ered up with a single pin. They are clothed in brilliant colors, yellow alternating with scarlet. Some women wear modern dresses, but all preserve the veil. We must remember that these Bosnian Mohammedans are not Turks; they are natives who embraced Islam during the Turkish invasion in order to keep their property and save their lives. Polygamy has long since ceased to exist among them. In the middle of the bazaar rises the mosque of Ghazi Husref Bey. It was built during the first half of the sixteenth century by a vizier of that name, who ruled over Bosnia for thirty-five years. People affirm that, except the splendid Suleimania Mosque of Adrianople, its equal does not exist this side of the Bosporus. A paved court with a fountain surrounded by columns and surmounted by a cupola, where the Mohammedans wash before praying, lies before the building. The faithful worshiper approaches with a towel under his arm. When his turn comes, he stands on one of the square stones on which a stream of water is falling, washes his face, arms, and feet, and last of all the stone itself, and then makes way for the next believer. After having performed this rite, the faithful pay their devotions on the terrace of the mosque or inside the sanctuary. They leave their towels and shoes in lockers provided for this purpose outside; but people who have new shoes carry them with them to the holy place so that their souls may be in peace during the ceremony. Presently their bodies are all swaying in unison. Then they all bow down, their foreheads touch the earth, and their manycolored turbans move together with the precision of a gymnastic exercise. From his pulpit the muezzin looks down at this varied play of color and chants the heart-rending notes of his long prayer. Boys walk across the courtyard with copper-bound wooden buckets, serving drinks to the thirsty worshipers. We wonder what ingredients the yellow liquid they are pouring out contains. The same courtyard is also used for more solemn ceremonies; the dead are laid out here before they are buried, with a green cloth covering them, and, in case of men, with a turban at their heads. Wednesday is market day, when the Bosnian peasants come down from the mountains to sell their produce. They are magnificent physical specimens, pictures of strength, but appealingly simple and gentle in demeanor. Their garments are of black felt, elaborately embroidered, and their collars are trimmed with lace. Red turbans are wound around their heads. When these country people mingle with the Mohammedans in the narrow streets of the old town, the effect is marvelously picturesque. Mohammedan women, veiled and gloved, crouch before bundles of cloth displayed for sale, hold it up for inspection, and praise it in a few discreet words for the benefit of the attentive peasant women. Soon a customer makes a choice, and then the two begin to discuss prices. One Bosnian woman also has cloth for sale, which she carries folded in piles on her head. Another sells bags covered with embroidery. A third weaves strings of necklaces made of nuts. A fourth has filigree pendants with a picture of Maria Theresa to offer. A fifth peddles wooden flutes like rudimentary pipes of Pan. A Mohammedan, a Jew, and a Bosnian successively put their lips to the mouthpiece to test its tone. A dealer is mixing lemonade. On the table are five bottles, which he pours into the concoction one after the other, making mystery of his recipe. Leaving the old section of the town, we come to the municipal building on the bank of the river. This is a modern structure in Moorish Byzantine style, the details of which are borrowed from a Cairo mosque. Everywhere in Serajevo one finds Mohammedan graveyards surrounded by high modern houses. This is because the old town was built on the mountain and its burial places were in the valley. Spanish Jews are often seen in the Serajevo streets, and in fact throughout Bosnia. Most of these are the descendants of the thirty or forty families who were transplanted here from Constantinople and Saloniki more than three hundred years ago. You insult them if you confound them with other Jews. They are proud of their descent, and disdain their coreligionists whose blood is not Spanish. The women dress their hair like a policeman's helmet, and deck themselves out with pearls and golden beads. We took lunch in an Italian restaurant on the banks of the Miljačka. Our host was an original fellow, for he served only people whose faces he liked; the rest he sent away. You will ask how he indicated to a guest that he did not want his patronage. That was quite simple - he turned the plate in front of him upside down. It must, however, be confessed that even the privileged ones did not come off easily, for they were forced to listen to their host's interminable political discourses, which were so violent that they prevented them from doing justice to his fare. The museum here contains a suite of peasant rooms furnished with scrupulous fidelity to life. There is a big carpet and textile factory at Serajevo which is run by the State and which has several branches in near-by towns and employs fourteen hundred workers. It manufactures, not only Bosnian goods, but rugs of every Oriental pattern and texture - Smyrnas, Anatolias, Persians, and others. Various methods of manufacture are employed - the shuttle, the needle, or simply the knot tied by hand, or sometimes several of these processes combined. Visitors are taken to a model workroom where each type of work is represented. The fingers of the people tying knots move so fast that the eye cannot follow their motion. We were very anxious to get permission to visit the Husref Bey mosque, but it required great effort and persistence to do so. We knocked repeatedly at the door of the dignitary who guards this holy place a doctor of theology, with a keen eye and a fine profile, who wore a sky-blue overcoat and a white silk turban, to show that he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Each time the doctor put us off with the excuse, 'They are praying.' We modestly asked when prayers would be over. 'Try coming back again.' I presented our letter from the Yugoslav Embassy in Paris, but it was of no avail. Finally, on our fifth visit, luck was with us. A written permission enabled us to find the sacristan. He provided us with Turkish slippers, and we penetrated the sanctuary. The floor was entirely covered with wonderful old rugs. These kept the visitor from looking upward and fastened his attention on the ground, for it was impossible to take one's eyes off this fairylike display of colors, as brilliant as a reflection of dawn in an Oriental sea. The walls were covered with paintings imitating mosaics. The gallery was made of painted wood, and the pulpit with its eight columns was of many-colored marble. A niche was cut in the wall for the officiating priest. In a little mausoleum near the sanctuary was the tomb of Husref Bey, the founder of the mosque. It was covered with a precious fabric, on the middle of which rested his turban. The faithful pray before the sepulchre of this holy man. Toward evening, accompanied by three Serbian friends, we climbed up to the old Turkish citadel built on a high bank above the Miljačka, whence we continued our way to the upper town, where we drank a cup of coffee under a lemon tree. I say lemon tree, but that is a euphemism. The trunk, the branches, and the leaves were authentic, but the lemons spent the night in the café to be safe from marauders. Every morning they resumed their places on the tree again, where they hung suspended by little wires. Night was falling. From mountain to valley the minarets were illuminated. We could hear the prayers of the muez zins, and Serajevo was like a scene in a fairy tale. It is more Mohammedan than Constantinople, our friends assured us, and they added that as Turkey becomes more and more modernized one will have to come to the mountains of Bosnia to find the rites of Islam practised in all their purity. It was dark when we returned to the lower town. We walked along the river and crossed a bridge. 'This is the scene of the assassination,' one of our companions said, and related at length the now familiar circumstances of the drama that plunged the world into the greatest war of history. ΑΝ ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ BY W. H. DAVIES [New Statesman] BENEATH this stone lies one good man; and when ANOTHER JOB FOR KING SOLOMON' RUNNING A FACTORY IN REVOLUTIONARY CHINA THE manager of one of the large foreign cigarette factories in Hankow, who now has considerable time on his hands through the forcible closure of the factory, - some three thousand employees being paid full wages meanwhile, - recently has been telling of some of his experiences in connection with the management of the plant. The first serious strike occurred back in 1924, the incentive being a demand for higher pay. Finally the proprietors of the concern agreed, so that everything was settled nicely. But still there was a hitch somewhere. The reason for the hitch was shortly disclosed when one of the leaders of the newly formed Cigarette Makers' Union came in and said that before the employees would consent to go to work they demanded a holiday. 'A holiday!' exclaimed the manager. 'Why, you have already had nearly a month, for which we have agreed to pay you full wages.' 'Yes,' replied the labor leader, 'but now we want a regular holiday to celebrate the settlement of the strike, and we want you to come along and help.' Well, the manager did not know what it was all about, but he decided to go along and see the fun. Hence he was on hand early the next morning at the appointed place, and was surprised to find all of his three thousand employees lined up in marching formation, with banners, a brass band, and everything. The leader of the Union insisted that the manager, an American, 1 From the China Weekly Review (Shanghai American English-language weekly), January 29 should walk at the head of the parade. He was considerably perplexed at the situation, not knowing what seriousminded directors in New York and London would think of this exhibition, but decided to proceed, especially if it would assure the reopening of the factory. So they started out and they marched, and they kept on marching for two or three miles through the Chinese city, much to the enjoyment of the multitudes assembled along the route. Finally they reached a place where a large mat-shed had been erected and where refreshments had been provided. The leader of the Union then informed the manager of the factory that it would be necessary for him to make a speech to the employees. After having marched for three hours through hot, dusty streets the manager was scarcely in a condition for oratory, but still, thinking of the necessity of getting the factory open, he climbed on the platform and made a speech in English in which he congratulated the laborers upon their decision to return to work. He spoke for about three minutes, following which the head of the Union, who could speak English of a sort, mounted the platform to translate the manager's remarks into Chinese. The leader of the Union quickly proved himself to be a master of oratory, for it took him exactly three hours by the clock to translate the manager's three-minute address. And the interpretation went over big, for the laborers frequently applauded, often so enthusiastically that the manager is still wondering to this day what the Chinese interpreter did to his little speech. The oratory was finally finished, following which the head of the Union explained that it would be necessary to have their pictures taken. Then followed another march, with more music, for about two hours to the place where the photographers were waiting. The place selected was along the railway embankment on the outskirts of the foreign settlement. After considerable posing - with the American manager in the centre - the picture was taken, following which, with appropriate cheers, the party broke up. The laborers, every man, woman, and child of them, true to their promise, were on the job bright and early the next day at the factory ready to go to work, and everything was lovely that is, everything was lovely until about three weeks later, when Marshal Wu Pei-fu arrived on the scene with his army and decided to put an end to 'this labor-union foolishness,' which the old Chihli general declared to be nothing less than a political move instigated by his opponent, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Marshal Wu got to work immediately, and after his spies had rounded up most of the labor leaders he marched them out to the railway embankment where the photograph had been taken and had the whole crew, some twenty-five of them, executed without further ado. Immediately following the execution Marshal Wu also had a photograph taken, which he posted throughout the district to serve as a warning against further 'foolishness' of this kind. It should be explained in passing, however, that the leader of the Cigarette Makers' Union who staged the big celebration managed in some way to escape Marshal Wu's firing squad, and lives to this day as an honored leader of the labor corps in the Kuomintang's drive against capitalism. But to get back to the factory manager and his troubles in trying to keep some three thousand Chinese laborers happy and satisfied. All went well for several weeks, when one day one of the superintendents detected one of the employees stealing some of the company's product. Since there was a strict rule against thievery, - a rule with which every employee was familiar, the manager immediately ordered the culprit to be discharged. Immediately there were complications, and the manager was informed by a committee of laborers that the whole force would walk out unless the man were reinstated. After some thought the manager decided to compromise, so after a conference it was decided to reinstate the man accused of theft, but to dock him one day's wages. Everybody was happy and all returned to work. About a week later a woman employee was caught stealing and was brought to the manager. Upon questioning her the manager found that she was very poor and was the sole support of five children. Under the circumstances he decided that it would not be humane to cause her to lose her job, so he gave her a lecture and told her to go back to work. But complications again developed, for a committee of laborers came in and insisted that the woman be fired, the reason being that the Union had held a meeting and adopted a resolution against thievery. 'Therefore,' declared the leader, 'unless you fire this woman, all man quit work!' Now this was a pretty mess a case of 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't.' But again compromise was resorted to: the woman was 'fired,' but the manager privately saw to it that she did not come to want while she was out of employment. Thus it went, one darn thing after |