of Richard Coeur de Lion"Red Devils" of the Sixth British
Airborne Division from Palestine.

At sundown, over a tub of gasoline-soaked sand, the Arabs

159

roasted a whole sheep on a spit. We sliced off tender,

dripping chunks and ate them from bayonets, together with
potatoes browned in the drippings. Then, to an accompani
ment of clapping and singing. Legionnaires sprang to their
feet and stomped the ancient Camel Dance.
Since it was the Red Devils' last night at Kharana, the
officers invited us into the castle to help drain their bottled
stores.

The Crusaders who slept in graves without the gates got

no rest that night, nor the Turks killed when Lawrence of
Arabia shelled holes in the bastions during World War I.
Until nearly dawn, torch light wavered in the courtyard and
firebrands cast monstrous shadows in the vaulted banquet hall
where modem soldiers banged tankards on the table and
sang "Waltzing Matilda" and guffawed over the same tales
of wars and women as had the knights centuries before.
W h e n t h e t o r c h e s h a d fl i c k e r e d o u t a n d t h e l a s t c a n d l e

melted into the bottle. Bullock, Dwyer and I crawled over

the rubble of the courtyard out into the empty desert. Un
rolling our blankets in the sand, we stretched out, face up to
Bootes in the stars and awoke to find the sun instead.

That day, with the crash of gunfire in my ears, I lolled

on the bastions watching the desert change shades of orange,
lavender and yellow through every inch of the sun's ascent.
In the morning the figure of a man appeared on the hori
zon. He came walking, without mule or camel, across the
waterless, leafless waste. By noon he had reached Kharana.
By evening he had disappeared over the opposite horizon.
Once I looked up to see the desert forested with camels,
wading in the water of mirages. There were over sixty of the
slowly padding beasts, some loaded with bags of grain and
bales of muslin, others balancing veiled canopies in which,
perhaps, rocked a harem beauty.

In the evening Bullock and Dwyer joined me on the para1 fin

pet. The desert hills were pink and the wadies deep in purple.
"Well, glad you eame with us?" they asked.
"I sure am," I said. "I thought the desert was colorless,
lifeless, and lonely, but now I find it alive and beautiful. I

know now why prophets and wise men came to meditate in

the desert. I know now why they call it the Garden of Allah."
SUNSET

AT

BABYLON

In Baghdad one afternoon as I wandered the back streets

in quest of that golden door ushering into the Arabian Nights,
I came upon the sign: American Boys School.
The gate was ajar. I shoved it open. Inside I found Bill
Finn, Dick Larsen, and Allen Snyder, packing a lunch. "We're
going on a picnic to Babylon," they said. "Welcome along."
Babylon! City of Hammurabi, Assurbanipal (buried in Tar
sus as Sardanapalus), Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian Cap
tivity, the Tower of Babel, the Hanging Gardens! We piled
in a taxi and off we went.

For me, Babylon had special interest. On the Tigris two

hundred and seventy miles north, Alexander, coming from
the conquest of Egypt, had again met Darius. On the Plains
of Caugamela, over ground leveled for the charge of char
iots, the tiny Macedonian force marched to attack a host
twenty times its size. As at Issus, the Macedonians paused
in front of the Persian multitude, then, shifting suddenly
into their "unbalanced line to the right," charged on a slant
against the Persian wing.
To meet the onslaught, Darius loosed his war chariots, but
Alexander had scattered archers and spearmen in front of his
ranks to impale horses and shoot off charioteers. The pha
lanx opened to let the remaining chariots bolt through. Upon
impact the Persians hacked back Parmenio's left wing.
Worse, the Persian Kinsmen and Immortals galloped from
161

behind the Persian wing to sweep around Alexander's right.

But in the confusion of their turn, Alexander threw his

Thracian Horse at them, catching them on the flank and

rolling them back. Immediately, against the sector thinned
by the withdrawal of the Persian Horse, he launched his
Hypaspist Infantry. Their compact charge burst a hole in the
enemy line through which Alexander pounded with his Com
panions, straight for Darius in the center. As at Issus, Darius
had not the bowels to face the onslaught of the Companions.
Reining around, he whipped his chargers toward the hori
zon, towing his army in wildest rout behind him.

Then straight south to Babylon Alexander marched. High

priests and officials paraded out to greet him with vessels of
gold, caskets of gems. In splendid procession they escorted

him through the black fertile land, along great canals, over
the mighty shipping channel between Tigris and Euphrates,
on toward the pinnacles and palaces in the sky.
Nowhere in the world had the Macedonians beheld such

immensity, not even in Egypt. Babylon was square, 56 miles

in perimeter, according to Herodotus, built on both sides of

the Euphrates and surrounded by three walls one inside the

other, each loftier than the former, each surrounded by a
moat as wide as a river. The inner wall was 335 feet high,
the outer 85 feet thickso wide on top that four-horse char
iots could charge along it. In Egypt and Greece, buildings
were stone, ornamented with paint and sculpture, but here
the Macedonians found buildings of brick, cemented with
asphalt from the 'ffiery furnace" of Shadrach, Meshach,
Abednego, and then covered with tiles that glistened like
glass, as brightly colored as the rainbow.
One hundred gates of beaten bronze led into the city.
Walls lined the banks of the Euphrates where twenty-five
gates opened to ferries and the stone bridge connecting the
two parts of the city. All the inner walls were glazed with
1 ft-y.

tiles of green, red, and orange and bore reliefs of endless pro
cessions of monarchs and monsters.

Along the avenue paved with red and walled with bluetiled hunting scenes, the Macedonians paraded in awe,
through the towering Ishtar Gate, into the most resplendent
city on earth. At one end of the grand processionway spired
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders

of the World. Mountain high, the gardens were built by

Nebuchadnezzar for his Median queen homesick for her
native hills. At the other end of the great concourse, Alex
ander rode through two mighty courtyards up a ramp spiraling around a cloud-scraping step-pyramid on top of which
spread the Temple of Bel. It was just such a temple-citadel,

seen by the Jews during their Babylonian captivity, that the

Bible calls the Tower of Babel.

Remaining in Babylon only long enough to reopen the

temples of Bel and Murdukclosed by the monotheistic
Persiansand endow the great library of Assurbanipal, Alex
ander hastened in pursuit of Darius. In Susa he recovered the
statues stolen from Athens by Xerxes generations before. At
Persepolis in a drunken orgy he burned Darius' Hall of a

Hundred Golumns in retaliation for the burning of the

Parthenon's forerunner on the Acropolis. Somewhere near

the Gaspian Sea he finally came upon Darius' body, mur

dered by his own satraps. Then marching farther north than
Leninabad in the present Soviet Union, and as far east as

the river Beas in India, Alexander returned to Babylon and

the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Palace of Nebuchadnezzar! That was what I meant to

find as we drove sixty miles across the desert to the spot where
Babylon once stood on the Euphrates. But the Euphrates, we
found, was nowhere in sight. The once splendid city was
only a pile of sand, the heaven-reaehing Tower of Babel a
hole in the ground, the Hanging Gardens a pit. For centuries
165

every town for leagues around has been building with bricks
looted from Babylon.
From ground level we looked down at once lofty Ishtar
Gate. The dazzling tiles of giraffe-necked lions in bas-relief
that glorified the walls in Alexander's day were gone, carried
to a museum in Berlin. On all sides excavated piles of brick
marked forgotten palaces or temples lining the grand pro
cession way between the Hanging Gardens and the Tower of
Babel. The only sculpture remaining of the statued avenues
was a lion straddling a womancelebrating the rape of Egypt
by the lion of Babylon.
Where was the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar? A boy pointed
to a hill of sand. Glimbing to its top as the sun was sinking,
we sat down to have our supper.
Here, at the age of thirty-two, the emaciated, overtaxed,
oft-wounded conqueror of the world fell ill with malaria. As
always Alexander drove himself on, directing the completion
of canals and the final fitting of a fleet for the conquest of
Arabia to start in three days. His fever raged all night. In
the morning he had to be carried to brief the officers of the
expedition. Then for two days and nights his fever burned
higher and higher.
Rumor whispered he was dead. Panic swept his army.
Who would hold it together, lead it to safety if Alexander,
the unconquerable, was dead? His veterans stampeded to the
palace, forced their way to his room. They found him too
weak to speak. With tears streaming down their faces, they
filed by his couch as with a nod and feeble fingers Alexander
took farewell of his beloved comrades and passed on to new
adventures.

Had he lived, he might have explored and unified the

world as was his dream. But with his death, his unwieldy
empire was clawed to shreds by his quarreling generals.
Within the year the new master of Macedon occupied Greece,
164

a thing Alexander had never permitted, and drove his im

mortal teacher, Aristotle, to exile and death. Golden-tongued
Demosthenes was also hounded to the islands and suicide.

Thus by Alexander's death, the world lost three of its most

illustrious figures.
Such a cataclysmic event was nothing new to Babylon.
Her history was filled with the passing of great men. With
the memory of her importance and magnificence before us,
we gazed upon the rubble and munched our sandwiches. A
stork, kiting from her nest on the height of a solitary column,
was the only thing that moved in that desolate city.

161;

V I

PA R A D I S E
A

RIDE

WITH

THE

ENOW
GUN-RUNNERS

T t took my last dinar to pay my "Y" bill in Baghdad.

When a Jewish merchant saw me walking out of town

he invited me to join him for tea and tried to shove five
dinars ($20) into my pocket.
"No, thanks," I said, "I like being broke. It adds zest to
travel."

It certainly did that day.

My first ride was on a load of wool. Just as I was dozing

off atop the soft sacks a low wire caught me on the neck,
peeled off my sun helmet and almost flipped me to the pave
ment.

By the time I got the truck stopped and ran back for my
topee an Arab had captured it and for some reason refused
to let gountil my iron-clad boot came down on his bare
foot. He suddenly became so engrossed in straightening his
toes he could not spare a hand to hold my hat.

In Iraq a truck driver must not only be skilled in driving,

but also in bribery. Every few miles there is a police post, and

the only way to get them to lift the barrier is to slip the officer
a dinar or two. For those actually carrying contraband the
bribe is much higher.
At one barrier after bargaining an hour in whispers, we

drove the policeman a mile out of town where a motorcycle

official approached within a hundred yards on a side road.
The truck driver and policeman walked over to him and
166

passed him something behind the hedge. When the driver

returned, he complained it had cost him five dinars. In

view of the rate I began to suspect that we were carrying
machine guns in the wool.

Apparently our driver could not afford such bribes, for at

the next post when the barrier was raised to let the truck
ahead through, our driver shoved on the gas and made a dash
for the barrier. A policeman jumped in front of the truck,
waving both arms, only to leap back to save his life. Another
policeman struggled to pull down the striped pole, but we
were under it before he could get it swinging. Amid the

shriek of police whistles we roared away. Frantically the

policemen reached for their rifles, but fortunately they had
left them in the guard house.

Rather than risk a telephone call preceding us to the next

police post, our driver swung off the highway across the track
less prairie. At length we came to a wide river. There was no
bridge except a railway trestle. I feared we would have to

drive back into the arms of the police, but our driver bounced
his truck astraddle the rails and started across the trestle.

A guard charged out and slammed a pipe gate in our path.

Easing our bumper against it, we started to butt it down.
The guard jumped up and down, blew his whistle, yelled in
rage. The guard from the other end of the trestle came run
ning. Before the gate was bent completely out of shape, the
guard accepted the dinar bribe the driver had been offering
him, opened the gate, and we bumped across the ties.
Several hours after dark we came to a village surrounded

by a mud wall. As we approached, a figure dashed out the

gate and growled to us to cut our lights. We were led in the

dark around the village until headlights appeared on the

horizon and we darted behind a bastion.

There was a long whispered discussion. At length they

looked up at me and motioned me down. Immediately six
167

Arabs grabbed me by the arms and dragged more than led

me through a sally-port into a courtyard. When the sheep

had been shooed away, I saw a family sleeping in their midst.
The people sat up yawning and I was pushed down on a
corner of their rug. As the woman blew the charcoals to make

tea, the six Arabs stood in a circle, looking down at me. I

had the feeling I was not guest but captive.
Now and then one of my guards would peek out the gate.
After I had drunk four teas, a watcher signaled all clear, and
taking my arms, the six led me out. As I passed the truck
it was empty, the cargo nowhere in si^t.
In the dirt of another courtyard we found the driver and
half the town sitting on rich Oriental rugs around a fire.
Now that the cargo was hidden, all were laughing and talking
aloud. I was given another glass of tea and seated in the place
of honor. I was prisoner no longer.
For the night I was spread a thick rug in an upper room
and next morning rode on to Persia, thankful to the poverty
that had afforded me what, I felt sure, was a ride with the
gun-runners of Iraq.
THE LEGEND OF THREE FRIENDS

In Persia, the land of legends, the most fascinating of all

is the Legend of Three Friends. It involves three famous men.
The first, Nidham-ul-Mulk, the illustrious Grand Vizier of

Galiph Alp Arslan.

The second, Omar Khayyam, who wrote the Rubaiyat.

The third, Hasan-i-Sabbah, the founder of the dreaded and
fanatical Order of the Assassins.

About the time of the Grusades, Nidham-ul-Mulk, Omar

Khayyam, and Hasan-i-Sabbah were school friends in Nishapur. In youthful fashion they made a solemn pact that the

first to reach success would help the other two. This they
signed with their blood.
Ye a r s l a t e r N i d h a m - u l - M u l k w a s e l e v a t e d t o G r a n d V i z i e r

(Prime Minister). When Omar Khayyam reminded him of

their boyhood covenant, Nidham-ul-Mulk said, "Very well,
I make thee governor of Nishapur and its dependencies."
But Omar replied, "I have no desire to rule over people.
Give me instead a pension, that I may spend my days study
ing mathematics, astronomy and weaving poetry."
So Nidham-ul-Mulk granted him ten thousand dinars
($40,000) annually from the treasury of Nishapur.
In due time, Hasan-i-Sabbah also claimed his share of

Nidham-ul-Mulk's favor. He refused the governorship of

Isfahan and Reiwould be satisfied with nothing but a high
post at court. From this vantage he plotted to supplant
Nidham-ul-Mulk as Grand Vizier. His plot discovered, he
fled to Cairo. There he became converted to the Sect of the

Seven, the Ismaili, who hold that Ismail was the seventh and

last Imam (successor to Mohammed). The more numerous

S e c t o f t h e Tw e l v e h o l d s I s m a i l w a s d i s i n h e r i t e d b e c a u s e h e

drank wine, his younger brother becoming the seventh of a

total twelve Imams.

Hasan-i-Sabbah returned from Egypt asking, "Why did

Allah create the Universe in seven days? Why are there

seven heavens? seven seas? seven climes? seven verses in the

opening chapter of the Koran? Why does the spinal column

contain seven cervical vertebrae?" The answer was obvious.

Because there are only seven Imams, not twelve. Thus the
only way to salvation was to take an oath of allegiance to
Hasan-i-Sabbah and pay him the Imam's money.
Through Persia he evangelized, gathering followers as he
came. Nidham-ul-Mulk, alarmed by this heresy and remem
bering Hasan's plot to supplant him, ordered his old school
chum arrested. Hasan and his followers escaped into the
169

mountains above Kasvin. By a bold stratagem in a.h. 483

(a.d. 1090) they eaptured the "Eagle's Nest," the crag-top

fortress on the Rock of Alamut.

Here in his mountain lair he abandoned all ties with the

Ismaili sect in Egypt. Preaching blind obedience to himself

alone, he trained his devotees in the art of assassination.

Then by terror and murder he spread his empire over Persia,

Syria, into Palestine, India, and even so far as Zanzibar.

No king, conqueror, knight, ealiph was safe from Hasan-i-

Sabbah's Destroying Angels. None knew who they were. They

could be anywhere, everywhere. They specialized in spectacu
lar, suicidal murdersleaping upon a Crusading lord on Sun

day in the cathedral or stabbing a Moslem general on Friday

in the mosque.

His iidais, or Self-Devoted Ones, were trained in endur

ance, disguises, poisons. In one case an Assassin spent six

months in a Crusader camp sufficiently trained in Prankish
tongue and custom to pose as monk, until he could cut
down Conrad, King of Jerusalem.

Raymond, Count of Tripoli, was another European victim

of the Old Man's emissaries. Also Prince Edward, later Ed

ward I of England, fell under an Assassin's knife in Acre but

was saved by his consort who sucked the poison from his
wound.

Even mighty Saladin, who often taught fear to Crusaders,

himself feared the Assassins. Once he marched his large army

against the Old Man of the Mountain, determined to ex

terminate the detestable heretics. But one morning he awoke

and found sticking in his pillow a dagger transfixing a note.

"Tomorrow," it warned, "the dagger will be in your heart."
Saladin did not prolong the campaign to find out.
Once a professor, fond of baiting the Sect of the Seven,
was confronted by an offended student with the choice be-

tween a purse of gold or an Assassin's dagger. When the

professor was later asked why he no longer lambasted the
heretics, he replied he had been dissuaded by arguments
weighty and trenchant.
VA L L E Y O F T H E A S S A S S I N S

What was the secret of Hasan-i-Sabbah's diabolical power?

How did he inspire devotees to fanatical murders, to suicide

without fear?

For that secret I opened the book of Marco Polo.

The Old Man (wrote Marco Polo) had caused a valley be
tween two mountains to be enclosed, and turned it into a

garden, the largest, most beautiful ever seen. In it were pa

vilions and palaces, all covered with gilding and exquisite

jainting. And there were runnels flowing with wine, milk,
loney, and water, and numbers of damsels, the most beautiful

in the world, who could play on all manner of instruments,

sing most sweetly, and dance in a manner charming to behold.
Now no man was allowed to enter the garden save his
Hashashin (Assassins). There was a fortress at the entrance
strong enough to resist all the world, and no other way to get

in. He kept at his Court a number of youths from twelve

to twenty, such as had a taste for soldiering. To these he

used to tell tales about Paradise, just as Mahomet had been
wont to do; and they believed him, just as the Saracens be
lieved Mahomet. Then he would introduce them into his

garden, some four or six or ten at a time, having made them

drink a certain potion (hashish) which cast them into a deep
sleep, and then causing them to be carried in.
When they awoke and found themselves in a place so

charming, they deemed it Paradise in very truth. And the

damsels dallied with them to their heart's content, so they

had what young men would have; and with their own good
will would never have quitted the place.
Now when this Prince wanted any of his Hashashin to
send on a mission, he would cause that potion whereof I
171

spoke to be given to one of the youths in the garden, and

had him carried into the palace.

There he would say, "Go thou and slay so-and-so, and when
thou returnest my angels shall bear thee again into Paradise.

And shouldst thou die, natheless will my angels carry thee

back into Paradise. Thus there was no order of his they would

not affront any peril to execute. In this manner the Old One

got his people to murder any one he desired. Tims the great
dread he inspired in all princes made them become his tribu
taries, that he might abide at peace and amity with them.

Tales that recall the fanaticism of the Assassins are legion.

It is said that once, during a truce, Henry, Count of Cham
pagne and King of Jerusalem, was visiting the Old Man of

Syria. As they walked together they saw two youths in white

sitting on a fortress tower. "Have you any subjects as obedi

ent as mine?" asked the Old Man. With that he made a sign
and the two boys leaped to their deaths on the rocks below.

So honorable such a death, so certain the Devotee's entry

into Paradise, it is said mothers wept to see their sons return
alive from the Old Man's missions.

The Old Man of the Mountains needed no army. For the

defense of his empire he depended solely upon hashish, the

dagger, the lone Assassin. Against all the forces of Islam and
Christendom the Old One's defense was impregnable. But
the Mongols defeated him with their eyes.

By permitting none but slant-eyed Mongols in his camp,

Genghis Khan's grandson made it impossible for an Assassin
to reach him. One by one he stormed the Assassins' strong
holds and massacred the defenders. Ruknu-din, sixth and last

Grand Master of the Assassins, turned faint-hearted and, on

promise of mercy, surrendered the Eagle's Nest. True to
form, the Mongols butchered the Assassins to a man and
built a pyramid of their heads.

In view of such intriguing legend and history, I was filled

1 7 2

with the utmost desire to climb up to the Rock of Alamut in

the Elburz Mountains and see was was left of the palaces

and gardens, the damsels and hashish smokers, the rivulets

of milk and wine that once flowed in the Old Man's Para

dise in the Valley of the Assassins.

LORD OF ALAMUT

In Tehran I recruited Steve Palmer, ex-Marine lieutenant

teaching at the American Community School, and Cliff

Curney, ex-G.I. visiting parents at the U.S. Embassy, and

set out for the Valley of the Assassins.

Dr. Chuck Hulak of the American Hospital drove us the
first hundred milesto Kasvin. There Cliff Curney presented
a letter from his father to the Kasvin Director of Education.

The Director had never been to the Valley of the Assassins,

but he knew someone who had.

Within fifteen minutes into his office stepped Mohammed

Vali Rashvand, Arbob of Alamut, Lord of the Eagle's Nest,

owner of the Valley of the Assassinsthe modern Old Man

of the Mountains!

"I am honored," he salaamed, "by your visit to my domain.

May you have a trip to always remember." He began send

ing notes, phoning, arranging horses, guides, food, lodgings.
"Please, no horses, guides, lodgings," I protested; "we can't
a ff o r d s u c h l u x u r i e s . "

"Fear no expense," he said. "You are my guests."

Hulak drove us fifteen miles up a lane to a mud-walled
city under the mountains. Here the mayor sallied from the
gate, bowed to Mohammed Vali, had Persian carpets spread
under a mulberry grove where we were seated cross-legged to
sip tea from tiny glasses. Presently a lad, wearing a live sheep
around his shoulders, capered over the knoll, followed by
the village elders. They salaamed to Mohammed Vali and
1 7 ^

set the sheep before him, in token of the town's fealty to the
Old Man of the Mountain. The sheep was ours, he said, to
be killed and roasted for a feast in our honor. But, feeling
tender toward the sheep, we settled for eggs, rice and mawst
(yogurt).
When Mohammed Vali ordered horses, we compromised
for a burro to carry our packs and set out afoot up the moun
tain trail with the blessings of the Lord of Alamut behind
and his ambassadors hurrying on to make straight the way
before.
FROM

THE

EAGLE'S

NEST

All afternoon we zig-zagged up the mountain wall to the

heights of Kustin Pass. There in the snow, we got our first
glimpse into the Valley of the Assassins.
It was just as Marco Polo described it, a deep valley en
closed by snow-topped ranges. Every pass, every important
hilltop was crowned by some tower, a cracking wall, a crum
bling castle.
Marco Polo had said it was a Paradise, and as we climbed

out of the sun-baked plain and looked into that fertile val
ley, it seemed Paradise indeed. Each village, clinging to the

slopes, was surrounded by terraced fields. It was just Spring

in the mountains and every meadow of green was aflame with
the scarlet of poppies.
When, at evening, we descended to the village of Kustinlar
the mayor issued to welcome us. He led us to the finest mud

house in tovra. It was flat-roofed, with kitchen, chicken roost,

and stable downstairs, a living room upstairs. Setting our

shoes on the veranda we padded across deep rugs and lounged
against pillows lining the walls. Three double doors opened
on the veranda looking across the roofs, the contoured fields,

the poplar groves, the platted chartreuse of the valley floor

to the icy peak of Takht-i-Sulaiman (throne of Solomon).
174

Presently the eldest of the mayor's three wives set a fourfoot tray in the center of the floor. On ita hill of rice, sur
rounded with bowls of mawst, ghee, stewed greens, meat,

goat cheese. Instead of eating utensils several sheets of bread,

like pancakes a yard long and a foot wide, were dropped in
front of us. As we sat cross-legged around the tray, Steve

reminded me to keep my foot off his bread, but I could not

see it mattered. His bread was already on the floor.

The mayor poured the ghee, stew, meat and mawst over
the hill of rice and with his fingers daintily mixed them to

gether. Rolling chunks of bread into scoops, we all shoveled

at the mixture in a sort of race, to see who could eat the most
in shortest time.

Next morning we slid into the valley floor and labored un

til long after dark scaling up and down the mountain on
which the crumbling Assassin's fort still guards entrance to
the valley of Alamut Rud. The second morning, from Dozdaksar we got our first glimpse of the Rock of Alamut, jutting
like a colossal triangle of slate at the end of a gorge.
It took us until afternoon, scaling along the walls of the

gorge, to reach Alamut's sheer face. Working around behind

we discovered an ancient stairway. Sections of wall still clung

to the cliff tops. An isolated crag, commanding the stairway,

still supported a turret. Up we clambered to the narrow sum
mit. It was littered with fragments of glazed pottery from
the time when Huaglu Khan broke up housekeeping. We

peered into vaulted underground storerooms. We scuffed

through the thick-walled keep where the Mongols burned
Hasan-i-Sabbah's heretical library. We scaled along channels
for collecting rain water into siege cisterns. We walked
through the tunnel connecting one face of the rock with the
o t h e r.

The village below was shaded in giant maples, its terraced

fields fanning down into the valley, its streams and lanes
175

lined with poplar groves while, beyond, the white head of

Mount Elbruz reared over all. The Valley of the Assassins

looked much as Marco Polo described it, a paradise on earth.

As we sat on the highest nub of rock, where Hasan-i-Sabbah
often watched for the return of his emissaries of death, we
regretted only that "the damels, fairest ever seen," were miss

ing, that the runnels did not flow with milk and honey, and
there was no drop of wine in the whole Moslem valley. But
there was hashish!

A PUFF OF THE MYSTIC JOURNEY

Nightly in the Valley of the Assassins, men gathered about

their charcoal braziers and delved into what they referred to
as the "mysteries," the "Green Parrot," the "mystic journey."
"Is the 'Green Parrot' hashish?" I asked.

"Oh, no," they clicked their tongues. "Hashish is illegal."

Yet when I asked to take their pictures they thrust the pipe
behind them. The camera out of sight, the pipe reappeared
and the air was blue again with sweet-smelling smoke.
The passport to the "mystic journey" was not a hubblebubble as I imagined. It consisted of a clay ball, hollow,
glazed, two inches in diameter, on an eight-inch wooden

stem. Instead of a bowl, only a pin hole.

First, the clay ball was heated on charcoals. Then the

smoker produced a small tin box from which a brown pea

was reverently lifted and pressed over the hole in the pipe. A
glowing ember was then held vwth tongs over the mound of

hashish while the smoker blew through the pipe until the

charcoal burned bright red. The fiery ember was then pressed
on the hashish and a long, deep breath inhaled through the
pipe. After a moment, with a contented sigh, the smoker al
lowed the blue smoke to trickle from mouth and nostrils.
176

After several luxurious drafts the hashish was consumed

and the pipe passed to the next man.

The smokers claimed it made them feel light, strong,
clever. It made them look red-eyed, heavy and dull. The
result; they sat up half the night laughing and singing.
I wondered what made hashish so dreaded that it is men

tioned only indirectly. What were its properties that incited

Assassins of old to spectacular murders, to suicide without
fear, to belief they were already in paradise? Only one way
t o fi n d o u t !

That night in the village beneath Alamut's sheer face

when the pipe was offered I took it. Thumbing a bead of the
"mysteries" over the hole and holding an emher against it,
I sipped the tasteless smoke until the mound was gone.

I expected to rise from the floor, fly several times around

the room and alight on the ceiling. I remained earthbound.
Instead of roaring like a fruminous Assassin itching to mur

der Saladin, I yawned like a sleepy kitten and wanted to go

to bed. This I did, hoping for some exotic adventures in my
dreams. I had them. I dreamed little animals were crawling
over me and awoke and, ye gods, they were!

Shaking out my blanket, I fled to the adjoining roof and

went back to sleep. This time I dreamed water was splashing
in my face, and awoke, and, by Zeus, it wasa cloudburst!
Far from feeling like a fearless Assassin about to stab a

crusading count, I was terrified to face again the defenders

of that room. They had, I felt, inhaled far more hashish than
I.
AN ASSASSIN STRIKES

Insects were not the only assassins left in the shadow of

Alamut.

It was in Shuristan, our fourth night in the Valley. We

177

were lounging in pillows and carpets on the mayor's veranda,

when into our midst stalked the Assassin.

At first we thought the mayor's vwves were arguing the

price of mulberries. When a crowd gathered we surmised it
was a political debate. When whacking and thumping
sounded, we agreed a driver was beating his mule. But when
we heard that shriek, we no longer doubtedan Assassin had
struck!

We sprang for the steps as a man dripping with blood

staggered up. With his hands he caught Cliff's shirt front.
"In the name of Allah, give me medicine," he gasped.
What Cliff saw made him turn pale and fall back. The
man was so blood-smeared I could not locate his wound, but
as he clutched for me, I saw itand sat down. Instead of his

ear was a bloody hole.

C l i f f r e m e m b e r e d t h e s u l f a n i l a m i d e i n h i s fi r s t - a i d k i t . A s

I left to him the nausea of dusting it in that frightful hole,

the entire village gathered. Women wailed and pounded their
chests. Some scooped up dust and poured it on their heads.
One caught up the hem of her dress and gave it a rip. A little
boy sat on his haunches sobbing and bumping his head against

a post. The wounded man just squatted, pale and silent,

watching the blood drip from his chin.

As Cliff started to bandage his wound, the man implor

ingly held up his palm. There like a piece of wilted lettuce,
lay his crumpled ear. Would we stick it on again?
While we bound the wound, a lone Persian charged up
and down the path below shouting and waving his fist at
us on the porch. The mayor would leap defiantly to his feet,
but the crowd would hold him back and drive off the assail
ant with stones.

Slowly we unraveled the story from the earless victim. He

and his brother owned a field but decided to divide and each

178

farm half. When the crop came up, the brother saw the vic
tim's half richer than his and claimed he was swindled. In

the ensuing conversation the victim lost his ear.

"Yes," I pressed, "but how'd your brother cut it off?"

"Oh, he didn't cut it off," moaned the victim, "he bit it

off."

I was ready now to leave the Valley, secure in the knowl

edge that the Sect of the Assassins is far from extinct.
THE PATRON SAINT OF WINE, WOMEN AND
SONG

Ten days and four hundred miles beyond Tehran we

jounced at dawn into a town not marked on my map.
"What town's this?" I asked, looking at the flat roofs and

mud bricks.

"Nishapur," the driver answered.

Nishapur! The name sounded familiar. Then I remem

bered the lines from the "Rubaiyat":

Whether at Nishapur or Babylon,

Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run.
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop.
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Nishapur was the home and resting place of Omar Khay

yam!

"Stop the bus!" I cried. "I've got to get out here."

What matter if I had a free ride all the way to Mashhad!

I could not pass through Nishapur without paying homage

to the patron saint of wine, women and song.
Once off the bus, however, I realized there is more to mak

ing a pilgrimage to the tomb of Omar Khayyam than simply

rushing to the site. Certain props are necessarynamely, a
book of verses, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and a "thou."
179

In a town the size of Nishapur these items should be easy

to obtain, but I presently diseovered why it was that Omar
plaeed them in "Paradise enow."
First, bread does not eome in loaves in Persia. It eomes in

sheets, like paneakes, but of Paul Bunyan dimensions. I

bought one in the chi khana (tea house) where I breakfasted
and rolled it in my knapsaek.
A book of verses presented greater diffieulties, but the chi
khana proprietor steered me to a shop whose owner had been
to an English sehool. I eame away triumphant with none
other than FitzGerald's "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam."
But a jug of wine, that was impossible! Mohammed had
put his speeial eurse on wine and outlawed it forever. Even
to inquire for wine made the Moslems turn on me a look in

whieh I read their desire to insure salvation in heaven at my

expense.

No wonder Omar aequired sueh eolossal thirst and wrote

of drinking wine as a brave earouse.
You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse

I made a Second Marriage in my house;

Divorced old Barren Reason from my bed.
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
Still, if Omar could take the daughter of the vine to spouse
in Nishapur, then so could I. With renewed ardor I pursued
my search. Finally I was whispered to a shop where, I was
assured, I could buy wine, since it was run by an Armenian

unbeliever. But I arrived too early for sueh night spots to be

open. I pounded on the gate:
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and
strikes

The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

1 Rn

I listened. No stir. At length I was joined by several other

thirsty travelers.
And as the Cock crew, those who stood before

The tavern shouted"Open then the Door!

You know how little while we have to stay,

And once departed may return no more."

That brought footsteps. The bolt slammed back, the door
swung in and we were invited:

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

Your Winter garment of Repentance fling!
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutterand the Bird is on the wing.

I bought an earthen jug and held it under the flowing

spigot until it was filled to the brim. Ah,
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute.

With my treasures tucked in my knapsack I fell in with a

stream of pilgrims flowing toward the Garden of Omar
Khayyam a mile or so beyond town.
FULFILLING A PROPHECY

Advancing across a prairie, we entered, by ornamental

gateposts, a straight road planted with trees. Beyond, I saw
an archway into a high-walled enclosure overflowing with
foliage and surmounted by a dome of blue tiles.
I was anxious to see whether it had turned out as Omar

Khayyam had once prophesied: "My grave will be in a spot

where trees will shed their blossoms on me twice a year."
I hurried through the gate, out of the wasteland into a
1 Ri

garden of trees, flowers, walks, pools. The "wilderness" with

out was suddenly "Paradise enow." At the far end of the

garden, standing upside down in a pool was the mosque with

blue, pointed dome.

"Where's Omar Khayyam's tomb?" I asked a student who

spoke English.

He led me down the walk beside the pool. "There it is,"

he said.

To my immense relief, Omar was not buried in the mosque,

but alongside it. A stairway led up to a marble platform,
and there Omar lay under a stone shaft. Carved near the
top, above an inscription in Persian, was a globe, measured

by a pair of dividers symbolizing how Omar Khayyam divided

the Persian calendar. In Persia Omar Khayyam is remem

bered not as poet but as mathematician and astronomer.
Then, to my horror, I noticed he had been buried without
the slightest regard for his prophecy. No trees leaned over his
grave to shed their blossoms on him. Now one thing a
prophet bitterly resents is having people neglect to fulfill his
prophecies. I plunged into neighboring groves and, after

scouring pathways and picnic grounds, returned triumphant

with the seeds of a cherry and an apricot. These I thumbed

into the earth, one each side of his tomb, along with a date

pit for good measure. In five, ten, or twenty years, barring

the gardener who may pluck the shoots as weeds, Omar will

have his blossoms and become an accredited prophet.

A B O O K O F V E R S E S U N D E R N E AT H A B O U G H

Omar's prophecy attended to, I was free to find a "thou"

to complement my book of verses, loaf of bread and jug of

wine.

Though it was Friday (Moslem Sunday) and the garden

was filled with girls, there was a serious shortage of "thou's."

1 R*?.

Even when I saw a man picnicking with as many as three

ladies and I hoped he could loan me a daughter, he became
so fiercely possessive at my approach that I realized all were
his rvives.

Perhaps I could bribe some unescorted girl to pose as

"thou." But when I peered over a hedge after the tinkle of
feminine laughter, I caused only a flurry of purdahs as they
veiled their faces. To them I muttered.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some

Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;

Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go.
Nor heed the rumble of the distant Drum!

But alas, even among those who showed some disposition

to "take the cash and let the credit go" the situation was
hopeless, for each wore a chuttar which hid all but one eye
and the toes of their shoes. Flirtation was impossible. There
was no way of knowing but that her other eye was crossed,
her legs bowed, or that she was a great grandmother eighty
winters old.

In despair, I retreated to a shady bough and the solace in

my jug.

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn

I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd"While you live.
Drink!for once dead, you never shall return."
As I lowered my jug I beheld across it a visiona beau

tiful girl in red, baggy trousers, turned-up slippers, a gold

embroidered vest of blue velvet. She wore no veil!only two
masses of black hair falling across each temple. I smiled. She
smiled. I motioned her closer. She came and stood shyly be
side the pool. I looked at her and knew in all Persia there
was no lovelier "thou." I opened my book and read to her.
183

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Breadand Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
I took out a sheet of bread and offered it to her. She took

it and sat nibbling. I held my jug of wine. She took it too,

but on smelling the forbidden vintage almost dropped it in
fright. So I said:
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Today of Past Regrets and Future Fears:

Tomorrow!Why, Tomorrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

She would not sip, but she did come and lean upon my
shoulder, not, as I had hoped, persuaded by my verses, but
only to have a closer look at the curious printing in my book.
In disappointment I found the lines:

The Wordly Hope men set their Hearts upon

Turns Ashesor it prospers; and anon.
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty face.
Lighting a little hour or twois gone.

Then, suddenly, a veiled woman appeared beyond the pool

and gave an exasperated cry, "Jasmine!" and my pretty "thou"

caught up her doll and fled. Lonesome, I tipped my jug and

recited after her:

There was the door to which I found no Key;

There was the veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk awhile of me and thee

There wasand then no more of thee and me.

By now the sun was dropping behind the wall, and the
picnickers were drifting from the garden. I thought of Omar,
once so ebullient, now lying crumpled beneath the stone. And
I remembered what he wrote:
184

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

And wash the Body whence the Life has died.
And Lay me Shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.

I could only think how dry and dusty the tongue must be
that sang those lineseight hundred years without a drop of
winehe, the apostle of the grape! The thought of his thirst
was staggering, especially to me, who had such sufficiency

of wine. In the deepening dark I tiptoed to his tomb and

poured the remainder of my wine upon the stone. Then,
upside down upon his grave, I turned my empty jug, for he
had written:

And, when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass

Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made Oneturn down an empty Glass!
With this I knew I had kept my vigil long enough. Omar
himself had warned:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend

Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, andSans End!

Later I too would have time enough to brood among the
dead. Now as I sprang into a treefor the garden gates were
closedand reached the top of the wall, I looked back.
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;

How oft hereafter rising, look for us

Through this same Gardenand for one in vain!
I dropped on the far side of the wall and hurried off
into the night.

185

MASHHADI

BLAKE

Harun-al-Rashid, Caliph of the Arabian Nights, started the

chain of events that makes Mashhad a rival of Mecca. In

A.D. 809 he was marching through Khorasan to crush a revolt

beyond the Oxus. While resting at a country palace outside
now-ruined Tus, he ate some fruit, fell ill, and died, being
buried in the adjoining garden.
Ten years later his son and successor. Caliph Mamun
(whose tomb I visited in Tarsus), was returning to Baghdad
from Merv (in U.S.S.R.) and stopped to visit his father's
tomb.

With him was his son-in-law, Ali-al-Rizah, the eighth

Imam, successor to Mohammed, and leader of Shiah faithful.

Here Ali ate some grapes, fell suddenly ill and died. Mamun
mourned Ali's death and buried him in the garden beside
Harun-al-Rashid. Over the two graves he erected a mauso
leum.

But the Shiahs refuse to believe Ali died a natural death,

for the Koran prophesied that all Imams would die vio
lently. Caliph Mamun was accused of poisoning the grapes
and the country palace where Ali-al-Rizah died was branded

Mashhadplace of martyrdom.
Soon pilgrims began trudging to Mashhad to gain merit
at the Imam's tomb. A town sprang up to accommodate
them. Shah Abbas, to discourage pilgrimages to Meccain
the grip of "heretical" Sunna Turksrichly endowed the
shrine, and conferred the title "Mashhadi" on its pilgrims.
As an example, the Shah himself walked eight hundred miles
from Isfahan to Mashhad to pay homage to the Saint of
Khorasan.

Today the tomb of Imam Rizah is the richest, most beau

tiful shrine in Persiaperhaps in all Islam. To it the Shiah

faithful flock, 30,000 yearly. They come with gifts and sa-

laams for Imam Rizah, but with curses and hatred for tomh-

mate, Harun-al-Rashid. In fact, to show their loathing for

the Arab Caliph who conquered Persia, each pilgrim kicks
Harun-al-Rashid's tomb before lighting a taper in front of
Imam Rizah's.

Now to me, for whom the Arabian Nights and not the
Koran is the key to paradise, such abuse on the bones of the
mighty Caliph of Baghdad and hero of A Thousand Nights
and a Night, eried for vengeance. 1 determined as 1 ap
proached the shrine to reverse traditionkick the tomb of
Imam Rizah and light a taper on that of Harun-al-Rashid.

Ahead, down an unpaved avenue, 1 saw the golden, deli

cately-pointed dome. Beside it stood a minaret stoppered with
a covered gallery. A street circled the outer walls of the

shrine. On one side, a courtyard opened before an immense,

arched and recessed facade, covered with tiles and inscrip
tions from the Koran. It was the celebrated Golden Gate,

erected by Malik Shah with loot from India and the Taj
Mahal.

Unfortunately 1 paused to photograph the Golden Gate.

No sooner had my camera unfolded than a little boy pointed
and yelled. Immediately 1 was surrounded by waving, shriek
ing pilgrims. Without waiting to see what would happen, I
collapsed my camera, bulled through the erowd with the

faithful hitting and spitting after me. 1 jumped on my bor

rowed bicycle and pumped baek to the safety of the American

Hospital. There 1 learned that unbelievers have been torn
to pieces for simply entering the shrine, to say nothing of

those who tried to take its picture. Thanks to Allah, 1 was

preserved from kicking the Imam's tomb!
Although my visit was brief and my intention frustrated, I

still felt 1 had earned the right to wear the title of a pilgrim.
Henceforth 1 would be "Mashhadi" Blake.

187

T H E B A D PA R T O F A F G H A N I S TA N

"This is all the money 1 have to get to Afghanistan," 1 said,

unrolling a fist full of change. "Will you take me for three
tomons?"

The fare was eight ($1.60), but 1 thought he would ask

five and settle for four.

"Hop in," he motioned, taking the three.

When 1 looked in the bus 1 wondered about the two empty
seats the driver said he had. There were so many passengers
you eould not see out the windows. In room for twenty-two,
thirty-five were packed.
This was accomplished by piling luggage in the aisle and
between the seats to make a platform level with the windows.
Instead of sitting in the seats, the passengers squatted crosslegged atop the bundles. Thus the bus could never be said to

be loaded. With a little squeezing there was always room for

one or two more.

For my Armenian friend who paid his eight tomons, a

corner of the driver's bench was cleared. For my three tomons
1 was given a bundle in the aisle. This was very comfortablesofter than any seat, and 1 could lie back against other

bundles. But just as 1 was drifting asleep some women dressed

like black Ku Klux Klanners began poking me and cackling.
1 did my best to ignore it until every man and woman in
the bus was growling at me. 1 thought them jealous of my
comfort until the driver stopped the bus and explained to the
Armenian who explained to me.
The Moslems considered it offensive to have a man, par
ticularly a dog of an unbeliever, sitting so close to their ladies.
1 was transferred to an eight-fomon seat where 1 displaced a
woman to the floor and a little girl to her father's lap.
That seat was no bargain. It was so short 1 had to ride with
my knees tucked under my chin. It bounced me up and down
188

until my back was rubbed raw and my shins battered black

and blue. With every lurch, a pipe supporting the baggagepiled roof bashed me in the shoulder. Then the woman be
hind, as if in revenge, unswallowed down my back. In addi
tion, the driver kept picking up passengers. First, a soldier
who sat on a bundle in the aisle with his feet on top of mine.
Then the driver of a broken-down truck, who shared the sol

dier's bundle and his footrest. He must have been trucking

goats, for his scent drowned out all the other not-inconsid
erable aromas.

At dawn as we unscrambled at Usafabad, I counted fortyfive passengers spill from doors, roof and windows. I swore
I'd never ride another bus.

After pilau (rice) and mawst I napped until mid-morning

on a chi kham bench, then started walking to Afghanistan.
I got as far as the army fort (the original Pentagon) on the
hill beyond the eity walls. From there the trail evaporated
in the heat waves of the waste ahead. There were hoofprints
and wagon tracks in the sand, but not a tire tread. I crawled
into the shade of the fort and waited all day. When the
weekly bus ground by that evening I had no choice but eatch
it.

The "Afghan Mail" proved quite comfortable. After bounc

ing across a vast desert inhabited by gazelle which bounded
alongside the bus and crossed and criss-crossed in front, we
passed a little Persian fort, dove into a dry wadi and emerged
by another fort in Afghanistan.
Five things were immediately noticeable. There was a road
dirt. Everybody wore pointed, loop-the-loop shoes. Men
sported highly embroidered fezzes under their turbans, with
glittering vests to match. The women, wearing veils that fell
from a skull cap to the ground, with only a few threads pulled
before the eyes, looked like walking tepees. And every house
was a fort. Afghanistan is living proof that every man's home
i8q

is his castle. Instead of a farmyard fence, the Afghan builds

a battlement. Instead of a cottage, he erects a keep. Instead

of corners, he employs turrets. Instead of windows, he looks
out of rifle slits.

It was morning when the bus rolled by a sprawling mud

citadel on the hill into Herat, the city Alexander founded
(Alexandria of the Aryans) and Genghis Khan destroyed
(massacring a million).
An English-speaking police major welcomed me at the
caravanserai and warned me not to take pictures of "the bad
part of Afghanistan."

I was at a loss as to what was the "bad part of Afghanistan."

At that moment a horse trotted up carrying a man with a
heavily-hooded woman bouncing behind. Much amused, I
raised my camera to take their picture. The policeman sprang
in front and shooed horse and riders out of sight.
"Wby do you make your women wear such heavy veils?"
I asked. "Are they that ugly?"

"Oh no. Afghan women so beautiful," he explained, "with

out veil they'd drive men wild."

"That beautiful? Then I agree with you. Hiding them

under tents is the bad part of Afghanistan."
IF THERE EVER WAS A SHANGRI-LA

If there ever was a Shangri-la, it's Bamian.

One hundred and fifty miles north of Kabul in the heart of

the Hindu Kush, it lies, a sunny valley sunken between icy

ranges, its entrance a narrow gorge guarded by peak-top for
tresses.

Sometime before the ken of history, a lost wanderer stum

bled into this secret canyon. His tales of its warmth and
beauty lured a eolony of Buddhists from far-off India to settle
there where they would be forever lost from the confusion,
190

violence, and injustice of the world. Three centuries before

Christ, Alexander stormed through the Hindu Kush and did
not find nor disturb the age-old seclusion and serenity of
Bamian.

Guarded by mountain walls, watered by streams from

perennial fields of snow, sunlit Bamian was green with gar
dens and groves, and its tiny settlement grew, became strong.
To adorn and bless their valley, they carved colossal statues
of Buddha into the upright canyon walls and honeycombed
the cliffs with chapels and monastery cells. These gigantic
statues, one taller than Niagara Falls, still stand, attesting to
the wealth, culture and devotion of that forgotten race.
But Bamian could not always keep its secret. Thirteen cen
turies after Christ, Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde
spilled out of central Asia through Samarkand and Balkh and
overflowed into the Hindu Kush. Rumors of a fabulous, hid

den valley came to him and he set out to find and loot it.
Picture a fantastic city set on top of a high mountain with
sheer sides. This is what Genghis Khan saw when Shar-iZohak blocked his entrance to the valley. After six months,
the baffled conqueror decided to abandon the siege. Then a
spy saw a defender on the battlement above drop his sword
and at night scale down by a secret way to retrieve it. Before
dawn Genghis Khan sent warriors up the same route to
surprise the guards and throw open the gates to his horde.
Ten miles farther up the valley cloud-topped Shar-iGholghola threw back the Mongol charges with equal ease
and for as many months. In one futile assault a whizzing
arrow from the towers transfixed the eye of Mutugen, killing
him instantly. Mutugen was Genghis Khan's grandson. In
anguish and in rage, Genghis Khan swore eternal revenge
upon every living thing upon the hill. Still the walls threw
back his every charge.
191

Then one day an arrow fell into his camp. Around its shaft
was a note: "If you will marry me, I will betray the city's
water." It was signed by the daughter of the King of Bamian.
Genghis Khan would promise anything to feast his revenge,
so the location of the spring fell by another arrow into his
hands. The spring was uncovered and a tunnel was found

connecting it with cisterns under the citadel. Through this

tunnel the Mongols crept and erupted within the walls to
unbar the gates.

True to his oath, Genghis Khan butchered every living

thing within the walls, even to the goats and chickens. He
burned the buildings, toppled the walls, and sowed the
ground with salt so that no other city should ever rise there,
never another plant take root. Of all living things, he spared
only the daughter of the King. He had her brought before
him, and, true to his promise, manied her.

The ceremony over, he said to his bride, "If your father

could not trust you, how shall I?" He brought his mace down
upon her skull, killing her on the spot.
With such a story it was not difhcult convincing Dave
Haugen, an ex-G.I. whose family lived in Kabul, that he
should see Bamian, and off we went.
B R E A K FA S T W I T H B U D D H A

For transportation one hundred and fifty miles into the

heart of the Hindu Kush, Dave and I rode the "Afghan
Mail." The last fifty miles took us through the wild and
spectacular Ghorband Gorge, up over nine-thousand-foot

Shibar Pass, and down into the tortured gorges of Bulula and
Shumbul.

It was as if Buddha himself had designed a labyrinth to

prevent man from ever finding the entrance to the warm and

lovely valley. We would have gone right by, if a passenger

192

had not pointed it out, a crack in the towering canyon wall,

out of which a stream foamed and pounded.

That was as close as the bus was going. Dave and I jumped

out and spent the night in our blankets by the torrent whose
music lulled us to sleep.

In the morning a truck came by, headed into the crack

over the remaining eighteen miles to Bamian.
On the threshold of Bamian Gorge, we crept under two

forts, still aloof and mighty on the cliffs. Ten miles beyond,
the canyon widened. There, with two rivers boiling together
at its base, stood a mountain like the prow of a ship. High

above the waters, palisades ran along the brink of the cliffs,
and above them, a series of bastions and battlements, turrets,

ramparts and keeps, led upward to a final castle whose towers

and buttresses tore the sky.

Even after eight centuries of desolation, Shar-i-Zohak had

lost little of its magnificence. It looked for all the world like
King Arthur's magic city of Camelot, or an illustration from
the Book of Oz.

We rolled on through a tunnel of trees, beside a river, into

a valley deep in greenery. Framed in an arch of trees ahead

we saw two colossal Buddhas standing like pre-historic giants
against the cliffs.

As Dave and I jumped from the truck to explore the valley

on foot, we each handed the driver five afgfianis (forty cents),

one afghani more than charged native Afghans. Evidently the

driver expected more from "millionaire" Americans. He threw
our money on the ground. Instead of doubling our offer, as
he hoped, we scooped up the bills and off we went thanking
him for the free ride.

As we were preparing to breakfast in the shade of the little

toe of the largest Buddha (173 feet high), two Afghans ap

proached. We thought they were the truck driver's lawyer

and the sheriff, but one introduced himself as guardian of

1 0 ^

antiquities of Bamian. Did we want to climb to the head of

Buddha? Of course we did. We would breakfast there. "Then

please accept the free services of this man to show the way,"
he said.

We circled around the mountain behind the statues,

mounting high above the valley, scaling past the entrances
to vaulted monastery cells and pillared temple rooms carved
into the rock face. At length we entered a tunnel that led
us, stooping, into the core of the mountain. Here we found

a semi-eircular gallery lined with windows. Through the cen

ter one we crawled across a bridge of stone onto a great rock
platform. This we realized was the braid of hair that crowns

the head of Buddha. Swallows and pigeons darted in and

out of the gallery windows, and eagles soared below us in the
valley air. We stood dizzy with the height, dazzled by the
panorama and in awe of the lost race that carved the mon
strous statue.

The old artisans had carved into the face of the cliff in such

a way that the massive Buddha stood in a niche. To keep

the colossus from toppling over and to help support its
weight, it was not completely severed from the mother rock.
Between its ankles a lofty archway led to temple halls within
the mountain.

Originally the statue and niche were stuccoed and brightly

colored. Paintings of Buddha teaching and of angels flying to
him with gifts still lined the vault over our heads with color

after eighteen hundred years. Most amazing of all, the robes

of Buddha hung in classic Greek style. The statues had been
carved by Greeksdescendants of colonists left behind by
Alexander!

The face of the Buddha, like every statue in the valley,

had been hacked away to the lower lip by Moslems who could
brook no graven image.

The feet of the smaller Buddha (a mere 114 feet high)

194

were missing. The queen of Bamian once had lumbago. Her

soothsayer blamed it on the feet of Buddha. She ordered the
statue's feet chopped away to the knees.
The cliff against which the giant Buddhas stand is an
ant hill of corridors, cubicles, galleries, windows, passageways,

sanctuary rooms. Up every tributary valley, similar cliffs are

likewise moled with niches, eaves, and cloisters, where pious

monks once meditated. High at the head of the valley is the

Dragon of Bamian, a limestone deposit with a split down its
back where it was wounded by Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali.

Steaming tears of torment still flow from its eyes in the form
of hot springs.
Perched there on the head of Buddha with all the won

ders of Bamian spread below us, Dave and I sat at breakfast

and threw our crumbs at the eagles.
CITY OF THE WAILING GHOSTS

"Shar-i-Gholghola," said our guide, pointing across the val

ley to a massive hill, flat on top and covered with ruins.
Shar-i-Gholghola means City of the Wailing Ghosts, socalled because since its citizens were massacred by Genghis
Khan none but ghosts have dwelt there.

If you doubt this, natives of Bamian will tell you, you

should have been there on a certain night in June when a
sliver moon was red like the half-closed eye of Satan. Then

you would have seen weird shapes flitting among the ruins
and heard tormented screams to make your blood run cold.
What they say is true, for I was there to see and hear it too.
It all started as Dave and I were lunching in the governor's

palace which now serves as hotel.

"These rooms look clean," said Dave. "Let's stay here to
night."
195

"What," I objected, "sleep under roof when you can sleep

under stars!"

"Sure," Dave answered, "stars might rain."

"How can you be so prosaic?" I marvelled. "If you had

ever read the Odyssey, Three Musketeers, Don Quixote,
Count of Monte Cristo, Idylls of the King, Tom Sawyer, or
any of the standard texts on adventure, you'd know you can't
go around sleeping just anywhere you like. It's got to be on
a raft, in a castle, on an island, ehained to a cliff, or in a

dungeon. If you ever want to amount to anything as an

adventurer, you've got to follow the books. Now I've studied

the books pretty thoroughly, and there is only one proper

place in all Bamian to sleep tonight."
"Where?" asked Dave, visibly impressed.

"Why, in the City of the Wailing Ghosts, of course."

So it was we set out to establish residence as the first

human inhabitants of Shar-i-Gholghola in seven centuries.

Since we had not had a drink of water in two days, our
initial problem was to find the spring the Prineess betrayed
to Genghis Khan. We circled the mountain, ranging up every
valley. Though there was water aplenty, no spring. Desper
ately thirsty, we decided to boil water from an irrigation
ditch. This was not easy beeause the curse of Genghis Khan's
kept any tree or bush from growing there. Using bones and
dead grass for fuel we finally managed to bring the water
in the eanteen eup to a boil. But then the water was too

hot to drink, so we dumped in eoffee and managed to queneh

our thirst.

After all the labor of boiling the water, we were so hungry

we ate a ean of salted peanuts. Now we were thirstier than
ever. And fresh out of water! Life was too short to boil an

other batch. Though the water in the diteh was muddy and
full of wigglers I deeided to sample it and diseovered the
196

filthier the water, the sweeter the taste. Agreeing that bugs

only added nourishment, both of us flopped on our stomaehs

a n d d r a n k o u r fi l l .

We then climbed Shar-i-Gholghola, where we looked down

the other side, and, in the only spot not explored, saw not
one, not two, not three, but four gurgling springs.
Undoubtedly they were the springs that once fed the cis
terns under Shar-i-Gholghola.

We spent the afternoon probing about the walls and

rooms and turrets, searching for arrowheads, jewels or coins
but finding mostly skulls, ribs and femurs. I pointed them
out to Dave as omens of an unnaturally interesting night.
Ghosts, I assured him, can no more resist a boneyard than
kittens can catnip.

At twilight, as we were sitting on the highest rampart bolt

ing our supper of half a cup of water apiece, Dave said,
"Would you mind explaining again in simple language just
what we accomplish by staying here instead of in the hotel?
Not that I am not enjoying every shiver of the cold and every
delicious drop of our supper, but I keep forgetting the pur
pose of it all."

"Dave," I answered, "you are really magnificent. I marvel

at you. You have the imagination of a dry stringbean, the
sensitivity of an old doorknob, the verve of a kitchen sink.
Hail, Sir Prune! We are going to sleep here in this bone-lit
tered dirt, in the heart of the Gity of the Wailing Ghosts,
because, man, this is Adventure with a capital A."
"Oh," said Dave.

Later as he crawled into his sleeping bag he came back

to the subject. "Just what did you say this wasDiscomfort
with a capital D? or was it Starvation with a capital S? or
Freezing with a capital F?"
"Godfish and pumpkins!" I replied. "If you believe in
197

transmigration you should be optimisticyou might even

get to be a turtle! If you'd only take your head out of that

sleeping bag, you'd see the army of the Mongols struggling

up the precipice to attack. There's the archer bending his
bow. Listen now as the arrow pierces the eye of Mutugen!
Look at Genghis Khan shaking his fist in rage at all of us.
There's the pretty Princess in the castle windowdown

goes the arrow that betrays the city's water. Now if you
look closely, you can see the Mongols coming silently out of
the water tunnels, springing upon the backs of the guards,
throwing open the gates for slaughter.

"That wail you hear comes from the damned and hated
soul of the Princess as Genghis Khan marries her one moment
and bashes her head in the next."

"Funny, I don't hear a damned thing," came Dave's voice

from inside his sleeping bag.
Well, just listen," I said. I sprang to my feet and went

galloping around the parapet, leaping and flapping my arms

and acting as I imagined a proper ghost should act. Getting
more into the spirit of the thing I gave out the most frightful

wail I eould generate. The echo that came quavering back

from the opposite cliffs was so horrible even my hair stood
on end.

Soon every hound in Bamian was howling, every donkey

braying. When children began crying in the fort-yards below,
a fiend took possession of me. W^earing my poncho like
the wings of a bat, I hovered on the sky line, hissing and
gurgling like a soul in torment. I leaped flapping into the
ruins, through which I raced shrieking and howling until
every shepherd in the hills cast an armful of wood on his

fire, until fanned-up flames dartled in every fort. The whole

valley became a turmoil of lamps, fires, echoes, howls, brays,

excited shouts, frightened criesuntil the ghost, completely
198

exhausted, dropped to earth and, folding his wings about

him, fell fast asleep.
So it is that natives of Bamian will tell you of the direful

night in June when the sliver moon was red like the half-

closed eye of Satan, and the soul of the treacherous Princess

escaped her torments in Hell only to be scourged by avenging

demons through the City of the Wailing Ghosts.

199

VII

JEWEL OF INDIA
VA L L E Y O F S U D D E N D E AT H

"Crom Kabul I caught a ride in a Morrison-Knutson-Company sedan, down through the Khyber, the most infa
mous pass in the world.

In 3,500 miles of mountain barrier the Khyber is the only

pass open to India throughout the year. Through it, con
querors of India have threaded since time began. Through

it, for thousands of years, Bactrian caravans carrying the silk

trade of China and the rug trade of Persia have jostled drom
edary caravans carrying the spice trade of India.
After zigzagging up a ten-thousand-foot ridge, the road

from Kabul dropped into the sweltering plains of Jalalabad.

All along the way were tribesmen with herds of sheep, goats,
and camels, migrating to the uplands of Afghanistan for sum
mer grazing. With them came their black-eyed, jet-haired
and savagely beautiful women, wearing red pantaloons.
As we descended into Kabul River Gorge on the approaches
to the Khyber, I thought of those who had gone that way
before. In 326 b.c. my old companion Alexander was march
ing there. Greco-Buddhist monuments still crown the hill

tops. Ruins of stone cities, buried beneath mud villages, hark

back 1,300 years when Greek kings ruled in India.

Then, in 1001 a.d., Mahmud of Ghazni, "mighty Mahmud" of the Rubaiyat, plunged through the pass on his
twelve winterly raids. From one raid he lugged back three

and a half tons of gold coins, three tons of silver plate, one
-

ton of gold ingots, sixty-four tons of unwrought silver, and

150 pounds of diamonds, pearls, and rubies.
He was followed in 1398 by the Golden Horde of Timur
the TerribleTamerlanewho looted and slaughtered as far
as Delhi.

Next through Khyber, in 1505, swept Baber and his Afghan

tribesmen, planting in India the Mogul (Mongol) dynasty
which built the Garden of Shalimar and the Taj Mahal.
The raid of Nadir Shah, the Persian, was next. In 1738
he stripped the gems from the Taj Mahal and hauled back
through Khyber a 1,200-million-dollar treasure, including the
Mogul's celebrated Peacock Throne, as well as enough gold
to build the Golden Gate at the shrine of Imam Rizah, from

which I was chased by pilgrims back in Mashhad.

Then followed Ahmad Shah who in 1748 made the Khyber
part of Afghanistan. In 1757 the British under Glive aided
the Sikhs in trying to seize the Khyber. The British succeeded
in the First Afghan War (1842), lost it in the Indian Mutiny
(1857), and reoccupied the whole Khyber in the Second
Afghan War (1878).
In 1897 Afridi tribesmen seized the pass. Gordon High
landers stormed Fort Dargai while Winston Ghurchill, back
tracking Alexander, circled through Malakand Pass to recap
ture the Khyber. The Afghans under Amanullah tried to re
take it in the Third Afghan War (1919), but the British
seized the only water hole and the Afghans had to retreat.
Such is the history of the Khyber.
There I was, bounding at fifty miles an hour through that
pass where every foot represented a man dead fighting to
hold it, capture it, defend a caravan, or exterminate a village.
I was riding where great men walked. It did not give me time
to savor its history, its terrors and its mysteries.
I tapped the driver, stepped out and waved goodbye.
The pass was a grapevine of roads, trails, and tunnels. There
2 0 1

was one asphalt road with a picture of a camel, meaning it

was for caravans. A second asphalt road with a picture of a

carfor autos. A third road, of rails with a picture of a loco

motive, was for trains. In addition, there were innumerable

lanes sweeping off into canyons, to walled villages or to for

tresses.

At the village, Landi Kotal (where Alexander and Church

ill turned off through Malakand Pass), I came to a mammoth
fort. As I approached, I saw the sign, "Khyber Rifles." What
better place to spend the night than with the traditional
guardians of the Khyber?
Back in Kabul I had been reading a wild frontier yarn.
King of the Khyber Rifles. So I said to the gray-shirted, khakiturbaned Afridi sentry pacing before the gate tower, "I'm
looking for King of the Khyber Rifles."
"You mean Captain Came of the Khyber Rifles, sir," sug
gested the sergeant. "This orderly will show you to his quar
ters."

Without bothering to correct him, I went along.

"I was walking through the pass," I told the blond English
man to whom I was presented, "when I saw your sign and
dropped in to meet King of the Khyber Rifles. But Came
of the Khyber Rifles will do just as well."
Captain Came laughed, took my pack, introduced me to
Colonel Sharif Khan, showed me around the fort, got a truck
and drove me up and down the pass. He showed me how
the hilltop forts are situated so travelers below can pass from
sight of one fort to sight of the next, lest they be ambushed
by wild tribesmen from the hills. He showed me the tank
traps, dragon teeth, camouflaged gun emplacements, under
ground arsenals designed to stop the Cermans should they
have poured across Afghanistan from Russia.
That evening on the lawn before supper. Colonel BChan
regaled us with tales of the fun-loving Afridis, Wiziris, Shin-

waris. The year before Wiziris, in playful mood, besieged him

and his garrison in an outlying fort. He was constantly shelled
by homemade 3-inch artillery. One shell plunked through his
quarters while he was sleeping but failed to explode. In one
night attack a wild band of Wiziris leapt his barbed wire

and stormed to the gates before they were picked off. An

other time a strafing spitfire crash-landed nearby and he had
to lead a sortie on which half his troops were shot down
around him. But he managed to rescue the pilot and prevent

the plane's deadly 40-mm cannons from falling into Wiziri

hands. It was three months before a British column could

fight to their rescue.

The British were able to keep such sieges and raids to a
small-war scale only by paying the tribes when they were

peaceful and refusing to pay when not. Thus the English

succeeded in making it a crime to murder anyone on the
main road. What goes on twenty feet off the road, which is
not India but "Unadministered tribal territory," may be

imagined from the heavily fortified farmsteads that dot the

pass. In a tower in the center of each farm-fort a guard is

posted with a long rifle to pick off any blood enemies that
try to sneak up on his family. If a tribesman's third cousin
is killed, he consults his lawyer to determine whom he must
shoot to give him the proper degree of revenge. Feuding is the
Pathan's national sport.
For arms and ammunition, they make their own. A man

in his village, the Colonel said, can make a Bren machine

gun Mr. Bren could not distinguish from the original. When
the Pathans run out of steel for guns, they ambush a loco

motive. The pistons are highly valued for making breach

blocks for cannon.

"When you team such ingenuity with the tribes' fun-loving

spirit," the Colonel said, "give them no movies for recreation
203

and a year of bad crops, you have the elements that make
Khyber Pass what it is now, always has been, and ever shall
be, the Valley of Sudden Death."
OFF

ON

GHOST

HUNT

Northwest Frontier was in turmoil.

The Red Shirts were for union with India, the Green

Shirts for joining Pakistan.

The British had scheduled a referendum to decide, but

each faction threatened to block the other from voting.

Troops began pouring into Peshawaramong them the

Khyber Rifles.
With Colonel Khan and his detachment from Landi

Kotal, I rode through the Khyber, past Fort Jamrudmighty

relic of Sikh sovereigntyinto Peshawar. I got a room at the
British Forces "Y" to await election day.
Meanwhile I began hearing of mysterious occurrences at
Gherat.

One hundred years ago, a captain of the Black Watch

brought his twenty-year-old bride from England. The regi
ment set out to march to its new summer quarters in the

hills of Gherat. On the way cholera broke out. It took the

Black Watch fifteen days to crawl the thirty-seven miles.
When it arrived, many of the regiment were dead, among
them Cecelia Anne, the captain's bride. The regimental sur
geon had refused to treat her, it is said, so she threatened to
c o m e b a c k a n d h a u n t t h e B l a c k Wa t c h .

Only a month or so before I reached Peshawar, the Black

Watch returned, after fifty years, to Gherat.
Then one night a sentry on a walking post saw something
moving through the graveyard. He dropped his rifle and ran.
Ashamed of his cowardice, he stopped to have another look.
TTiiq Hmp he
2 0 4

Not long after, two "Jocks" were returning from the

movies. One stopped to light his cigarette while his buddy
entered their "basher," or billet. No sooner did the soldier

see his buddy go in the door than he saw a misty figure come
out. It crossed the road and vanished in the vicinity of Cecelia
Anne's gravestone. Running to the door, the soldier found his
companion prostrate on the concrete.

Another night a "bod" was awakened by the growling

of his dog. The latter was cowering under his bunk with its
hair on end, baring its teeth at something off in the basher.
There, along the rows of bunks, drifted a wispy figure with
long hair.

One soldier was brought down to Peshawar hospital be

cause each night he saw a shape circling his bed. He refused,
even if shot for it, to return to Cherat.

Once in the middle of the night a whole basher of men

was emptied by a white apparition that passed through beds

and tables and plunged out the wall.
The sentry post near the grave had to be abandoned. There
was not a man in the regiment who dared stand it.

I listened to these tales with considerable scepticism.

One day at lunch I was telling Morris, the Y.M.C.A. secre

tary, "Not only have I never seen a ghost myself, but I have
never met anyone else who has seen one."
"Well, I have," chimed the Black Watch soldier across
the table. "I saw Cecelia Anne. I don't know what time it

was, but it was late. I couldn't sleep. I sat up to reach my

cigarettes on a shelf above my charpoy. Then I froze. Coming

down the aisle between the charpoys was a wraith, like ciga

rette smoke, but in shape of a woman. Her arms were folded,

her gown trailed the stone. She moved without walking. I

tried to shake my buddy, but couldn't move. She passed the
foot of my charpoy, did a right flank and plunked smack
205

through the bolted door. An hour later another Jock saw her
i n t h e n e x t b a s h e r.

"I did a year in Cherat with the King's Own Scottish

Borderers, and no one saw her then. It's only since the Black
Watch returned (an' I was posted to them) that Cecelia Anne
walks at night. She's come back to haunt the Watch like
she said she would."

I did not believe in ghosts, yet there was nothing in this

world more intriguing than a real live (or are they dead?)
ghost, especially a pretty young female ghost.
So it was that Mr. Morris very obligingly arranged with
Major Montief of the Black Watch for me to spend a week
end at Cherat and off I started on the most terrifying and
fascinating of all sports, ghost hunting.
GHOST

OF

THE

BLACK

WAT C H

It was midnight on the eightieth anniversary of her death,

the hundredth year after her birth, that Lieutenant Colin
Stroyan and I set out to pay a visit to Cecelia Anne.
We had arranged the trip in broad daylight, but now it
was midnight and a storm was glowering. "Let's wait until
tomorrow night," Stroyan suggested. "It's too eerielightning
and moonlight at the same time."
There was something weird about the night, but tomorrow
I would be gone. It was now or never. I did agree to recruit
Captain Hector Davidson and Lieutenant Roderick RussellCaugill for added security.
We drove a truck a mile and a half to ridge's end and
parked as close to the cemetery as possible. All the troops
usually billeted in the vicinity were down in Peshawar polic
ing the Indian referendum. The great bashers stood huge,
white, and empty in the intermittent moonlight.
A storm that afternoon had torn loose strips of tin roof
206

which rattled and thundered in the violent wind. Shutters

were flapping, and doors into the empty ehambers were open
ing and elosing as by unseen hands.
The eamp was built on the back of a ridge. On each side,
precipiees dropped thousands of feet into valleys seething
with fog. We edged along the brink of a sheer eliff where
scraps of cloud leapt up at us. Trees, like witches with de
formed arms and gnarled fingers, shook and moaned in the
wind. Up from the valley of the Indus came the long, mourn
ful wailing of jaekals.
"Hollywood never fabrieated a better seene for a ghost
story," I said.
"Yeah," answered Stroyan. "It gives me the ereepslet's
go baek. We're just asking for trouble."
We all half agreed. But if there was a ghost I had to see
it. And no night ever seemed more auspicious for the occult.
We crept uneasily to a wall. A low voice said, "The grave is
just inside."
"Well let's go sit on it," I laughed, "and dare her to come
out."

"You crazy? Let's get out of here," answered Stroyan.

They kept walking straight ahead. I hung behind, looking
over the wall. It was a tiny eemetery, hardly a dozen graves.
Under a crooked tree was a boulder. For a moment, a shred

of moonlight glowed upon the inseription:

Sacred
T o
CECELIA ANNE

Beloved Young Wife

Of

CAPTAIN J. W. HAYNES
42 Royal Highland Regiment
I did my best to deteet some shape or movement. No luck!
I hurried up with the others.
207

We walked along, peering in the windows of the two

bashers where Cecelia Anne had often appeared. There was
the door through which the Jock from "B" company had
seen her walk. There was the room where twenty men had
seen her moving through bunks and tablesthe room in

which twenty men refused to spend another night.

There were the steps down to the washroom on the hillside
where after dark no Jock ventured alone. I stood peering into
the shadows, when behind me the barrack door swung slowly
open. I wheeled to face it. It swung slowly closed. A lightning
flash lit up inside the barracks. It was filled with dancing
lights, shifting shadows. I sped to join the others.
We returned by the opposite side of the graveyard to the
truck. Two prowler guards idled by. They preferred to stand
guard twice as often as prowl the graveyard alone.

"Cecelia Anne must be bashful," I said, emboldened by

our failure. "Let's go back and coax her out."

"Let's let well enough alone," prompted Davidson, but

he and the others turned back with me.

We had just cleared the little rise where we could see over

the cemetery wall when someone gasped, "Look!"

There, drifting across the graves, was a shape in flowing
gown. It passed through the cemetery gate and flitted down
the path before us.
I discovered that seeing a ghost is not as frightening as
expecting to see one. "Let's catch it." I started to run up
the path after it, but the others stopped me.
"Don't be a fool," hissed Stroyan.
"Well, let's at least throw stones at it, to see if they
bounce off or go through," I cried, picking up a rock. "No,
no," gasped Stroyan as they all grabbed me, "don't antagonize
her!"

By the time I could get disentangled, the figure had reached

7.OR

the end of the first barracks and vanished around a bush.

I ran to the bush. There was nothing in sight.

"It's disappeared into thin air," whispered Stroyan.
"What's disappeared?" asked Russell-Caugill.

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed. "I saw it as plainly as

I see you."
"I thought I saw something," said Davidson, "but I'm
not sure."

We were walking back toward the graveyard arguing

whether or not I had seen anything when suddenly Russell-

Caugill whispered, "Look! There by the wall!"

"Look at what?" I demanded.

"That shadow moving across the road," he whispered, his

eyes bulging.
"Take it easy, Roderick, old boy," answered Davidson.
"There's not a blooming thing in the road."

"Nothing? But look, look at her! Moving up between the

graves. You've got to see her! There, there, going toward the
big rock. Look, look, she's fading into the tombstoneshe's
disappeared!"
"Calm down, lad. This stuff's preying on your mind."
"Don't tell me you didn't see hera dark shape sort of

drifting over the ground. She was as plain as you are. I swear
it."

"You must've been using radar, Roderick," I said.

"But you saw her didn't you, Stroyan?" Stroyan shook his
head. "But surely someone saw her. You did, didn't you,
Davidson?" Davidson shook his head. "I must be losing my
mind. Let's get out of here before I see her again."
"I told you we shouldn't have come," said Stroyan. "Ghosts
are nothing to play with."
Back in the mess we were slouched in arm chairs, tall,

bracing scotches in hand. Roderick still swore he had seen

something cross the road and disappear into the gravestone.
209

The rest swore we hadn't. I still swore I had seen something

come out of the graveyard and vanish around the corner of

the barracks. The rest swore they hadn't.

"It only goes to prove/' said Davidson, "some people ean
see her, some can't. Cecelia Anne appears only to whom she
wishes."

"Or to say the same thing differently," I continued, re

calling how they had all kept me from either catching or
throwing stones at the ghost, "Cecelia Anne appears to an
American only in the form of a Scot, and to a Scot only in
the form of scotch."

There was a big smile all around and we raised our glasses
in a toast to Cecelia Anne, beloved young ghost of the Blaek
Watch.
OFF

FOR

KASHMIR

Back once more in Peshawar, I was made an honorary

member of the Black Watch. Nightly we sat under fans on
the lawn of the Black Watch Mess, drank beer from glassbottomed, silver tankards and kept neighbors awake singing
the raw and raucous "Ball of Kerry Meyr."
At 3 A.M. on the morning of the Indian referendum, the

Jocks had me to breakfast. They disguised me in a sergeant's

blouse and tam-o-shantersince the brigadier said noand,
with bagpipes playing, Bren guns ready, and tanks on radio
call, marched me with them as they "showed the colors"
through villages where riots were expected. They apologized
that no one shot at them or threw a bomb.
Next afternoon the thermometer on the "Y" veranda hit

118. "There's only one place to get cool," said Morris

" K a s h m i r. "

Next morning I was off for Srinagar with visions of a house

boat on Dal Lake dancing before me in the heat waves.

According to the books there is only one approved way

2 1 0

for a vagabond to travel in India. He should buy a thirdclass ticket to get on the station plaftorm, then enter a firstelass compartment and lock himself in. He then pretends to
sleep. No conductor will dare wake the white sahib to check
his ticketor so the authorities say.
Let me correct the authorities. There are no locks on com

partment doors. Two Indians immediately entered my com

partment and, in hot pursuit, the ticket taker. He punched

their tickets and turned to me. I could hardly pretend to be
asleep, having just sat down. I handed him the cardboard
whereupon he discovered a horrible error. "Stupid ticket seller
has sold sahib third-class ticket by mistake." I hurried off "to
get it changed."
As I shopped along the jam-packed train, I came to a thirdclass compartment whose only occupant was a turbaned
policeman. "This place reserved for police," he protested,
as I pushed past him and sat down. I did not understandno matter how he tugged at me and gesticulated. Finally
he gave up and offered to share his lunch. This I understood
at once.

Alighting at Rawalpindi, I saw a line-up of Royal Air Force

trucks. They were taking a leave party to Murree, the convoy
officer said. Did I care to go along? Murree was on the road
to Kashmir, so along I went.
It was evening as we climbed into Murree, a cluster of
camps and resorts strung along ridges or perched on peaks
looking down into steaming valleys. I heard there was a dance
that night at Uniak's Soldiers', Sailors', and Airmen's Home,
so I went in and asked for a room.

"What's your rank?" demanded the Indian clerk.

"Sergeant," I answered.
"What's your regiment?" he queried, an incredulous squint
in his eye.
"Black Watch," I said.
2 1 1

"Oh, Scotch! Didn't sound like an English accent."

He turned the register to me and I signed in, wondering if
a real Scotchman now would be thrown out for having the
wrong accent.

The dance was pleasant, and the dancers were so cordial

I was tempted to stay longer. But when morning came with
a bright sun, cool air and the fragrance of pine trees, I could
not resist the temptation to shoulder pack and saunter up the
road.

There was little traffiemilitary lorries going to camps on

surrounding ridges, a few hired cars loaded with vacationers
for Kashmir, a score of buses, all full. Still, with the freshness

of the day I did not really care if I got a ride. I rather en

joyed the prospect of a night on pine needles. But a bus
finally stopped. "How much to Srinagar?" I asked.
"Twenty rupees," the driver answered.
"I'll give you thirteen."

"Tik hai," he said, and I got aboard.

Half the bus had seats, half cargo. A passenger crawled
atop the cargo to give me his seat.
Why, the oceupants wanted to know, was I traveling thirdclass? When I said I was short of money, they loaded me
with apples and cueumbers. They said Kashmir was going to
be part of Pakistan (wishful thinking), and wanted me to
take a good impression baek to America.

At Domel customs station (Kashmir was an independent

state under a Hindu maharajah) the driver kept me supplied
with lime juice. When we stopped at Uri for the night, he
insisted I join him in ehicken-curry and rice. It was so hot
with chili every mouthful made my eyes water. The patrons
of the kerosene-lit restaurant gathered to wateh and laugh
as, with tears streaming down my face, I swore how good the
curry was.

When it was time for bed, the passengers began to worry

?.! 9.

where I was going to sleep. "Me show you to Dak bungalow,"

said one. (Dak bungalows are government rest cottages
throughout India.)
"I've no money for a Dak bungalow," I said. "I'm sleeping
in the bus."

The driver begged me to use his cot in. a nearby house, or

at least take his bedding roll. No one could understand how
a sahib could sleep without bed or blankets. They stood fas
cinated as I pulled on several additional shirts and trousers

and, wrapping up in my poncho, fell fast asleep on the long

bus seat.

NIGHT

IN

HINDU

TEMPLE

A three-hour climb next morning brought us by poplarlined road into a green valley of lakes and fields, bowled
in by snow-covered mountains and guarded by a peak-top
fortress. In the heart of the valley on both banks of the
River Jhelum rose balconied Srinagar.
I had heard there was an American hospital and school
there, but I roamed the streets until late afternoon, and
c o u l d fi n d n e i t h e r.

Getting lost among the bends of the river, the seven

bridges, the canals and the winding streets, I spotted a hill
crowned with a domed temple. Climbing up to get my bear
ings, I was met by a yellow-robed priest whose shoulderlength hair, thin face and pointed beard made him look
startlingly like Christ. He invited me to take off my shoes
and enter the temple. Since it was impossible to breathe in
India without someone trying to charge you a rupee, I de
clined. "No money," I explained.
"Welcome anyway."
The temple was twenty feet in diameter. In the center was
a polished piece of black marble the size and shape of a naval
213

projectile. "That's Siva," the priest told me, "god of genera

tion and destruction. If not for Siva, no birthsand no snake

bite, war, railway accidents, earth-quakes, famine, death.

Everything would live forevernothing would be reborn."
"A good god to be friendly with," I said.
"Baksheesh help," he suggested.
"I told you I have no money."
"An American sahib without money," he smiled. "Which
hotel you stay?"

"I've no money for a hotel. I'm not staying anywhere."

"If really no money, you welcome herebut must eat
rice."

Why not? No harm in propitiating the god of birth and

death! I joined the priest in a vault under the shrine for curry
and rice. Rather than sleep in the vault, I climbed up on the
stone platform and there, on a bench under the eaves, spent
the night in the Hindu temple.
H O U S E B O AT I N G I N K A S H M I R

There is only one way to live in Srinagaron a houseboat;

but as I viewed them, long and luxurious, tied along the
Jhelum River, moving through the canals, and lining Dal
Lake, I knew such floating palaces were beyond the means
of a mendicant like myself.

The morning after my night in the Hindu temple, I was

strolling along the Bund when the houseboat agents, mis
taking me for a millionaire, descended on me.

"Sahib come, see houseboat," each yelled and tugged.

"How much?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Only come see," was their line"give what you wish."
"I'm not interested in seeing a houseboat until I know
the cost."
214

At length one pulled me aside and said, "Four rupees a

dayhouseboat, food, everything included."
Four rupees was only $1.20!
"Which is your boat?" I asked.

He pointed to a long boat across the canal. Awnings

shaded every window, a canopy the chairs on the rear deck,
a marquee the lounges on the roof.

"Do you mean to say you want four rupees for such a
miserable little boat?" I asked, in the best bargaining tradi
tion, and started walking away.

"Only have look, sahib," he cried, running after me.

"Here shikari [driver of a boat-taxi] to take you. A look cost
nothing."

The houseboat consisted of a drawing room with desks,

sofa, overstuffed chairs, an elegant dining room and three

bedrooms with baths. It was luxurious. I saw myself living

like a maharajahfor only $1.20 a day!
"Now just what does the four rupees include?"
"Everythingentire boat, three servants, three meals,
chota hazri (morning tea in bed), afternoon tea."
"I'll take it."

"When will other sahibs move in?"

"What other sahibs?"

"You say four sahibs."

"I said nothing of the kind. Only one sahib."

"With only one sahib, price eight rupees."

"I've heard of your low Kashmiri tricks," I said, getting

up to go. "You told me four rupees to get me here, and now
you raise it to eight."

"Misunderstanding, sahib. Have boat for seven."

"Four or nothing," I replied, stepping in with the shikari.

"Six," he pleaded as I waved the shikari to paddle off.

"You said four, and four it has to be."
215

"Five," he moaned. "And only one sahib!"

Five rupees was still only $1.50.1 could see he would go no

lower. "You will sign a contracthouseboat and everything
i n c l u d e d f o r fi v e ? " I a s k e d .

"Tik hai, sahib."

I composed a contract, put down his name and told him

to press on his thumb.

"First pay twenty rupees advance," he said.

"Oh, no," I laughed, climbing back in with the shikari.
"I've been warned of your methods. If I pay you in advance,
you'll feed me dog meat."

"Tik hai," he shrugged. "Sahib pay end of week."

The contract was signed and I moved in.

I upped anchor and had my floating palace poled out into

Dal Lake on the first stage of my intended cruise to the
Garden of Shalimar, then back through Nagin Bagh to the
Jhelum and down the river to Wular Lake and Bandipura.
That first evening some friends I had met at the Hindu

temple rowed out for tea under the awning on my roof and
everything was beautifuluntil next morning.
Then the manager, the cook, the bearer, the sweeper, filed
in and came to attention before my breakfast table. The
manager said the cook had to paddle to the bazaar to buy
food. He needed money.

"That's tough," I said, "but according to the agreement

I'll pay nothing until week's end."
"No money, no eat."

"OK," I said, handing him five rupees. "I'll pay you for
the day just completed."
"And for tomorrow," he insisted.

"Oh, no," I laughed. "I'll pay no advance, or you'll feed

me dog meat and lake water."
"You must pay advance."
y.ifi

"That's a foolish thing to say with a hundred empty

houseboats on either side of you. I'll simply move to an
o t h e r. "

"As you like," he answered, never dreaming I would.

But I had not unpacked. I put down my napkin, caught
up my knapsack, and hailed a shikari.
"Oh, don't go, sahib," he pleaded as I climbed aboard.
"You pay at end of week."
"That's what you said yesterday. I don't fancy your boat
anyway and I've had enough of your cheap Kashmiri stunts."
So it was I was paddled ashore, having learned a lesson
about houseboating in Kashmir.
MUTINY

AND

THE

LAST

RIVER

I had not walked far beyond Rawalpindi when I came

upon a truck convoy of strange little soldiers parked for

lunch along the roadside grove. Seeing an English ofEcer, I
hailed him and asked if they were going toward Delhi.

"Will Dehra Dun do?" he asked in reply. "That's not far

from Delhi. Come on along. It will give me someone to talk
to."

A truck cushion was brought to sit on and a cup of tea

put in my hand.
"What kind of troops are these?" I asked.
"Gurkhas," Lieutenant "Sailor" Taylor explained, "the
Fifth Royal Gurkha Rifles."
"I've heard of them. But what are Gurkhas?"

"Sons of Genghis Khan from the heights of the Hima

layas, the ranges of Nepal. They fought the English three

times. First, the Gurkhas won. Second the English. The

third battle was fought to a standstill. It ended when the

British invited them to join the Army. Join they did, and
2 1 7

still join. And Nepal is still independent. Every Gurkha

grows up with one ambitioneome to India and join the
Army."

By evening my illustrious eompanions and I reached

Jhelum and camped on the banks of the river where an even
more illustrious band had camped. There 326 years before
Christ, Alexander and his Macedonians had pitched their
tents before crossing the same river into their last battle.

On the far bank Porus had massed his army behind hun
dreds of terrifying tusked monsters called elephants. The
river was in flood and could neither be forded nor bridged.
Alexander divided his army into five commands, marched
them in all directions, threatening to cross first one place,

then another. Porus shuttled his army up and down the far
bank to meet each expected crossing until, exhausted, he no
longer responded to alarms. Then Alexander, leaving most

of his army to keep up fires and a clamor in camp, secretly

marched far up the river and in a night of torrential down
pour, crossed in boats and barges. Ordering the Phalanx and

Hypaspists to follow at a trot, he, with his Companions and

the Persian Kinsmen and Immortals (whom he had adopted),
galloped down stream to take Porus by surprise.
Instead, he found Porus waitingdrawn up on a sand

island in a sea of mud. Two hundred armored elephants

were massed across his front with archers manning mam
moth bows between. Alexander delayed for hours until his
breathless Phalanx and Hypaspists could slosh up. Shifting
into his customary "unbalanced line to the right" he launched
his deadly "off-tackle smash." This time, however, he staged
a retreat with his Companions. The Indian Horse whooped
in pursuit. Suddenly Alexander's widely-circling Kinsmen
a n d I m m o r t a l s s l i c e d i n o n b o t h fl a n k s .

Meanwhile the Phalanx and Hypaspists, left to combat

7.1 R

the frightful behemoths before them, did the only thing

they knewattacked. The slaughter was frightful. Wherever
the elephants charged they crushed great bays into the packed
Macedonians. Nevertheless, the wall of spears ripped their
hides, pierced their eyes, impaled their mahouts, until, en
raged with wounds and out of control, the elephants tram
pled as many friends as foes.
Off in the cavalry melee, Alexander's faithful horse, Bu

cephalus, suddenly pitched dead between his kneesnot of

wounds, but of an aged heart burst with exertion and excite

ment. Seventeen years before, the boy Alexander had rescued

and tamed that handsome black stallion his father rejected
as too wild to be broken.

Leaping upon a fresh horse, Alexander counter-galloped

his Companions into the trapped Indians, hurling them back
into the Phalanx-elephant maelstrom. "Loek shields and hold
ground," he shouted to the remnant of his Phalanx. Mean

while he hacked his way through the Indian Horse toward

P o r u s ' r e a r.

Both sides were nearly prostrate from struggling in the

mud, when Craterus, whom Alexander left to demonstrate in

camp, managed to cross the Jhelum on rafts and came splash

ing to the rescue with a fresh army. (Alexander's allied troops
now numbered one hundred thousand.) At the sight the
remnant of the Indian army scattered to the winds.

Porus, wounded and on a wounded elephant, was last to

quit the field. This so impressed Alexander that he sent a
captured ofiicer to offer friendship and amnesty. Porus ac
cepted and was made a satrap of Grecian India.

On the bloodied banks of the Jhelum, Alexander founded

two cities, Nicaea (Victory) and Bucephala (where his faith

ful horse was buried) and then marched on toward mutiny

and fhe last rivpr
21Q

Next morning, the Gurkhas and I followed him. We

lunched at Lahore, surrounded by the blackened ruins of
the Hindu-Moslem battle for the city. And I sat on the
mighty Sikh cannon Kim sat on in Rudyard Kipling's tale.
Through Amritsarwhere in the middle of a lake stands
the Golden Temple of the Sikhsthe convoy rolled on to
the banks of the Beas. Here Taylor called a halt so I could
walk up and down. Within a few miles one way or another
once stood twelve Greek columns. Here Alexander's veterans

refused to cross. Here for three days Alexander locked wills

in a titanic struggle with his army. Ahead, beckoning to
Alexander, was the romance of lands unknown, the fabled

valley of the Ganges, perhaps the edge of the earth, the realm
of the gods, the Garden of the Hesperides. Behind, beckon
ing to his Phalanxmen, was fatherland, family, fireside, an
end to eight years' wounds, exertion, mortal danger. "All
right," cried Alexander, "I'll rest my decision with the
omens."

A sheep was cut open, its entrails torn out. Aged Aristanter
fingered the liver. He longed to be laid to rest in the hills
of Macedon. He straightened and slowly spoke: "Disaster lies
beyond the Beas."

The army went wild. Bitterly the "Gonqueror of the

World" ordered twelve columns raised to mark the eastward

limit of his adventure. Then, turning his back, he began his

recession down the Indus, across the desert of Baluchistan,

back to Persepolis and Susa, to keep a rendezvous at thirtytwo with death at Babylon.

Saddened by loss of my nine months' companion, I pushed

on where Alexander was denied, crossed the Beas, and

camped three nights later at Saharanpur in the valley of the

Ganges.

2 2 0

NAUTCH WITH THE GURKHAS

N
;extmo
nrg
ihteGukrhaswod
ulerachhrteinewon
a
ist
in the hills at Dehra Dun. They decided to celebrate by hold

ing a nautch.
Nautch means dance, but to a Gurkha it means much

more. First it means a feast, something special, like meat

in the bhat (rice). A live goat was mysteriously produced.
Now all Gurkhas carry a murderous-looking machete called
a khukri. Its blade angles forward like a sickle. At a certain
puja once a year the Gurkhas show their skill with the khukri

by severing the neck of a bull with one blow. They would

show me on the goat.

The executioner was chosen by lot. If he failed to take off
the head with one try, his face would be swabbed with the
gory stump. He chose the heaviest khukri and carefully sharp
ened it with a steel. Two men held the goat and the Gurkha
raised his blade. It flashed. The head hung in midair an in
stant, then rolled to the ground. Presently the goat was boil
ing in the bhat.

Meanwhile a truck had gone to town and returned with a

clothes basket that clinked when moved.

After supper we all sat in a circle on the grass. A low

fire burned. The contents of the basket was poured into an
iron kettle, and diluted by a dash of water. A mammoth tea
cup was plunged in and handed brimming to a Gurkha. He
downed it at a gulp, flew into the air and landed on his feet.
Fingers rolled on drums as he stood on toes, arms out

stretched, like a bird about to fly. Then with a bang and a

boom from the tom-toms, he began to twirl, now stomping
the ground, now dropping to his haunches and springing into
the air, now stepping in a careful pattern on the ground,

all the while clapping his hands and singing in a high, gut
tural voice, "Nani tal ya, nani tal ya. . . ."
2 2 1

When, sweating and staggering, he sank to the ground,

the spilling cup was handed another and up he leapt, wailing

and pounding his feet. Where do they get such frantic
energy, I wondered. Then the cup was thrust at me. I gulped
it down. Up I leapt, bellowing and stomping. In the back
ground I heard Gurkhas chanting and clapping to the tom
toms. When the burst of flame in my throat had subsided a
bit and I could suck air into my lungs again, I sank exhausted

on the grass while another Gurkha sprang up, and another.

A clown, padded like a woman, pranced in, shrieking and
waving front and rear. Around and around went the cup.
Around and around went the dancers. What had started as a

quiet party degenerated into a mad, howling melee, everyone

screaming and dancing at once.

Taylor told me at a pucka, first-class mutch, two Gurkhas

are assigned to carry each guest to bed. But this night that
detail was overlooked and six feet of my poncho was as close
as I got.

FROM JASMINE TOWER

It was late, the afternoon I trucked down the dusty road
from Muttra to Agra on the Jumna.

I got a room at the Forces Canteen, rented a bicycle and

set its wheel for the mile-square fort rising wall upon wall
from the banks of the Jumna. There, perched on top of that
mountain of red stone towered the white marble palace of
the Peacock Throne.

I pedaled up the royal ramp, across the drawbridge, and,

leaving my bike at the iron gates, ascended through drill
grounds, audience halls and arcades into a pooled garden,

where marble stairs led me up into the alabaster chambers

of the Harem and from there out onto a jeweled pavilion

looking down on all.

It was Jasmine Tower, to me the most historic spot in India.

9 . 7 . 7 .

There three hundred years ago the day of travail was end
ing. Long shadows fell across the couch of the Queen. Mumtaz-i-Mahal, Chosen of the Palace, was dying.
The ancient doctor straightened, whispered to the holloweyed Emperor of India, "Come speak with her while yet
there is time."

Shah Jehan crossed the carpet. The midwives, droning

their incantations, disappeared. The greatest monarch on
earth fell upon his knees, buried his face against the dying
Queen and wept. From the lips of the quiet figure came the
words, "Nothing but love's own hands can slay love. There
fore remember me and I shall live."

The Emperor choked, "You shall live. The whole world

shall remember."

Shah Jehan had a hundred other wives, but now they werestrangers to him. When Mumtaz went away, he lay crumpled
with grief in the room where she died, biting blood from his
lip and silent to those who tried to console him. The sun

rose behind the chamber arches to the east, gyrated slowly

past all the southern arches, drained its light from the sky
behind those to the west, and the King was still there. And
six successive suns and moons came to wheel their shadows

through the room and saw the Shah still there, aloof and
alone in his awful grief.
After six days he gathered his robes around him and, sur

rounded by the uzbegs and the wisemen, seated himself upon

the Peacock Throne. But his eyes looked inward, and his

ears could hear only the echo of a voice saying, "Remember

me and I shall live."

To his vizier he said, "I will raise for her a temple-tomb

the like of which the Earth's four corners never held nor saw,

an object of matchless beauty for all ages to look at and to

wonder. Send into every land for craftsmen. I will build more:
splendid than Solomon the Wise."
223

The call went out to every country of the globe, and by

caravan and caravel master craftsmen came to India and

Agra on the Jumna. To them Shah Jehan commanded,

"Architects and artisans, make for me a palace-tomb as lovely
as Arjemand was lovely, as graceful as she was graceful, as
delicate as she was delicate, not like the tombs of kings and

conquerors, hard and square, but of divine symmetry, the

image and the soul of her beauty. And make me a garden on
the banks of the Jumna, and build her palace there, where,
sitting in Jasmine Tower, I can look upon its rise against
the sky."

Among those who heard and salaamed before the Mogul

Throne that day was Ustad Isa, master builder, man of
Shiraz. To him was entrusted the design of the tomb: "Make
it the image and soul of her beauty."

He had never seen the Queen. He wondered how to bring

her beauty to the stone. So he shut himself up, lay back in a

silent darkness of pillows and incense, and breathed in the

blue smoke of poppy petals from a narghile. For two days he
fasted, dozed and dreamed, until oblivion settled over his
mind and body.
When he awoke, it was the mid-noon of night. He was
standing in a blue wind on the highest pinnacle of the Pea
cock Palace, overlooking the white highway of the river.

Down the Jumna, a mist of light rose up from the shore, a

veil at first, a gown, a form. Gradually the features cleared,
and Ustad Isa beheld a woman of slim, matchless beauty,
gazing up the river toward the palace of the Shah.
Looking, Ustad Isa knew it was Arjemand, the Queen,
and even as he looked, she slowly dissolved into the moon
light. Then out of the haze where she had stood, a pearl bub
ble lifted into the night sky, forming dome and cupolas,
archways and minars, all blending in perfect harmony and

floating in light. Here, to be mined in the minerals of the

2 2 4

earth, the Queen offered an image of her beauty that might

eonsole her lord.

Ustad Isa gasped in wonderment. A mist of exultation

filled his eyes. He tried to ery out, but the noise of his voiee
crashed like lightning across his brain, sending the vision
whirling in a splatter of lights to vanish in wide-eyed darkness.
He found himself still pillowed in his own chamber.
Perhaps he had been dreaming, but beside him he found,
already drawn, the plans for the palace he had seen. Thus,
so the story goes, the tomb of Mumtaz was not designed by
man, but by wizards and by genie, to be built by jewelers to
house the soul of the most beautiful lady that ever lived in
India.

Ustad Isa unrolled these plans before the Shah of Shahs.

The Emperor saw in them the image of his Queen and or
dered work begun on the Taj Mahal.
A JEWEL IS BORN

Fabulous rewards, the wealth of the Peacock Throne,

brought craftsmen from all the golden east to build at Agra

the jewel of India.

Carvers of jasper came from Canton and Peiping. From

Venice and Istanbul came fitters of marble. From Delhi

and Isfahan, from Baghdad and Damascus artists and inlayers came; from Malabar and Coromandel, from Multan

and Kandahar, from Mecca and Cairo, dealers in agate,

builders in alabaster. Men of Araby, men of Persia, men of
Afghan land, carvers of carnelian, cutters of lapis lazulifrom
all the oriental world they came to Ustad Isa's call. Bokara
from Ceylon to lift the dome into the sky. Mohammed
Sayyed to raise the slender minarets. Amat Khan, transcriber
of the Koran, to inscribe the marble with the words of Allah.

Inlayers from Bombay to flower the stone with gems as they

225

did at the Khedive of Kabad, the Tomb of Mohammed, the

Mosque of Mewar. Masons of marble, carvers of lace, workers

in silver and gold, cutters of gems and builders of poems.

And from the Vale of Kashmir on the banks of Dal Lake,

came Rom Lat to make a garden only less grand than the
Garden of Paradise.

Thus came the makers of the palace-tomb of Mumtaz

Mahal. Out of the green level banks of the Jumna the white
dome swelled into the brass of the Indian sun, while up the

river, in his marble pavilion, Shah Jehan squatted on his

purple divan, breathing the thick air of incense and opium,
and stared at the alabaster flower budding for Arjemand.
Ministers of state salaamed before the throne and en

treated. They cried for the needs of the Empire. The Em

peror heard nothing. All he asked of his kingdom were taxes

to keep the marble flower growing down there along the

Jumna, to raise it out of the pipal and the banyan thickets,

taxes to drag its marble six hundred miles by ox and wheel

from the quarries of Rajputana. Taxes to keep twenty thou
sand men at labor twenty years, taxes to write the Koran on
the walls in gems. And taxes came, from the coffers of kings,

from the pennies of peasants, from the blood and sweat of

India.

The minars mounted, the cupolas rounded, the great dome

bloomed. At last it was completed. It was like a pearl in a
garden of emeralds. It floated upside down in the Jumna
and simmered in the straight-watered lagoons between the
cypress trees.

Shah Jehan with his regal entonrage paced slowly up the

checkered red-and-white avenue, climbed the stairs and

passed the silver doors. He stood before the cenotaph and

spoke, "The Beauty that was the Chosen of my Palace is here

revealed. Let her sit, crowned forever on the banks of the

Jumna. It was love that commanded this throne."

226

Ustad Isa answered, "It was love that also built, therefore
it shall endure."

For three hundred years it has endured as an embodiment

of royal love, not as a tomb, but as a palace and a throne.
In it is a mingling of two souls, the soul of Arjemand and the
soul of the Emperor as well. For Shah Jehan poured India
into it, his own life, and his erown. The terrific cost of build

ing it bled his Empire and toppled his throne. He was de

posed by his own son, imprisoned six years in his own palace.
Then, one day at twilight, he heard his beloved Queen calling
to him from along the Jumna. He climbed Jasmine Tower,
took one last look at her earthly image, and himself went
down the river to sleep beside her. They both sleep there
today.

On holidays, natives in bright shawls come to dance in the

garden and sing in the groves. It is even said that on a certain
night in summer when the moon is like a scimitar, the Taj
disappears into moonlight, and then, on the marble dais,

Mumtaz-i-Mahal stands clothed in mist and shining with

light.

Down the Jumna the Taj Mahal hovered on the mists. A

moon like a scimitar was hanging in the sky. Climbing down

from Jasmine Tower I pedaled along the river bank, my eyes

upon that alabaster bubble in the sky.
SHRINE OF EVERLASTING LOVE

I was prepared to be disappointed. Nothing could be as

lovely as I imagined the Taj. But all the way from the tower
of the King to the garden of the Queen there was no dis
cordant note, no flaw in the setting.
My path along the river was a parkway flanked by groves
and gardens. Here horsemen cantered, there lovers sat, or

families picnicked on the grass. Through a tunnel of trees I

227

emerged before a lofty red stone gateway flanked by towers.

Inside the gate I found a court of trees and lawns which
could be entered through archways on three sides.
On the fourth side, from the summit of a pyramidal flight

of stairs rose another gateway of a height and grandeur I had

never seen, topped with seven marble pavilions. I ran up the
steps and stopped under the arch.
Before me, converging from all sides and meeting in a
raised marble pool in the center of a garden, were mirror

lagoons lined with cypress trees. At either end of the cross

lagoon stood a red stone palace with three marble domes.
Across the far end of the garden lay a stone stage, with a
white-domed mosque on either flank. Between them, from
the center of the red stage rose a white marble dais, holding
aloft, like a pearl on an ivory pillow, the Taj Mahal.

My eyes filled. I did not know whether to run toward it or

just stand and look. Finally, I slowly drew near it along the
lagoon. Mounting the red stage to the foot of the marble
dais, I took off my shoes and in stocking feet climbed the
polished stairs. It had recently rained and water stood in
puddles as I padded across the smooth warm stone. The
whole Taj rose newly rinsed and glistening.

I knew the inside of the Taj was inlaid with gems but I
never imagined the outside was as well. Over every arch,
mantling every window, flowing around the roof molding and
girdling the dome, was a pattern of vines and flowersnot
painted on, but inlaid in agate, bloodstone, jasper, carnelian,
lapis lazuli, garnetas brilliant as the flowers themselves.
Under the dome inside a screen of alabaster lace, lay the

jeweled cenotaphs of Shah Jehan and Mumtaz-i-Mahal. Be

neath the floor, in similar bowers where it was hoped they

might never be disturbed, the Emperor and his Queen were

hidden. Their hope was in vain. The entrance was discov
ered, the precious jewels picked from their sarcophaguses and
7.'3.R

replaced with colored stones. Even the great Pearl of India

was lifted from the cold hands of Arjemand. But there is a
curse on the Pearl of India that follows wherever it goes,
bringing ruin and death to its ownersuntil the day it is re
turned to its rightful place in the heart of the Taj Mahal.
TEMPTATION IN THE TAJ

I wandered around and around the Taj Mahalup a mina

ret to watch the sun plunge into monsoon clouds and splash
the Taj with firethrough the mosques, upon their roofs,
onto high pavilions. I idled down each path of the garden and
saw, through every chink of foliage, only the infinite variety
of the Taj. It never looked the same.

Many times I resolved to leave, but I could not turn my

back upon its beauty. The hour for supper passed. The moon
sailed among the clouds like a slice of orange. Once I got my
cycle and pedaled to the limit of the surrounding park. But
I was not hungry. The moon was still up. I pedaled back.
"Gate closing now, sahib," said the chokadah as I re

entered. It was already ten o'cloek.

"Til be right out," I said. "Watch my bike."
The garden was still full of people. As I passed the marble
pool I heard the chokadah already blowing his whistle. Tak
ing off my shoes I climbed again to the marble dais of the
Taj and stood alone in darkness beside the tombs before re
turning to the garden pool.
Couples still roved along the walks or murmured on the

lawns. I eould hear the creaking as the gates were rolled shut.

The gatehouse light blinked out. It was understood some

would want to stay a little longer.

Midnight came and went. Fewer persons drifted through

the shadows. Two Hindus whispered on the far side of the

pool. Soon they too left. The only light was from the per229

forated silver lamp in the tomb, the only sound the wing
rustle of nighthawks overhead. All had gone. I was alone
with the Taj!
But I had left my cycle with the chokadah and he knew
I was still in the garden. He blew his whistle and called,
"Gate close, sahib." When I did not answer, he called to

the other chokadah under the arch of the Taj. He had not
seen me either. He would bring a lantern and they would

search for me. I could see lamps bobbing closer from either
end of the long lagoons. I slipped down one of the cross
lagoons. They turned after me, holding their lanterns into all
the shadows, blowing their whistles with every step and call

ing, "Gate close, sahib! Time fin-nish!" The jackals outside

the walls yip-yipped in answer.
I stole through the shadows just ahead of them. Reaching
a mosque, I scrambled up its stairs to the roof where, sitting

on a pavilion overlooking the river, I watched my pursuers

below. When at length their search brought them into my

mosque and up my stairs, I spun down another and crossed

the eourtyard to a chamber beneath the Taj. Soon they were
after me again. I circled the Taj and climbed to the roof of

the opposite mosque. As they entered the sanctuary below, I

climbed onto the garden wall where I lay down and watched

them pass below me, blasting their whistles and shouting,

"Time fin-nish, sahib. Get out!" When they were about to
find me, I crept down. The best place to hide, I figured, was

the place that offered least concealment. In the center of the

largest lawn I lay down beside a flower bed.
Time and again they passed on one side or the other with

out looking my way. Where could one hide in such an open

space? Once they cut straight across my lawn. As they
passed I slithered on my stomach to keep the flower bed be
tween us. I got soaked from the dewy grass, but stayed undis
covered. At length, concluding I must have high-dived into
2 2 0

the Jumna, each went back to his post, one under the arch
of the Taj, the other beneath the gatehouse.
Hide-and-seek over, perhaps I ought to leave. But the
moon had set and the Taj, with stars on its dome, seemed
more transparent and ethereal than ever. I was drawn baek to
the bench beside the marble pool. As I lay there, head
propped on forearm, the Taj drifted in the pool before me

and, like a rustling of leaves, temptation whispered in my

brain. I recalled that another vagabond, years before, had
yielded to the same temptation, and I also reealled how
skeptics swore that the pools of the Taj were too shallow for
swimming. Had Halliburton made his story of whole cloth?
True, the mirror lagoons were only three inches deep, but
what of the raised marble pool beside me? Lotus blossoms
drifted on it, and always the serenely beckoning Taj. Stripping
quickly to my shorts, I sat down on the trefoil corner of the
pool and put in my feet. They touched bottom. I stood up.
Knee deep!
Then as I slid my feet along the bottom, I felt a ledge
and, stepping off, was buoyed upon the water. Scarcely dis

turbing the refleeted image, I floated out.

Dawn found me lying on the grass where, between the
trees, I could watch the Taj turn grey, lavender and orange.
As the sun, like a waking flamingo, spread its wings aeross
the horizon, my celestial lady became marble once again. Re
treating to the garden gate, I stole the watehman's thunder
with a reprimand for not waking me and pedaled out onee
more into the world of sticks and mud and human beings.
LOST

C A P I TA L

OF

THE

MOGULS

One day as I was roaming through Agra Fort for the third
time, I remarked to some Hindu visitors what a fascinating
place it was.
231

"Oh, this is nothing," said one. "You should see Fatehpur

Sikri."

"What's Fatehpur Sikri?"

"Fatehpur Sikridream city of the Moguls! It's Akbar's

crowning achievement."
"Who's Akbar?"

"Akbar the Great! Mightiest of the Moguls! Akbar built

this fort, this palaceJasmine Tower. A few miles out of
Agra you passed the red walls and golden pinnacles of Akbar's
tomb. And you must have seen the domed roofs on the col
umns strung around the cityAkbar's sentry booths, when

Agra was the largest, most luxurious capital on earth. But

Akbar's dream city was not Agra. It was Fatehpur Sikri. He
built Fatehpur Sikri as capital of India, and now it's deserted.
Once larger than London, now forgotten. Built 400 years
ago, it's still as perfect as when Akbar and his army of ele
phants went through it to the conquest of Afghanistan. If
you've never seen Fatehpur Sikri, come with us. We'll show
you a marvel of the world."

I needed no more persuasion. Together we went down to

an old Buick parked below the palace gate and piled in.
On the way, Karim continued his story.
Akbar at first made his capital at Agra, building the colossal
red fort and crowning it with his Peacock Palace.
Akbar wanted an heir. At Agra all his sons died as infants.
He prayed, made pilgrimages to holy places. His wives pre
sented him with daughters.

In a cave in the hills of Sikri twenty miles from Agra lived

a man named Salim, famed for his ascetic life and holiness.

Akbar made a pilgrimage to Salim's cave. He prophesied

Akbar's next child would be a son. When Akbar's Rajput
wife swelled with child he sent her and all her ladies-in-

waiting to live at Sikri near the cave of holy Salim. Sure

232

enough, a son was born. Akbar was so delighted he named

him Salim Jehangir after the saintly hermit and had a water
reservoir on Sikri hill filled with gold and silver coins to be

flung to the populace.

When a second son was born at Sikri, Akbar concluded

that Sikri was lucky, Agra not. He ordered his capital moved
there and inaugurated one of the most stupendous building
programs in history.
To beautify the desert, a dam was built and a river diverted
to create a mammoth lake. On the shores of the lake he

erected a wall seven miles around to guard his city. On top

of his lucky hill, overlooking his lake, he erected courts, pal

aces, residences of queens, ministers, nobles, elephant-fighting
arenas and swimming baths. To honor holy Salim when he
died, a pearl mosque was set within a courtyard entered
through the mightiest gateway in the world. He called his
dream capital, Fatehpur Sikri (city of victory, Sikri), in mem
ory of his recent victory over the Rajput citadel Chitor
where Princess Padmini and three hundred Hindu maidens

threw themselves on a funeral pyre rather than be herded to

Akbar's harem.

For sixteen years Akbar ruled from Fatehpur Sikri the

greatest Indian Empire ever brought under one sway. In
1587 a Jesuit missionary to his court reported Fatehpur Sikri
larger than London. When Akbar died, his son Jehangir con
tinued to reign from Fatehpur Sikri. Then one day the great
dam burst, draining the lake, and returning the site to a des

ert. Jehangir retreated with his capital to Agra.

From that day to this, Fatehpur Sikri has been deserted.
For four hundred years it has been a city of kraits and jackals,
the capital of desolation.

233

F R O M T H E TA L L E S T G AT E WAY I N T H E W O R L D

Anxious as I was to see Fatehpur Sikri, I sometimes re

gretted accompanying those Hindu couples, for Karim drove
so fast and came so close to trundling oxcarts, 1 feared we
would never reach there alive. But we made the trip without
hitting anything more solid than one dog, which we killed,
and one tonga (horse carriage), which we upset.
A high red wall stretched before us across the plain.
Through a lofty gateway, we shot up a paved avenue, under
triumphal arches to pavilion-topped palaces on the heights
of the hill. 1 expected walls to be cracked, roofs to be fallen,
jungle to have invaded courtyards. Instead, all was as if

Akbar had left only yesterday and some new emperor were
moving in tomorrow.

Karim parked before the pyramidal flight of stairs leading

to the mosque. A grey-beard ancient, who looked, 1 imagined,
like holy Salim, appointed himself guide and ushered us
through the city.

There was the Elephant Tower, limbed with jutting tusks,

built by Akbar over the grave of his faithful war elephant.
There was the vast plain, once a lake where white-winged
boats of lords and ladies sailed, there the faulty dam that
doomed the city to extinction. There were the water-works
where endless chains of buckets had lifted water from sub

terranean rivers to feed fountains, pools, and baths atop the

hill. Here 1 saw the reservoir, bigger than a house, from which
the gold and silver coins had been flung in celebration of
Jehangir's birth.

In Akbar's treasury we found panels in the walls where he

secreted his most precious jewels. In its courtyard the Jesuits
often found him counting gold coin by the bag, pearls, emer
alds, diamonds, and sapphires by the basketful. Two genera2 ^ 4

tions later, Shah Jehan poured this same hoard into the
flowering of the Taj Mahal.
We stood on the balcony where, behind stone screens,

Akbar heard complaints from his humblest subjects and set

tled disputes with such wisdom neither party considered him
self loser.

We climbed to the pavilions of the Summer Palacebuilt

without walls, like a pyramid of tableswhere Jehangir's
Rajput mother used to greet each new moon. We saw the
Japanese painting of Christ and His Mother on the walls of
the Palace of Miriam, Akbar's Portuguese wife. We were

caught in a monsoon shower in the private audience cham

ber of the King. Here, perched on a mushroom column cen

tered in the hall, far from assassin's knives, Akbar conversed
w i t h a m b a s s a d o r s o n t h e fl o o r b e l o w.

The Hindu girls ran laughing to the base of the column and
tried to clasp their arms around it. Even the men failed.
Then I, more simian than my friends, hooked my fingers
around the pillar, only to learn with terror it meant I was soon
to be blessed with a son!

The rain slanted down, turning the court outside to a

splashy mist. There on the checkered pavement Akbar from
his central dais played chess with wives and ministers, using
soldiers and servants dressed as pieces, while lords and ladies
watched. At the far end of the court a busload of holidaying
boys played tag upon the glassy pavement and splashed in
the pool where Akbar and his wives once bathed.
Between showers we ducked through courts and gardens
back to the Great Mosque and up the stairs. Taking off our
shoes we padded across the wet courtyard. Under a dome at
one end, in a sarcophagus of mother-of-pearl, lay holy Salim
whose prayers brought sons to Akbar's wives.
As we walked out upon the platform before the mosque's
main gate, boys, perched upon its wall, eaught our eye. Like
235

birds, they launched into space and came plummeting down

through the sky, down the whole great height of the battle
ment, past its foundations, down into a yawning cistern, to
explode into a coin of water, black and shiny far below.
We ourselves climbed the stairs within the walls and, on

the tallest gateway on earth, shared the lunch we brought

from Agra. Below monsoon showers trailed across the plain,
swept up empty streets and pattered through the courts and
halls of the deserted capital of India.

I N L O V E W I T H T H E W O R L D , C A L C U T TA , A N D
THE

MARINES

Taking a last farewell of the Taj Mahal, I crossed Jumna

bridge and struck out for the Hindu holy city, Benares. Atop
a load of potatoes, I rode twenty miles out of Agra. The next
car, a new Chevrolet driven by an English couple, was going
two hundred miles to Cawnpore.
It was late afternoon when they let me off in a cloudburst
under the marquee of the railway station. As I stood there,
a train drew in. I wondered how strict the ticket taker was

and rushed past him onto the platform. Not wishing to in

convenience a sahib hurrying to catch the train, he said
nothing.
Idling along the train, at last I spotted an empty seat in a
compartment with four British soldiers. "Can you put up
another passenger?"
"Sure, Yank. Drop your kit." And soon I was reclining on
the leather cushions, having tea.
It was eleven at night when we reached the junction where
I was to change trains for Benares. I peered out the window.
Black and lonely out there! Without my Lancashire friends,
I could hardly luck a ride on to Benares. And where to spend
the night? Somehow Benares did not seem so holy.
2?6

If I stayed aboard, by morning I would be in Caleutta.

Five months' mail waited for me there. The Calcutta Amer

ican Express weighed heavier and heavier on the scales of my

affection. 1 closed the compartment door and, taking off my
boots, stretched out on the seat to awaken in Calcutta.

1 still had to get by the final ticket taker. Otherwise, 1

would read my mail in jail. My khaki shirt and shorts were

identical to my compartment mates', only 1 had no beret or
regimental insignia, and 1 was wearing ski boots.
Giving our luggage to a squad of coolies in tight forma
tion ahead of us, and with the Lancashire soldiers in a flying
wedge around me, we charged the ticket taker. Before he

could take a second look at the strange-looking "tommy," 1

was out of sight around the corner, safe in Calcutta.

1 made a beeline for American Express (a good half day's

walk) and came out triumphantly with my fists full of mail.
But where could 1 read it? The Y.M.C.A. was full. 1 could

not afford a hotel. It would soon be night. 1 did not know a

soul in town. The mail in my hands only reminded me how
alone 1 was.

Waves of loneliness broke over me. No desert was ever

more bleak and barren than Calcutta that afternoon at four.

1 started to walk, where 1 did not know, hoping for some

thing. Then 1 spotted an American flag flying from a corner

balcony and ran up the stairs. Inside, 1 was halted by a girl

at a desk. "And what is your business at the American Con
sulate?" she asked.

"Business?" 1 queried. "1 just want to talk to an American."

"But what about?"

"Oh, baseball, Lil' Abner, malted milks. 1 just want to

hear the accent."

"Are you in trouble? Is it your passport?"

"Let's say it's my passport."
237

"Then you want to see Miss Deetz. Please write your

name."

I seribbled on the card. But she could not read my scrawl.

"What's the name?" she puzzled.
"Blake," answered a voice behind me. "Robert Wilkin

Blake, to be exact." Turning around, whose beaming smile

should I see, but John W. Thomason Ill's, an old Marine
buddy! My desolation vanished. He was with the United
States Information Service. He lived in Calcutta!

It was closing time. Singing "From the Halls of Monte

zuma to the Shores of India," we adjourned arm in arm to his
apartment where, with Ruth, his wife, we toasted old times
in San Diego. I spent the night propped up in bed, feasting
my way through my hoard of mail, in love with the world,
Calcutta, and the Marines.
SUNRISE

ON

TIGER

HILL

A clerk of the Indian Survey came running to his chief.

"Sir," he cried, "I've found the highest mountain in the
world!" That was in 1852.
The natives called the mountain Chomo-lungma, goddess
mother of the world. It was renamedafter the Chief of the

Indian SurveyMount Everest.

For over a century, men dreamed of climbing Everest.
Many tried. All failed, untilin the summer of 1953the
now well-known New Zealand beekeeper and the veteran
Sherpa porter finally reached the summit. Their victory
marks a glorious and rather melancholy milestone. What
is left?

But Everest was still unconquered when I applied for pas

sage to it through Nepal. The Maharaja replied that the
season was unfit.

238

I applied for passage through Tibet. The Dalai Lama's

horoscope forbad entry of foreigners.

I decided to go to Darjeeling anyway. Perhaps somehow I

could make my way to Everest.

Getting to Darjeeling was easy. In Calcutta I fell in step

with a detachment of Gurkhas and marched by the ticket

taker onto the train, and off again next morning in Siliguri.

Hailing a truck, I rode from the wet, level jute plantations

out of the jungle valleys up to the terraced tea plantations,
up 7,000 feet in the Himalayas to Darjeeling. There the city's
glass-front hotels and summer homes hang like a saddle
blanket across the back of a ridge looking aloft to 28,000 foot
Kanchenjunga.
At Villa Everest I found Mr. Kydd, Secretary of the Hima
layan. Glub. He smiled at my designs on Everest. "But at least
I can show you Everest."
At five next morning he picked me up at the British Forces
Glub (where I roomed and boarded for $0^ a day) and drove

me up to the most famous sight in Darjeeling, sunrise from

Tiger Hill.

We went to the top of the shelter house. From sky to

valley the darkness was complete. Then, from a sun we could
not see, the snow on Kanchenjunga turned to fire. Slowly the
light grew long and steady, like the sound of trumpets, and
with a mounting fanfare the sun's rim bulged above the
horizon. At that instant Mr. Kydd pointed in the opposite
direction where a thin jet of fire leapt up. It was Mount
Everest, so tall, and yet so far away (107 miles) it seemed
but a nub among nubs on the horizon.
"I wish I were standing on that peak instead of this," I
said.

Mr. Kydd cocked his head. "Think how many men and
expeditions have embarked from this hill with that same
dream. Think how many have died trying to fulfill it."
2 ^ 0

"Have many died on Everest?"

"Next to Nanga Parbat in Kashmir with its record of thirty
sixteen in a single avalancheyou are looking at the greatest
killer of all mountains.

"It was on the second expedition," he reminisced, "that

Everest took its heaviest toll. I remember it well. I had or

ganized the Darjeeling end of the attempt.

"Mallory, Somerville, Crawford and fourteen porters were
roped together in four groups, chopping steps up North Col's
thousand foot ice wall. In the silence, only the heavy breath
ing of the climbers. Then a rumble. The smooth snow
around Somerville suddenly became puckered. He felt him
self sliding down. Waves of snow and ice broke over him.
He swam to keep the surface. The rope around his waist
tightened and pulled him under. The pressure of snow in
creased until he was almost crushed. Then the motion

stopped. He fought to the surface and with the rope pulled

up Mallory, Crawford and one porter.
"One hundred and fifty feet below, four more porters strug
gled out of the snow. The other two parties had spilled over
a fifty-foot ice-cliff. One man was dug up still breathing, an

other dead from the fall. Mallory and Somerville belayed

into a crevasse where a loop of rope betrayed the fourth party.
Digging along the rope, one porter was uncovered lifeless.
Another, upside down in the snow, was chopped out, still
breathing after forty minutes' burial. Of the remaining six,
only one was alive. Everest took seven in all. They were
buried in the avalanche that had claimed them."

"Then there's Mallory and Irvine," I recalled. "Did you

know them?"

"Oh, yes, especially Mallory. They were lost on the 1924

expeditionthe saddest and most puzzling of all mountain

tragedies."
"How'd it happen?"
2 4 0

Mr. Kydd leaned against the railing, clasped his knee in

his hands and fixed his eyes on Everest as though witnessing
it all over again. "Camp six had been established at 26,800

feethigher than any peak in the world outside the Hima

layas. Norton and Somerville made a charge at the summit,
2,000 feet above, but Somerville nearly suffocated in the
rarefied air and Norton began seeing double.
"As they retreated, they passed Mallory, 37, soul of the
expedition, and Irvine, 22, Oxford Oarsman, going up. They
would make a last desperate trywith oxygen. June 9, 1924,
dawned bright and beautiful. Odell, in support at Camp Five,
saw Mallory and Irvine, shouldering oxygen cylinders, start
up from Camp Six. Soon clouds hid them from him. Odell
was climbing toward Camp Six when at 12:30 the clouds
parted. Far aloft, under Everest's final pyramid, he detected
Mallory and Irvine still moving upward.
"Clouds again enwrapped the climbers. Two hours later,

when the mists parted, the two men had vanished. Perhaps
they were on the summit, perhaps behind some rock. Odell
slid down to Camp Four to make room for Mallory and Irvine
at either Camp Six or Five. As darkness closed in, he still saw
no sign of his friends.

"Next morning he studied Camps Five and Six with bin

oculars. No movement. With two Sherpas, he struggled to
Camp Five. Mallory and Irvine were not there. The Sherpas
refused to climb higher. Next morning he fought alone to
Camp Six. His worst fears were confirmedthe tent was just
as he left it! Struggling out in the snow, he battled higher,
calling out, looking for some sign. His voice was lost in the

wind. Above him rose Everest's mighty cap, empty and un

moved. For two more hours he drove his heart, legs, lungs.
He found nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing.
"Slowly he had to admit, wherever they were, whatever
had happened, Mallory and Irvine were dead. Laying their
241

sleeping bags in a 'T' on the snow, be signaled 'tragedy' to

watchers in camps below. Tying the flaps of the tiny green
tent on the off-chance they might still be alive, Odell turned
his back on his departed friends."
"Did anyone ever find out what happened?" I asked.
Mr. Kydd shook his white head. "No, but nine years later
Wagner and Wyn Harris, climbing above the shreds of Camp
Six, came upon an ice ax on an outward shelving slab. It
could have only been Mallory's or Irvine's. Did they drop it
from above, or did night catch them there? Were they going
up or coming down? Perhaps it will be solved when some
man sets foot on the pinnacle of Everestand returns to tell
about it."

"It seems to me," I offered, "that these tremendous expedi

tions have too much inertia. I feel one or two men traveling
light and fast could storm to the summit before mountain

fatigue catches up with themlike the 'sourdoughs' on Mt.

McKinley."
Mr. Kydd snorted. "You're the second man to make me

that suggestion. Let me tell you what happened to the first.

I doubt the story's ever been told of the time one man alone
on instructions of Angel Gabrielflung himself at the king
of heights."
THE WILSON-ANGEL GABRIEL EXPEDITION

It was a strange, fascinating tale Mr. Kydd told.

Maurice Wilson, 36, was suffering from an incurable dis
ease. Reading Scriptures one day he found the passage:
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom
of God."

Taking the passage literally, he ate nothing but water for

three weeks until he was nearly deaduntil nothing but the
242

spirit remained alive. When he broke his fast he found his

disease starved out. He was cured!

To regain strength, he went on a walking tour of the Black

Forest. One afternoon he was about to fall asleep under an

oak when before him appeared the Angel Gabriel.

"Wilson," said Gabriel, "you've been cured of a terrible
disease. What have you done to herald your cure to man?"
"What can I do?" asked Wilson. "I am but a grain of
sand on the seashore."

Gabriel replied, "Amen, I say to you, God put every grain

of sand here for a purpose. Your purpose is to herald your
cure to man. Go, Wilson, and find a way."

The Angel disappeared and Wilson tramped on. Three

days later, again when he was resting, the Angel Gabriel
suddenly stood before him once more. "Wilson," he de
manded, "have you found a way?"

"I have told all I met, but they think I'm mad. I'm but
a voice crying in the wilderness."
"Wilson," said Gabriel, "an expedition has just failed to

climb Mount Everest. Think, if you should climb it, the

eyes of the world would be upon you. Men would listen to
your sermon of rebirth by water and the Spirit."
"I am but a weak, impoverished man who has never
climbed a hill. How shall I succeed where a hundred moun

taineers and a million pounds have failed?"

"You must find a way."

That was 1933. Newspapers were full of preparations for

the Houston Expedition to fly over Everest. Wilson conceived
a plan to crash a plane loaded with equipment and supplies
as high on Everest as possible, then climb to the top and
slide back to civilization. He volunteered for such a stunt to

the Houston Expedition. He was turned down as insane.

Nothing daunted, he bought a second-hand plane, filled

it with the lightest of mountaineering equipment, tanked up

2 4 3

on fuel and, with only thirty-six hours of flying instruction,

took off from England for India. The authorities got wind of
his scheme, however, and the police were waiting in Cairo.
He was ordered back to England. He fueled up and took off,
but, once out of sight, he circled and reset his course for
India.

He flew for hours until, completely lost, with fuel for only
a half hour, he ran into a thunderhead and didn't know

whether he was right-side-up or upside-down. He felt his

end near. In desperation, he remembered Angel Gabriel.
"See here, Gabriel," he prayed, "you got me into this mess.
Now you'd bloody well better get me out or I'll never reach
Everest."

No sooner said than the clouds parted, revealing an air

drome below. He dove down and landed on an R.A.F. field

near Karachi, Pakistan. The authorities, unaware of his orders

to return to England, pumped the plane with fuel and waved

him on to Purnea, at the foot of the Himalayas.

While he was resting at Purnea the authorities overtook

him. He protested he had no intention of crashing on Everest
he simply wanted to study yogi. "All right," they com
promised, "sell your plane and you can stay." This he did
and came to Darjeeling.
Here he started a twenty-three-day fast to fit himself, he

told Mr. Kydd, for a tiger hunt on the tea estate of a friend.
His fast over, he took long treks on the Himalayan trails. His
speed and endurance became the wonder of Darjeeling. In

dead of winter he could be seen striding up and down the

mountains in shirt and shorts. Whole days he sat behind the

telescope at Planter's Glub scrutinizing the winds, slopes,

snowfall, avalanches on Kanchenjunga.
All the while he was studying the Tibetan language and
customs, collecting maps, making charts, testing and perfect

ing equipment. With Mr. Pliva, of Pliva's Restaurant, he

2 4 4

developed a traveling ration of flour, oats, honey, fruit, milk

and sugar, all baked into a sort of fruit cake, heavy and
compact. It \vould neither dry out nor mold. One slice was
a meal and, if necessary, could sustain a man a day.
After six months he was ready. One morning he told his
host, Mr. Patton, he was off for the Ambotia Tea Garden

and the tiger hunt. Loading his kit into a taxi, he drove away,
bound instead for the roof of the world.

S TAT U E

OF

ICE

ON

EVEREST

To conceal the fact that he was not going tiger hunting,

Wilson got out at a tea estate near Sonada, and hailed a

car back to Chum. Here he hired a third car to Kalimpong

beyond the Tista River. Three Sherpa porters from the 1933
Everest Expedition, whom he had hired "for a trek into

Tibet," were waiting with provisions and mules.

He buried his European clothes and put on the robes of
a Tibetan coolie so he could enter Sikkim without visa. At

Rangpo a police subaltern, watching the party cross the

bridge, noted one man walking with back straight and head

erect, not bent over like Tibetans. When questioned, the

stranger answered in Tibetan and was passed. Wilson was
safely in Sikkim.

Traveling at night, he and his party skirted Gangtok, the

capital, and crossed the 14,500 foot Natu La Pass. Near

Karponang he encountered trekkers. When they hailed him,

Wilson left the trail and detoured the party. The report of
this strange behavior gave Darjeeling police their first clue
as to the disappearance of Wilson, who by then was beyond
reach, marching across the Tibetan plateau. Traveling more
openly, but circling populated places, the party reached
Rongbuk Monastery on the doorstep of Everest. The three
hundred miles had taken forty days. He told the Lama he
245

was a member of the previous year's Expedition and borrowed

some of their equipment. The Lama, in fact, was so impressed
he was still praising Wilson when the next year's expedition
arrived.

From the monastery Wilson made daily thrusts up Rongbuk Glacier toward Everest. One morning he told his three
Sherpas he was going up the mountain. They refused to
accompany him. Nevertheless, packing all he could carry,
he set out alone. He expected to reach the summit in four
or five days, living on rice water and fruit cake. He carried
a small shaving mirror with which to flash his triumph from
the summit. Before he reached the head of Rongbuk Glacier,
however, a flareback of winter scourged him back to the
monastery.

After two weeks he set out again, this time with his
Sherpas. They helped him locate the food dump of the 1933
Expedition at the foot of North Gol. It was stacked with
chocolate, Ovaltine, sardines, baked beans, biscuits, every
thing he could need. But of the ice-steps up North Gol there
was not a trace. He would chop new ones, normally a six
weeks' effortand he did not know how to use his ice ax.

Day after day he hacked away at the cliffs. His Sherpas

threatened to leave. He paid them in full and told them
to wait at Rongbuk Monastery. If he did not return in two
weeks, they should divide his equipment and return to
Darjeeling.
They waited a month. Still he did not return. As with
Mallory and Irvine, Everest had swallowed him. What had
become of him? He had tons of food. He was well equipped.
Had he fallen? Had an avalanche crushed him? Perhaps he
lost his way in a blizzard. But was it going up or coming
down? Had he climbed Mount Everest?

These mysteries were solved during the 1935 Expedition.

Shipton was climbing beyond Camp Three at the foot of
246

North Col when ahead he saw a strange man beside a

shredded tent. Shipton ealled and waved, but the stranger
did not move. It was Wilson turned to a statue of ice.

His diary, kept to the last, recorded repeated attempts to

climb North Col. Though he had plenty of food, the exer
tion, loneliness, cold gradually sapped him. Entries became
shorter, less coherent. His last notation was May 31st, 1934.
Having closed the book, he lay back to rest and never rose
again.
A hole was dug in the snow beside his tent and he was

buried beneath the Union Jack he had hoped, with the aid
of Angel Gabriel, to plant on top of Everest.

247

VIII

T H E R O A D TO M A N D A L AY
LUCK

U N B E L I E VA B L E

T ndian emigrants crammed the cattle deck, so I moved to

"A" deck. There I sprawled in the deep chairs of the
saloon while the palm-edged Hooghly banks snaked by. If
1 made like a sahib, perhaps none would question my right
to "A" deck. None would have, if 1 had not fallen asleep in
a deck chair. When 1 awoke it was late night on the high
seas. A ship's ofEcer was shaking me, reasoning that if 1 had
a cabin 1 would be in it.

"You a first class passenger?" he squinted.

"What do you mean, first class?" 1 stalled.
"Let's see your ticket."
1 showed him.

"A deck passenger!" he exploded. "What're you doing up

here?"

"My ticket says I'm a deck passenger, so I'm on 'A' deck.

O.K.?"

"You know bloody well it isn't. Get down where you be

long."
Thanking him for calling attention to my error, 1 went
down the ladder and stepped back over the gate into the ranks
of the great unwashed. Over the bodies of sleeping men,

women and children 1 tiptoed to the forward cargo hatch.

Here on a pile of canvas, 1 made my nest under the stars
and soon dropped off to sleep. Two mornings later the
S.S. Vita was plowing up a wide river toward the cone of
248

a great golden pagoda. Soon I was jolting down the gang

plank into the rain of bomb-scorched Rangoon.

As I sloshed up Fhayre Street wondering where to go and

what to do, a car eased alongside. "Hey, Yank!" Leaning out

the back door of the ear, a weather-tanned man in khaki said,

"Come on, get out of the rain. I'll drop you at your hotel."
"Thanks, but guess I'm headed for the American Con
sulate."

"Well, I'll take you there."

"Are you off that American ship?" I asked, heaving in my
knapsack.

"No, from up there." He pointed skyward. "The U.S. Air

Force."

"Didn't know we had any air force in Burma."

"I'm from China. Flew from Chungking with a million in
gold for the Bank of China."

"You're not going back to Chungking?"

"Tuesday. But by way of Bangkok, Saigon."
"Bangkok, Saigon, Chungking," I whistled. "What a trip!
You couldn't take a passenger?"
"Sure. I'll put you down as radio operator. 'Sparks' is sick."
"Clear to Chungking!" I cried. "But I'll need a Chinese
visa!"

"Don't bother. As long as you're with me, you won't need

a visa. Name's Randall. I'm in command in China. Stay with
me, sonI can put you on a plane flying anywhere on earth."
I just lay back and chortled. I visualized flights to Hong
Kong, Shanghai, Japan, perhaps Tahiti, at least Hawaii, even
tually home. What fantastic luck.
I little knew just how fantastic.

249

T H E G E N E R A L PA I N T S T H E T O W N

"To toast our flight to China," said Randall, whom I

judged to be a general, "let's pop in the Marine Club and
h a v e a b e e r. "

As the car swung through the garden before a palatial

building, the General said, "I usually camp here when I'm
in Rangoon, but Packer, American Charge d'Affaires, in
sisted I billet with him. Rather awkward. I like to kick out

of uniformlet my hair downwhen I get away from Chung

king."

Under fans at the long mahogany bar he ordered beers,

then led me through the Club to see swimming pool, ball
room, tennis courts. "If you've no place to stay, I'll fix you
up here."
"Thanks," I laughed. "I couldn't afford the baksheesh
here."

"Hang the expense. You're my guest. You know what I

make? Four thousand a month. And I've two ranches near

Paris, Texas. Cot a draft for twenty thousand this week.

Heard of the Randall Cable Works? Mine too. With me,
your money's no good. Wait'll you see my quarters in Chung
king. Twenty rooms, eight servants. I'm not there much, in
and out all over China. It's yours as long as you likeone
month, six months. Someone may as well use it. But the
Club, do you want to stay here?"
"I'd rather not."

"Yes, a bit stuffy. Too many English. You'd prefer the

hotel. Chug-a-lug. I'll take you there."
Protesting that I preferred the Y.M.C.A., we left the Club.

As I started across the drive he commanded, "Don't budge

a step. My taxi'll be over. I hire it by the week."
"Now let's see," he mulled as we turned up Fhayre Street,
2";o

"you want the American Consulate. But first, how about a

beer?"

"We just had a beer."

"But it's still a block to the Consulate. Need one for the
road."

In the bar of Bombay Hotel he ordered, "Two beers and

send the manager."
"This is my friend," he told the manager, "a Yankee from
Ohio. I'm a rebel from Texas, but he's a friend none the

less. Give him your best room, your finest meals, anything
he wants. And don't accept a cent from him. I pay for every
thing."
"Thanks, General, but I'm better at the 'Y,'" I said.

"As you like. But you heard my arrangement. Eat here

anyway." Then to the manager, "Could you cash a cheek?"
"Certainly, General. How much?"
"Well, I'm a little low. Say twenty thousand?"
"Oh, sorry. General. We don't keep such sums in the safe."
"Well, Lloyd's Bank's open. I'll cash it there."
"Now, son," he said to me, "how about ham and eggs?"
"Well, I haven't had breakfast. . . ."

"Drink up and come on. I know the best ham and eggs
in Rangoon. But first," he said on reaching the sidewalk, "we
need haircuts."

He was offered a big salaam as we entered the barber shop

and were enthroned in barber chairs. As barbers massaged
our heads, bearers our shoes, a pretty maid our nails, the
G e n e r a l c a l l e d o u r d r i v e r. " F e t c h u s t w o b e e r s . "

Later, necks cool, faces shining, hair smelling like a funeral,

we were driven to Sunshine Cafe for long-awaited ham and
eggs. "But first," said the General, "two beers."
A couple of cronies chaired up to our table and started
reminiscing about the General's Flying Tiger days. One told
of the big Jap raid Christmas dawn. At the first siren, R.A.F.
251

pilots began dashing about shouting, "Bring my helmet!

Where's my parachute? Get my goggles!" But General Ran

dall, Golonel then, jumped out of bed, leapt into his P-40
and roared up to shoot down two Japswith no clothes on
at all!

After another round of beers we finally got our ham and

eggs. "And now," said the General, "to the American Gon-

sulate. But first," he recalled as we got in his taxi, "I've an

errand."

Deep in Ghinatown we got out under the sign of a dragon.

We tapped at a side door, a slant eye appeared at a peep
hole, and we were whispered upstairs.

The General was promptly swarmed by Ghinese girls in

kimonos. They pulled him into a bead-screened booth and

began ordering Ghinese dishes by the dozen: soups, chicken,

sweet and pungent pork, rice, noodles, eggs, duck, plus a

number of unfathomable dishes. These they paid for by

fingering wads of rupees from the General's pockets.
As we finished our second meal within the hour, the girls

began hanging on the General's neck, sniffing their finger tips,

running them playfully under his nose. "Aren't they cun
ning?" grinned the General. "They want me to buy cocain."
Finally he jibbered something that sent them scampering

behind a screen. They emerged with stacks of small paper

packets. A pretty slant-eyed doll unfolded one before the

General. In it were some crystals like epsom salts. She took

a pinch, held it under the General's nose. He sniffed and

sniffed until the packet was empty.

Then each girl produced a betel leaf and emptied a packet
of crystals into the spice and ground betel nut which it con
tained. Refolding the leaf, she stuffed it and its contents into

her mouth. Soon all were contentedly spitting long streams

of red juice on the floor.
252

"Well, General, how does cocain make you feel, like MacArthur, Beelzebub, Atlas or Don Juan?"

"It's terrible, my boy." He leaned back luxuriously, eyes

half-closed. "I'd say try some, but you're too young. Don't
ever start, son. It gets you."

After drowsing a while, the General glanced at his watch.

"Gotta be going," he yawned. "Packers expect me at six."
We got as far as the corner. "But first let's have a beer."
Here the waiter, misjudging his customer's condition,
neglected to bring change from a hundred-rupee bill, and
the General started dismantling the place. I pacified him by
wringing the change from the manager and suggesting a
movie. We almost reached the movie, and actually would
have, had not beside the theater been a bar. In turned the
General as if on rails.

Needless to say the General never reached Packer's, nor

I the Gonsulate. There was just more beer in Rangoon than
we could drink in one day.
T H E F E S T I VA L O F L I G H T S
It was dusk when the General and I veered from the Pea
cock Gardens.

We found Rangoon strung with flickering colored lights.

Garlands of lanterns canopied the streets. House windows,
balconies and shop fronts were festooned with them. Even
the air above swarmed with fireflies of red, yellow, blue and

green as boys flew kites bearing candles in cellophane globes.

Men, women and children in holiday silks paraded through
the streets waving torches.
"What's up. General?"

"The Festival of Lights, sonBurmese Easter! Gome, can't

miss itgayest celebration of the Buddhist year! in the might253

iest pagoda on earth!" He waved to the spire of Shwe Dagon,

the golden pagoda on the hill.

Sinee our taxi was missing, we hailed riekshaws and ca

reened past the race track, up a road of temples and over
the Sacred Pool to the foot of Pagoda Hill. Here a sign said,
"Foot wearing prohibited." Doffing our shoes, we padded
between two snarling chinties (dragon-lions) up to the sum
mit of one of the most sacred shrines in the Buddhist world.

The mountain top was a forest of pagodas, great and small,

each draped with lights and housing squat, slant-eyed Buddhas. In the center, against the full moon, was the sweeping
cone of the loftiest pagoda on earth. Its sides were plated with
solid gold. The lacy, golden crown on its pinnacle was
studded with sapphires and rubies, and from it dangled vanes
of silver and gold that tinkled in the breeze. The pagoda itself
was solid brick, and could not be entered. But flanking it,
north, east, south and west, were four great temples, one
crystal, one marble, one gold, one silver. In them, sitting,
lying or standing, are a hundred Buddhas each with a precious
stone in its forehead.

Around the huge circular promenade swam the multitude

of worshippers, pausing at each shrine to throw water on
statues, garland them with flowers, light tapers, or touch fore
heads to the ground before them.
"What's it mean. General?"

"Why, son, it's Buddha's resurrectionkinda. He was

smart. He taught 'at men are reborn pigs, an' pigs men,
until we get sick of being either of themuntil we want
nothin', not life, death, health, wealth, fame, family, happi
nessnot even beer, coeain or womennone of the things
'at make us pigs. That's Nirvanadetachment."

I pressed my palms together and bowed to a fat, sleepyeyed Buddha, "From Nirvana, oh lord deliver us."

The General gave me a sharp look and went on. "After

254

teaching eighty years, Buddha needed rest. So he climbed

Mt. Nehru an' stepped up to Tavatimsosecond story of a
six-storied heaven. He spent the rains visiting the mother of
his former incarnation an' discoursing with the gods."
"But where do the lights come in?"
"Patienee, son. The period when Buddha was absent from
earth is now the Buddhist Lenta period of fasting, penance.
But at monsoon's end Buddha came walking back to earth
down the stairway of heaven. With him were all the gods
an' angels carrying torches to light his way. An' he was met
by his disciples on earth flocking with torches to welcome
him."

"Like the mobs swarming up to the Shwe Dagon waving

torches."

"Right, son, an' the lantern-kites zooming through the sky

are gods accompanying Buddha back to earth."

For the General and I the myriad torches and lanterns
served only to light the faces and figures of the pretty Burmese

maidens promenading in and out among shrines and Buddhas. Their silk longhies tucked tightly about slim hips, their
white, lacy ainghies hanging loosely about bare shoulders,
were not designed to promote true Buddhistie detaehment.
Agreeing to postpone renuneiation of world, flesh and devil,
we stationed ourselves in the lightest, gayest, most glittering
temple where we eould best observe pilgrims as they passed.
As pretty pilgrims bowed to Buddha, we bowed to pretty pil
grims. The coy glances and frank smiles we received in return
were hardly designed to send us rushing into deserts to fast
alone in eaves.

"If our decorum is not proper in the temple, we're not to

blame," the General assured me. "Obviously our souls be

longed to very worldly persons in our former lives, an' without
doubt we're destined to be reincarnated hinds or jaekals."
I t w a s d a w n w h e n I r e a c h e d t h e " Y. "
255

"Good," said the General, "now I know where you're stay

ing. I'll drop by for you tomorrow. We'll paint the town
again. Say about nine?"

"Very well, sir, this evening at nine."

"Not this evening, sonthis morning! I've only two more
days in Rangoon. Gotta get an early start."
Two more days at that pace! I shuddered. But there was
that flight to Ghungking to think of. "O.K., this morning at
nine."

ALL-TIME GHAMPION OF THE LIAR'S GLUE

By nine the General had not returned. Nor by ten.

After such a night it was not surprising the General was
an hour late. That is not what made me suspicious. It was an
hour's reflection in the cool, clear light of morning.
I recalled he said he was earning four thousand a month.
That would be $48,000 a year, far more than any general
makes.

He said he had flown from Chungking with a million in

gold. "Must have been a pretty heavy cargo," I had remarked.
"Only seven hundred pounds," he had answered. But seven

hundred pounds of gold equals only $400,000.

And he mentioned lunching with Chiang Kai-shek at the
capital, Ghungking. But now I recalled China's capital was
Nanking.
When I asked what kind of plane he flew, he had said, "A

Skymaster. Her three crew members are at Mingladon."

Only three crew members for a four-motored Skymaster!
And he called his radio operator, "Sparks." "Sparks" is
sailor slang, not air force. Maybe my General was off a ship.
Yet he spoke Burmese and Chinese like a native. Everyone
in Rangoon knew him and called him "General." Managers
accepted his scrawl on checks like pure gold.
256

Yet when I asked, "What plane did you fly in the Flying
Tigers, a P-40?" he answered, "No, a Tomahawk!" An Air
Force general who did not know a Tomahawk and P-40 were
the same plane!
Still what of the two cronies who corroborated his Flying
Tiger feats?

There was only one place to get the truththe American

Consulate. But it was Sunday, the Consulate was closed. Sev
eral American missionaries lived next door to the "Y." I

jumped the fence and asked Mr. Harwood if he ever heard

of Ceneral Randall.

No, but he opened the book Flying Tigers and checked.

I saw my ride to Chungking fade. There was no Randall on
t h e r o s t e r.

First thing Monday I hurried to the Consulate.

"Rocky" Reardon pulled out a file. There on front was
a photo of my general. His name, Mandel. No general, but
an oil driller from Maymyo.

"No, he's not staying at Packers, and he doesn't have a

Skymaster. But he does have an L-5 (light observation plane),
I know," said Reardon, "because he offered to let me fly it.

And he did say he was flying to Bangkok and Saigon to

m o r r o w. "

Skymaster or L-5, what matter, as long as he would take

me in it! Visions of flying to Siam, China came flashing back.
The only problem; find Mandel before he took off next
morning.

He said his plane was parked at Mingladon Airdrome. I

waved down an R.A.F. truck and in half an hour alighted at
Mingladon.

There the only L-5 belonged to the R.A.F. No one of

Mandel's description had ever landed or registered at Mingla
don.
257

In Burma where planes and fields are scarce, it was proof

Mandel neither owned nor flew a plane.
Yet perhaps he did. Perhaps his plane was unregistered.
Perhaps he never landed at recognized fields. Once he had

pointed to a colonel of C.I.D. who had accused him (Mandel)

of flying arms and opium from China. Perhaps he was a
smuggler. That would explain the wads of money spilling

from his pockets. Perhaps his plane was hidden at some secret

air strip. Perhaps he would call at eight next morning and

make good his promise to fly me to Bangkok, Saigon, Chung
king.

By eleven next morning no Mandel. I gravitated to the

Sunshine Cafe for breakfast. The General and I had ham

and eggs there three days earlier. The same two cronies who

reminisced with him about his Flying Tiger feats came to my

table. Surely they could tell me the truth about the General.
"Where's your friend?" I asked.

"Where's your friend?" one corrected.

"Say, we wanted to ask you," continued the other, "are all

his yarns about the Flying Tigers true? Is he really a general?"

"Sure, he's a general," I laughed. "In fact he's a generalis

simogeneralissimo and all-time champion of the Liar's

Club."

T H E R O A D T O M A N D A L AY

Ship me somewheres east of Suez where the best is like the

worst.

Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can

raise a thirst;

For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would
be

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea

That settled it. To Moulmein!

On the overpass to the train I saw a guard checking

2";8

tickets. Was the immunity from fares I enjoyed throughout

India finished? But I stomped by without eliciting a murmur.
But where to find a seat? Then I spotted the arm band
of a Railway Transport Officer.

"Evening, Captain. Got room for a stray American?"

"Righto. Only three officers in this compartment."

"Where you headed?" asked my compartment mates.

"Moulmein."

"Why that 'ole?" asked Lt. Forsythe.

"Because:

By the Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea.

There's a Burma girl a-sittin', an' I know she thinks o'
me.

Besides, I want to see how the old Moulmein Pagoda can

sit on the east shore of the Gulf of Martaban and still look
eastward to the sea."

"Doesn't," snorted Captain Jennings, "and that Burma

girl a-sittin' is a great, great grandmother by now."

"Besides," added Major Pardoe, "haven't you heard:
-The wind is in the palm-trees, an' the temple-bells they say:
'Gome you back you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!'

"But Mandalay's north toward central Asia," I said. "Moulmein's east toward home."

It was midnight when the train braked into Pegu. I found

the Moulmein train standing on a sidingall wooden, thirdclass cars, so crowded that families sat on the roof. And not
a British soldier aboard. I would surely get caught without
a ticket.

Back to my first class compartment I fled and stretched

out on the cushions.

"That's the job," said Major Pardoe. "Who cares about

259

home? You're learnin' 'ere in Burma what the ten-year sodger

tells:

'If you've 'eard the East a-eallin', why, you won't 'eed nothin'
else.'

No! you won't 'eed nothin' else

But them spicy garlic smells

An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple
bells!

"On the road to Mandalay," the rest of us chorused as

our train cliekety-clacked toward it through the night.

"Perhaps I'll find out," I conceded, "what keeps eallin' to

British soldiers, 'Come you back to Mandalay,'and just how

the dawn comes up like thunder outer China, where, 'crost
what bay."

In Mandalay, Pardoe explained, dawn can come up where

it pleases for Mandalay is no ordinary city. It was founded
by Buddha himself as a refuge from smallpox. On the hill
overlooking Mandalay stands a fifty-foot Buddha, arm point
ing where he commanded Mandalay to be built.

King Mindon began digging moats, erecting walls, build

ing palaces. But he did not trust Buddha entirely. Since
smallpox is an evil spirit, Mindon reasoned, good spirits must
guard the city. To enlist good spirits he knew what to do-

entomb three persons alive in each of twelve city gates, one

in each corner of the city walls, each corner of the palace,
each palace gate, each stockade gate. Then bury four robust
youths under the Lion Throne itself.

Mindon's soldiers spread out to invite the qualified, but

the nature of the honor leaked out. Within the hour Amara-

pura was deserted. Hurt by his subjects' unwillingness to

cooperate, he raided neighboring villages, finally dragging

from cellars and garrets the full quotafifty-three.

When these had been ceremoniously bricked alive into
260

palace and city walls, the new capital was pronounced in

vulnerable to smallpox.

In 1857 a great procession set out from Amarapura. First

came townspeople dragging belongings, prodded by ranks of

gaudy soldiers, followed by 155 Royal Guards of the Body,

220 Bearers of the Royal Swords, 450 Gentlemen at Arms,

50 Grooms of the Ghamber, 10 Lectors, 100 Royal Slipper
Bearers, 40 Tea Servers, 35 Pages, 60 Bearers of the Royal
Betel Boxes, followed logically by 57 Bearers of the Royal
Golden Guspidors.

Next, a host of silk-clad queens carried in palanquins by

rank: Southern Queen, Northern Queen, Queen of Genter,
Western Queen, Queen of North Royal Apartments, Queen
of South Royal Apartments, Queen of North Golden Apart
ments, Queen of South Golden Apartments, and many lesser
queens, 45 in all, followed by some 70 of Mindon's children.
Then came Mindon himself surrounded by war elephants

trapped out in red, himself mounted on an elephant capari

soned in jeweled purple and shaded by 40 Bearers of White

Umbrellas. He was escorted to the seven-roofed Hall of Audi

ence where, reclining on the Lion Throne at "The Navel of

the Universe," he proclaimed the city, "Mandalay"Gluster
of Gems.

Shortly before moving to Mandalay his Sacred White

Elephant died. Mindon was most apologetic to envoys of
Abraham Lincoln that he had no White Elephant to show
them.

Search for a new White Elephant was speeded by fabulous

rewards. Finally one was trapped in the Ghindwin jungles.

With begemmed circlet about its temples and a golden plate
on its forehead, decked in red harness bossed with gold and

prodded by a crystal driving hook, it was paraded to Mandalay

under the white umbrellas of royalty.

A palace was built for it. It was made governor of a

province whose revenue was its to eat. Since it was still a calf,

Mindon would have it fed nothing but mother's milk. Every

morning a line of women vied for the honor of suckling
Sinbyndaw, Lord White Elephant!

Once Sinbyndaw trampled his attendant. This crime

alarmed Mindon. Was not Lord White Elephant the rein

carnation of a man of special virtue? How could it commit

murder? Mindon's very faith in W^hite Elephants teetered

until a monk explained Sinbyndaw not guilty of sin. The
wretch he trampled was a foreigner!

In 1866, during Mindon's yearly sortie to Incomparable

Pagoda two of his sons lopped the heads off Mindon's brother
and the next three Princes in succession.

Alone between them and the Throne was Father. Off they
scampered to remove him as well, but Mindon's bodyguard
put up such a fight he was able to get away and make for the

Palace. The boys had stationed a henchman there to cut

down Father should he return. Up rushed Mindon. It was

unprecedented for the King to walk on his own feet. "Carry

me," he commanded. The assassin, so awed by royal presence,
forgot his mission, lifted Mindon on his shoulders, and toted

him into the Palace. As Mindon slipped to the ground the

assassin's sword clattered from under his longhi to the pave
ment.

The poor man was mortified, not only because it was tabu
to carry arms in the Palace, but because Mindon's slave

snatched up the blade and buried it in his stomach. In grati

tude, Mindon elevated the slave to Master of Royal Golden
Cuspidors.

The court was immediately visited by a plague of "official

colic," an occupational term for rigor mortis induced by re

moval of one's head. The rebel sons escaped to Rangoon

where the British interned them, but many smaller fry were
gilled. If one day Mindon looked surprised at you and re-

marked to some stander-by, "I see old Saw is still around,"

you had best put affairs in order for dawn would find you
casting about for your head.

Mindon was a great builder. He conceived erecting a

pagoda greater than Shwe Dagon, more massive than the

Pyramids! Its site, the prow of the magnifieent ridge across

the Irrawaddy. He drew the plans himself. For contractor, he
hired a French engineer. For laborers, he condemned 3,000

slaves to the job.

Once, as Mindon stepped about the blocks and trenches,
he upbraided the Frenchman for slow progress. "Sir," fumed
the Frenchman, "to complete a pagoda as huge as you de
signed would take 5,000 men 80 years."
It was so immense that four years later, when Mindon
died, it had risen but four feet.
MURDER

TO

MUSIC

Mindon was succeeded less by King Thebaw than by

Queen Supyalat, and less by Queen Supyalat than by QueenMother Senpyumushin.
As Mindon began to fail in 1878, Queen Senpyumushin
found the prospect of becoming but one of 45 ex-queens
disagreeable. If she had a son she might make him king,
but two miserable daughters were her lot. Nevertheless, she
would do with what she had.

Daughter Supyalat was the darling of half-brother Thebaw,

but Thebaw was only the third son of Mindon's third queeneightieth from the throne. That must be remedied.
As all the Queens, Princes, Princesses were bowed about
Mindon's deathbed, Senpyumushin flurried about the cor
ridor doling gold to guards. Suddenly the doors to Mindon's

death chamber burst open and the sorrowing Royal Family

was thrown into dungeons.
263

Naturally, Thebaw was crowned king and in due eourse

much acceleratedmarried Supayalat. But Thebaw did not
want to hoard his love, so at the same ceremony he married
Supayalat's older sister. How could Supayalat object? It was
all in the family. Supayalat failed to see it that way. Since
Sister was older. Sister was Chief Queen. Most unfortunate
for Sister!

One night as Sister prayed before charms and tokens for

a baby boy, Supayalat reported the scene to Thebaw and

aecused Sister of invoking spells to kill him. Thebaw doubted,

but it was best to take no chances. "I see Chief Queen still
around," he remarked to the old slave who had saved Min-

don's life. By morning the Chief Queen and her head were
separated.

Given a spare queen or two to play with, Thebaw would

have paid no heed to governing Burma, and gone down as
great. But Supayalat needled him about the health of the
state and, more particularly, about the state of his health.
"What if an earthquake splits the dungeon and your uncles
and brothers eharge out to claim the Throne? Better they
were beyond escape."
So Supayalat arranged a great festival with music, dancing
and theatricals. A stage was built, a grandstand for nobles, a
dais for King and Queen. In a neighboring courtyard, con
victs dug a trench, deep and long. Before it another grandstand
was erected, decorated with tinsel, flags, colored paper, gaudy
poles. In the Palace sewing girls started cutting and stitching
dozens of large bags of red velvetred velvet for death! Since
it was against the law to shed royal bloodif one eared to do
it legallyvictims were tied in red velvet bags and beaten to
death. If blood were spilled then, it would never be noticed.
The day of celebration arrived. Supayalat and Thebaw
ordered the whole court to the Royal Arena. While the Palace
grounds were thus deserted, the victims were dragged to the
264

pit in the Murder ArenaThebaw's brothers, sisters, uncles,

stepmothers, queens, princes, princesseseighty in all.
In the Royal Arena, Supayalat signaled for the musicians
and dancers to begin. In the Murder Arena the music was a
signal for the tattoo-cheeked convicts to whale away with
bamboo bludgeons.
There is a right and wrong way to do everything, especially
royal murder. Mindon's former slave, now Master of Royal
Executions, watched from the gayly decked grandstand to see

that all was done according to Hoylequeens beaten on the

head, princesses on the throat, princes on the neck.
The deaths of lesser royalty were up to the convicts and
offered pleasant diversion. Children were swung by the feet,
their heads bashed against walls. The old governor of Pegu

had his nose stuffed with gunpowder, his face blown off.
Up and down went bamboo clubs in time to the music.

When the music stopped, the clubs stopped, lest their thonking disturb the merrymakers. Frantically Supayalat drove tired
musicians to play on, the sooner to end the death festival!

But each royal victim required special, personalized attention.

For three days the morbid carnival clamored on. Finally word

came that the last red velvet bag had stopped twitching.
Supayalat waved the strident tune to end. Aching dancers
collapsed. Hoarse singers fell open-mouthed. Dreary revelers

crawled home. The orgy of Murder to Music was ended.

But there is more to disposing of eighty rivals than dump

ing them in a hole. Though the earth was packed hard and
smooth it soon swelled and cracked. Fearful lest the dead

escape, Supayalat trampled the ground with elephants, laid

sod. Within a week the ground again was humped and fis
sured. Again elephants were herded over it. Again it bulged.
One night the garden was filled with shadows at feverish
labor. By morning, instead of the swelling mound there was

a hole. Residents along the river road reported creaking ox-

carts through the night. Tlrose who braved the draught

claimed they were loaded with swollen, muddy bags.
No sooner had the Irrawaddy swirled away these human
threats than Thebaw was beset by inhuman ones. In 1880,
a new plague of smallpox! Ex-king Pagan Min succumbed in
the very Palace. Next, Thebaw's only son and heir. He was
t e r r i fi e d .

"Pray," advised the monks. Thebaw wanted a more scien-

tifie remedyhe flew to the soothsayers. They looked at plan

ets, sifted dust in the wind, boiled lizard's gizzards, bat's
eyes. The answer, obvious. The spirits of the fifty-three
Mindon had buried alive were getting old, tired, ineffectual.
They needed reinforcements, lots of them100 men, 100
women, 100 boys, 100 girls, 100 soldiers, andthis was The
baw's downfallICQ foreigners! Out fanned Thebaw's sol

diers to drag in the "eleet." Panic swept the town. In a

quarter-hour Mandalay was deserted except for the British

Resident who came storming into the Palace. He did not

even take off his shoes or prostrate himself at the "Navel

of the Universe." "Revoke this insanity or British troops

march!"

Thebaw abandoned the man-hunt. But some hundred vic

tims already collared never reappeared. Next night there was

much chipping and plastering about the walls. When the

plague abated, Thebaw wore a satisfied leer.
By now Thebaw had reached that stage when a man feels

pressing need for a new wife. Entering the nursery one day

he chanced to see his infant daughter's new nurse, beautiful

young Mi Hkingyi. Extremely resoureeful about this sort of

thing, he promptly fired her as nurse and seeretly installed

her with the Corps of Royal Pages, where Supayalat was tradi

tionally barred.
Thebaw next suggested to Supayalat that they remain in

their separate chambers to fast and pray. While Supayalat

really fasted in her room, Thebaw made hay with Mi Hkingyi.

But Supayalat, scenting lechery, charged the Pages' Quar
ters, knocking over two guards and dragging Thebaw from
the very arms of his darling. She boxed her faithless husband's
ears so soundly he promised to see Mi Hkingyi no more. Yet
when Supayalat's third effort at an heir turned out to be an
other worthless daughter, she could only bite her lip as
Thebaw married Mi Hkingyi. Still, Supayalat nagged him so
that he managed to see his bride only on pretext of "making
offerings at the temple."

Supayalat was not duped. She was laying plans. She sug
gested, now his rivals were dead, that Thebaw lead the barge
procession on the lotus moat about the city.

It was customary during this procession for the King to

receive petitions from subjects. When no one was looking,
Supayalat stuffed the petition box with urgent warnings that
Queen Mi Hkingyi, her uncle, and friends were about to
seize the throne. In terror Thebaw fled to the Palace. Wliat

did Supayalat think? Well, she had noticed whispering

behind screens, courtiers slipping notes back and forth.
Thebaw was dubious. But, after all, where there's smoke,
t h e r e ' s fi r e !

Out went the dragnet and into dungeons tumbled all his
best friends, most trusted adviserseveryone who had en
couraged him to marry Mi Hkingyi.
Mi Hkingyi suddenly found herself stripped of friends,

alone. Supayalat ordered her removed to the house of one

Taingda.

Still, Supayalat nagged Thebaw about the little queen's

"treachery," so one day, just to stop Supayalat's yammering,

Thebaw asked Taingda, "Is Mi Hkingyi still around?" At

dawn pretty young Mi Hkingyi was bagged and bludgeoned

to death.

The ruthless sacrifice of the innocent girl soured the Bur267

mese on Thebaw. The British, in disgust, released his two

half-brothers who coveted the throne and had once tried to

kill Father Mindon for it. Thebaw felt enemies closing in.
Lingering in dungeons were a few persons of royal birth,
many political prisoners. What if these too should escape?
Another Murder to Music Festival was not feasible. The

British almost marched last time. But Supayalat had a plan.

In the dungeon was the notorious dakoit (bandit), Yan Min.
A key was smuggled to him. The old bandit, scenting free
dom, organized a prison break, threw open the cells, killed
the guards, and came storming into the courtyardjust as

Supayalat planned. Soldiers were waiting. Yan Min fell by

first volley. The survivors retreated into the prison. It was
set afire. As they fled the flames, they were shot or beaten to
deathtogether with the last of Thebaw's rivals.

The nature of the "prison break" was not lost on the Brit
ish Resident. British and Indian troops massed in Rangoon.
The French encouraged Thebaw to defy the British. A bank
rupting fine was saddled on the Bombay-Burma Trading Com
pany. The British retorted with an ultimatum. The French

sidestepped, calling their Minister home.

Supayalat braved Thebaw to flaunt the ultimatum. Up
the Irrawaddy steamed General Pendegasttwo gunboats
supported by tommies on either bank. At the burst of the

second shell Thebaw's vaunted army scattered like sparrows.

While Thebaw wept on the Lion Throne, Supayalat climbed
the seven-roofed Palace and watched British gunboats anchor
off Mandalay. The comic-opera kingdom of Ava was ended.
Thebaw and Supayalat were exiled to Fort Ratnagiri below
Bombay. Thebaw died in 1916. Supayalat returned to live in
Rangoon on a grant of 2,000 rupees ($666) per month. She
died not long ago and was buried with pomp and ceremony
befitting a heroine rather than the most ruthless of the
queens of Mandalay.
268

A N E AT E R , S W E E T E R M A I D E N

We were chugging through a plain between the lush green

banks of the Irrawaddy and the blue hills of Shan. There
stretched a world of pagodas, great and small, new and an
cient, some gold, some white, some sprouting grass, some like
needles, some square with tiers of golden roofs tapering sky
ward. For miles the horizon was spiked with them like a
fakir's bed of nails.

Crumbling fortress walls and tilting chinties (dragon-lions)

in jungle groves betrayed the site of ancient Amarapura.
Across the Irrawaddy the great ridge was toothed with
pagodas, its dark green slopes studded with white temples.
And there was the white scar of Mindon's colossal pagoda
that was to dwarf the pyramids.
In the bomb-sieved station a truck met my compartment
mates and they took me through modern Mandalay to the
vast clearing before the sweeping walls of Mindon's Fort.
Seven-roofed pagodas, one above each gate and bastion, stood
like sentries along the battlements.
Across the lotus moat we rumbled through gates still
stuffed with men buried alive, to within the very shadow of
the Lion Throne. Here at the British Transient Camp my
friends got me a bamboo bungalow and meals for two chips
{60^) a day.
My three friends jeeped on to Maymyo, while I, with
Lieutenant Gregory of Princess Louise's Argyll and Southern
Highlanders, roamed Mindon's Fort.
Centered on a cannon-guarded, stone platform stood a
scorched wallall that remains of the Lion Palacebombed

flat by American B-iy's while serving as Japanese headquar

ters. Gregory took me through dungeons once packed with
princes, queens, princesses, and we tried to find the arena
where they met their death. We found a sunken trench and
260

wondered if it had once been heaped with royal corpses. We

tapped around the gates for sentries entombed alive.
Most fascinating of all was Mandalay Hill rising beyond
the walls with its shrines, pagodas and monasteries. One
morning I sallied out of the Fort, through gaps blasted by
returning tommies, and started up it.

Clustered about its base I found 450 Pagodas of the Law,

looking like the white conical tents of a camping army. Each
pagoda housed a marble slab bearing a chapter of Buddhist
scriptures. A thousand roofed steps led up the slope, terraced
with domes, arcaded courts and temple spires. One glittering
pagoda enshrined a hair of Buddha, another his tooth, an

other his footprint. Under one lofty dome stood the fifty-foot
statue of Buddha, his arm pointing where he instructed
Mindon to build Mandalay.
Making the ascent before me was a pretty Burmese girl.
As she climbed she lingered to buy a flower for her hair, or
light a taper before a shrine. At one counter she selected a
white cigar an inch in diameter, eight inches long. This she
rolled daintily between her lips and trailed a cloud of smoke
behind her. As she climbed she paused to retuek the skirt
about her waist, loosened by the swaying of her hips. At the
summit, in the pillared court, she laid aside her stogy, knelt
and kissed the ground before the obese, plaster Buddha. I
realized

'Er petticut was yaller an' 'er little cap was green.
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-latjes' the same as Theebaw's
Queen;
An' I seed her fust a-smokin' of a whaekin' white cheroot.
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on a 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud-

Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd

Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she
stud!
270

Next day I wandered to the river over the route the oxcarts
took vwth those eighty velvet bags. I passed a building where
a sign proclaimed the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. At river's
edge I found the flotillalittle more than masts and funnels
jutting above the waves where they were bombed to the

bottom during the war. Now and then an old sidewheeler

would come chugging upstream with schools of fish skipping
out of its path. Not far up the river, at Bhamo, the Irrawaddy
widened to a bay where Taping River tumbled into it from
the peaks of China on the horizon. I realized I was standing
at last

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the old flotilla lay;
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay?
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the
bay!
Idling from the river, I stopped for tea at a sidewalk table.
Nearby was a fountain where a group of Burmese girls came
to bathe. Among them I recognized the girl I had seen the
day before on pilgrimage up Mandalay Hill.

Though entirely public, no bath was ever more modest.

Though entirely modest, none ever more charming. She un
tucked the longhi from her hips and lifted it to her bosom
while she slipped the ainghi from her shoulders. Then she
tucked the longhi under her arms and dipped water over her
shoulders, down her back until the longhi was wet and cling
ing. She rubbed her arms, shoulders and legs and scrubbed
her body through the longhi. Finished, she pulled a dry longhi
over the wet one, which she dropped to her ankles. Slipping
her arms into a fresh white ainghi, she lowered the longhi
and retucked it about her hips. After coiling two black braids
2 7 1

atop her head, and pinning a flower at her temple, she turned,
fresh, and lovely, to reeognize me with a smile. I knew then
what beckoned British soldiers back to Mandalay.
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the
Strand,

An' they talks a lot o' lovin' but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and
Law! wot do they understand?

I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

272

I X

JEEPING ACROSS CHINA

STRANGE

NEW

WORLD

/^n that morning when I walked down the last slope of

Burma and up the hill into Wanting, China, I felt more

foreign than everaround me people with slant eyes, signs

with unfathomable claw marks, houses with ski-jump roofs.

Here surely my mendicant travel would fail.

But when the Chinese custom officials heard I was Ameri

can they bowed me to lunch and begged me to stay to wine

and dance on National Day (Chinese Fourth of July).

I was tempted, until the first two trucks that week checked
through customs. They were going so far and showed such

promise of reaching therebeing shiny new Internationals

and the little owner. Ring, was so friendly as to take me
free, that I climbed aboard. Stretching out on bales, I rode

off like an oriental potentate for Kunming, 600 miles deep

in China.

At first the old Burma Road was asphalted, but it was so

narrow, so overgrown from disuse, that the long kunai grass
made an arch above the road. Even on the truck I often had

to pull my head under the canvas to escape the sting of the

grass as we whipped through.
From the first, there was no doubt I was in China. I could

tell by just opening my eyes. It was not so much the coolies

in their flat, conical hats, wading in terraced rice paddies, nor

the temples with up-flung eaves, but the scenery itselflike

a Chinese painting. Bamboo farmsteads nestled by gentle
2 7 ^

rivers banked with willows. Over them, mountains soared

out of mists and hovered in the sky. It was the kind of

landseape that made me want to jump out and become lost
in it for a long, long time. But the picture always appeared
more enchanting ahead, so on and on I rode in the clean

air, filled with the joy of discovery.

FAMINE AMID PLENTY

China was a vagabond's paradisethe first country where

I could get enough to eat and yet afford to pay for it.
Order any meal and you are entitled to all the rice and

soup you can eat, plus a different main course for every man
at table. In our two trucks were seven men, so there were
seven main courses.

After my first meal, I asked Ring what my bill was. "Seven

thousand dollars," he said.

I had heard prices were high in China.

"I don't have seven thousand pennies," I moaned. "All I
have are these," I said, unfisting three Burmese rupees.
"This will do," said Ring, taking one rupee and counting
me $8,000 change. The whole wonderful feast had cost ten
cents, American!

"Prices high here," Ring agreed. "Things get cheaper

nearer Kunming."

My problem was not the price but getting the food to

my mouth.

I will never forget my first meal in China, or rather, my

first failure to get a meal. It was in Lameng high above the
Salween River Gorge. The seven of us were elbowed around
a table, each with a bowl of rice. Centered on the table

was a great tureen of chicken broth, surrounded by seven

platters, each with a different kind of foodshellacked duck,

noodles with bacon, sweet and pungent pork, eggs scrambled

274

with diced ham, beef slices and cabbage, stewed spinach, and
chicken giblets fried with lettuce. A royal feast! But all the
utensils I got were chopsticks. For the beginner, chopsticks
are a major hazard. The most docile piece of lettuce suddenly
becomes an invincible Gibraltar, and if you manage to get

one of the sticks to your mouth, the other is probably in

your eye.

And which of the seven platters was mine? All were differ
ent. Perhaps I should help myself from each, but how, with
out serving spoon or plate? The bowl of rice was mine at
least, so I started on it. But eating rice one grain at a time

is rather tedious. Before I had enough to swallow once, all

seven platters, the soup tureen and six other rice bowls were
empty, and my six companions were leaning back picking
their teeth and spitting on the floor. The meal was over!
After starving several more meals, I finally learned the first
rules: that there are no rules. Eating in China is every man

for himself, rough and tumble, no holds barred, may the

best man win. To use table manners there is a breach of

etiquette; in fact, it's insane. The instant a platter of food

is dropped on the table, lick your chopsticks and dive in.
Eat as fast as you ean, and if, out of the corner of your eye,
you see you are falling behind, drop the chopsticks and shovel
with your hands.

When a new platter of food is tossed into the arena, decide

instantly whether to shift your full attack to it or maybe
only fifty or twenty-five percent. Amateur, be wary lest you
devote your whole assault to spinach or tripe while the luseious sweet and pungent pork or stewed chicken livers van
ish. Never waste time on rice or soup. You are entitled to

all you want anyway. When everything else is gobbled up,

then waste your time trying to eat rice and soup with chop
sticks.

In Chinese hands, a bowl of rice seemed to vanish into

275

thin air. After some time, by dint of careful questioning and

slow-motion demonstrations, I discovered how it was accom
plished. The mouth is lowered near the level of the table

(amateurs may have to kneel on the floor), and then, without

a break in rhythm, the wrist is flicked just as the hand darts
out for more chicken, causing the chopsticks to dig into the
rice and fling half the bowl into the air. This is timed just
as the eater is gasping for breath. The draught sucks the fly
ing rice into the mouth. All without losing a giblet! Soup is
handled similarly, by inhaling lustily at edge of bowl.
In general, leave fowl until the home stretch because it

has been broken to chopstiek size with an ax and is as full

of bones as a sunfish.

Since I often got finger cramps, my companions, recogniz

ing my amateur standing, would lick their own chopsticks
in the interests of good hygieneand plunk a piece of quail
or omelette in my rice bowl where I could corner it with one

of those boat-shaped porcelain spoons reserved for infants.

At first I thought it unsporting to attack the main dishes

with this weapon, but I soon realized how silly scruples were.
The capacity of chopsticks is limited only by the strength of
the arm, whereas there is a limit to what can be piled on a
spoon. Thus, with spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the
other as pushers and load balancers, I developed a two-handed
system by which I could at last get a full meal.
MILLIONAIRE IN KUNMING

From the height of Western Mountain, cliffs dropped into

a lake stretching beyond the limits of vision to the south.
Across a tip of water, clustered around a hill, rose the walled

city of Kunming. Emerging from the desolation of the Burma

Road, it looked like the Promised Land. Once within its

pagoda-crowned gates, I found it actually was. When I

276

changed my last twenty dollars, I suddenly became a million

aire, in fact a multi-millionaire! My pockets bulged with rolls
of $10,000 bills. On paying what I had borrowed from Ring,
I found that the five-day junket from Burma had cost $60,000
ninety cents, American.

My room at the Y.M.C.A. cost $4,500 per daysix cents.

Another six cents got me a six course dinner in the "Y"
restaurant. For $7,000ten centsa reserved seat was mine
in either modern theater showing British and American films.
For additional entertainment I needed only open my eyes.

By merely leaning out my "Y" window, I had a front seat at

a curb-side magic show, a traveling juggling act, a knife-

throwing demonstration. I could look over the shoulder of

a fortune teller, listen to a minstrel's song, get a sample

plaster from a Chinese medicine man, study the arts and

trades of China. Across the street, wagon wheels were being

made, down the block firecrackers. On the corner a man
c a r v e d t r e e t r u n k s i n t o c o f fi n s .
T h e " Y " w a s i n t h e c e n t e r o f t h e T h i e v e s ' B a z a a r. T h e r e

you could buy back whatever had been stolen from you.
The Thextons had a pane picked from their window one
night and all their belongings removed while they slept.
The next day, with a detective, Mr. Thexton toured Thieves'
Bazaar. On sale he saw his household possessions. Going
from stall to stall, he selected his belongings. When propri
etors named a price, the detective flashed his badge and

said, "Stolen property." When the Englishman could not

find several items, the detective picked up something of the
same value and gave it to him.
A Chinese thief is an artist. I realized it one day when I
was walking through Thieves' Bazaar, carrying my knapsack.
Suddenly someone began banging my arm. Turning, I found
a policeman. In one hand he held a Chinaman by the collar,
in the other, half the contents of my knapsack. The thief
277

had unbuckled the flap and had nearly emptied my bag

even as I carried it.

Kunmingthieves and allwas a city of romance and

legend where cold reality never seemed to roost. Should you
doubt a gold horse ever galloped from India to Kunming
look on Chin Pi Lu at the Arch of the Golden Horse, com

memorating the event. If you doubt the reality of the phoenix,

immortal bird with the head of a pheasant and the tail of a
peacock, see the adjacent Arch of the Green Jade Goek, com
memorating the day the eitizens of Kunming spied the bird
perched on Western Mountain and mistook it for a green
jade cock.

And should you be skeptical of dragons, see the Pagodas

of East and West. These square, bulging towers were ereeted
by Tibetan conquerors ten centuries ago, one at the head,
one at the tail of a dragon discovered under the city. The
towers keep the dragon anehored so he will not thrash around

and cause earthquakes. The size of the dragon can be judged

from the fact the towers are a mile apart.
One night a fire-dragon was swimming lazily through
Kunming skies when a thunderbolt made him dive into a

building near the "Y." I heard cries and pounding feet and,
leaning out my window, saw the building at the end of our
block dancing with flames. A boy dashed off for the fire
brigade.

The third shop was burning nicely by the time the fire
brigade arrived with one truek and a company of soldiers

trotting alongside with flags and axes. Hoses were unraveled

all over the street, only to remain flat and lifeless. The water

dragon could not be roused at such an hour to crawl through

the mains. By this time the fourth shop was ablaze. Some
thing had to be done.

"Gharge!" yelled the Brigadier, in his silver, brush-topped

Trojan helmet. With a wave of his sword he led his troop
278

like a swarm of termites into adjoining buildings. Up walls,

over roofs they flowed. In their wake, chairs, tubs, beds,

chickens and children rained out of doors and windows.

Roofing tiles pelted into the street. Wood chips filled the
air like snow as axes bit into rafters and walls. Before our

eyes whole houses subsided into heaps of rubbish.

The fire dragon ate his way hungrily through six shops in
anticipation of greater feasts beyond, only to find the fire

brigade had beaten him to every other building within reach.

Cornered, he lay down in the ashes to lick his steaming scales
as firemen tormented him with the trickles they at last coaxed
through their hoses.
For roommates at the "Y" I had Lee and Ling, two exlieutenants in Stilwell's Army and currently students at
Yunan University. Together we roamed their wonderful city,
going each day to a different place for tea, sometimes to a
garden on the lake shore, sometimes to a pavilion on an island
in the center of the Green Lake Park, or again to the tea
house in the ancient temple on the cliff overlooking the city.
Kunming was the place for me. Wherever we went I found
new delight. With a million in my pocket, one day of de
licious idleness followed the other, and I came to understand

what the Chinese mean by the Art of Living.

JUST A GIGOLO
Roommate Lee was moody. As we got acquainted he con
fided that his melancholy was over a lost love.
In China a man's wealth and social position are judged by
the number of his wivesin spite of the fact that Chiang
Kai-shek made it illegal to have more than one.
In China, as in most of the world, wealth and social posi
tion come when a man is too old to enjoy themand more
particularly, too old for young wives to enjoy them. So, when279

ever the old husband goes on a business trip, his young wives
go wild.
One evening before my arrival, Lee was sitting in Kunming
Theater waiting for the movie when a beautiful, young, ex
quisitely dressed girl started up the aisle. She was so striking
every head in the theater rotated with her approach. Lee
could scarcely believe his eyes when she turned into his
row and sidestepped to the seat beside him. With an arro
gant glance she looked Lee up and down just once, then
never took her eyes off the screen. At curtain, as she got out
of her seat, she put her hand on Lee's knee as if to help her
self up, then quickly slid along the row to vanish in the
crowd. On his knee, Lee found a card which said: "Meet
me seven p.m., room 515, Yunan Hotel."

Lee managed to survive the excitement of the intervening

day and, at the stroke of seven rapped at room 515. The
door swung in. There in silken kimono, stood the most
gorgeous girl he had ever seen.
"Well, what do you want?" she asked in a chilly tone.
Lee was bewildered. "Don't you rememberlast evening
the theaterthis note!"

"Oh, yes," she smiled. "Do step in."

For twenty-one days they lived in paradise. She owned a
car. They spent the days touring the countryside to temples
and resorts. She lavished on Lee every luxury and attention.
She bought him expensive clothes, took him to the most
exclusive places to eat, treated him to the most exotic foods,
entertained him at theater, movies, opera. Then one morn

ing she announced that her husband, an army general, was

returning from fighting the Communists. Shoving ten million
dollars in Lee's pocket, she sent him away, saying she could
never see him again.
For Lee the world had come to an end. He felt exiled in

space. The first day was like the Death of Ten Thousand
280

Cutseverywhere he looked, everywhere he went, something

reminded him of her and that he would never see her again.

When evening eame he could bear it no longer. Irresistibly

his steps led back to Yunan Hotel, up the stairs to the fifth
floor. Just three weeks before, he had first climbed those steps.

At seven o'clock that door had opened and there she had
stood like a porcelain goddess. As he stared forlornly at 515,

he heard steps on the stairsa young man approaching! The

stranger walked along the corridor looking at the numbers.
He stopped before 515, knocked! The door swung in. A
musical voice of query. Her voice! Lee was starting toward
her, when the young man showed a small white card, and
was invited in. The lock clicked behind them.

Lee was crushed. The card was the same she had once

placed upon his own knee. Now he recalled she had not

scribbled the note during the show. She must carry them

already written in her sleeve! When tired of one companion,

she presented a card to another.

For many days Lee looked as though he could not survive

his anguish. Then one afternoon as I awaited my two room
mates in our favorite cliff-top tea house, Lee came running

up the cliff steps, happy, singing, with an armful of money.

He spilled it on the table and I helped him count itfour
million dollars!

"Where'd you get the dough?" I marveled.

"Well, I sitting in Hotel Commercial when pretty lady

whisper, 'What you do tonight?' 'Nothing,' I answer. She
give two million dollars in pocket and say, 'Meet me room
310, nine o'clock!' 'Ding how,' say I. She bow and say,

'Could bring someone for friend?' 'Ding how,' I say. And she
give another two million in coat pocket."
"Nice work if you can get it," I ogled.

"Yes, but look for Ling, no find! How you like to earn
two million?"

"Oh, no, thanks," I laughed. "I'd be liable for income tax

and God knows what else!"

T H E R E L U C TA N T D R A G O N

In five days of driving from Burma, I had only inched

into China. I was staring out my window at the "Y," wonder
ing how I could ever reach faraway Shanghai when Wu, a
Chinese friend from the American Consulate, dropped by
to invite me to dinner with his friend David. It developed
David and two chums were jeeping to Canton. Would I
care to join them?

Canton! My home was Canton, Ohio. I always wondered

what Canton, China was like! They had a passenger.
Two hours before dawn a week later Dave, Kok, Yu and

I piled into the yellow jeep for an early start to Canton.

Twenty-four hours later we were still in sight of Kunming.
As we neared Shulsheba the jeep began running slower and
slower. We felt the brakes, tried the clutch, blew out the

fuel lines. Nothing helped. When the engine finally quit, we,
in mechanical innocence, diagnosed it as laziness and dubbed
the jeep the Reluctant Dragon.
After a night sleeping on tables in a cafe, it occurred to
Kok to emery the breaker points. That sparked the Reluctant
Dragon to its feet and sent it gallumping down the road
once

more.

All went well until next day when we took a short-cutbuilt in haste by Stilwell for escape should the Japanese cap
ture Kunming. Erom the sun of the highway, the short-cut
led us up mountain ledges into gloomy wastes of fog and
rain. It was to take ten days to reach Canton. Ten days later
we were still on the short-cut.

While grooming the Reluctant Dragon the third morning

in cloud-shrouded Hingyen, we discovered the engine shal282

low on oil. Oil was almost unheard of in that remote little

town, but many inquiries led us to a merchant who had a

crock of what was reputed to be oil.
He protested it was "bad oil," refused to sell it. But oil

was oil. We paid him extra and emptied it into the jeep.
Nothing happened for a whileexcept that once the scen
ery got in the way. We were goggling at the landscape-

conical mountains jutting like dragon teeth out of level land

when the Reluctant Dragon charged into a boulder con

cealed in the highway grass. When we landed we found a

broken front spring and a leaking battery.
Next we heard ruminations from the Reluctant Dragon's
engine room. It sounded like a burnt-out bearing. Impossible!

the engine was slopping with oil. Perhaps the oil was too
thin. We would buy heavier in the next town.
The next town was En Lung, meaning "comfortable
dragon." But it afforded no comfort for a Reluctant Dragon.

Gasoline aplenty at a hundred thousand a gallon ($1.30 U.S.),

but no oil at any price.
Night fell and we still had not reached another town.
Hour after hour the Reluctant Dragon clattered on, without

lights, up and down mountains, through fog, blackness, and

rain that turned the road to chocolate and sloughed away
great bites of it.
It was after midnight on a mountain ledge. I was driving,
the engine pounding like an air-hammer. Ahead I detected
a pool of mud. For additional power I double-clutched and
slammed into low gear. When I let out the clutch, instead of
charging forward, the Reluctant Dragon gave one horrendous
clank and slid to a stop. We tumbled out into the mud and
rain and tried to start the thing by pushing. The wheels
skidded. We tried cranking but could not turn the handle.

We jumped on it. The engine was frozen solid!

We had no clue to the trouble. We only knew it was rain285

ing, in the middle of the night, the middle of the mountains.

We had not seen a building in hours, not a vehicle since

yesterday. On my map, no town within ninety miles! Only

one choice, coast dovm the mountain and hope for a miracle.
A

CLOSE

S H AV E

While we found no authorized agent for jeep parts and

service, it was miracle enough to coast down to some boat
men's shacks on the bank of a wide river. In fact, the owner

of one bamboo shanty swore it was an inn. At two at night,

in the rain, with a dead dragon on our hands, we were in
no position to dispute such a preposterous claim and became
his guests.
Here in Patto I was given a demonstration of the superi
ority of Chinese women. At the snap of our host's fingers,
his wife rose from her mat, wearing one baby in front and
one strapped behind. After blowing the fire, chopping wood,
hauling water, killing pullets, she had a meal of rice, hot
soup and stewed chicken on the table before we had the
jeep unpacked. No wonder polygamy is so well established in
China!

Two or three wives are not a luxury but a necessity. With

out them, a husband could not devote all his energy to sipping
tea and contemplating the absolute.
When Dave said, "Looks as though we'll go to bed with
the chickens," I thought he was talking about the time. But
the inn had only one room. At one end was a hollow mound
of mud for a stove. In the center, two tables. At the other

end, a bamboo platform where all the guests slept side by

sideside by side with each other and the household dogs,
cats, pigsdnd chickens.
Perhaps I was usurping his usual roost, or maybe I had
just devoured his favorite wife, but for some reason a mam284

moth rooster would perch nowhere but on my hip. From

there, with flap and shriek, he hailed the sunrise every five
minutes all night long. The only time he hopped off was
to let a rat gallop across me, hotly pursued by the cat. This

usually disturbed the dreams of the old dog sleeping at my

feet, and he groaned and thrashed as if in mortal combat.
Once awake, he would bark out the pigs rooting in the dirt
under our bed. After five hours of this. Chanticleer, the

rooster, finally hit dawn right, and I was able to get up and
get some rest.

After breakfast, Dave and Kok hired a boat to cross the

river and started walking ten miles to a village in the hope

of finding someone who knew something about the magic
of motors.

Meanwhile a barber set up shop in the inn. A good time

to get chin smoothed and mane trimmed, so I signified my
intention to the barber. He assured me I was first, after two
Chinese ahead of me.

I was somewhat surprised when one, with only a half-inch

stubble, ordered a haircut. I was even more surprised when

the barber, instead of scissors took a razor. Laying the blade
at the forehead, in a few deft strokes he had the head look

ing like a peeled apple, and sent the victim out in the sun
where the glare of his dome blinded all that beheld him.
I was dumbfounded when the next man ordered a shave.

Like most Chinese he had hair on neither lip nor chin, and
if he had, would never dream of shaving it off. Nothing is
so admired in China as a mustache or beard. To have a mole

is considered the height of fortune, for it will nurture three

or four hairs which can be combed and brushed and nursed

to dangle at great length from cheek or chin.

The barber, however, undaunted by the absence of beard,
whetted his razor and began. First he shaved the hair-line
28=;

back an inch or two at the forehead. This made the customer

look bald, but in China a high forehead is much esteemed.

The ruse is splendid for a day or two.
Then the barber ran the razor over the entire forehead,

with what effect I could not see, and scraped off all the fuzz
between the eyebrows.
Next he attaeked the eyebrows themselves, whittling them
to less gorilla-like proportions. Following this, he shaved all
around the eyes, and, while I stared in horror, ran his blade
back and forth across the lids. As if this were not enough,
he shaved the bridge and sides of the nose and, producing
a special diminutive razor, shaved inside as far as he could
reach.

He next attacked the ears, scraping backs, rims, every eonvolution until, getting into close quarters, he opened his
miniature kit and reamed out the inner ear with an infinitesi

mal post-hole digger. After shaving the passages with a long

pin-like knife, he finally dusted inside the ear by twirling
a tiny chimney brush.
The victim hobbled away sneezing and shaking his head
as if butterflies were in his ears. Then the barber gave me
a look that meant, "Now you." I clamped my arms over
my head and bolted for the door.
W h a t i f I h a d b e e n fi r s t i n l i n e ! I t w a s i n d e e d a c l o s e
shave.

ON

THREE

CYLINDERS-MORE

OR

LESS

In the evening a squad of Chinese soldiers trotted down

and from behind logs and rocks trained maehine guns aeross
the river. A Dodge truek was being eranked across on the
barge-and-cable ferry. The sergeant halted the barge just off

shore and made all the passengers stand elear as he jumped

aboard and carefully peeked under the canvas.
^ 8 6

"What's it all about?" I yelled to Dave and Kok, who were

aboard.

"Communist captured couple towns ahead. Soldiers don't

want a truckload popping up here. Three trucks ambushed

yesterday, ten killed. Lucky jeep broke down. We might have
driven into hail of bullets."

We were lucky too that truck happened along, for the

driver, with true oriental courtesy, offered to take a look
at our jeep.
Forty-eight hours later, with true oriental patience, he was
still looking. Meantime he had the Reluctant Dragon in

small pieces twice, first, to fit in Dodge bearings, only tohave them weld fast again on the trial run; second, to remove

number three piston entirely, only to have the jeep refuse to

start. Thereupon the mechanic packed his tools, retrieved hisbattery and drove off. There we sat, ninety miles from the
nearest garage.

Enlisting the squad of soldiers, we set out the following:

morning to push the Reluctant Dragon ten miles to Kowchu.

But not fifty feet from the ferry on the far river bank we
all fell exhausted.

We were prostrate under a tree when Dave noticed three

cows grazing on the hillside. Within a twinkle the cows found

themselves roped to the Reluctant Dragon, and the latter
was being wheedled up the mountain.
The humiliation of being yanked around by three fat old
cows was more than our dragon could stomach. Nursing his
grudge, he bided his time. On a down slope he started coast
ing into the heels of the cows. Kok, to slow him, threw into
second gear, but, instead of slowing, the Reluctant Dragon
gave an angry snort, charged the cows, scattering them to the
winds, and galloped on to Kowchu on three cylinders.
Though running, the jeep vibrated like a dog shaking him
self. And eighty miles to Poseh!
287

We considered sending one of us to Poseh on the daily

truck to hunt new bearings. But who would install them?
We thought of loading the jeep on the truck and hauling it
to Poseh. But the truck driver asked two million dollars.

By noon next day we decided it cheaper to drive to Poseh

on three cylinders. This was the Reluctant Dragon's biggest
mistake.

When we started the engine, the jeep's remaining head

light vibrated so, it appeared twice normal size. Even stand
ing still the wheels kicked up wisps of dust. The din was
frightful, as though any minute the jeep would fly to pieces.
Nevertheless, we jumped in and drove away, never dreaming
it would.

First, we heard a clatter and drove back to pick up our

air cleaner. Next, a rasping in the engine and we found
the fan chewing into the radiator. Then it was a clumptyclump and we caught the generator dragging on the road.
The starter dropped off next. We clamped it back with bolts
borrowed from the chassis. A splatter of grease warned that
the rear axle was coming out. Then the Reluctant Dragon
extemporaneously shed its radiator cap and vacuum hose.
Leaving a trail of nuts, bolts, horns and other accessories

hampered the Reluctant Dragon little, until he lost some

thing of which he had too few alreadya second cylinder.
With only two remaining, we had to shift to get over a
s h a d o w.

We could still roll, however, especially down hill. In

double-low four-wheel drive we were even able to crawl up

slight grades. All would have been dandy had not the Chinese
neglected to build bridges on that road. At every stream the
road dove down the bank, under water and up the other side.
The Dragon was as shy of water as a kitten. At the merest
prospect of getting its toes wet, it became a bundle of nerves,

got palpitations of the pistons and fainted dead away, usu^ 8 8

ally smack in the middle of a stream. Having long since lost

battery and starter, nothing would get it going but that I
stand knee-deep in water and crank. Then, with engine
putting and three of us pushing, we would somehow reach
the opposite bank. But as we stalled in stream after stream,
my cranking became slower and slower and our pushing
w e a k e r a n d w e a k e r.

We would still be lying in the bottom of one deep gulch

were it not for Dave's poliee major's uniform. When all else
failed, he climbed the bank and, flashing his four stars, com
mandeered the laborers from the neighboring rice paddies
to drag our dragon to high ground.
As evening eame on all the laborers went home. The next

deep stream was as far as we eould get that night, but lo! it
was bridged, and the next, and the next. Nothing eould stop
us now!

We were shimmying along like a run-away threshing ma

chine down an open stretch of road when there was a fright

ful crash and we eatapulted into the windshield. We spilled
out on our knees and looked under the jeep. The rear wheels
were wrenched under the body and the propeller shaft
stubbed into the road. The axle had shaken loose from the

springs!

With much jacking and pounding we got the wheels back

in place and connected the shaft again, but the bolts that

held wheels to springs were missing. All we could do was

drive gingerly on without them.
We had not gone three miles when, with a flailing clatter,
the shaft butted into the road again and we vaulted to a
halt. This time we took the chain used to tether the Reluc

tant Dragon to telephone poles at night, and lashed axle to

springs and padlocked the chain in place.

We nearly got shot when, without lights, we rattled past

a sentry. Otherwise, we reached Poseh without incident.

289

It was two in the morning. The town was dark and dead,
and we had not eaten.

"Only one place open at this hour," my friends agreed.

They led the way down a narrow street to a house perched
on stilts overlooking a river. There on a high veranda we
were ushered to pillows at a low table while a bevy of raven-

haired beauties in transparent silks fed us exotic dishes and

lounged about us.

Declining the matron's offer of hospitality for the night,

we left, and my friends parked the jeep before a flight of
stairs. Entering the massive doors above we found ourselves

in a garden mellow with moonlight and fragrant with jas

mine. Another flight led us under the blue arch of the eaves,
up a corridor pillared with elephants and phoenixes, into an
inner court before a gleaming temple.

A wisp-bearded, black-robed man with flowing sleeves

opened the sanctuary door and bowed us in. There in that
former temple, under a golden roof where tile fishes frolicked
and within walls where carved dragons swam, we dropped
our belongings, and fell upon our rope beds.
COMMUNISTS!

Our troubles in Poseh were: bearings, money. Communists.

We waited three days while the village blacksmithusing
solder melted from tin canspoured, ground and installed
one set of bearings. We then discovered the other three sets
burnt out as well. Nine days to make three more sets! We
hadn't the money to pay for them. My companions tele
graphed friend Lu in Canton.
But even with bearings and money, we were not going
anywhere. The road to Nanning was blocked by Commu
nists.

Then, like the clearing of a summer storm, our troubles

2 Q 0

vanished. Four million dollars arrived from Canton. At a

fruit stand we discovered a box of International bearings

exactly jeep size and one-twentieth the price of making them.

And next day, as the Reluctant Dragon pranced from the

hospital, the Army announced that the Nanning road had
been opened.
Did this mean the road was really safe, or only that the
Army wanted someone to drive it to find out? Communists
have to eat. When their banditry is hampered in one loca
tion they shift their business to anotherwhere, no one
knows until a corpse or two turns up. Hoping the corpses
would not be ours, we de-templed before dawn to blaze a
trail two hundred miles to Nanning.
Assured that Communists halted vehicles by shooting the
driver, Kok let me drive. I accepted on the theory that in our

bright-yellow police jeep, the Communists would not be

fussy whom they shot first, just so they got everybody with
the first volley, with special attention perhaps to Dave
because of his pistol and four stars. If we were not all shot
on sight, I had a plan to- get us by. I would tell the Commu
nists I was an U.N.R.R.A. official sent to give them a hun

dred tons of pineapple juice, cigarettes, candy bars, flight

jackets, paratrooper boots, and chewing gum. That, I figured,
would rate us an honor guard.
But my jeep-sparing pace was more than Kok could bear.
When I stopped in the middle of Communist mountains to

adjust the carburetor, he slid under the wheel and roared off
like a jet-propelled gazelle, hitting only the tops of hills and
bouncing us around until our eyeballs jingled.

But a jeep is only steel. In the narrowest canyon, on the

loneliest stretch of road, the Reluctant Dragon, like a har
pooned whale, spouted oil from under its hood and sizzled to
a stop. Its oil filter had dropped off, breaking the oil line
in two places. We had spare oil and could do without the
291

filter, but how, in the middle of Communist territory, eould

we find a new oil line or even repair the old one?
Just then Dave whispered: "Lookon the ridge!"
Outlined against the sky were three men. They were
joined by a fourth. He had a rifle! They all had rifles! Com
munists!

"Let's get out of here and fast!" But unless we connected

the oil lines, the engine would not hold a drop of oil. With
the oil filter missing, the oil lines were too short to join. We
scoured the roadside for a hollow reed to make the connec

tion. None. We tried Kok's cigarette holder. It could not

be carved to fit. Two Communists started sliding down the
hill. We heard brush rustling on the other side of us. Frantie, we were about to cut out and use a piece of brake tubing,
when Yu held up the tire pump.
Why hadn't the Communists fired? Perhaps they were
afraid to attack a police jeep. Perhaps they suspected a trap.
Dave had long since hidden his pistol, belt, cap, shoulder
starsanything to keep them from firing first and inquiring
a f t e r.

With trembling hands we unscrewed the hose from the

tire pump and screwed the fitting into one of the broken oil
lines. On the other end was a tapered nozzle for blowing fuel
lines. We jammed it into the other oil line and bound both
connections tight with wire.
By now we could hear voices just around the bend where
no doubt Communists lay in ambush. We whirled the en
gine. The make-shift joints held. Leaping aboard, we streaked
for the bend. Rounding it we saw Communists crouching
behind bushes on the hillsides. We were done for! But they
neither raised a rifle, nor signalled us down, and we roared
past.

Half a mile beyond, where the road swooped down from

292

the hills across a plain, we met a squad of Nationalist soldiers

on patrol. So that's why the Communists let us by without
a shot! Giddy with relief, we sang through the night to Nanning.
CHINESE

MASSAGE

The sound was of cupped hands patting a tune on bare

skin. I first became curious about it in Poseh during the
week the jeep was repairing.
Every evening after supper my three companions would
yawn and suggest we return to the old temple where we lived.
As I scribbled in the outer room, my friends puttered around
the inner. Then they would file out, with a show of taking
soap and towel as though to wash before retiring. But they
never returned before morning. When they disappeared,
somewhere in the inn I would hear that slapping sound. I
once asked what it was. "Chinese massage," they answered.
This sounded logical, but I never understood why it was so
popularuntil the night we reached Yunghuey.
Rather than unpack, I volunteered to sleep in the jeep
while the others slept in the inn. The jeep was too short, so
I took to wandering around the town.

Then came that sound again, from almost every darkened

house, all up and down the streetpat-a-pat pat pat, pat-apat pat patcupped hands on bare skin.

I was standing at the top of our street puzzling at the

strange chorus when a little Chinaman came up the hill. He
got within a hundred feet of me when he noticed my bulk
against the sky and said something in Chinese, probably
"Who's there?"

I did not understand, so, like a great monster, I just stood

silently looming over him. The Chinese slowed down, re

peated his inquiry with alarm. What could I say? The man
stopped in his tracks, whispered the phrase again, his voice
2 0 ^

trembling. Still I did not know the answer. I stepped closer

to show who I was.

With a scream he bolted back down the street yelling louder

with every step. For a block he did not slow up. Figures
sprang out of doorways. Voices clamored at windows. A

group formed, started hesitantly up the street toward the

gorilla against the sky. I could hear the man still yelling. He
did not want to go near the "thing" again. A lantern bobbed
in my direction.
Better make myself scarce. No telling what a mob might

do. Someone might have a gun. I slipped through shadows

to the inn, dodged inside.
I was peeking through the door at the crowd outside, when
that noise came again, pat-a-pat pat pat, pat-a-pat pat pat
from somewhere in the inn! I would ask my friends what it
was, once and for all, and I burst into their room.

There by candlelight, stretched luxuriously on their beds,

were my friends. A pretty Chinese girl, red-lipped, rose in
hair, gown of sheer silk, kneeled by each and patted a softhanded tattoo on his bare stomach.

"So that's what I've been hearing all across China," I

laughed.
"Sure," grinned Kok, "just as we tell youChinese mas
sage."
When I returned to the jeep the crowd still milled the
street. By signs and grimaces they warned me not to sleep
in the jeep. Something was loose in the neighborhood. Just
what, they were not sure, but it was covered with hair, had
arms to its knees, and could devour me at a gulp.
While they escorted each other home by bunches and
triple-barred their doors, I bedded down for the night and
laughed. If they now had a mystery to chew on, I, at least,
had solved the popularity of Chinese massage.
2 0 4

A TA L E O F T W O C I T I E S

"Well, how does Canton, China, compare to Canton,

Ohio?" asked Dave after our two day sail by river junk from
Yunghuey.

"Well, the skyline of Canton, China, its river front of

massive buildings, backed by cathedral towers, minarets,
pagodas, and gold-roofed public buildings is certainly im
pressive, but Canton, Ohio, was the home of President
McKinley. We have the McKinley Monument!"
"Pooh," said Yu, "Canton, China was home Sun Yat Sen,

founder, first president Chinese Republic. We have Sun Yat

Sen Memorial. See great white obelisk on hill!"
"Still, what fame does Canton, China have?" I asked,

"compared to Canton, Ohio, home of the world's largest Sun

day school?"

"That nothing," cried Kok, "Canton, China, has world's

largest opium den."

"Comparison unfair," I ruled.

I had to admit my home town had no city walls, no cannon

pointing romantically down the river, no river with strawsailed junks, steamers, floating cities of sampans. Compared
to Chinese Canton's public buildings poised like birds of
paradise in vast parks, the architecture in Canton, Ohio, was

drab indeed. Genghis Khan never besieged our Canton, nor

were Boxer Rebellions, Opium Wars, or revolts against the
Manchus ever fought in it.

Still, Canton, Ohio, by Chinese standards, is a Shangri-la

where 200,000 people live in palaces like kings and drive auto
mobiles like zillionaires. If you get in a traffic jam in Canton,

Ohio, you are not liable to be trampled by oxen; but what

cars there are in Canton, China, ride on bearings made in

Canton, Ohio and cross the River Pearl on a bridge from our
mills.
295

Still, my friends pointed out, while their city does not

manufacture such prosaic items as roller bearings, safes,

sweepers, pots and pans, it produces more colorful things-

like firecrackers. Not only makes them but fires thema thing
admittedly taboo in Canton, Ohio.

In Canton, China you need not wait for National Day to

shoot firecrackers. You fire them whenever a ship goes in or
out, at births, weddings, Christmas, New Year and whenever

else you feel like it. Even the dead get sent off with a bang.
Every funeral is preceded by a special mourner who dances
around and around with lighted strings of firecrackers in each
hand, scattering them in every direction. The only thing
that outdoes a funeral is a frolic called "Teasing the Tiger."
One boy dons a huge papier mache tiger head while a string
of lads prances along behind under a cape. The tiger's arrival
is the signal for everybody to bring forth their loudest, long
est and most powerful strings of firecrackers and throw them
at the tiger. This excites the tiger and he roars and lunges
around, trying to avoid the missiles and drive off his assailants.

The object is to throw a string of explosives into the mouth

of the tiger and blow the man from under it, or perhaps land
a bunch in someone's pocket, causing him to dive in the river.
In either case another reveller fills the vacaney and the merri
ment romps on. A wonderful demonstration of human infrangibility!
One day I was walking in Canton when I heard a tremen
dous explosion and started to run, thinking the Communists

were attacking. My friends assured me it was only a wedding.

On creeping closer I saw the blasts coming from a sign hang
ing across the main street. Sizzling fuses outlined the sign,
when with a crash, the whirling of pinwheels and the spurt
ing of rockets, another Chinese character unrolled, and an
other, and another, spelling out, with the noise of a bom
bardment, "Happy marriage and many children."
2Q6

Canton, China, even had a style of cooking all its own.

All the way across China my friends kept saying, "If you
think this food good, wait till Canton." So our first noon in
the city we went to a restaurant for breakfast. We sat at
sidewalk tables while a procession of waiters idled by, carry
ing trays of steaming "buns"some of rice flour, some wheat,
some stuffed with pork and mushrooms, some with chicken
and bamboo shoots, some with shrimp and sweetened peas.

We sat sipping tea and selecting the most tempting morsels

as they drifted by. After eating $35,000 worth, I could not
in fairness say I disliked Cantonese cooking.
Canton also had its own style of dressinghip length
tunic and calf length trousersas well as its own language,
the latter changing Dave's name from Ling to Lam.
Cantonese lovelies were everywhere, but Dave assured me
the loveliest were in the cabarets. One evening we five apart
ment mates locked arms with Lu's girl, Moner, and skipped
from roof garden to roof garden on a tour of the night spots.
The novelty of the Cantonese cabarets was that if you
are unfortunate enough to have no girl, you can select one
from a bevy of beauties, sleekly combed, exquisitely made-up,
and smartly attired, as they drift by. If one strikes your fancy,
smile and hold your chair, and she is yours to tea with (noth
ing stronger), talk with, dance with. The only catch; the
moment you smile at her, her meter begins running at the
rate of $60,000 an hour ($1.00 U.S.).
I was careful to keep my smiles to myself, or rather restrict
them to beauteous Moner for whose attention I vied with Lu.

But I did not have a prayer of a chance. He spoke her lan

guage, and all the Chinese I knew was a song Moner taught
me. The only tumble I got was when I asked the orchestra

to play that song. Moner and I danced. The lights were low.
She softly sang:
2 0 7

Jin shal lee bey ho,

Ho yit jun jai lai?

(Soon you must depart,

When will you return?)
It made me rather sad for I knew I was soon leaving, at
long last, for that other Canton, and I knew that in all like
lihood I never would return.

298

THE

HIGH

ROAD

HOME

ABLE SEAMAN, UNABLE

"A 11 I need is one Abie-Bodied Seaman," said Capt. Keys

in the Pacific Far East office. Hong Kong. "Are you
an A.B.?"

Under the illusion that the only difference between "Ordi

nary" and "Able Bodied" Seamen was that "Able Bodied"

got better pay, I assured him I was and signed the articles of
the S.S. Contest.

But on thinking over just how little I knew about sea

manship, I decided to delay going aboard until eleven that
nighttoo late to be fired before sailing at dawn.
Even then, I had a close call. When the mate told me to

get squared away in the fo'c'sle, I went forward and climbed

dovm the ladder corresponding to the one on the Odyssey. I
found myself in a rope bin. I climbed out, and down the next
ladder, this time into the paint locker. An Able Bodied Sea
man who could not find the fo'c'sle! To make matters worse,

as I climbed with knapsack out of the paint locker, I ran into

a tall, salty old sailor. "If you're looking for the fo'c'sle, come
with me."

I followed him to a door amidships. "Here you are," he

said. Inside I saw a stateroom with desk, chairs, bed-spreads,
even curtains at the port hole!
"Listen, mate," I growled in imitation of an old salt, "I'm
a seaman, not a passenger."
"Never worked a union ship, eh. Well, we live like
299

human beings on N.M.U. (National Maritime Union) ves

sels. 'At's his bunk there, isn't it, lads?" he asked the two

youths lounging in the cabin.

"Yeah, Charlie's bunk. But he'll need all new stuff," said

the tall blond occupant.

My escort leaned out and hailed a passerby. "Hey, steward,
the new A.B. needs new mattress and all. Don't want him

to get what Charlie got."

The steward returned promptly. He piled my "upper"

with sheets, blankets, mattress, pillow case, face, bath towels,
two cakes of Cashmere Bouquet soap (scented) and a carton
of matches.

"Beats me," he muttered, "how Charlie got it in middle

the Pacificthousand miles from the nearest woman! But

he'll have a hellava liberty in Manila hospital. What's your

union, son?" he asked me.

"No union," I answered, expecting him to whip the sheets

and all off my bunk. "That bad?"
"Course not," interposed the salty Swede who brought me
in, "only we're proud of our union. Decent living for crews
the first time in history."
"Maybe ya got something," I said. "I got a taste of a non
union ship comin' overGreek. Eight men to a fo'c'sle
smaller than this, up in the bow where you get seasick every
time you stand up. No showers, no place to eat. If unions

make this difference," I said, ignoring the fact American ships

cannot operate without subsidy, "I'm for the unions."

With that the older man grabbed my hand, said his name
was Swede, and by the lord, we'd have a drink.
Over tumblers in his fo'c'sle, Swede told of the union's

struggle, of his Swedish countryman who fought for seaman's

rights, of the statue and the square in San Francisco dedi
cated to him.

Because I listened without a word, Swede swore I was a

300

brilliant conversationalist. When he reeited a poem and I

asked him to repeat it, that was the master-stroke. He had
written it himself. I was the only one who ever asked to hear
it twiee. Undoubtedly I was a very intelligent fellow to be so
appreeiative of art. And just to show his esteem he was going
to let me keep poor hospitalized Charlie's four-to-eight wateh
whieh he himself was entitled to as senior man.

This was indeed a great thing, for on the four-to-eight,

you get off duty when the work starts at eight in the morning,
and have only one hour to moil before work ends at five
in the evening. During your wateh all you do is steer an hour
and stand lookout an hour. If ealled to work any additional
time, you draw time-and-a-half. The gravy wateh, and Swede
was giving it to me!
To eelebrate our friendship we decided to hail a boat baek
to Hong Kong and take on more liquid eargo. This we did
and returned elinking to the Contest to stage a festival in
the bos'n's cabin the rest of the night.
This was a stroke of luek for at five when we fell out to

make ready for sea, the big red-headed bos'n fell in bed and
swore we were already at sea. Consequently he was not around
to witness what a handieap I was. Those that were eoneluded
I was one of those frightfully experieneed seamen who realize

an A.B.'s duty is to supervise and not do any nasty work

himself.

So when a fellow ealled Heavy eame to me and said,

"Move your gear to the twelve-to-four fo'e'sle, I'm taking

your plaee on the four-to-eight," roommate Bill rushed to my
r e s e u e .

"Just a minute. Heavy," he said, "you can't do that. You

had a chance to grab that wateh all the way from Manila.
Swede gave it to the kid. Now we're at sea you can't break
the watehes. I'll see the union delegate about this." Off he
flew to return with Bushy, the blaek-bearded delegate.
301

"Only one way to settle disputes," said Bushy"hold a

meeting."
I insisted it made no difference what watch I had. Heavy

had more right to the four-to-eight, especially since I was

not a union man.

"Union man or not, you're protected by union regulations.

The meeting will decide."

After luneh Bushy tapped his glass and announced a special

meeting to settle a dispute. Blackie was elected chairman.
Bill secretary and Heavy was called to state his case.

Heavy argued, although Swede was senior man, he. Heavy,

was next senior and should have a choice of any vacancies
before some new guy.

Sounded very logical to me, but it was greeted with a growl

of arguments. Bos'n, opening his eyes, shouted, "Hell of a
meetin'. Chairman can't even keep order."
"Shut up," yelled Bushy.
Bos'n swayed to his feet and stomped out.
"I resign!" shouted the chairman.

"Don't mind Bos'n," piped Swede. "He's still weathered

in. Keep your chair, Blackie. On with the meeting."
Roommate Bill was recognized by the chair. "Heavy had
ever since Manila to claim the four-to-eight. Why'd he wait
until the new kid's aboard, squared in the fo'c'sle, the ship
at sea. It's Heavy's tough luck for not being on the ball. Let

the new kid keep the watch, I say. He's been on the beach
for over a year, he's broke, got to get clear to the East Coast.
He'll need all the over-time he can get on the four-to-eight.
Besides, you can't break the watches at sea."

"Yeah, yeah. He's right. Too late to change," came from

every side. "Let the new kid keep it."
"Do I hear a motion for a vote?" asked Blackie.

"To hell with you guys," growled Heavy sizing up the

situation. "I withdraw my claim. Let the new kid keep it."
302

"Meeting adjourned," called Blackie. And I had the best

watch on the ship.

My two roommates slapped me on the hack. "Glad we

kept you on our watch," cheered Olson.
"Yeah," growled Bill. "That damned Heavy's no seaman.
He don't know a pelorus from a Plimsoll mark."
"Is that right?" I marveled, hoping there was a dictionary
handy.

"Yeah, and if one thing burns my elbow it's an unable

Able Seaman."

BEGINNER'S LUGK

Act lazy. Ask no questions. Those were my rules for pre

serving my masquerade as Able Bodied Seaman.
It was not always easy, however, especially when acting
bos'n Bushy said to me that morning before sailing, "Lower
and stow the anchor light."
First, I did not know where the anchor light was, and
second, I did not know where to stow it. I decided to do

nothing. Finally, a real seaman noticed a lamp swinging in

the rigging and hauled it down.
"Hose down the anchor chain," was Bushy's next com

mand. Fortunately, he sent a lowly ordinary seaman to help

me. "Well, let's snap to," I drawled and followed him around
pretending to supervise.
Next it was, "Batten down the hatches." By keeping a step

or two behind my friend Swede, I could see it was just like

making a bed, stretching the canvas across the hatches and
clamping down the edges. When I came to a corner, I mitered

it like a bedsheet. I had moved to another job when I heard

a scream behind me. "Someone's crushed his foot," I thought,
and whirled to see, instead, Blackie pointing to the corner I
had just mitered.
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"Who did that?" he wailed. Nobody seemed to know

and I was not about to tell them. What was wrong, I could
not guess.
I was careful never to touch another corner.

Aboard ship there is a right and a wrong way to do every

thing. Unfortunately, the right way is never obvious. It seems
hard to go wrong coiling a rope, but I did.
"No, no, no," someone yelled as if I were about to sink
the ship. "Always coil a line counter clock-wise." Evidently
it made some difference, but I didn't dare show my ignorance
by asking what.

Even so, I figured, I was concealing my stupidity rather

cleverlyuntil acting bos'n Bushy said to me, "Relieve Bill
at the wheel."

This made me rather queasy, not only because it was still

dark and we were still in the labyrinth of Hong Kong harbor,

but also because the only time I steered in such cramped
quarters I almost drove the Odyssey up on Staten Island.
Never again, said I. I would just be late relieving Billso late we would be out of the harbor. I was just slipping
behind a deck house to hide when whom should I run into

but Bushy coming around the other way. "Hey, you're sup
posed to be at the wheel. Get going."
I climbed the ladder to the bridge. Captain Keys, the pilot
and the mates, all were nosed against the windows. Ahead
I could see ferries, merchantmen, cruisers, destroyers, subma
rines, junks all mixed together with buoys, barges, islands,
points of land in a swimming maze of lights, dark water,
black objects. As I crept into the pilot house. Bill sang out
a number and fled out the opposite door. I crawled feebly to
the wheel.

Just then Captain Keys turned around. "You ever steer

before?" he demanded.

An Able Seaman who never steered before!

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"Yes, sir," I said.

"In a harbor?"

"Yes, sir," I shuddered, thinking of my hair-raising drive

o u t N e w Yo r k h a r b o r.

"Even so, you're new. Send an old man to steer. Plenty of

m i n e fi e l d s . "

"Yes, sir," 1 exclaimed, and dashed out. 1 sent "Polack,"

the Ordinary of our watch, and happily took to pulling ropes

again. But 1 would not have been so happy had 1 known
the man 1 sent to negotiate the mine-fields had even less
harbor experience than 1, which was none at all, and, of
course, did not mention it to the Captain. That we ever

cleared Hong Kong without hitting a mine was just beginner's

luck.

THE MASQUERADE IS OVER

Aboard ship nothing is called its right name. The front is

the "bow," the floor the "deck," the wall the "bulkhead."

"Six bells" is seven o'clock, except when eleven or three. A

cable is a "wire," a rope a "line." "Number nine thread" is
a rope big enough to hang an ox. Even a mast is called a
"king post."
Although 1 might have recognized it in Greek, when com
mands like "Secure the chain stopper," "Release the snatch
block," or "Slack away on the breast line," started flying
around, 1 had to pretend 1 was busy. This worked fine as long
as there was someone within earshot who thought the com
mand applied to him. But one time 1 heard, "Make up that

line," and turned to see no one but Bushy and he was looking
dead at me.

Fortunately, he pointed to a rope so 1 knew what he

meant by "line." But as to "making it up," 1 had no clue.
1 started to coil it.

"No, no," he shouted, "on the guy, on the guy."

This clarified the situation like throwing mud in water, so

I kept coiling.
"No, no. On the guy, like this," he screamed, throwing
loops of rope over a mast-support cable. "How often you been
to sea?"

"Never, on one of these tubs, mate. Tankers are my ships

not all these booms and lines."

"Oh, a tanker sailor. Well, that explains it."

It continued to explain it until the day we sailed out of
Buckner Bay, Okinawa. We were "slushing down wire."

This involves getting your hands in a mixture of grease and

blaek paint and rubbing down cable with it. Though you
get slush from head to foot it is not difficult as long as you
stay on deck. But slushing down cable from atop a king post
gets somewhat thrilling. With a bucket of slush hooked to

your belt, you climb the king post and, clinging with one
hand, grease the cable with the other. One second you are
looking into the sea on one side of the ship, next looping
through the air like a monkey on a pole, then looking into
the sea on the other side.

Alarming enough to see someone else perform the feat!

But what alarmed me more was the information that such

jobs are reserved exclusively for Able Bodied Seamen.

At king post after king post the A.B.'s took turns until we
reached the after deck where we still had one king post and
no more A.B.'sunless, of course, they counted me an A.B., a
thing I was loath for them to do.

"Someone's got to go up the king post," said Bos'n.

"Yeah, someone's got to go up the king post," I echoed,
looking about hopefully. Not an A.B. lifted his head. The
implieation was clear. I swallowed hard, hooked a bueket of

slush to my belt and monkeyed up the tiny ladder to the top.

There, swinging by fingertips, I leaned to the limit of my
reach and managed to grab the swaying eable. But the cable
506

was sticky with rust, my hand greasy. On first stroke, the slush
rag pulled from my grip, sailed through the air and landed
of all plaees in the whole Pacifiesmack on Bos'n's shoulder.
It was a struggle, but Bos'n managed to say nothing as I
climbed down and retrieved my rag from his shirt.

Next time I was eareful to drop neither rag nor myself and
at last reaehed the deek. Here I paused to cast a triumphant
look aloft. To my horror, I noticed that, along with slushing
down the cable, I had slushed down the newly-painted king

post. I turned to tiptoe from the scene only to run smaek into
Bos'n who was looking at the mast and rubbing both hands
up and down his face.

As the result of a long and somewhat obscene monologue,

I found myself a third time swinging by fingertips far aloft,
this time with rag and bueket of turpentine washing down
the king post.
Later, under the shower, scrubbing off the grease and black

paint. Bill said, "I don't know whether it's an insult or eompliment, but Bos'n says he can't get sore at you beeause
damned if he believes you're a seaman."
I'LL

TA K E

THE

HIGH

ROAD

From the glassed-in "Top of the Mark," San Francisco

spread beneath like a Persian earpet. Lights rimmed the Bay,
arched across the two giant bridges. The heart of the city was
a pattern of jewels, blazing red, green, blue and gold, not only
from the splash of electric signs and show windows, but espe
cially from the garlands of holiday lights that swept from
lamppost to lamppost. Christmas was only a few days away.
Last Christmas, I recalled, I was retreating with the Creek

guerrillas from the Battle of Olympus. This Christmas I

dreamed of being home. There was only one way to get there
in timefly.
5 0 7

So next day I presented my Reserve card at Alameda Air

Station and hopped a Marine transport to San Diego. From
there a Naval atomic research plane vaulted me over the
Rockies to Albuquerque, whence an Air Force bomber sped
me through the night across America, and home.

There at hearthside I dropped my battered knapsack just

in time to raise a cup of Christmas cheer, having completed
my circle of the globe on the four-hundred-and-ninety-sixth
day of my Wanderjahr.
As I sat before the fire and stared across my cup, I caught

amid the curling smoke and dancing flames glimpses of the

foreign ports and foreign eyes, the sights I had seen, the
adventures I had had, going where I wanted, doing what I
wanted, leading the gypsy life I love.
Let others follow paths safe, sane, and secure, but for me,
I'll take the high road.

qo8