CHAPTER XII

FROM BUDAPEST TO BELGRADE

understand the conditions of their existence. In all Hungary the Magyar, or pure Hungarian, does not number over four out of the fifteen millions of inhabitants. They are the dominant race intellectually and physically, and, of course, the governing race. But frugal, industrious immigrants have on all sides taken possession of the land, have established manufactories and built up trade, and have often left to the Magyar little beside that pride of race to which even the lowest among them cling as their most precious birthright. It is this pride which has bound the nation together all through the dark centuries of constant warfare with an implacable enemy, and it is this pride which is the Magyar’s best support in his present struggle for a place in the foremost rank of civilized nations. There can be no question of his intellectual superiority over the races who crowd him on the east, the south, and the west. That he is not yet in the same plane of civilization as the nations in the west of Europe is due to the fact that while the west was civilizing, the Magyar was keeping thefrontier against advancing Mahometanism; and it is only now, after many centuries of discouragement and oppression, that he is in a position to advance along the road of peaceful development and culture. To such a nature as his all is possible, and his marvellous progress during the past twenty years is gratifying proof that he is making the best of his present possibilities.

We had the great good-fortune to be personally conducted through this interesting region by Mr. Louis Gerster, the vice-consul of the United States at Budapest, who met us at the mouth of the canal and who, from long acquaintance with the population, was able to steer our course successfully among the manifold ethnological and philological shoals on which we should certainly have been wrecked had we been travelling alone. He placed a small propeller at our disposal, and we made the journey as far as the Theiss, shooting the wild-fowl with which this region abounds, visiting all the villages, and studying the natives, their customs, costumes, and modes of life. The few days we spent in his company along the Franzens Canal would make a volume in itself, and it is only because we must not pause in the tale of our Danube voyage that we are obliged to keep the log-book of this side trip closed. Russians, Bulgarians, Saxons, Servians, Jews, Gypsies, Schokaczs, Bunyvaczs, and other known and unknown races and tribes, each with distinctly different dress, language, and customs practically unchanged by transplantation into Hungarian soil, so bewitched us with the charms of constant variety and novelty that our trip was one round of exhilarating and delightful impressions. Thanks to the excellent management of our friend, we were able to spend a Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday in the Schokacz village of Monostorszég, situated on the banks of the Danube, but so hidden away behind islands that it would not have attracted our attention from the canoes, and even if we had seen it, we would

SCHOKACZ TYPES

not have suspected the existence of the treasures it held for us. The village itself is not unlike many others we visited, with broad streets shaded by acacias and mulberries, low whitewashed houses, a large barren church edifice, and a few unobtrusive shops. In the daytime, particularly in the harvest season, the whole place is deserted except by a few old people and children. With the peep of day the entire adult population rattles away over the plain in springless wicker wagons to the cornfields, often miles distant. As the sun gets low in the afternoon the dusty streets are again lively with laden carts and wagons full of chattering, singing girls as brown as Indians. The village swineherd, who has watched his unsavory flock on the muddy shores of the Danube through the heat of the day, now drives them to the village again, and as they approach their homes they scamper away,each to his own sty, adding the harsh notes of shrill squeals and grunts to the chorus of general congratulation that the hot day is past and the coolness of the night is at hand.

Like three Tartarins of Tarascon, we found everything at Monostorszég arranged for our amusement and entertainment as if by a stock company. In the court-yard of one of the well-to-do farmers’ houses, where we stopped to examine the stock of home-made embroideries and fabrics for which the housewife was justly renowned in the neighborhood, we soon saw assemble quite a large party of youths and maidens, many of them in holiday dress, and all ready for a dance. From somewhere, we never knew how or whence, a group of strange-looking musicians and stranger instruments appeared casually in the crowd, and the inspiriting tinkle of native dances set every bare foot patting time on the smoothly trampled earth. There were a bass-viol, a guitar, a medium-sized mandolin, and one, the tamboura, no larger than a lady’s hand, all of them strung with wire, and played with a bit of bone or horn. On the last-named instrument, which had a neck out of all reasonable proportion in length, a tall, brawny native picked the most intricate and encouraging melodies, and the feet must indeed have been heavy which did not rise to the rhythm of this music. Out of deference to the visitors the csárdás was for some time the only dance, but as the excitement increased, and the presence of strangers was forgotten, their own dance, the kollo, took its place, and we all participated in this, with more zeal than skill. The kollo, which is the common dance all through Croatia, Slavonia, and Servia, is more solemn and stately than either the Hungarian csárdás or the Roumanian hora, but, like these, comes to an end only with the strength and endurance of the participants. A ring is formed, usually of an equal number of dancers of both sexes. Each maiden places her hands on the shoulder of a youth on either side ofher, giving both the strings of her girdle or the ends of a kerchief, passed behind her back, to twist around their forefingers, thus binding the circle firmly together. The dance consists in stepping one measure by a rhythmic patter with the feet, and then the next measure by a movement to the left, with now and then a few steps backward and forward, as the caprice of any part of the circle may decide. In this dance, as in the csárdás, the performers are swayed and directed by the leader of the orchestra, who alternates a slow, almost mournful, strain, with wild and passionate bursts of music, which, like shocks of electricity, set every figure in spirited action.

The ordinary costume of both sexes at Monostorszég is simplicity itself. The women wear a high-necked, ankle-long chemise of white homespun linen, with full sleeves gathered at the elbow and richly embroidered, usually with blue. Bands of narrow embroidery decorate the waist and the skirt also. This chemise is girded to the body by a thick woollen belt, binding tightly to the figure the upper edge of a narrow apron of striped woollen homespun, very brilliant in color. A kerchief is usually worn on the head, and the feet are habitually bare. On Sundays and fête-days the girls exchange the coarse garments for others of choicer texture, the chemise being fine and carefully plaited, and the apron of mull or muslin delicately embroidered with white. Tall red morocco boots, with yellow heels and soles and curious pointed toes, adorn, or rather disfigure, the feet, and around the neck are hung many rows of gaudy glass beads. The hair is elaborately braided in a broad band, which is brought over to the forehead and then turned back again. This is held in place by dozens of pins with ornamental heads; and all along the edges of the braid behind is a thick row of bits of a fine green aromatic herb, while in the hair itself at the back, as well as around the face,

IN SUNDAY DRESS, MONOSTORSZÉG

bright-colored geraniums, marigolds, and other flowers, are skilfully arranged. On their wedding-day they cover their heads with a wonderful square structure, more like a pastry-cook’spièce montéethan a bonnet, wear an ample white lace shoulder-cape, a brilliant scarlet petticoat, with white lace apron and tall red boots. This dress is preserved with jealous care, and is never produced except on Sundays and holidays. The men’s costume consists of loose linen trousers, like a divided skirt, a full tunic, a waistcoat with silver buttons, hussar boots, and a small round hat. Both sexes have for an outer garment either a sheepskin cloak or a great-coat of very thick, felt-like, white woollen, with broad, squarecollar, and sleeves either sewed up at the bottom, or else in short, rudimentary form. These coats, and also the sheepskin cloaks, are often richly and gaudily embroidered.

When we came into the village bright and early Sunday morning everybody was in holiday dress. The red petticoats of the matrons flashed along the sidewalks, but half-shaded by the small trees; groups of gay maidens, each with wild-flowers in hand, hurried along to church, where companies of men in immaculate linen and stiff embroidered coats stood in solemn rows like supernumeraries on a stage. The church was already partly full when we entered, and there was a bustle of many people settling themselves in their places, and a constant stream of worshippers coming in at different doors. We sat there marvelling at the strange dresses, enchanted by the brilliant colors, all the while unable to realize that this was the customary weekly ceremony, not a dramatic pageant arranged for our benefit. The sexes sat apart, and the married and the single each had a portion of the pews reserved for them, and each entered the church by a different door. Near the altar the marriageable maidens came clumping in with their red boots, always in parties of three or more, each with a little bright-colored rug, a prayer-book, and a bunch of flowers. Spreading out their rugs on the stone floor, they kneeled down in rows facing the altar, and, after carefully arranging their plaited Sunday chemises so as to cover their feet, remained a few moments in the attitude of prayer, and then rose and took their seats. Of all that great congregation there was not one who did not wear the costume, and, with the exception of some of the ornaments and finer textiles, all the articles of dress were of home production. Every thread of the linen and wool had been spun on the busy distaff as the women went to and from the fields to their work, and woven in the winter-time, when the clatter of the loom is heard in every house.

HUNGARIAN GIRLS AT BEZDÁN

During the sermon we hurried away to be present at the close of the church-service in the neighboring village of Bezdán, inhabited by Magyars. It was a few miles away, and we arrived only in time to see the quiet streets enlivened with people totally different in type and dress from those we had just left. In the flickering shadow of the trees, under the noonday sun, the women strode off homeward with an

ERDÖD

energy of action that made their stiff petticoats balloon out still more. Near the church the men gathered in silence to listen to the crier, who was announcing various articles for sale. The unmarried girls of the village wear white linen dresses, with short sleeves and embroidered waists, wreaths of flowers in their hair, bright red ribbons down their backs, black stockings, and dainty red and yellow slippers. The matrons wear colors, sometimes green or black, but usually red, and the men are chiefly noticeable for their loose linen garments and elaborate boots, often with a survival of the spur in the shape of a brass ornament on the side of the heel. Even as we stood watching the people the streets became quite deserted again; and so we hastened on to another village, where, in the populous Servian quarter, we caught our first glimpses of Oriental life in the groups of women sitting flat in the road in the shadow of the houses, disdaining, like true Orientals, all such luxuries as chairs and tables, and disturbed by no horror of dirt. Our Sunday’s excursion also included a gypsy settlement—not a common sight, for these people are seldom permitted to occupy houses. It disagreeably contrasted in its squalorand filth with the perfection of neatness and tidiness among the Schokaczs and Magyars, but gave us a notion of the range of types easily studied in this one neighborhood.

When we left the mouth of the canal, one breezy morning after our excursion, and shot down the turbid stream with all sail set, the soothing regularity of the tree-covered banks, and the utter absence of anything to study or to sketch, was not without a calming influence on us, and but for this little respite we probably should not have had the heart to land at the long straggling village of Apatin, which promised new beauties and fresh interests. Almost the first person we saw was a little old German woman spinning flax on a tiny wheel, looking exactly as if she had been transported bodily from the Black Forest. Farther along the street we met unmistakable Germans, and heard again the familiar language of the upper river. At the nearest corner was a brewery, with tables under the trees, and guzzling sluggards devouring strong sausage and stronger cheese. Everything was of the most commonplace German order, from the architecture of the houses to the beer mugs. Our parachute had burst, and we came to earth with a heavy thump.

About half-way between Apatin and the village of Erdöd, with course as straight as a canal, the river Drave pours in a muddy flood, and far up the shining stream the foot-hills of the Tyrolean Alps lie all faint in the distance. Fertile hills now skirt the west bank, and their sunny yellow slopes looked agreeably bright and warm after the heavy greens of the forest and swamp. The river has washed away the hills into perpendicular bluffs, which are of earth almost as hard as sandstone. Rude steps cut along a cleft were lively with girls carrying jars of Danube water to the village above; and once, under a vineyard, where the vines trail over the very edge of the bank, we saw a rude cave dug in the earth, where a long pole with a dangling bush projecting far

CURRENT MILLS

beyond the rough bough shelter at the door of the cellar announced to the river men that wine was for sale. Our old friends the current mills still clustered at frequent intervals, where the stream ran the swiftest. Since the first time we saw them—far up the river, above Vienna—they had not changed their general shape or construction; but the owners’ names, painted in large white letters on the sides, had marked with accuracy the limits of the different nationalities we had passed in our journey. Now, before the curious combinations of letters on the mills near the Hungarian shore had ceased to puzzle us, Croatian and Slavonian names in a new and unfamiliar alphabet stared at us from the weather-stained sides of the mills along the oppositebank, and something of the crudity of Oriental taste was seen in the unskilful attempts to decorate the wood-work near the door and window. From the right bank we heard hails in an unknown language, and by the water’s edge saw peasants with fiercer mustaches than even the Magyar boasts, and women of a heavy, unsympathetic type. The costume, too, had undergone a decided change. Both men and women wore clumsy wrappings around the ankles, and uncouth sandals and shoes. The loose trousers of the men were strapped to the calf by the thongs which bound the thick woollen cloths or coarse socks to the ankles, and red sashes took the place of belts. Servia was beginning to show herself to us long before we reached the political frontier.

WE had crossed the line of active melon consumption soon after leaving Budapest; we had for days revelled in a superabundance of them, and, indeed, had quite become accustomed to the sight of every human being, old and young, either carrying a melon or preoccupied with eating it. We had contributed our generous share to the flotsam of melon rinds which bobbed down the current, and had sampled every unfamiliar variety of the delicious fruit which had met our notice. It was chiefly, then, from the unæsthetic motives of appetite that we proposed to land at Vukovár, which had long been held up to us by melon-eaters as the one place on the Danube where the fruit was found in perfection. As we came near the town, remarkable mainly for a new synagogue of doubtful taste, we saw piles of huge round objects ranged along in the shade of small trees on the bank, like cannon-balls in an arsenal, and we needed no further identification of this metropolis of the melon trade. Our approach seemed to cause an unusual commotion at the landing, and we naturally attributed this to the activity among the merchants, induced by the arrival of possible purchasers of the abundant stock in hand. But we learned from a German-speaking policeman who met us as we went ashore that the market-women had taken our fleet for the torpedo-boats of which they had heard, and were in a great fright, believing we were about to attack the place. Webegged him to assure them that we had no use for the town, but only for some of the projectiles we saw piled up there under the trees, and feminine terrors were slowly forgotten in the excitement of trade. Whoever has seen the Southern negro busy with a watermelon may be able to imagine our satisfaction at the quality of the fruit we found, and any one familiar with the capacity of a canoe may appreciate the size of the melons from the fact that we were unable to take in the monsters. But Vukovár is not all watermelons and timid market-women, as we found when we strolled up into the town, puzzled over the signs in the Cyrillic alphabet, and marvelled at the embroidered garments festooned at the shop doors, at the pretentious cafés, and the Franco-Italian architecture—the most imposing we had seen since leaving Budapest.

The heat was intense and the streets almost deserted as we paddled away directly after mid-day, and floated down past great bluffs, with hot gullies filled with herds of swine seeking to avoid the heat by frequent baths, and scarcely distinguishable in color from the baked mud on which they slept. Late in the day, having joined company with some lumber rafts we had been passing and repassing for the last day or two, we drew up the canoes on a pleasant park-like meadow, only a foot or two above the water, with great trees and firmer turf than we had seen for a long time. The rafts tied up to the shore just above us, and the smoke of our several camp-fires soon curled up among the trees, and floated away in the clear air of the perfect summer evening. Our first visitor was a Croatian, who, having served in the Austrian army, had learned a little German, and was only too anxious to air his knowledge. He prepared us for the visit of a band of gypsies who were camping in the vicinity, cautioned us to watch all our loose articles, and loudly sang the praises of one of the gypsy women but lately married,

VUKOVÁR WATERMELONS

who, he declared, was as beautiful as a queen—probably meaning the Queen of Servia. To be sure, the next morning, shortly after dawn, a motley crowd straggled up to our encampment, among them the gypsy belle, with the bearing

A PIG-WALLOW

and gait of a duchess. Tobacco stood in the place of a formal introduction, and even the conscious beauty asked for a cigarette, and puffed away like a veteran smoker. The keen-eyed old rascal who, by virtue of advanced age or superior cunning, was recognized as the chief of the party, took the liveliest interest in our attempts to sketch the beauty, and when the sketch was done, calmly proposed to give us the model to carry away with us. As the offer was made in Roumanian, a language not then familiar to our ears, we did not at first comprehend the generous nature of the gift.

“Take her with you,” he said. “You’ll go, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will,” replied the dusky beauty, “if they’ll take me to Bucharest.”

“But if she goes away with us it will make a scandal, and the husband will have something to say about it,” we timidly suggested.

“Not at all,” insisted the old heathen; “he’s away now, and if he finds her gone when he comes back, he’ll easily get another wife.”

This morality of the Red Indian order so astonished us that we did not readily offer the excuse that our boats could carry but one person apiece, but we sweetened our refusal of the gift by an abundance of tobacco and a few old clothes, hastily launched our canoes, and retreated down the river.

The railway from Budapest to Belgrade crosses the Danube at Peterwardein, little less than a day’s paddle from Vukovár, and the iron bridge is the last one of the ugly series that disfigures the river at intervals from its source. Peterwardein, the Gibraltar of the Danube, is a great fortress, elaborately intricate in construction, towering high above the stream, and overlooking the modern town of Neusatz opposite, at the mouth of a branch of the Franzens Canal. A bridge of boats connects the fortress with thetown a short distance below the railway, and is actually the last bridge over the Danube. The commercial life of the river seemed to revive again at the mouth of the canal, and as we sailed past the vine-covered hills of Carlowitz and the town of that name, our old enemies the freight steamers puffed up-stream, leaving a dangerous wake, and fouling the sweet air with noisome smoke.

On the perfect summer morning when we left our lovely camping-ground on a meadow below Carlowitz, and drifted down into the silvery light of morning which glorified the river, the hills, and the distant landscape, we were in the mood to enjoy exactly what the Danube offered for our entertainment. On one bank peasants gathered in large parties at every convenient spot, and were engaged in various domestic operations, quite as frank and unconscious in their actions as if they were in the shelter of their own homes. From the villages at some distance back from the river whole families migrate at frequent intervals to temporary camps by the water’s edge, bringing with them their live-stock, cart-loads of corn, and their accumulated washing. While the women are busy with soap and mallet, the men winnow grain, and carry it to the current mills to be ground, and the children watch the pigs and fowls, who are enjoying in their way this brief outing. On the opposite shore may sometimes be seen, on a level piece of public land, great collections of ricks of all sizes and shapes, when the neighboring farmers assemble to thresh their harvest in common, each according to his own means and methods. Some beat it out with flails and pitchforks, others drive horses around on it, and a few make use of the improved machinery of English manufacture. Here it is readily loaded on lighters, to be towed up to Budapest or Vienna, or perhaps to be floated down-stream to the English steamers on the Black Sea. From one group to another, from one shore to the

A GYPSY GIRL

other, we went as slowly as the resistless current would let us, fascinated by the cheerful busy life, and always finding each new scene more attractive than the last. Here the Servian women were beating their coarse garments, andhanging them untidily to dry on the framework of the carts. A few rods lower down, at a bivouac of Saxons, piles of beautiful white linen and the freshest of blue garments contrasted agreeably with the squalor of the neighboring camp. These peasants we found polite but reserved; the Servians were usually noisy and talkative, and the Magyars cheery, sympathetic, and communicative.

Far down the glassy reach beyond Ó Szlankamen to the east a long range of flat hills now appeared, marking the course of the sluggish Theiss, and on the opposite bank we saw great rocks, scarcely distinguishable from the hard mud bluffs, but marking a distinct geological change in the landscape. Here on the scorched hill-sides frequent villages were baking in the hot sun, and copper-covered monstrosities of church-spires flashed and glistened in the brilliant light. A ruined castle towered high above the river where the hills crowd the stream out of its course, and then the river broadened into a lake-like expanse, and stretched away until the left bank, always flat and without a break, lost itself entirely in the distance, and sky and water seemed to meet as at the sea horizon. Far away to the south bold blue peaks, the sentinels of the northern range of mountainous Servia, showed where Belgrade stands; and, in pleasant perspective, high bluffs on the right bank, with here and there a church spire, were reflected with all the glories of the midsummer sky in the perfect mirror of the majestic stream. A wonderful sunset glow colored all the landscape as we encamped under a high bluff, in full sight of Semlin and the Servian capital beyond. We fancied we could see in the glowing distance slender minarets behind the great fortress which guards the frontier, and in the perfect quiet of the lingering twilight imagined we could hear the hum of the busy towns. The song of the shepherd on the opposite meadows echoed sweetly as we lay by the camp-fire that

THRESHING WHEAT

beautiful evening and enjoyed for the first time in our wanderings an hour or two of delightful leisure in the open air.

A CROATIAN BIVOUAC

It was now nearly eight weeks since we launched our fleet in the head-waters of the Danube, and, with the exception of a few days spent at Vienna, Hainburg, Budapest, and on the Franzens Canal, we had passed the greater part of our time, day and night, in the canoes. On the upper river, where we cooked over spirit-lamps because we were never able to have a fire, we had no great inducement to sit up after dark, and consequently sought our snug beds in the canoes very soon after dinner. After we reached Hungary, however, we found it not only practicable but more convenient to use wood for cooking, and from the frontier downward we always had the proper and agreeable accompaniment of every comfortable bivouac—a cheerful fire. But italso happened that all through Hungary we found so much to interest us we could never manage to stop for the night before dark; and since it always took us two hours or more to make camp, cook and eat our dinner, and tidy up afterwards, we were obliged to continue our custom of turning in (literally) as soon as possible, in order to be able to rise at daybreak. The evening we camped in sight of Belgrade, the dewless, balmy air of the river so soothed our nerves, and the glowing landscape was such a pleasure to our eyes, that we lay in the firelight and, regardless of the morrow, watched for a long time the glittering constellations as they slowly came in sight; and when at last we slept, we dreamed of Turks and sieges and the turmoil of belligerent races, whose territory now lay within reach of a few paddle strokes.

Ó SZLANKAMEN

The happy chant of Servian girls marching down the steep paths in the bluffs, laden with jugs for Danube water, was our accompaniment as we paddled along in the early morning towards the steamer-landing at Semlin, the last Hungarian town on the right bank of the Danube, a busy little commercial place with all the fascinating characteristics of a frontier town. A populous market-place, numerous cafés of the Turkish order—the first we had seen—and a population largely Servian, with more barbaric types, and wearing costumes plainly transitional between the Hungarian and theTurkish, kept us interested longer than we anticipated, and well repaid the delay.

SERVIAN WOMEN

From Semlin to Belgrade is but a half-hour’s paddle down a bend behind the Krieg’s Insel and across the clear, green stream of the Save. Above the great fortress which occupies the whole area of a high promontory at the junction

FORTRESS AT THE JUNCTION OF THE DANUBE AND THE SAVE—BELGRADE

of the rivers, where a church and other edifices are half hidden among bastions and parapets, an immense cream-colored Government building extends an imposing mass, and, as seen from the river, divides the town into two parts. To the left is the old Turkish quarter on the Danube, in recent years almost depopulated of Mahometans, and with only one insignificant mosque still preserved; and to the right, Belgrade proper, along the Save and the heights which extend back into the country. Lumberyards and the usual motley collection of buildings hid the town from us as we slowly paddled up the sluggish current of the Save to a great bathing establishment, all gay with flowers, where a large contingent of the youthful population of the city were disporting themselves, naked, in canoes of simple construction and gaudy color. Our arrival caused very little flutter on the shore. We saw one fez on a small boy, and fancied that on landing we should find everythingsuggesting the East, and fierce officials haughtily demanding our passports. But we moored our canoes alongside the bath-house and went ashore without a question, found everybody in European dress, and met a polite soldier-policeman who volunteered to look out for our craft, and immediately busied himself with boxing the ears of the inquisitive youngsters who ventured too near the dainty vessels. We were not long, however, in finding novelties of dress and architecture, for at a short distance from our landing-place we entered the outskirts of the city, and passed through a street quite as Eastern in aspect as any in the heart of Stamboul. Wretched wooden hovels with shattered tiles and crumbling plaster; dingy low cafés with pallid Turks inhaling with indolent sighs the stupefying smoke of nargiléhs; open air cooking-places where unsavory messes sizzled on gridirons; and general squalor, mustiness, and filth everywhere. From this quarter, steep, ill-paved streets mount to the higher part of the town, where the hotels, theatres, and palaces are, and pleasant avenues lead out to the luxurious residential suburb on the heights beyond. But all Belgrade, at the date of our visit, was much like the normal condition of Broadway, and New York in general. The streets were everywhere torn up for water-pipes and sewers, sidewalks were being widened and levelled, and there was every indication of a serious attempt to improve the city, or some job in the control of the City Fathers. The heat was intense and almost unbearable as we explored the streets and park and wandered through the fortress. When the sun reached the zenith, all Belgrade was as quiet as Pompeii, for the inhabitants withdrew in-doors, and left the streets void of life and movement. Even the hissing of frying fat in the numerous cook-shops seemed hushed for the time; the vender of kukurutz (green corn on the ear) slept in a shadow; and

BULGARIAN BOZAJI, BELGRADE

the Bulgarian bozaji, selling slightly fermented maize beer, alone broke the drowsy silence with his mournful cries. There was absolutely nothing to see, and therefore we also sought shelter, and sleepily waited for the town to come to life again. In the middle of the afternoon a few hurrying peasant women, their brilliant dresses quite out of harmony with the commonplace aspect of the streets, flashed along in the sunshine; one or two men with effeminate lace-trimmed tunics, plaited like imitations of the Albanian fustinella, strode proudly past, unconscious that hats of London make and elastic-sided boots made them look extremely ridiculous; and so the streets gradually resumed their normal activity as the afternoon coolness came on.We soon yielded to the tempting invitation of a fresh breeze and sailed away into the Danube again, escorted by a fleet of Servian canoes with naked crews.

We began to think that in crossing the frontier we had passed the limit beyond which the modern invention of modesty has not yet been universally accepted. It certainly seemed so, for the bronzed figures of the naked youths excited no comment on the shore as we passed. Rounding the water-battery and drifting along the old Turkish quarter, we came to a large pleasant meadow, glowing in the rich light of the afternoon sun. Here scores of men, as unclothed as the horses they bestrode, were riding their animals out into the shallows, bathing with them in the yellow stream. Like so many figures from the frieze of the Parthenon, they sat their horses with perfect grace, saddleless and bridleless, and now dashed along, throwing up clouds of spray, and again disappeared in a golden cloud of dust on the meadow. A party of young men and boys, equally in Spartan attire, were having an exciting foot-race along the level turf, and this little spot was for the time a sculptors’ paradise. We drifted slowly along, watching the athletic figures in the wonderful light, all unconscious in our preoccupation that the current was carrying us into a scene of still more surprising simplicity and innocence. Our canoes, if left to themselves, would always turn round and float down-stream stern foremost; and that afternoon, as on many other occasions, we found the trick to be of advantage, for we could longer watch the unusual spectacle on the meadow. When we could see no more in the direction of the dazzling sun, we paddled the canoes around, and found ourselves, to our surprise, quite near a number of Servian families, who were taking a refreshing bath—old and young, men, women, and children—in the sandy shallows. No bath-house had given them refuge on the bank,nor had they considered it necessary to disfigure themselves with drapery, except a few of the women, who wore an apology for an apron tied around the waist.

FOUNTAIN IN THE SQUARE, BELGRADE

It was a sudden change from the contemplation of figures of classical grace to the unwitting interruption of the bath of a dozen unlovely families, and it was a parallel plunge from the accustomed luxuries of pleasant camp grounds above Belgrade to the mud flats on the river-side below. We had drifted along the meadow so slowly that we found the daylight already waning and a threatening storm close at hand before we thought of camping. Then we hastened to the first spot where there was a possible landing. Here we slept until the ring of scythes at thevery bows of our canoes brought us to consciousness again, and we opened the tents to see a sunny meadow among the trees, all dotted over with the white figures of peasants slashing at the ranks of coarse grass that fringed the sun-baked shore.

FROM the heights of Belgrade we had seen the blue summits of mountains far away to the south—the outlying spurs of the great Carpathian range—and having threaded a tortuous way through the great Hungarian plain, we now looked forward with exhilaration to the rugged scenery we were soon to enjoy, and were eager to welcome a change in the horizon. We saw on the map no town of importance between the Servian frontier and Orsova, at the Iron Gates; and since we were not unwilling to have a little quiet after so many days of excitement among novelties of type and costume, we noticed with satisfaction as we went along that the flat shore on the Hungarian side and the low hills opposite offered us no temptation to land. To be sure, we were still in some doubt as to our probable reception in a Servian village, for Belgrade was the only Servian place we had visited, and we could not judge from our experience at the capital what might happen if we went ashore in a remote town. We had heard many tales of the difficulties of travelling in the remote districts of Servia, and had provided ourselves with passports properly viséd in many languages. As we had no occasion to show them in Belgrade, we now began to have some curiosity about their usefulness, and we contemplated going ashore at a Servian village for no better reason than to test this question. But, before we found an attractive landing-place, we saw far below us in the distance,

SEMENDRIA

about noon on the day after leaving the frontier, what appeared to be a curious row of buildings on the low Servian shore, stretching out into the river like piers of a great railway bridge, or a line of grain elevators.

At first we thought it was mirage, which had hitherto often deceived us by its distortion of forms and exaggeration of heights, but as we paddled on against the wind we soon saw it was a collection of solid architectural forms. It was, however, only when we were within a mile or so of the town that we recognized in what we had taken to be a modern landmark the huge towers and walls of the great mediæval citadel of Semendria (Smédérévo, in Servian), rising in all their ancient dignity from the very waters of the Danube, and overtopping with their masses of solid masonry the little town modestly nestling in the shadow of the great fortress. Of recent years Semendria has become of commercial importance as a shipping port for grain, and when we entered the town its narrow streets were blocked by hundreds of laden ox-carts, all patiently waiting their turn at the public scales, where the weight of the grain is guaranteed by the town officers before it is delivered to the lighters. Through a motley crowd of Servians in barbaric fur caps, red sashes, rawhide sandals, and the coarsest of homespun garments, we made our way to the fortress. The great walls enclose a triangular space of ten or twelve acres, occupying the whole of a low point between the River Jessava and the Danube. The apex of the triangle at the junction of the rivers is a citadel of great strength, built in 1432 by the despot George Brankovitch. It is still in wonderful preservation. Indeed, the walls of the whole enclosure and the twenty-three great square towers show remarkably few signs of decay, and, with the exception of the destruction of the wooden platforms, are almost as sound as the day they were built. Here and there an inscription, or a fragment of a statue built intothe walls, proves that the importance of the town dates as far back as the Roman occupation, when this was undoubtedly one of a series of strongholds along the river.

The barracks of the Servian garrison which stand in the great enclosure appear like huts in comparison with the immense towers and high walls of the mediæval structure, and a regiment of infantry may be quite lost sight of among the tangled bushes and the thick foliage of the trees which cover a large part of the ground. From the top of one of the great towers we saw below and before us a panorama of varied beauty, extending from the heights of Belgrade to the Carpathian range, faintly shadowed in the distance beyond the glittering expanse of the Danube, which spreads out into great broad reaches, with numerous islands, and, like its smaller self among the mountains of Baden, pauses and gathers volume and strength for the dash into the great gorge that cleaves the jagged mass of mountains for fifty miles or more before again resuming its quiet flow.

As we went away from Semendria the chief of police was among the party assembled to see us off, and here, we thought, was the opportunity to see whether our passports would be honored. We offered them to the official, modestly at first, but he would not even look at the envelopes.

“But they are our passports,” we urged. “They cost us a lot of money and trouble, and if no official looks at them they will be wasted, for they are only good for one year!”

But he resolutely declined to have anything to do with them, although we increased the urgency of our request almost to the strength of a demand, and we left, quite ready to believe the statement of a scoffing friend in Budapest, who declared that any one could travel the whole length of the Danube with no more of a passport than a restaurant bill of fare, which would satisfy the officials as well as the best parchment with signatures and seals.

RAMA

At Bazias, on the Hungarian side of the river, the terminus of the railway from Temesvár, and the point where the tourist usually takes a steamer for the trip through the Kasan defile and the Iron Gates, there is nothing on shore more interesting than a railway restaurant; but the landscape is very grand and beautiful. The hills completely mask the course of the river as the traveller approaches them from up-stream, and the fine ruin of Castle Rama, on the Servian side, seems to stand on the shore of a large lake with a southern boundary of great mountains. From Rama the river sweeps majestically around to the south past Bazias, and narrows somewhat as it winds among the first great foot-hills of the mountain range, spreading out again after a few miles into another lake-like reach, which in turn has on its southern horizon an apparently impassable chain of mountains—this time the real Carpathians.

As we crossed the river from Rama towards the cluster of houses on the water’s edge at Bazias, we observed that the little village, dwarfed to insignificance by the towering hills above it, was all gay with flags. On closer approach we distinguished near the landing the form of a low gray vessel quite unlike any craft we had hitherto seen. This provedto be an Austrian gunboat, and the occasion of the display of bunting was the birthday of the Emperor Francis Joseph. As we drifted down towards the man-of-war we hoisted all the flags we had, and, as we were passing in review with all the dignity we could command, we were startled by the loud report of a champagne cork pointed in our direction, and fired, as it were, across our bows. We surrendered at once and unconditionally, and exchanged cards with a group of officers celebrating the Emperor’s birthday on the quarter-deck. We found our captivity so little irksome that we willingly prolonged it until we were admonished by the position of the sun in the heavens that we must be off if we would reach the entrance to the Carpathian gorge before dark. Our haste was due to no more cogent reason than ambition to begin the fight with the river at the so-called cataracts. These obstructions had been described to us by friends who had made the journey in a steamer as extremely dangerous, and, as we neared the mountains, all the river-men we talked with warned us of the perils of the stream below, and advised us on no account to attempt the passage of the cataracts without a pilot. But we could not forget the collapse of the Strudel and Wirbel bugbear in the upper river, and could not bring ourselves to apprehend any great danger in rapids where steamers are constantly passing up and down with loaded lighters in tow. Even our new-found friends on the gunboat, who had just made the trip, cautioned us not to attempt the passage in our frail canoes, and took great pains to show us the dangerous points on their charts. Of course, the more we heard of these terrors to navigation the more eager we became to look upon them ourselves, and, while we did not propose to spoil our trip by the loss of our canoes, we also did not intend to take anybody’s testimony of the dangers, which were, after all, only relative. The last words our naval advisers said to us, as we regretfullyleft them, was to be sure to take a pilot at Drenkova, the last steamboat-landing above the rapids.

Back to Index Next