VILLAGE OF ROUMELIA, NEAR ADRIANOPLE.J. SalmonDrawn from Nature by F. Hervé.J. C. Bentley.
The district of ancient Thrace is sometimes called Romania, but more properly, Roumelia, from the Turkish name Roum Eli, “the country of the Romans.” It extended from the Euxine Sea to the river Strymon, and from Mons Hemus to the Propontis and Egean, which limits it has retained through all its vicissitudes to the present day. Byzantium, or Constantinople, is its former, as it is its present capital. The ancient Thracians were distinguished for their ferocity, and the poets have reported it as the theatre of many scenes of cruelty. Here it was that their king, Diomedes, fed his horses on human flesh, casting every stranger he found into their mangers, to be devoured alive; and here it was that the poet Orpheus, while lamenting the loss of his beloved Eurydice, was torn to pieces by the women, and his head cast into the Hebrus; and he who was represented to soothe tigers, soften rocks, and lead lofty oaks by his song, could not charm into humanity the Thracian ladies. In less fabulous times, their barbarism is unfortunately too well authenticated. It was the region where they offered up human victims as grateful offerings to their gods, and that from whence the Roman people obtained their theatrical assassins; so that the names of Thracian and gladiator are synonymous in their language: and such was the horrid delight taken in their exhibition, that from one thousand to fifteen hundred of those barbarians are reported tohave been seen dead or dying, by each others swords, at the same moment, on the bloody stage, for the amusement of the assembled citizens of Rome.
The original barbarians of this region were amalgamated with various people as barbarous as themselves, who were driven from their own deserts, and invited to settle there. The Bastarnæ, a nation from the banks of the Rhine, were located here by the Emperor Probus, who attempted to instruct them in the ways of civilized life; but the intractable savages rejected the instruction, and, by repeated rebellions and insurrections, devastated the country they were allowed to settle in. In the reign of Valens, another nation was transported hither. The Goths were assaulted by the Huns, whom they represented as an unknown and monstrous race of savages, and they supplicated permission to escape from their ferocity by migrating into Thrace, and occupying the vast uncultivated plains then waste and unproductive. This second immigration was permitted; and these barbarians, like the former, ungratefully rebelled against their benefactors.
To this mingled population was finally added that of the Turks. In the year 1363 they crossed the Hellespont, and spread over this region their conquering hordes, adding Oriental ignorance and fanaticism to the catalogue of Thracian qualities. They seem to have even deteriorated the original character they brought with them in this European district. The Thracian Turk is said to be more inhospitable than a Turk in any other place. Travellers frequently fall victims to their intractable jealousy; and should a benighted stranger seek for shelter and protection, he is driven from the door by savage dogs, and fired at by the more savage master from within. And this repulsive conduct extends equally to their own countrymen as to those of other nations. Tartar couriers, or Turkish travellers, overtaken by night or storm in the winter, have been frequently found dead in the snow, near the inhospitable house where they had been denied a shelter. Their conduct, in this respect, forms a strong contrast with that of the kind and hospitable Bulgarians, who are spread over part of this district, and mingled with the Moslem population.
The general aspect of the country, from the Balkans to the sea, is exceedingly beautiful. Swelling downs, expanded to an interminable distance, bounded only by the horizon. These are covered with a rich green sward, capable of any purpose of cultivation, either tillage or pasture. Occasionally the downs are intersected by depressions, which form winding glens, and sometimes a low ridge from the Balkans runs to an immense extent, till it is gradually lost in the plain, affording in its progress a variety of knolls and eminences highly picturesque and beautiful. The country is watered by the Hebrus and its tributary streams, which rising among the snows of the Balkans, and continually augmented by their solution, meander through the plains down to the sea; unceasingly refreshing the thirsty but fertile soil with their copious, cool, and limpid currents. The climate is exceedingly bland and temperate, and the moment a traveller passes the mountains he feels its influence. He ascends the northern side at an advanced season of the year, leaving behind him a country faded in its verdure, denuded of its foliage, and having the hand of winter everywhere impressed upon it. He descends on the southern side, and in a few days finds every thing changed. He breathes a warmtemperate air, sees spring and summer blooming around him; the fields are green, the hills are gay, and the romantic woods and copses which clothe them, retain not only their leaves but their flowers also.
But in the midst of these beauties of nature he observes that everything is solitary and deserted. He passes a day’s journey through them, and meets nothing that has life from morning till evening. He sees on the distant horizon something that has the semblance of an inhabited place; he finds, when he approaches, that it is only a cemetery, which indicates that human life had once been there, but has now long since departed. Not a trace of the villages to which they once belonged remains behind, to mark where social man had once existed. Some of these solitary cemeteries are very extensive, and seem to mark the vicinity of a large town and numerous inhabitants; but so completely and so long ago have they been obliterated, that their very names have perished. It is natural for an inquisitive traveller, when he sees a large grave-yard, to ask his Tartar, or surrogee, the name of the city to which it belongs−but the Turk who daily travels by it, shakes his head at the hopeless question, and replies “Allah bilir,” God only knows.
What adds to the singularity and solitude of these plains, is the multitude of conical mounds which are everywhere scattered over them. These are lofty, and evidently artificial heaps, thrown up at some remote period by human labour, and to answer some purpose. They exactly resemble those mounds on the opposite coast of Asia, on the plains of Troy, which are supposed to be the tombs of heroes who fell during the siege, and the monuments erected over them, to mark the spot where their bodies are deposited. They are both equally called tepé in Asia and Europe, which is supposed to be a corruption of the Greek word ταϕος, by which the tombs of heroes were designated, and this coincidence renders it probable they both had the same origin. They are sometimes so numerous, that eight or ten appear at once, and the traveller passes close to them in succession, while whole ranges of them are seen marking the outline of the distant horizon. The supposition that they are tombs, adds considerably to the sense of solitude in these lonely regions. The traveller supposes himself passing through a vast grave-yard of several hundred miles in extent, the receptacle of human bodies, where, from the earliest ages, the kings, and heroes, and great ones of their nation are reposing in solitary magnificence.
While the fields are abandoned and agriculture is neglected, there is no art substituted or manufacture pursued, to engage the corresponding scanty population. The gold mines of Thrace were formerly so rich as to yield Philip of Macedon the value of £200,000 annually; an immense sum in those days, which enabled him to corrupt the patriot orators of Athens, and to boast that no city could resist him, that had a breach wide enough to admit an ass laden with the produce of these mines. They are unproductive to the Turks; and while they might raise a richer harvest of golden grain on those plains close to their capital, they are indebted to Odessa, and the permission of their enemies, the Russians, for the daily bread of Constantinople.
Our illustration presents, not the general appearance of the country, but one of those wandering ridges, which running from the high Balkans, like the fibres of some gigantic tree, are the branches of those roots by which they seem fastened to the level ground, and its picturesque and romantic features are different from the usual character of the level country. The plain from hence to Adrianople, and to the sea, is generally a flat surface of immense extent. These village-crowned peaks are called, both here and in the neighbouring country of Macedon, meteors, or “appearances in the air.” They are usually chosen as the site of Greek convents, and sometimes ascended by a basket let down with cords, in which the visitor is drawn up. The sides of the hills, in every accessible spot, are covered with vineyards, from which the city of Adrianople is supplied with grapes of an excellent quality.