Part 19

VII

AT A FAIR

One misty morning in late October I arrived at Batum, pack on back, staff in hand, to all appearances a pilgrim or a tramp, and I drank tea at a farthing a glass in the fair.

"Pour it out full and running over," said a chance companion to the owner of the stall. "That's how we workmen like it; not half-full as for gentlefolk." The shopman, a silent and very dirty Turk, filled my glass and the saucer as well. And sipping tea and munching bubliki, we looked out upon all the sights of the bazar.

There lay around, in all the squalor that Turks love, the marvellous superabundance of a southern harvest--spread on sacks in the mud--grapes purple and silver-green, pomegranates in rusty thousands, large dew-fed yellow apples, luscious dirt-bespattered pears, such fruits that in London even the rich might look at and sigh for, but pass by reflecting that with the taxes so high they could not afford them, but here sold by ragamuffins to ragamuffins for greasy coppers; and not only these fruits, but quinces and peaches, the large yellow Caucasian khurma, the little blood-red kizil, and many unnamed rarities. They all surged up out of the waste of over-trodden mire, as if the pageantry of some fairy world had been arrested as it was disappearing into the earth.

Then, beside these gorgeous fruits, in multitudinous attendance, a confused array of scarlet runners, tomatoes, cabbages, out-tumbled sacks of glazy purple aubergines, mysterious-looking gigantic pumpkins, buckets full of pyramidal maize-cobs, yellow, white-sheathed.

The motley crowd of vendors, clamouring, gesticulating, are chiefly distinguished by their hats--the Arabs in white turbans, the Turks in dingy fezes jauntily cocked over dark, unshaven faces, some fezes swathed in bright silk scarves; the Caucasians in golden fleece hats, bright yellow sheepskin busbies; the few Russians in battered peak caps, like porters' discarded head-gear; Persians in skull-caps; Armenians in shabby felts, astrakhans, or mud-coloured bashliks. The trousers of the Christians all very tight, the trousers of the Mahometans baggy, rainbow-coloured--it is a jealous point of difference in these parts that the Turk keeps four or five yards of spare material in the seat of his trousers.

What a din! what a clamour!

"Kopeika, kopeika, kopeika."

"Oko tre kopek, oko tre kopek, oko tre kopek."

Thus Christians shout against Mussulmans over the grape-heaps--one farthing, one farthing, one farthing; oko (three pounds) three farthings, oko three farthings, oko three farthings. Fancy shouting oneself hoarse to persuade passers-by to buy grapes at a farthing a pound!

My companion at the tea-stall, a tramp-workman from Central Russia, was astonished at the price of the grapes.

"It is possible to say that that is cheap," said he. "When I return to Russia I will take forty pounds of them and sell them in the train at twopence-halfpenny (ten copecks); that will pay for my ticket, I think, in the fourth class."

I watched the Turks trafficking, jingling their ancient rusty balances, manipulating their Turkish weights--the oko is not Russian--and giving what was probably the most marvellous short weight in Europe. The three-pound oko was often little more than a pound.

A native of Trebizond came and sat at our table. He wore carpet socks, and over them slippers with long toes curled upperward like certain specimens one may see in Bethnal Green Museum; on his head a straw-plaited, rusty fez swathed with green silk of the colour of a sun-beetle.

"The Italians have taken Tripoli," said the Russian, with a grin; "fancy letting those little people thump you so!"

"And the Japanese?" said a Caucasian quickly.

The Turk looked sulky.

"Italia will fall," said he. "She will fall yet, dishonourable country. They have stolen Tripoli. All you others look on and smile. But it is an injustice. We shall cut the throats of all the Italians in Turkey. Will you look on then and smile?"

A Greek sniggered. There were many Greeks at the fair--they all wear blue as the Turks all wear red.

When the Turk had gone, the Greek exclaimed:

"There's a people, these Turks, stupid, stupid as sheep; all they need are horns ... and illiterate! When will that people wake up, eh?"

The Turks and the Greeks never cease to spit at one another, though the former can afford to feel dignified, victors of their wars with Greece. For the Italian the ordinary Turk has almost as much contempt as for the Greek. One said to me, as I thought, quite cleverly:

"A Greek is half an Italian, and the Italian is half a Frenchman, the Frenchman is half an Englishman, and you, my friend, are half a German. We have some respect for a German, for he is equal to a score of Greeks, a dozen Italians, or six Frenchmen, but we have no respect at all for the rest."

Twenty Arabs passed us at the stall--all pashas, a Georgian informed me. They had arrived the night before from Trebizond and the desert beyond. Their procession through the ragged market was something to wonder at--a long file of warriors all over six feet high, broad, erect, with full flowing cloaks from their shoulders to their ankles, under the cloaks rich embroidered garments. Their faces were white and wrinkled, proud with all the assurance of men who have never known what it is to stoop before the law and trade.

"They have come to make a journey through Russia," said the Georgian, "but their consul has turned them back. They will pray in the mosque and then return. It is inconvenient that they should go to Europe while there is the war."

A prowling gendarme in official blue and red came up to the stall and sniffed at the company. He pounced on me.

"Your letters of identification?" he asked.