UNMARRIED FEMALE of JACKOBERG.
UNMARRIED FEMALE of JACKOBERG.
FEMALE PEASANTS of PHILLIPPOWAN.
FEMALE PEASANTS of PHILLIPPOWAN.
The appearance of the Philippowanians produces an agreeable impression on the stranger. They are in general tall and well-shaped, and both sexes usually wear long cloth coats carefully buttoned from top to bottom. The women have stiff caps over which they tie a large handkerchief. A bandeau embroidered with gold encircles the forehead. The gown, without sleeves, is either green or red, bound round the waist with a sash, and the feet are covered with red or yellow buskins. The annexed engraving represents two females of this district, and displays the front and back of their rich dress, which bears a strong affinity to the Ottoman costume; the only features seemingly peculiar to the subjects before us being the ornamented shift sleeves.
The Lipowanians have but little intercourse with the other inhabitants of the country: at least, if they can help it they will not admit strangers into their habitations. Should a person, nevertheless, have obtained access through accident or against their will, they consider the spot where he has sat or stood as contaminated till they have purified it in their own way. They never eat with any stranger. They have particular plates, vessels, and utensils for guests, and when they entertain a person they press him to eat all that is set before him, or throw away what is left. They are forbidden to use tobacco and snuff, and suffer no inn or public house to be kept among them.
It is surprising with what care these people keep both the ceremonies and the doctrines of their religion profoundly secret. They have no priests but only a teacher calleddaskal: they acknowledge the authority of no oriental ecclesiastic, but profess to belong to a church of theirsect in Moldavia, where all their marriages are solemnized. No traces of burial-grounds are to be found among them, and hence it is conjectured that they burn their dead. Their churches in Moldavia are in all respects like the other churches of the East, excepting that they are surmounted by three triple crosses, the lowest cross-bar of which is placed in an oblique direction.
The Philippowanians are said to have derived their name from one Philip, who was first servitor in a Russian convent, then became a monk, and aspired to the rank of superior. Being disappointed in this scheme, he accused his brethren of having swerved from the ancient faith; and having made proselytes of about fifty of his colleagues, he seceded from the convent, built another, and thus became the founder of a new sect.
MILITARY CONSTITUTION—CARLSTADT FRONTIER—BANAL FRONTIER—SLAVONIA—BANAT FRONTIER.
MILITARY CONSTITUTION—CARLSTADT FRONTIER—BANAL FRONTIER—SLAVONIA—BANAT FRONTIER.
The border of the Austrian empire from Povile on the coast of the Adriatic Sea to the Northern frontiers of Dalmatia, and thence through Croatia, Slavonia, the Banat and Transylvania, to Bukowina, has a military constitution peculiar to itself. In this tract, containing nearly a million of inhabitants, the men capable of bearing arms must always hold themselves in readiness to abandon the plough and home, for the purpose of averting the dangers with which they are threatened by rapacious neighbours, or by commodities impregnated with pestilence.
The inhabitant of the frontiers, at once a husbandmanand a soldier, holds his lands on condition of taking up arms when required. In Transylvania he is the absolute proprietor of the ground he cultivates: in the Banat, Slavonia and Croatia, he is bound by certain restrictions somewhat like those of the feudal tenures of old, without however being obstructed in the enjoyment of the fruits of his industry.
The perfidy of an individual draws down punishment on himself alone: his family still retains its right to the possession of his lands, and this right also devolves to females when they marry of their own choice, and continue to reside upon them; nay even when there is not a male left in the house capable of bearing arms, still the land is not taken away.
As all the males capable of bearing arms are not called out at once, and every house cannot furnish the number proportioned to the land belonging to it, some other method of equalizing the burdens has been found necessary. To this end a moderate tax is levied upon the land, and from this fund a certain allowance is made to each person while in actual service. Towards the repairing and keeping up of the public works, such as buildings, roads and the like, each inhabitant of the frontiers performs gratuitously a certain quantity of labour proportionate to the extent of his land.
Agriculture and the breeding of cattle are the principal resources of the inhabitants of the frontiers. In order that the most necessary trades may not be wanting, particular places are appointed where the mechanic, artist, tradesman and merchant may exercise their respective professions without being subject to military duty. These places are called military communities, and have regular municipal institutions like other towns.
The rest of the frontier territory is divided into regimental districts, of which seventeen are appropriated to infantry, one to cavalry, and one to the Pontoneers or Watermen. Each regimental district contains on an average from forty to fifty thousand souls. Out of the males fit for service in each district two battalions are formed in time of peace. The house to which each man on dutybelongs, furnishes him with food and clothing, and the state with arms and ammunition. In peace his chief occupation consists in protecting the frontiers from the incursions of the Turks, the depredations of banditti, and the introduction of the plague and contraband goods.
These men are stationed in watch-houses partly of masonry and partly elevated on high poles, which are erected along the whole frontier at such moderate distances that one post can alarm and assist the other in case of emergency. This chain of posts is strengthened, when the danger of attack or of infection by the plague becomes more imminent.
Besides the frontier cordon there is in the Carlstadt and Banal frontier a chosen band of clever, trusty, and tried guards called by the ancient appellation of Szeressans. They go according to circumstances either singly or in companies, on foot or on horseback to discover the most secret plans and stratagems of their rapacious Turkish neighbours, which they seldom fail to counteract and frustrate, and are particularly ingenious in the discovery of concealed plunder.
The chief of these Szeressans is styled Haram-Bassa. When fully equipped, he wears a sort of red uniform coat and waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and a sharp-pointed cap of green cloth, turned up with a red and white striped stuff. His arms consist of a musquet, with which he hits his man with never failing certainty at the distance of three hundred paces, a pair of pistols for nearer objects, a Turkish knife and a sword for close quarters; and on busy days there is none of these weapons perhaps but what he employs. In bad weather a wide red mantle with a hood covers both his person and his arms.
TANASZIA DOROJEVICH.VICE HAROM-BASSA OF THE SERISCHANS.
TANASZIA DOROJEVICH.VICE HAROM-BASSA OF THE SERISCHANS.
The second in command, called Vice-Haram-Bassa, is represented in the annexed plate. He is armed like his superior, but appears here in his ordinary dress. His pipe is his constant companion. His horse, with his red mantle thrown carelessly over the saddle when he dismounts, is his constant companion and grazes by his side. The horse in this country is seldom allowed a feed of oats; grass in summer and hay in winter constitute the whole of his subsistence. But little attention is paid to him in other respects, nay more frequently the horse is teased and ill used by his master; hence he is generally unsteady and shy, and a stranger must use great caution in riding him. These animals are small, hardy, and sure-footed, and are extremely useful for carrying moderate loads over the mountains, and for riding in steep, rugged, and scarcely beaten roads. They have their own pace which the rider must let them pursue, or he is more likely to be dismounted than to make them stir from the spot.
In the mountains of Croatia the horses are seldom employed for draught; and it is at the risk of life or goods that they are harnessed to any vehicle. If, however, by coaxing, this point has been accomplished, and the driver has set them a-going, he cannot answer for their proceeding. Each pulls a different way; the rotten harness, perhaps, botched together at the moment when it is wanted, snaps at the least strain; the drivers, generally as numerous as the horses, are as far from agreeing as the latter. The utmost confusion of course arises on the least accident. The men invoke all the saints and all the devils to their assistance: in the most fortunate event, the vehicle is left behind, but more commonly it is broken to pieces. Whoever, therefore, values a whole skin will do well not to trust himself in this mountainous region to any vehicle without the greatest precaution. On the high road from Carlstadt to Zeng the traveller will find horses trained to draw, but not in the by-roads in the interior of the country.
In their manners and way of life, as well as in their clothing and arms, the people of the frontiers hold an intermediateplace between the Oriental and the European. The husbandman goes out armed to his agricultural labours, and with trembling he commits the seed to the bosom of the earth. Unless he keeps constantly on the watch the green corn is either cut down or fed off; and when the farmer has reaped his scanty crop he is frequently obliged to fight his way home with it.
In winter the frontiers are more safe, and the duty of guarding them is less arduous than in summer. The footmarks in the snow betray the retreat of the robber, and there is no friendly thicket to shelter him: he is therefore not very willing to venture forth amid tempests and intense cold for the sake of a precarious and uncertain gain. On the other hand, the inclemency of the weather renders the service of the frontier posts more severe. Nothing but the iron constitutions of these men could withstand the incessant changes of temperature. One day perhaps a furious north or north-east wind brings snow, covers all the roads and freezes every limb: the next an equally tempestuous south-east, produces a thaw and suddenly inundates the country. The houses, slight and unsubstantial, suffer from both, and the roofs and out-buildings are destroyed by the fury of the storm.
Amid these incessant changes, the winter in these elevated regions is unhealthy and destructive. When the storm keeps all inhabitants closely imprisoned in the smoky huts, the frontier-man on duty at his post, frequently receives a visit from a hungry wolf prowling about in quest of prey. Thus engaged in an incessant conflict with a rude nature and savage neighbours, is it surprising that these people should have advanced no farther than a half-civilized state!
The features and dress of the unmarried female of the Dragathal belong to Italy; but the Croat and the Wendeare here mingled with the Italian. Language, manners, and costume indicate the intermixture of nations between Trieste and Zeng, and exhibit in visible gradations the transition from one to another.
The districts of the regiments of Licca and Ottochacz are intersected by bare, craggy mountains, which form a broken elevated tract not unlike in appearance to the deserts of South Africa. These mountains consist chiefly of chalk, naked and rugged at the top, and bearing lower down a scanty vegetation. The valleys and plains are covered with a thin layer of mould, but are in part as dreary as the mountains which surround them.
The elevated situation, the vicinity of the sea, and the want of wood, expose this country to the fury of the tempests and to all the caprices of the weather. For weeks together bleak north and north-east winds prevail; all at once they change to milder, but equally violent gales from the south and south-east. As the temperature suddenly varies with the change of the wind, from the most intense cold to thaw, or a mild day is succeeded by a frosty night, so also the falls of rain or snow are generally sudden and excessive.
In these parts the cottages must be built low, and the nearly flat roof of boards, fastened with long projecting wooden pins, must be farther secured by very heavy stones—a precaution employed for the same reason among the mountains of Switzerland. The soil must never be lightened for the reception of the seed, otherwise it would scarcely fail to be blown away like dust. The poor, shallow, hard ground therefore can scarcely be expected to produce good crops; and such as it does bear are exposed to other dangers before they attain maturity. Millet, the favourite grain of the husbandman, is frequently cut off by a single frost in the beginning of September.
Under such circumstances, the fruitful and middling years could not make amends for the unfavourable seasons even to an industrious people, and much less to the inhabitants of these frontiers, who are apt to consider labour as not belonging to their vocation. The government is in consequence frequently obliged to step in totheir relief, and to save them by abundant supplies from starvation.
Regularity and perseverance are not virtues of these people. Like men in a state of nature they are fond of variety and of extremes. Military service, hunting, the transport of wares on horses, and traffic on the cordon are occupations which they like: domestic and agricultural employments are too tedious and quiet, and these therefore in general fall to the share of the women.
If, however, one of these men goes out at all to the fields, he first chats away some hours by the side of the fire in the middle of the floor; and when he is urged to repair to his work, he coolly replies, that a wise man never leaves his house till the sun is over his fields. He is remiss at every kind of labour; whether he is using the hoe, the axe, the trowel, or the spade, he handles it as though he were afraid of hurting the implement. To him work is worse than severe want. The wife on the other hand is incessantly employed. All the apparel worn by herself, her husband, and her children, is, with some trifling exceptions, her own work. She spins, dyes, and weaves the linen and woollen stuffs for this purpose, and makes them up into garments, besides washing and attending to her house and kitchen. The shoes alone, made of untanned hide, are the work of the man. Hard labour and early marriages cause the women to lose all the charms of youth much sooner than in many other countries.
The character of the country from Trieste to Zara is uniformly the same. The width of the plain, which intervenes between the sea and the range of naked mountains, alone distinguishes the nature of the country in this long tract, and determines the degree of vegetation peculiar to each spot. The Draga of the Fiume is destitute of the majesty of wood, and of the refreshing verdure of extensive pasturages. The olive, the fig-tree and the vine indeed here furnish their valuable fruit, but they confer neither affluence nor the appearance of it.
UNMARRIED FEMALE of OTTOCHACZ.
UNMARRIED FEMALE of OTTOCHACZ.
The annexed plate represents an unmarried female of Ottochacz. She wears a long open jacket without sleeves, neatly embroidered on the edges, and her hair, carefully plaited in tresses, is covered with a cap of red cloth. The apron universally exhibits a variety of gay colours. Married women are distinguished from virgins by wearing one of these aprons behind as well as before, and a large cloth resembling a mantle over the head and shoulders.
In Upper Croatia, in the county of Warasdin, for example, the dress of the women considerably resembles the above, but is more elegant. On the head is placed a large square of white linen, forming a roll in front, one fold falling over the back and two lying on the shoulders. The margins are adorned with borders of coarse lace two or three inches deep. The vest is of woollen cloth, fitted to the body, without sleeves, and descending below the knees, where it is trimmed with a few coloured stripes, generally red and bordered by fringe or lace. The white shift-sleeves hang large and loose, and are likewise ornamented with coarse lace. The vest is of two kinds, either opening on the sides or before, so as to display the laced front of a bodice held together by clasps, formed of bunches of coloured glass beads. Below the vest about two inches of a white petticoat appear, and below this another petticoat neatly plaited; and beneath all, boots either of black or yellow leather. They likewise wear coarse linen shawls folded round their shoulders and arms.
The districts of the two Banal regiments are situated on the decline of the mountains into the plain. They present a great diversity of ground and scenery. Considerableforests, beautiful valleys, and extensive pastures succeed each other; and notwithstanding the change of country, the character of the inhabitants remains the same.
The indigence and want of activity prevailing among the people of these districts has been ascribed, and not unjustly, to the excessive magnitude of the houses. The village of Boroevich was formerly at least inhabited almost exclusively by the family after which it was named, and there were houses which contained from fifty to one hundred inmates. Such houses furnished many men for the service, but at the same time they were nurseries of discontent and crimes.
Before the division of families was authorized by law, the father of each with his immediate offspring remained in the original habitation. On the marriage of any of his descendants, the new couple built themselves a tenement contiguous and a chamber without a window. Here they slept and deposited what belonged to them exclusively. The father still retained and managed the general property. In his house were the common fire and table for the whole family, no individual being allowed to cook for himself. This separation, however, promoted neither peace nor prosperity: the law therefore interfered and fixed the principles for the partition of too large family-communities. Time will soon show how much the industry and morality of these people have been improved by this measure, without any prejudice to the service.
In the annexed representation of a young female of Glina, we again observe the red cap, but of a different form from that shown in the last engraving. In this instance it merely covers the crown of the head, the hair of which is tressed on each side and turned up behind. The tresses are frequently adorned with shells, metal rings, and other trinkets, and the costume in general resembles in cut and fashion that of the upper frontiers.
UNMARRIED FEMALE of GLINA.
UNMARRIED FEMALE of GLINA.
False tresses, hanging down low and covered with a handkerchief, give a peculiar character to the head-dress of the women in the environs of Dubitza. The apron is fastened on by a belt decorated with coins; the wide, open sleeves of the chemise are neatly bordered with embroidery, and over it is worn a long open jacket.
The river Unna here forms the boundary between the Turkish and Austrian empires. The decayed fortress of Dubitza itself, on the right bank of that river, belongs to the former. Nature has rendered the valley watered by the Unna one of the most fertile and delightful of the abodes of man. The hills gently rise on each bank of the river, which has a strong navigable current, and vegetation finds a rich soil to their very tops. The climate too is mild; but man is the only obstacle to the improvement of these advantages. The Turks and Turkish subjects in this valley have long been reckoned the most pestilent disturbers of the tranquillity of their neighbours. Being eternally at variance among themselves, it is not surprising that they should annoy the inhabitants of the Austrian frontiers.
In many parts of the Banal frontier the country and its inhabitants strongly remind the spectator of the upper regimental districts, but the scene is totally changed on entering Slavonia. These frontiers are marked by great rivers and by sandy and muddy marsh-land. Here the husbandman does not dread the fury of tempests, but the inundation of waters. The genial warmth of a climate more than mild produces a profusion of the finest fruits. The soil supplies man with abundance of corn and wine, and animalswith rich herbage. The very forests support besides various species of game hundreds of thousands of monstrous swine, great numbers of which are sent to the capital, and thus contribute not only to the subsistence but to the opulence of the inhabitants. The river Save, which forms the Southern boundary of the country, and facilitates commercial communication, protects the Slavonian from the incursions of his predatory neighbours better than fortifications and sentinels. What nature affords and industry acquires, he therefore enjoys in peace and security. He is in consequence much more civilized and assiduous than his neighbours on the Western frontiers; his dress is neater, his food and implements are superior, his cattle are better treated and better fed; in short every thing about him denotes greater affluence.
For the sake of greater security, and to accelerate civilization, the scattered houses were collected into villages upon the road. The inhabitants now enjoy in peace the benefit of this regulation; and the traveller blesses that power, which commanded the roads to be planted with trees which, while they afford him a refreshing shade from the intense heat, supply the inhabitants with food for the lucrative silk-worm.
Attempts have been made in other parts of Hungary to rear this insect, and with considerable success, owing to the encouragement afforded by government. The greatest yearly produce was in 1801, when the royal silk-establishments yielded about eighteen thousand pounds weight, and those of private individuals about three thousand. By far the greater part comes from the military frontiers.
At the beginning of the last century emigrants from Bosnia, calling themselves Clementinians, settled in the villages of Hertkovze and Nikinze in the Peterwardeinregiment. Their earlier history and the origin of their name are involved in obscurity: but so much is certain, that their ancestors migrated thither from Albania, and were there converted to the Catholic religion. They differ from their neighbours in language, customs, religious ceremonies, way of life and physiognomy.
The frontispiece to this volume represents females belonging to this tribe. The figure in the middle exhibits a bride in her wedding attire: on her left stands one of her companions in her usual holiday apparel: and both are listening attentively to the instructions of the industrious housewife on the left of the print. From the coronet of feathers which adorn the head of the bride, and reminds us of the natives of Guinea and Mexico, to the neat slipper of fish-skin which covers the foot, all is of native material and workmanship. The women spin, weave, dye, and make all their apparel and personal ornaments with peculiar neatness. They attend with truly commendable assiduity to the household concerns, while the men till the ground. Distinguished by purer morals, and therefore more highly respected, they consider it beneath them to mingle their blood with that of the other inhabitants of the frontiers; but conduct themselves invariably as a peaceable tribe among unsettled and turbulent neighbours.
The sandy surface of that part of the Banat which lies between the Danube and the Lower Nera, is very little elevated above the level of those rivers, by which, when they are swollen, it is in a great measure inundated. In the south-east corner of the German Banat regiment, the loose sand is drifted into moving hills. It has not unfrequently buried fields and houses, and occasioned the gradual desertion of whole villages; but by judicious plantations it is now confined within narrower limits. One of the most fertile of tracts, the granary of the frontiers, is thus enclosed between dry sand and morasses. A motleymixture of settlers, Germans, Hungarians, Slavonians of various tribes, and Walachians, live together in a small district of the German Banat regiment, and mostly retain the language, costume, manners and way of life of their respective ancestors.
The coat and pantaloons of the Walachian, the original native of the country, in his holiday dress, are of white cloth, the ornaments being neatly worked by the women in coloured worsted. In fashion this dress resembles the costume of his progenitors, the ancient Dacians, as delineated on Trajan’s pillar. The head is covered either with a round hat, or the still more ancient sheep-skin cap.
The Walachian styles himself a Roman in his language, which is a medley of corrupt Latin and Illyrian; but it is very rarely that Roman valour can be discovered in him. He dislikes the military profession, and it is very long before he becomes habituated to its hardships: but yet none endures with greater fortitude, sufferings and privations which cannot be avoided. His wants are very moderate. He cheerfully and thoughtlessly consumes what he has as long as it lasts, and afterwards fasts with exemplary resignation. He does not always duly respect the property of others, but cheerfully shares what he possesses with those who need relief.
The Walachian women, like those of Croatia, being obliged to perform the operations of agriculture as well as to attend to the domestic concerns, lose at an early age all traces of beauty. Those of the pleasant valley of Saska, are distinguished by more polished manners, a morehealthy look, and superior cleanliness and neatness in dress, from the inhabitants of the plains.
In the mountains contiguous to this valley are coppermines wrought by German settlers, the example of whose industry and consequent comforts has not been wholly lost on their Walachian neighbours.
The head-dress, somewhat resembling a soldier’s cap, and the two aprons, one before and the other behind, distinguish the matron from the unmarried female. In addition to all her other occupations, the wife is obliged to take her infant children with her wherever she goes, whether to her work in the fields, to church, or to visit a neighbour. The infant is laid in a low open box, to which are attached cords, by means of which it is slung over the shoulder of the mother.
If a tree happens to be near, the box is suspended from it by the cords, and the infant swings as in a hammock, while the mother does her work in the fields.
The house, built of wood and earth, affords but scanty room for the family of the Walachian and the young cattle which lodge under the same roof. He was formerly an utter stranger to stables, barns, and granaries. Like the Tartar, when his old situation no longer suited him, he drove his cattle farther, packed up his habitation and his furniture and utensils, and fixed his abode in another place. Pains were long taken to excite in him a taste for more solid and spacious dwellings, in the hope of habituating him to a permanent residence and its advantages; and they have not been unsuccessful. In the upper valley of the Nera and of the Almasch, on the woody hills bordering which the Walachian long roved about for the sake of the pasturage they afforded, are now to be seen regular villages, with houses of masonry, barns and stables.
The cultivation of corn and the breeding of cattle are almost the only resources of their inhabitants. The people of the Almasch, however, pursue another occupation of a peculiar kind, that is, the feeding of snails, which they collect in the woods in spring, keeping them in particular spots in their gardens surrounded with ditches till winter, and then selling them. They are known far and near by the name of Caransebes snails.
Dr. Bright saw at Keszthely a pen for snails, which are in request in Hungary as well as in Germany, as an article of food. This pen was formed by boards two feet high, the upper edge of which was spiked with nails an inch long and half an inch asunder. This barrier the animals never attempt to pass. The snail, thehelix pomatia, is in great demand at Vienna, where sacks of them are regularly exposed in the market for sale.
EXTENT AND NATURE OF THE COUNTRY—BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE PEOPLE FROM THE PARTITION OF POLAND—CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE OF THE ANCIENT SYSTEM—SUPERIOR DEGREE OF SECURITY ENJOYED UNDER THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT—MODE OF BUILDING—APPEARANCE OF A POLISH VILLAGE—INNS-JEWS—UNCLEANLINESS OF THE POLES
EXTENT AND NATURE OF THE COUNTRY—BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE PEOPLE FROM THE PARTITION OF POLAND—CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE OF THE ANCIENT SYSTEM—SUPERIOR DEGREE OF SECURITY ENJOYED UNDER THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT—MODE OF BUILDING—APPEARANCE OF A POLISH VILLAGE—INNS-JEWS—UNCLEANLINESS OF THE POLES
The kingdom of Galicia is that part of Poland which, on the partition of that monarchy among its more powerful neighbours, fell to the share of the house of Austria. It contains upwards of fifteen hundred German square miles, and not far short of four millions of inhabitants.
The country chiefly consists of a sandy plain situated at the northern foot of the lofty mountains which separate it from Hungary, Transylvania and the Bukowina by one of their secondary ramifications. The soil of the plains of Galicia is nevertheless more irregular than that of Hungary. It is infinitely diversified by hills of no great elevation, but in some parts of extreme fertility.
Much as it has been the fashion to deplore the “fatal partition” of Poland, and to execrate the powers concerned in it, we have now the satisfaction to know that to thePoles themselves this measure has proved one of the greatest blessings. Every individual has gained by it, excepting a few selfish, pampered magnates, who abused their overgrown power, and inflicted perpetual misery on the serfs whom Providence had subjected to their rule.
If ever there was a country where “might constituted right,” that country was Poland. The most dreadful oppression, the most execrable tyranny, and the most wanton cruelties, were daily exercised by the nobles on their unfortunate peasants. Dr. Neale in his Travels adduces a few facts which prove but too clearly their miserable condition.
The life of a peasant was held of no greater value than that of one of his horned cattle; and if his lord killed him he was merely fined a hundred Polish florins, or two pounds sixteen shillings of our money. If, on the contrary, a man of low birth presumed to raise his hand against a nobleman, death was the inevitable punishment. If any one dared to question the nobility of a magnat, he was required to prove his assertion, or doomed to die: nay, if a powerful man took a fancy to the field of his humbler neighbour and erected a land-mark upon it, and if that land-mark remained three days, the poor man lost his possession.
The atrocious cruelties habitually exercised almost exceed credibility. A Masalki caused his hounds to devour a peasant who chanced to fright his horse; a Radzivil had the belly of one of his serfs ripped open, that he might thrust his feet into it, in the hope of being cured of a malady with which he was afflicted. Still there were laws in Poland, but how were they executed? A peasant, going to the market at Warsaw, met a man who had just assassinated another: he seized the murderer, bound him, and having placed him in his wagon together with the body of his victim, he went to deliver him up to the nearest Starost. On his arrival, he was asked if he had ten ducats to pay for his interference, and on his answering in the negative, he was sent back with his dead and living lumber. After this fact, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that it cost a merchant of Warsaw fourteen hundred dollarsto prosecute to conviction and execution two robbers who had plundered him.
To this injustice were joined the most barbarous ignorance and superstition. In 1781, the Starost Potocki, in passing through a village, learned that on the following day, a person accused of sorcery was to be burned alive. He examined the accused, inquired the hour at which the execution was to take place, and returned home to make preparation for preventing this legal murder, by carrying off the prisoner when on his way to the stake. The magistrates of the village received intimation of his design, and hastened the execution, so that when Potocki arrived, he had the mortification to find that the man had already been sacrificed.
Nor were this ignorance and this superstition confined to any particular class or order: in these respects people of the highest rank were perfectly on a level with the meanest serfs. A Polish baroness who had gained notoriety both at home and in France by her spirit of intrigue and the wit of her correspondence, was in the habit of burning frankincense and sprinkling her apartments with holy water whenever a thunder storm approached her castle.—One day, when in spite of these pious precautions the lightning struck and threw down her chimneys, she had recourse to an expedient which she regarded as infallible, namely, the burying round her house thirty copies of the Gospel of St. John; a custom still piously practised on Christmas-day in all the churches in Poland.
The morals of the people, were then, as they still continue to be, nearly at the lowest point of debasement. Female chastity is a virtue unknown in Poland. Among persons of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, with very few exceptions, the most dreadful licentiousness prevails. The men are equally profligate; and debauchery of every kind prevails among them to a degree unknown in other countries of Europe. Education is in general much neglected, the lower classes being unable to obtain the means of instruction: and among the higher, where no man is assured of the legitimacy of his offspring, a total indifference prevails as to the training of the doubtful brood.They are therefore neglected from their cradles, and left to the indulgence of every passion, undisciplined, untutored and uncontrolled. Endowed by nature with great personal beauty, the young Polish noble makes the tour of France and Germany, engrafts the vices of every capital that he visits on his own native stock; and after dilapidating his revenues returns to his paternal estate with a train of French cooks, valets, parasites and all the paraphernalia of modern luxury, to wallow in sensuality, and to die prematurely of acquired disease.
Such is the picture of the Poles drawn by Dr. Neale, who adds two facts tending to show the superior degree of security enjoyed by the humbler classes under the Austrian government to that afforded them while under the Polish sceptre.
During the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a petty noble having refused to resign his small estate to Count Thisenhaus, the latter invited him to dinner as if desirous of adjusting the affair in an amicable manner. While the knight, elated at such an unexpected honour, was assiduously plying the bottle, the count despatched some hundreds of peasants with axes, ploughs and wagons, ordering the village, which consisted only of a few small wooden buildings, to be pulled down, the materials carried away, and the plough passed over the ground which the village had occupied. This was accordingly done. The nobleman, on his return home in the evening, could not find either road, house or village. The master and his servant were alike bewildered, and knew not whether they were dreaming or had lost the power of discrimination: but their surprise and agony were deemed so truly humourous, that the whole court was delighted with the joke.
As a contrast to this story, related on the authority of Baron Uklanski, himself a Pole, the reader is presented with the following fact, which happened in Galicia, after thecruel partition:—
A peasant with his wife and children, belonging to the estate of the Starost Bleski, having fled into Austrian Poland, the Starost assembled a party of horsemen and carried off his serf, inflicted on him a hundred stripes andthrew him into a dungeon. The emperor Joseph II., having been informed of this circumstance, caused his ministers to demand reparation from the king of Poland, who replied, that it did not depend on him, but on his permanent council. The emperor, not satisfied with this evasive answer, sent a party of two hundred dragoons to bring back both the Starost and the serf to Zamoic, where they were taken before an Austrian court of justice. The Starost was sentenced to pay a thousand crowns as an indemnity to the peasant, and a fine of five thousand to the Austrian exchequer. The hundred blows which he had inflicted on the peasant were repaid to him on his own person, and he was sent back to his own estate with all due respect.
Galicia, like Poland in general, abounds in wood, but stone, particularly freestone, is very scarce. Hence log huts are the general habitations of the peasantry. Architecture of course is still in its infancy. Every peasant in fact is his own mason and carpenter. Provided with a hatchet, he enters the nearest wood, fells as many trees as he wants, carries them to the site of his future dwelling, and splits each trunk into two beams. Four large stones mark the corner of an oblong square, and constitute the base upon which the hut is raised, by placing the beams in horizontal layers, with the flat sides inward; a sort of mortice being cut in each about half a foot from the end to receive the connecting beams. A kind of cage is thus constructed, usually about twelve feet by six, and moss is thrust between the logs to exclude the wind and rain. Two openings are left, one for the door, and the other, with the aid of a few panes of glass or a couple of sheets of oiled paper, forms a window. At one of the corners within are placed four upright posts, round which are entwined some twigs covered with mud or clay to form a square area, in which is built an oven of the same materials; and this, when hard and dry, serves the peasant for kitchen, chimney, stove and bed. The roof is closed in with rafters and twigs bedaubed with a thick coating of clay, and covered over with a close warm thatch extending over both gable ends. To finish this rude hut, the wallsare sometimes extended a few feet in a still rougher style, to form a sort of vestibule, which serves also for carthouse or stable, and occasionally a second is added to serve as a barn. In the whole building there is perhaps scarcely a bolt, lock, hinge or any article of metal. Yet this is the dwelling of a Polish serf, and contains himself and his family and all his goods and chattels.
If the proprietor happens to be a little more affluent, his hut may contain an oven of glazed earthenware, and two bed-rooms with boarded floors, the walls whitewashed, and the doors secured with locks. If he be a Jew, the house is still larger; the roof better, and covered with shingles instead of thatch; the windows are a degree wider; and if he be an innkeeper, there is a long stable, with a coach-entrance at each end, which serves for barn, stable and cow-house.
The gentry give to their wooden house greater capacity, and a form a little more symmetrical. The walls within are perhaps stuccoed and washed with distemper colours, and externally plastered and whitewashed. The door of entrance occupies the centre and is covered with a rude porch, raised on four posts, and the front may contain three or four windows.
Such are the elementary parts of a Polish village, and nothing under heaven can be more miserable, dirty and wretched, than the whole assemblage externally as well as internally. All the inns in Galicia are kept by Jews, and both these and the post-houses are always situated in the public squares, which occupy the centre of every town. These squares are also the market-places for horned cattle, and have never been cleansed since their first formation: hence they are absolute quagmires of filth, the putrid effluvia from which are almost insufferable.
Happy, says Dr. Neale, is the traveller, the dimensions of whose carriage admit of his occupying it during the night! what abominations will he not escape! He relates, that though his companion and himself carried with them into these Jewish inns fur skins of their own to sleep on, yet the noisome smells from the damp earthen floors were frequently so powerful and disgusting as to keep themawake; and there were a thousand other nameless annoyances more easily imagined than described.
From the centre of the roof of these houses is always suspended a large brass chandelier, with seven branches: this is the sabbath lamp, which is regularly lighted every Friday evening at sun-set, when all the fires are carefully extinguished, and not re-kindled till the same hour the next evening. Underneath it stands a long table soiled with grease, occupying the middle of the apartment; around it are ranged several wooden benches, with one or two rotten chairs, and a cushion stuffed with hay. In the huts of the peasants a sort of shovel, slung from the roof is loaded with tallow: a lock of flax is placed upon it, and being lighted serves for a lamp.
The best food to be obtained at these inns is nearly as disgusting to strangers as the lodging they afford; and the only thing to be commended in Galicia is the state of the high-roads; these are excellent, of a good breadth, well levelled, and kept in admirable repair. But these, and every thing else that is not absolutely abominable, are the creation of the Austrian government; for previously to the first partition of Poland, in 1772, they were as miserable as the inns.
In no country in Europe have the Jews obtained such firm footing as in Poland, where Casimir the Great, at the instigation of his Jewish mistress, Esther, took them, four centuries ago, into his especial favour and protection. Enjoying privileges and immunities which they possess in no other region, with opportunities of engaging deeply in traffic and accumulating immense fortunes; masters of all the specie and most of the commerce of Poland; mortgagees of the land, and sometimes masters of the glebe—the Jewish interlopers appear to be more the lords of the country then even the Poles themselves.
All the distilleries throughout Poland are farmed out to Jews, who pay large sums to the nobles for the privilege of poisoning and intoxicating their serfs. Mr. Burnett states, that when he was in Poland, a company of Jews paid to Count Zaymoski the sum of three thousand pounds sterling annually for the mere privilege of distilling spirituousliquors on the largest of his estates, which, to be sure, comprehends at least four thousand square miles. Hence some estimate may be formed of the enormous quantity that is consumed.
When Joseph II. obtained possession of Galicia, that judicious prince perceived the necessity of limiting the privileges of the Jews. He took from them the power of cultivating the lands belonging to the serfs subject to contributions, and prohibited them from keeping inns and distilling spirits: but at his death these regulations ceased to be enforced, and the Jews have since been silently regaining their former influence.
The inns, as has been already observed, are now altogether in their hands, as well as the fabrication of ardent spirits and liqueurs. They have all the traffic in peltry, the precious metals, diamonds and other jewels, and they are also the principal agents in the corn-trade. Of late years many of these Jewish families who had amassed great wealth by commerce, having affected to abjure their religion and to embrace the Catholic faith, have been ennobled and permitted to purchase extensive estates: still true, however, to their own nation, they have built large towns and villages on these estates, and peopled them exclusively with Jewish families; for from a singular instinct the Poles seem to detest their fellowship, and generally herd together in their own miastas.
The enjoyment of liberty and civil rights seems to have produced a strong effect on the physical constitution and physiognomy of the Hebrew race, and to have bestowed on them a dignity and energy of character, which we may look for in vain in the Jews of other countries. The men, clothed in long black robes reaching to their ankles, and sometimes adorned in front with silver agraffes, their heads covered with fur caps, their chesnut or auburn locks parted in front, and falling gracefully on their shoulders in spiral curls, display much manly beauty. In feminine beauty, the women are likewise distinguished; but beauty is not uncommon among the Jewesses of other countries. When looking at them, says Dr. Neale, seated, according to their usual custom, on a wooden sofa, by the doors oftheir houses, on the evenings of their sabbath, dressed in their richest stuffs and pearl head-dresses, I have imagined that I could trace a strong resemblance between their present head-ornaments and those sculptured on the heads of the Egyptian sphynxes. Nor do I think it at all improbable, that the dresses of the Hebrews of both sexes in Poland, are at this day nearly the same as those of their ancestors when they quitted the “house of bondage.”
Without having visited Poland, and had ocular demonstration of the filth and abominable uncleanliness of the inhabitants, it seems difficult to believe the accounts which have been given of them. The floors of the houses of the lower classes consists of clay or earth always damp, and from which the heat of the stove draws up a perpetual vapour of the most offensive odour, which, as their windows are never opened, circulates continually. Both sexes sleep together like pigs on the straw or furs, upon the sides and tops of their ovens, without undressing themselves. They eat few vegetables, and their diet consists of every putrescent animal food, with bad bread, diluted copiously with spirituous liquors. Such a diet necessarily predisposes them to imbibe readily every contagious poison, which, when once received, is propagated among them with the rapidity of combustion itself. Thus it is related, that when the plague was brought into the country in 1770, in consequence of the hostilities between the Turks and Russians, all the peasants of a village belonging to Prince Adam Czartoriski were swept off by it in one day.
Generally without medical assistance, the wretched creatures are abandoned to their fate; and such is the callous selfishness of the great majority of the Polish nobles, that instead of attempting to meliorate the condition of their serfs, all their ingenuity is exhausted in ministering to their debaucheries and increasing their own overgrown incomes, by throwing the temptations of drunkenness in their way. Bishops and nobles are joint proprietors of all the inns, and the greater the drunkenness of the peasantry, the larger are the returns to the lord of the soil.
THE END.