SERVIAN PEASANTS.SERVIAN PEASANTS.
The officer, however, in charge of the hut in the kebabs on long skewers, over a heap of charcoal embers; there was a great run on iced lemonade, and a crowd was always waiting its turn at the well. The women were extraordinarily gaudy; not content with their brilliantly orange or scarlet sashes and white dresses, they pinned great bouquets of flowers, middle where the market tolls were paid, was much mystified. "Mademoiselle doubtless speaks French?" he asked politely. "Yes," I said. "Then please tell us from what land you come," he begged, "for we cannot imagine. Mademoiselle is perhaps Russian?" he hazarded. "No, English," said I. "Bogami! is it possible? English, and in Nish! Where are your friends?" "In England." "You are alone in Servia? Bogami, Mademoiselle, but you have courage!" "Oh no, I haven't," said I, "only I am English." Then he laughed and repeated my remark to his friends, and they all appeared to be highly amused. I went on, "Besides, Monsieur, your country is doubtless civilised?" "Perfectly," said he, "perfectly; there is no danger, but no one knows it. How have you learned this in England? We are a Balkan state, and all the world believes the Balkan states are wicked. If I can assist you in any way, pray command me." I told him I was not needing help and thanked him for the offer. "No," said he gallantly, "it is we who owe thanks to you, for you pay us a great compliment." He saluted and withdrew, and I returned to my quest after things old-world and Servian.
A man was driving wire hooks into wooden bats, and his wife squatted near and carded wool with them with great dexterity to show how well they worked, and not far off a great trade was going on in big wooden chests, rough-made boxes on legs, pegged together with wood, stained crimson and decorated with a scratched curly pattern that showed white on the coloured ground. And the gipsies were selling troughs and bowls of prehistoric simplicity hacked and dug out of chunks of wood without much attempt at symmetry, and very thick and clumsy.
The horse market was very full. There were some showy little beasts whose outstanding plumy tails and slim legs showed their Eastern blood. A tall snaky Albanian was riding them bare-backed, and held only by a halter, through the thick of the crowd. He rode slowly along till he had bored a passage of sufficient length, then turned suddenly and came backventre à terre. Every bare space of ground was used to gallop horses across, and it was a case of a cloud of dust, a hammer of hoofs, and everyone for himself.
At midday and past, when the sun blazed overhead, the air was thick with dust and rich with billy-goats, and the bulls were roaring and the stallions squealing insults at each other, the people who had finished eating hot sausages in the sun thought it an admirable opportunity for beginning to dance. The bagpipe man appeared, and struck up at once one of the odd monotonous airs for the "kolo"; men and women joined in a long line, each holding the next at arm's length by the sash, and were soon serpentining in and out and round and round, surrounded by a suffocating crowd of lookers-on. The Albanian was showing off a roan stallion, a red-hot beast, which he managed beautifully almost entirely by his knees. Its apparent docility tempted a young officer to mount. He picked up the curb, drove in his spurs, and in another moment the squealing, plunging animal was in mid-air, over the dancers. The scattering was great, the roan appearing at intervals high above the crowd. No one was hurt, the interruption was only temporary, but the roan did not change hands that time at any rate. Nothing will stop a Servian from dancing the kolo.
All the animals had been supplied with green forage, for the Servians are kind and careful of their beasts, and now the draught oxen were being taken in detachments to the river to drink. As each pair of oxen returned from watering, it was yoked and set off on its homeward journey, till there was a processional frieze all along the road. The market slowly dissolved, and by four o'clock there was not much of it left but débris on the field.
Nish is a bright and attractive town, with about 20,000 inhabitants. Two slim minarets show that it was once Mohammedan, and a fat new church, bloated with cupolas, proclaims its orthodoxy. The buffalo carts in the streets, the variety of peasant costume, the wild luxuriance of crimson roses in the Park, the pretty wooden trellis bridge over the river, the number of houses still remaining with screened windows, the silver filigree workers and the veiled women give it picturesqueness and a dash of the Orient; but you must not tell it so, unless you wish to hurt its feelings. If a long pedigree be a claim to respect, Nish deserves much; for Nish, as Naissus or Nissa, existed before Servia, and quite early in the Christian era was a considerable town in Upper Moesia. It claims to be the birthplace of Constantine the Great, and the claim is very generally admitted. Constantine's mother, the celebrated St. Helena, the discoverer of the True Cross, was the daughter of an innkeeper at Naissus, while his father was of "Illyrian" blood.
I looked with interest at the Albanians who cantered through Nish with a lot of half-broken ponies, and with interest also upon the stout daughter of the inn, but I did not feel that either were destined to disturb the balance of Europe.
Nish was part of the kingdom of Stefan Nemanja in the twelfth century, and Servian it remained till the Turks took it in 1375. Though not freed till 1878, Nish made a gallant struggle for liberty in 1809, when the general uprising was taking place—all the characteristics of which are now being repeated in Macedonia.
The "chela kula" (tower of skulls), on the Pirot road, is a grim monument of the times. A little Servian stronghold near this spot, commanded by Stefan Sindjelich, resisted successfully for a short while. Then the Turks brought up a large force and "rushed" the place. As the Turkish soldiery were pouring in, Sindjelich seeing all was lost, fired his pistol into the powder magazine and blew up self, friend, foe, and the whole place in one red ruin. The Turkish losses were very heavy, and the Pasha, enraged at losing so many men over such a hole of a place, commemorated his costly victory in a manner most hateful to the vanquished. He ordered the heads of the dead Serbs to be collected, paying twenty-five piastres apiece for them, and obtained over nine hundred. These were embedded in rows in a great tower of brick and cement, the faces staring horribly forth, till the flesh rotted and nothing but the bare skulls remained. From time to time these were removed and buried by patriotic Servians, but the ruins of the tower still stand to tell of Turkish vengeance and to keep alive the hatred of the two races. By order of King Alexander Obrenovich, a chapel has been built over it. Four skulls yet stare from the sockets where the Turk placed them. An inscription in several languages tells of Sindjelich's heroism.
A polite young officer, reeking with carbolic from the military hospital hard by, admitted me to the chapel, and doubted which language to point to. I need hardly say English was not one of them, for in Europe except in the most beaten of tracks English is one of the least useful languages. As soon as it was known in Nish that I was English I was asked to go to someone's office to translate an English business letter. "It is impossible to trade with England," said the man; "many of their goods are better than those of Austria, but they will not write in a language that we can understand. We wrote them in French, and begged them to reply in either French or German. They have replied for the second time in English. This is the first and last time that I do business with England." I, of course, went to the office at once, but was too late. The letter had just been posted to Belgrade for translation. This I gathered was a fair sample of the proceedings of British traders in this country. The profits that are to be made in the poverty-stricken states of the Balkans are not great, but such as they are they are all swept up by the ubiquitous Austrian bagman.
Nish tries hard to be Western, but, as I walked about it, I grinned to think of the man who had written in English to it Even the hotel has so many peculiarities that the solitary traveller from the West is well amused observing them. Like other hotels, it provides beds and drinks and food, but the latter also flows in freely from the streets, and the hotel does not seem to care from whom you buy. All day long the bread-roll man runs in and out with his basket; or two or three bread-roll men, if there is much company. The Servians rarely seem tired of eating rolls, and eat them all day long. Next in frequency to the bread man is the salad man, with a tray of lettuces and a big bunch of onions. The cake man does a good trade in the afternoon. But the oddest of all is the hot-stew man. He appears in the evening with a large tin drum slung round his neck, in which is an enamelled iron soup tureen. Such a cloud of steam rolls out when he lifts the lid that I think there must be heating apparatus in the drum, but he wears it next his stomach and does not appear unduly warm. The pockets of his white apron are full of not over-clean plates, and a formidable array of knives and forks bristles about the drums edge. His customers take a plate and clean it with their handkerchiefs, serviettes, or the tablecloth, and then select tit-bits from the pot, and the man returns later and removes the plate, knife and fork, when done with. If you do not care for stew, there is the hot-sausage man, whose wares look singularly unattractive; and, lastly, there is a man who sells very dry nuts. Except for wine and beer, you can get your whole meal from wandering caterers; the supply seems unfailing. Servian food and cooking, I may here note, is on the whole very good. It is peppery and flavoursome; mint, thyme, and other herbs, and the very popular "paprika" (a mild variety of red pepper), are largely used, and the soups are meaty and nourishing. A fourpenny plate of kisela chorba (soup with lemon juice in it) often includes half a fowl, and is enough for a meal.
Having explored the town and seen all the shops, I wandered about and waited for people to do something Servian, nor had I long to wait.
Servia is striving to be Western and striving to be up to date, and this is the side she shows to the world from which she was for so long cut off. In her heart she cherishes old, old customs, whose origins are lost in dim antiquity, and one of these is the commemorative funeral feast When we wander through the outskirts of Pompeii or visit the tombs on the Latin Way, we look at the stone benches and recall vaguely that the Romans here held banquets in honour of the dead; but the banqueters are dead and buried and the feasts forgotten. It all belongs to a distant past and is hard to realise, it seems so far away. But the Christian Church in early days adopted many of the existing rites and ceremonies of pagan times, and the Orthodox Church has clung tightly to its old traditions. So much so that the Orthodox Church of to-day is said to bear far stronger resemblance to the Church of the fourth or fifth century than do now the Churches of either England or Rome.
And from the time of the Turkish invasion till the nineteenth century the mass of the people of the Balkans stood still and had no communication with the outer world. The Macedonian peasant still sacrifices sheep on ancient altar stones, and the Servian reads the funeral feast in the Christian graveyard.
Quite early in the morning solemn little parties of women and children were walking down the streets carrying big baskets and trays covered with clean white cloths; I followed, and we crossed the railway line and turned to the cemetery on the hillside. Round the gates sat the lame, the aged, and the blind; each with his wooden bowl, his bottle gourd and bag. "A Bagge and a Bottle, he bar bi his seyde," sang Langland in England in the fourteenth century; thus did the folk of Piers Plowman gather alms. Within the gates, in the big graveyard, through the long thick grass and by the rose-tangled headstones went each little party to the grave it sought, and the wailing of the death-songs arose on every side. The women brought little girls with them and taught them how to honour the dead. They lighted little beeswax tapers stuck into the grave, and they filled a green earthen pot with incense and lighted that too. Then they stood round, and one began the long-drawn, melancholy cry, "Kuka mene, kuka mene!" (Woe is me, woe is me![1]) and beat her breast and clasped her hands, swaying to and fro, as she sang the verses of the song; the other mourners joined in, the song became a heart-breaking wail, she caught her breath in long sobs and she threw herself on the grave, clasping the cross at its head and weeping bitterly. When the lament was finished, they spread their white cloth on the grave and arranged the meal, for it was a real meal, not merely a symbolic mouthful; a large bowl of the favourite hash (gulyash), and another of rice, which steamed as it was uncovered, a large loaf of bread and perhaps cheese, and a handkerchief full of cherries.
The very poor sat on the ground. Those that were wealthy engaged a priest to pray with them by the graveside. There were wooden or stone benches and tables built up by some graves, and sometimes railed in. It was a dull day; the crimson roses were shedding petals everywhere, the tapers twinkled like glow-worms in the grass, and the thin blue smoke curled from the censers. The air was heavy with the mingled scent of dying roses and incense, there was a hum of prayer, and the minor notes of the long laments rose and fell, swarms of pigeons and grey hooded crows soared round and, settled on the grave-stones near, greedily waited to pick up the crumbs of the feasts. It was a strangely impressive scene. Forty days after the funeral does this feast (the dacha) take place, then after six months, and then yearly, either upon a Saturday, a Sunday, or a Saints day.
As each group of mourners left the graveyard, they distributed food among the beggars at the gate. Their bowls were heaped with stew and rice, their bags stuffed with bread, and their gourds filled by means of a funnel with a mixture of all the various wines. The tapers were left to twinkle out in the grass, and by the middle of the day the graveyard was deserted.
[1]Kukavichiti = to lament, to cry like the cuckoo; for in Servia the cuckoo is not the depraved bird that it is with us, but is a bereaved woman who wails ceaselessly for the dead.
[1]Kukavichiti = to lament, to cry like the cuckoo; for in Servia the cuckoo is not the depraved bird that it is with us, but is a bereaved woman who wails ceaselessly for the dead.
I left Nish, in a chill wet fog, at 4.30 a.m. by the only quick train in the day. It was full of sleeping men, and I stood in the corridor that I might not disturb them. Scarcely anyone got in besides myself, and the train rushed on over the plain of Nish, plunged into the mountains, began to climb the valley of the Nishava, and entered the pass of Pirot. The scenery is of the kind that the Germans call "wild-romantic." The defile is extremely narrow and the rocks high and steep; there is but room for the stream and train at the foot of them. It is like travelling through a deep cutting, but is considered very fine. The earth is dark red, like anchovy paste, and gives the river such an unpleasantly gory appearance that one half expects it to steam, and the station at the top of the pass is called Crvena Reka, "The Red Stream."
"What is the name of this station?" asked a stout man in Servian.
I replied.
"What is ..." he began again, and stuck fast. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he ended rather feebly.
We conversed for some minutes. Then "You come from Nish?" he said.
"Yes," said I.
"You speak German very well for a Servian. I did not know that the ladies learned foreign languages."
"I am English."
"Dear God!" he cried, and came out into the corridor to have a better view of me. "You are English and you come from a town in the middle of Servia! Ach! how dangerous! Now I am a man. I am making a pleasure trip to Constantinople with my friends.Weshould never think of stopping in a country like this. We are travelling straight through from Vienna."
"I also am making a pleasure trip, but it is possible that the same things are not interesting to us. I am going to Pirot."
"My God, how English! Look you, Fräulein, your nation does things that are quite fearfully silly, and it succeeds because the things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them. You are like your own army, some day you will walk into an ambush."
"But it always comes home when it has done all that it meant to do," I persisted; for I never allow the Empire to be scored off if I can help it.
Then he told his friends of the strange wild beast he had found in the corridor, and they looked at me cautiously and discussed the propriety, or perhaps I should say the impropriety, of my proceedings in awful whispers, with many Teutonic invocations of the Deity, until I had a hail-Cæsar-we-who-are-about-to die-salute-thee feeling, which became less and less dignified as the West Balkans themselves came into sight. We reached Pirot, and I descended from the train in a state not unlike "funk."
No one else got out, and I crossed the rails, with the eyes of all the officials upon me. As the gentleman in the corridor had remarked, Pirot, unprepared for such an event, was temporarily paralysed. I walked straight to the exit and held out my ticket to the man in charge. He promptly blocked the door and, though he wore a revolver, called for help. There now being need of immediate action on my part, I began to enjoy myself. I offered him my passport by way of soothing him, and mentioned my nationality, but it made him more agitated. He told me to "come," conducted me back into the station and shut the exit door. Then he left me in a small office and told me to "wait." I waited. Nothing happened. I remembered the ambush I was to fall into, and thought it would be better to meet the enemy in the open, so went in search of it. It was holding a council of war on the railway lines. I walked into the middle and said, "Please, I want to go to the Hotel National." The shot told, and the enemy scattered in all directions. The first who rallied was a young officer, who spoke a very little German. He was very polite, but said I must state how long I meant to stay. He added that there was a train in the afternoon by which I could depart. As I had not yet seen the place, I did not know at all what its attractions might be, so I repeated, like a lesson, a simple and pleasing little Servian composition I had made up the day before. "I am English. I travel that I may see Servia. Servia is a very beautiful country. Everything is good. I learn the language. The Servian language is very beautiful." Seeing how perfectly innocuous I was, the officer promptly said it was all right, but I must deposit my passport in the station and reclaim it on leaving. I was not to leave Pirot except by train. By this wily ruse he saved the Servian nation from the possibility of my negotiating with Bulgaria in some lonely spot upon the frontier. I thanked them, escaped from the station, called a cab and drove to the town.
The Hotel National, though the best in the place, was not cheering. It was a large bare barrack, with a billiard-table in the middle, and a pale-brown, skinny boy of about fourteen was its only apparent manager and proprietor. I never saw another. He showed me a free bedroom somewhere at the top of a wooden ladder. A piece of torn sacking was nailed over one side of the window. There were two beds, neither clean, and a man's coat and other garments lay on one of them. The youth collected them, and considered the room ready. I thought we would not begin to disagree at once, so I descended the ladder again and had breakfast, for it was now eight o'clock and I had had to leave Nish on one small cup of coffee. I then felt exceedingly brave, and reflecting on the importance to an army of the commissariat, went out to explore Pirot.
It was Sunday. Of all Continental nations Servia's Sunday is the most Britannic, and there was no buying nor selling of any kind, and scarcely any life in the place. It is a largeish town, with about 10,000 inhabitants; a street of modern houses, a maze of little tumbledown Turkish mud hovels in gardens, and a mosque—a dilapidated, melancholy collection as a whole. For Pirot, taken by the Servians in 1877, was taken by the Bulgarians in 1885 and looted, and is not yet healed of her wounds.
Pirot is very poor, miserably so, and many of the people have a starved and wretched look. But poor though it is, Pirot is important, owing to its situation on the way to Sofia and Constantinople. It is an old, old town on an old, old trade route, and it remains simple and childish. I was perfectly frank with it, and I told it I meant to see all I could, and wished to draw and perhaps to photograph. And the virtuous inhabitants who had questioned me were shocked; "for," they said, "we have a fortress, and only yesterday a stranger was arrested for attempting to photograph it. At this very moment he is in prison, and we do not know what will happen to him." I asked the criminal's nationality, and learnt that he was a Bulgarian. Being in Servia, I was horrified at his iniquity, but, being English, did not wish to be turned from my purpose. I explained that I wished only to note things characteristically Servian, such as the costumes of the peasants, the houses, and so forth. "In short," said a gentleman, "you are making geo-ethnographical studies." This struck me as a remarkably luminous idea; I should never have thought of it myself. I said I was, and everyone was very pleased.
As it was Sunday, I went to the church, and the church gripped me at once, for it is unpretentiously barbaric. There is an arcaded porch frescoed with bizarre, colossal archangels, not a bit like people; I entered, and it was all as picturesque as it ought to be, with a blue haze of incense through which gleamed the great gold ikonostasis. All was primitive, as befits the oldest form of the Christian faith in Europe.
The service was just over; some women in front were kissing a holy picture before leaving. Round the gate was a little group of the poor and afflicted, all either blind or horribly maimed, who were waiting for their usual dole. As the congregation began to file out of church, two bakers with loaves and rolls hurried up and set their trays opposite the gate. As they left, folk bought pieces of bread and distributed them in the wooden bowls which the suppliants held out. It was pitiful to see the anxious quivering fingers of the blind feeling the crusts before transferring them to the bag each one wore for the purpose, and the eager eyes of those who could see, as they watched expectant. I had no idea of the price of bread, so I laid down the smallest coin I had, and received such a huge loaf in exchange that I knew that I was behaving with the vulgar parade of a Carnegie or a Vanderbilt. I dealt round the bread rather shamefacedly, for I felt unpleasantly as though I were feeding animals at the Zoo, and escaped hastily from a storm of blessings, with a new idea about the power of twopence to relieve misery.
I walked through the town. The remains of a mediæval castle at the foot of a hill struck me as a suitable subject for a drawing, and I crossed the road to find a point of view. As I did so I ran my eye over the castle and became aware suddenly that there was a sentry in front of it, and that behind it rose innocent-looking grass slopes that mean mischief. It was the fortress, with which I had promised to have nothing to do, and I retired hastily, filled with sympathy for the incarcerated Bulgarian, who, after all, was perhaps only making geo-ethnographical studies.
By the afternoon I was an accepted fact in Pirot and had several friends. By Monday morning Pirot was ready to show me everything.
Pirot is the only town in Servia which carries on a beautiful and original local industry, and its rugs and carpets deserve to be far more widely known than they are. They are hand-woven, and the process is incredibly simple. Four roughly hewn tree stems, or big branches, are pegged together into a frame, which either leans against the wall of the house or is supported by struts, and a sufficient number of strings is bound across it. The woman squats on the ground in front of the frame with her shuttles of coloured wools beside her. With the fingers of her left hand she pulls up the requisite number of threads with great swiftness, slips the shuttle beneath them with her right, and, with no pattern to copy from, carries out very complicated designs with astonishing speed and precision. When she has put in some dozen threads, she takes up a heavy wooden mallet with a row of teeth in it and with a few blows drives the threads very tightly together. Thus she works hour after hour for a franc a day. The colours most largely employed are scarlet, indigo, black and white, with sometimes touches of green and yellow in the border; the designs are bold and effective. The weavers, dark women with coins plaited in their hair, were cheery and friendly, and always asked me in to have a look. An ordinary-sized rug takes about a fortnight to make, and many of the big carpets occupy several women for months. I was glad to hear that the Town Council, which looks after the carpet trade, is on the look-out for good old designs for the workers. Also that it had forbidden imported dyes, as these were in many instances found not to be permanent, and the wools used are coloured by local and traditional methods. Pirot is justly proud of a medal won in the Paris Exhibition, and the trade, if carefully looked after, should greatly increase. I made one bad mistake; I suggested that the work was of Turkish origin. My friends would not hear of this, and declared that it was Servian, purely Servian. I felt crushed, but am by no means sure that they were right.
There is not entertainment for more than a day in Pirot, and the hotel accommodation is lean. I said good-bye that evening. At the station I met the gendarme who had originally blocked my passage. Now he regretted my departure. He seemed a childlike and simple personage, not at all intended by nature for a policeman. He carried my bag in for me, and beamed with joy when he felt its weight. "May I open it?" he asked. When he found the weight was entirely caused by three dictionaries and an old pair of shoes, he was disappointed. "I thought it was all English gold!" he said.
As the time for the departure of the train drew near the gendarme grew anxious. Something weighed heavily on his mind, and that was that he had to write the name of each departing passenger in the police-book and did not know how to manage mine. He wrote down everyone else, and then shook his head despairingly. He restored me my passport and explained that he could not read the name on it, for it was printed in "Latinski." I boldly offered to write it myself in the sacred volume. He was incredulous of my powers. It must not be written in Latinski, he said. I promised, took the pencil and wrote my name very large in Cyrillic; he was delighted, and everyone came to see. "It was a great wonder," they said, and they all wanted to know where I had learnt it.
"In London," said I.
"Of a Serb?"
"No, of a Pole."
"Of a Pole! That is impossible."
"But it is true."
Then a superior person explained to me, "It is impossible that you should have learned these letters of a Pole, because Poles are Roman Catholic, and these letters are Orthodox." I stuck to my statement. Then the superior person, who even spoke a little German, had a bright idea. "This Pole," he said, "was Catholic, but has now become converted." And this explanation amply satisfied everyone, for it is obviously easier to change one's religion than to learn the alphabet belonging to an opposition one—if you are a South Slav.
My leaving Pirot was very different from my arriving. Now they said it was a pity I was going. The stationmaster thanked me for trusting a Balkan state, and I promised to look in next time I was in the neighbourhood.
At Nish the hotel received me on my return with much friendliness, but, though evidently anxious to oblige, was quite unable to give me any information as to East Servia, and prayed me to return to Belgrade by train. This not suiting my ideas at all, I started from Nish at 5 a.m. for Zaichar, and trusted the unravelling of the route to luck and my driver, one Marko, a stolid and friendly being.
Servia is an amazing land. The more I saw of it the more struck was I with its great fertility and its great capabilities, its rich and breezy uplands and its warm well-watered valleys. Corn, vines, tobacco, green crops, and every variety of fruit grow luxuriantly even with the present most primitive methods of cultivation. With knowledge and a little capital Servia should be a rich land. Unluckily both are wanting; the lamentable political differences which tear the kingdom make both almost impossible of attainment, and the small minority of plucky and intelligent men are struggling against almost impossible odds.
Nish had suspected me vaguely, but the farther I got up country the more forcibly did I realise that Servia was a raw quivering mass of politics, and that a change of some sort was imminent. Being provided with no letters of introduction, no one knew to which party I belonged, and I was cross-questioned and re-questioned with a persistency that, to put it mildly, was fatiguing. Before I had realised the extreme state of political tension, I rashly revealed, in reply to a straight question, that I had come direct from Cetinje, and was at once supposed to be supporting the possible succession of Prince Mirko to the Servian throne.
"If you say such things," said a man to me, "you must expect to be suspected, because we have no heir to the throne."
"But what is that to me? I have no wish to occupy your throne."
"Why have you come here?"
"To see Servia."
"Why do you wish to see Servia? Have you ever spoken to Prince Mirko?" and so on and so on, a long string of questions directed towards finding out which of the possible successors to that rickety seat I favoured.
I replied, "I am English, and naturally I prefer the Prince of Wales," and laughed so much that to my no little relief everyone else did so too, and the examination came to an end. By and by people began to confide in me, and I got used to "I tell you this that you may know the truth and tell it abroad. You are English, and I trust you not to say that I told you, nor that you heard it in this town." It was pointed out to me that had I come provided with introductions I should have been spared much annoyance. That is true. But I should not in that case have "seen Servia," nor—for my tormentors always ended by being amiable—should I have learnt how kind the Servian can be to a friendless stranger.
I drove through this beautiful and sunny land much harassed by the pity of it all. Marko was a cheerful companion, and did his best to amuse me. He pointed out that there were always at least three women to one man working in the fields and that the "man" was usually a boy. Men, he explained, did not like working in fields. Moreover, the women did it so well that he seemed to think that it would be a pity to dissuade them. And so long as there was enough to eat, why trouble? For a man it is much better to be a "pandur" (policeman), especially in a large town. Then you do nothing in the streets, and are paid for it; also you wear a revolver and a uniform. Even this delightful career has its drawbacks, for it means a lot of standing and walking about. Best of all is to be a "gazda" (head of a large household or family community), then you tell all the others what to do, and you spend your leisure elegantly in a kafana. A coachman's lot was very hard and ill-paid. Thus Marko, and his astonishment was intense and genuine when I walked up all the hills. I think he ascribed this act of folly to the fact that I was a woman, for he pointed out that the women in the fields had to tramp long distances to work. They have a hard time of it, poor things, for they carry their tools and their babies with them; and babies rolled in shawls and slung up hammockwise dangle like gigantic chrysalids from the branches of the trees round the fields where their mothers toil. "Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top; when the wind blows, the cradle will rock," is true in Servia. Probably our own nursery rhyme dates from days when field labour in England was in just such a primitive state.
We made no long pause save at Kniazhevatz (= "Prince's Place"), a little town that was formerly almost on the frontier, and was burnt to the ground no less than three times in the nineteenth century by the Turks, the last time in 1876. It consists mainly of wooden frame houses with mud walls and big eaves and balconies, and the streets are straggly and irregular. This makes it quite the most picturesque town on that side of Servia. What the Serb likes is a perfectly straight street in which all the houses are as much alike as possible. This is, however, also the modern Parisian's idea, and some people admire Paris, so perhaps the Serb is right.
I was supposed to "rest" at Kniazhevatz, but did nothing of the sort. I had not long swallowed my lunch when I was told that "a gentleman who spoke German" wished to talk to me. He and his friends had previously interviewed Marko. He now offered to show me the town. I accepted, and we started. His idea of "showing the town" turned out to be to walk me up and down the main street and let loose a perfect torrent of questions about me and my affairs. I grasped this fact, and ran my eyes over him. He was youngish, fair, and far too stout for his years. A Teutonic ancestor somewhere, I thought. I replied cheerfully to his questions, and walked at a fair pace. When we arrived at the top of the street again, I did not turn back; I pursued bye streets and side streets, and walked on the sunny side of the way. I reckoned on his being in very bad condition, and he was; moreover, he had just dined solidly. The more personal his questions became, the faster I walked. Till a week or two ago I had been panting after tireless Montenegrins, now the situation was reversed; the perspiration stood on his brow, and he had not yet discovered what I was worth in pounds sterling. He asked if I did not find the sun too hot, and I replied that I liked it. He kept up manfully, and inquired the incomes of my father, my brothers, and my brothers-in-law. Baffled on these points, but still persuaded that I was a multi-millionaire, he suggested that I should remain permanently in Servia; this with noble disinterestedness, for he was already another's; but in the middle of the good old tale of how Someone-avich had married an English-wife-who-was-extremely-happy, he was forced for lack of breath to suggest that there was no need to walk fast. "No," said I, "it is very foolish to walk fast, for then one can see nothing." As there was rising ground before us and the "going" was very bad, I forced the pace slightly, his questions died away, and I brought him back uphill to the hotel a limp and dripping thing, with the great problem still unsolved. He threw himself into a chair and called for beer. I jumped into my carriage, which was by this time ready, and drove off without enlightening him. "That man," said Marko, "wanted to know everything, but I told him nothing." As Marko knew nothing at all about me, I was not surprised.
We arrived at Zaichar late at night, after a fourteen hours' drive. Zaichar had little to detain me. Beyond the motley crowd of Bulgarian and Roumanian peasants—for this is very much a borderland place—there is nothing to see. Some villages in the neighbourhood have scarce a Serb in them. Gold is found not far off at the Maidan Pek, and I was strongly urged to go and see the diggings. By way of an attraction, I was told that I should find specimens of every race in Europe there except English, and as by no means the best specimens of humanity haunt gold diggings, I thought that a herd of them loose upon the Servo-Bulgarian frontier might be more than I could grapple with single-handed. So I contented myself with looking at some small nuggets in a bottle. The mines, I was told, pay fairly well, and I enough alluvial gold is also found in the bed of the river Timok by the peasants to make the search worth while. The Timok forms the frontier for a considerable distance, and as a river is a clearly marked line that all can see, the frontier is a quiet one, and no "mistakes" occur upon it.:
We started for Negotin as a heavy thunderstorm! cleared away and a big rainbow overarched the sky. "When the old people see that green and red thing," said Marko, pointing to it, "they say, 'Now we shall have good wine and maize.' Red for wine and green for maize." It was an uneventful drive over land that once produced Servia's best wine, and is now but slowly recovering from the phylloxera. As we approached Negotin, Marko became more and more uneasy. He told me repeatedly that the people of Zaichar had asked him all about me and he had told them nothing; merely that I was English; otherwise nothing at all! This he considered very meritorious. As he knew nothing more about me, I did not see the extreme virtue of his reticence. However, as he was dying for information and I was going to part with him in the evening, so should be no more bothered, I thought I would gratify him, and told him the number of my brothers and sisters, etc., all of which crave him infinite satisfaction. We arrived at Negotin the best of friends.
Negotin stands in a swamp; there are water-meadows and marshes full of frogs and reeds all round it, but I saw no mosquitoes, and the town did not look unhealthy. There are about 6000 inhabitants, a new and unlovely church, and a newly-erected bronze statue to Milosh Obrenovich, but the chief glory of Negotin is the monument to Hayduk Veljko,—Veljko, the popular hero, the story of whose career casts a fierce light on the condition of Servia less than a hundred years ago, and makes one wonder not that Servia should be, as some folk say, so backward, but that in so short a time she should have reached such a high point of civilisation.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Servia was resolved no longer to tolerate Turkish tyranny, the land was overrun with bands of desperate men, who sheltered in wood and mountain, lived on plunder, and perpetually harassed the enemy by guerilla warfare. They called themselves Hayduks (brigands), and they gloried in the name. To-day, just one hundred years later, the same conditions exist in Macedonia, and the causes are the same. Dreaded, beloved, and admired, these Hayduks were the heroes of the peasants, whom they alternately protected and oppressed; their names and deeds were sung in songs, and they cast a halo of glory round the profession of brigandage which has only lately faded from it. The greatest of all was Hayduk Veljko. Associated with Karageorge at the beginning of the uprising, his extraordinary lawlessness and ferocity made it impossible for him to work in co-operation with any plan or person. With a gang of followers, he carried on war in East Servia on his own account. Insatiable for plunder, he would risk his life for a few piastres, but what he had he would give away lavishly. He boasted that he grudged his goods to no man, and that it was better for no man to grudge his goods in return. When the Russians reproached him with calling himself "Hayduk," he answered, "I should be sorry if there were any greater robber in the world!" Drunk with blood and the lust of battle, he prayed "Give us war in my time, O Lord!" for though he was kind enough to wish Servia peace after his death, the joys of the insurrection quite obliterated for him its object, and any form of government was intolerable to him. He was a terror to the Turks, whom he was always surprising, and his reputation was so great that it excited the jealousy of the other Servian leaders. He and his men held all East Servia, and without further assistance kept the foe at bay. Negotin was his stronghold. The Turks, enraged by the heavy losses he repeatedly inflicted upon them, determined to destroy him, and besieged him with a force of 18,000 men. Undaunted, he made sallies at night, harassing the enemy, slaughtering many, and retiring into his fortifications with slight losses. But his garrison gradually became smaller. When he saw that it was impossible to hold out much longer, he was forced to humble his pride and send for help to Karageorge. Alas! Karageorge had no force to spare, and the other leaders were reluctant to help. Hayduk Veljko had always wished to stand alone, they said, and he might do so now. The Turks were reinforced by artillery, and Veljko's fate was sealed. They battered down his towers; the buildings within the walls were smashed: still the garrison held out and sheltered in the cellars. Hayduk Veljko grew desperate; every scrap of metal, spoons, lamps, even coins, were made into bullets, and no help came. When at length it came by the Danube, in the shape of a ship full of men and ammunition, it was too late. Veljko was dead. His prayer was fulfilled, and he did not live to see peace. Making his morning rounds, he was recognised on the redoubts by a Turkish artilleryman who fired at him. He fell terribly mangled, and with his dying breath urged his men to stand firm. They buried his body at night, and tried to conceal his death from the enemy; but the spirit which had animated them had fled, and the garrison, which had not before thought of retreat, held out for a day or two only, and then escaped at night across the marshes. A panic ensued among the Serbs of the district when they learnt the death of Veljko, nor do the other Servian leaders seem to have realised what a power Veljko was till it was too late. The Turkish army pursued the fugitives, and for the losses that Veljko had inflicted upon them exacted an awful vengeance at the first place they came to, the little town of Kladovo, where they impaled the men alive, captured the women, and immersed the children in boiling water, in derision of baptism.
Such is the story of Hayduk Veljko. His was a strong soul blackened by the terrible times into which he was born, and in spite of his many faults he played a great part in the freeing of Servia. His monument, an obelisk with commemorative lines and the date of his death (1813) on the four sides of its base, stands in a little flower garden. His portrait, fierce with black moustachios and a scarlet fez, is carved and painted on the stone. I spelt slowly through the inscriptions; the old woman, caretaker of the spot, came out and picked me some roses. "He was a very good man," she said; "here are some roses from his garden." Poor plucky barbarian, whose ambition it was to be the greatest robber in the world, he had come to this—roses and a very good man! I took the flowers and strolled back; I looked at the older people and reflected that they had heard these things from the living mouth, for their grand-fathers had seen them. Yet with these traditions barely a century old the land is now orderly and peaceful; in this short space of the world's history it has leapt from savagery to civilisation. It has yet far to go, but it has done much.
When I returned to the inn, I found the landlord beaming. "You have two brothers and five sisters," he said. "It is so pleasant to know all about one's guests!" Marko had lost no time in spreading short biographies of me, and had done his work effectually. He parted from me with regret, for with recollections perhaps of Veljko, he had overcharged me liberally, as I learned when I was older and wiser; barring this slight defect, he was a most agreeable travelling companion, and, as he himself pointed out, "gave me Servian lessons for nothing."
The landlord was all friendliness. He knew all about the English, and he told me about Someone-avich-who-married-an-English-wife. "She is so happy," he added rapturously, "and he is now just like an Englishman!"
"What does he do?" I asked.
"Do? He does not do anything. He sits in Idepark like an Englishman."
"She must be an American," I said firmly; "Englishwomen are not rich enough for that."
Radujevatz, on the Danube, the port for Negotin and the last station before reaching the Bulgarian frontier, is but a couple of kilometres away. I returned to Belgrade by boat. All the world and Cook go down the Danube, so it needs no description. My guardian angel was as kind as usual, and gave me two most courteous Servian artists as travelling companions. There is nothing like a "brother brush" for help in need, and as a general rule my sketch-book is a great passport and finds me more useful friends than does my Foreign Office one. These two gave me lessons in the language and told me of their fatherland. That I should have come so far to see it pleased them greatly, but they were both, especially the elder man, very sad about it, and told me mournfully that I could scarcely have come in a worse period of its history. "Our old patriarchal system is dead, and we have nothing to replace it. Our people have had thrust upon them too suddenly Western ideas which they do not understand; we are in the most critical period of a nation's history, the half-educated period. The nations that criticise us passed through this period so long ago that they have forgotten it." He talked of the Great Empire and of Kosovo and of the black years that followed. "Look at the few old churches that the Turks have left us. In those days we were not behind the whole of Europe. Our past was heroic; our future looks black. I am an old man, and I shall die with all my hopes disappointed. No one in the West knows how we have suffered. I, of course, remember when the Turks still occupied our forts." They sang me snatches of Servian ballads—all monotonous wails over the slaying of someone by the Turks, ending in a cry for vengeance. I commented on their unrelieved melancholy. "Ah, Fräulein," said the elder, "it is the suffering of five hundred years, and it is your nation that keeps the Turk in Europe. The Crimean War was a blow to us, and the Berlin Treaty was only a shade less bitter. They did not consider us as peoples. They marked out the Balkan peninsula intospheres of influenceawaiting the pleasure of the great Powers, and we are in the Austrian sphere. England has never troubled about us. Russia is our only friend; Russia could save us, but she is too busy in the Far East. The only other land situated as we are, with no outlet to the sea, is Switzerland. All Europe takes care of Switzerland. We have no one to help us in the whole world."
We reached the Iron Gates. The stream was enormously swollen, and we steered up the middle, a huge wide swirl of water eddying and coiling with terrible rapidity. The boat began its upward climb, shuddering and trembling violently; it seemed to be straining every nerve, and the deck vibrated underfoot. Beyond and above gleamed the line of smooth water, and the panting vessel struggled into it and regained its breath. As I stood in the bows and watched the struggle and heard the tale of Servia's woes, Servia seemed to me like the struggling boat, with the melancholy difference that there was no strong hand at the helm to save her from shipwreck.
This was, however, the boat's supreme effort. We lay off Orsova all night, were more and more behind time next day, and did not lounge up to the quay at Belgrade till very nearly midnight. Belgrade was fast asleep when I walked through the silent streets that were entirely deserted save for the sentinels standing motionless at the street corners with rifle and revolver. Belgrade, I had been told in West Europe, was a gay, reckless, dissipated capital. In outward appearance it is about as wild as Little Peddlington. Appearances may be deceptive. I do not know.
Everyone said I must go to the Shumadia, because it is the "heart of Servia," the centre in which arose her struggle for freedom. So to the Shumadia I went. Having read in a German book that it was quite impossible to explore that part of the country without a guide and letters of introduction, I took only as much luggage as I could carry easily in one hand and set out by train for Kragujevatz. As the best-laid plans are apt to go wrong, I left this expedition entirely to Fate. People like being trusted; often, in fact, serve you much the better for it. Fate did this time. She put me into the carriage with a gentleman who most kindly furnished me with an introduction that took me round all the rest of Servia. That I should have been thrown on the land quite unassisted distressed him. "You must yourself see," he said, "that if your Consul and Minister have given you no letter, it looks very bad. But that is the way your country behaves. If you had been German, for example, you would have had plenty of letters." This astonished me; my new friend, on the other hand, seemed still more astonished that I had got so far letterless. Servia loves letters of introduction and is not happy without them. From this time forward I made a sort of triumphal progress, was passed from town to town, and received so much hospitality and kindness that Servia and the friends that helped me on my way will ever remain in a warm corner of my memory. I changed my plans from day to day, and I went wherever the police captains and the district engineers advised me; nor can I wish anyone better guides than these gentlemen. They lent me maps, they planned my routes, they took me walks, they hired my carriages, found my guides and horses, and drove my bargains. What they were pleased to consider the mad Englishness of my enterprise appealed forcibly to their sense of humour, and my various adventures made them shout with laughter. I cannot repay their kindness, but I certainly amused them.
The Shumadia takes its name from "shuma," a forest; the woods of Servia were the last shelter of a desperate people and the rallying-point of the nation. If it be true that "all that is most Servian is in the Shumadia," it is here that we should look for the type of the race. The peasant of the Shumadia is tall, fair, and blue-or grey-eyed. He is more strongly built and more active than his brethren in other districts, and is more like the fair type of Montenegrin than are the men of any other part of Servia. The race question in the Balkans is so exceedingly complicated that I cannot attempt to unravel it, and can only note marked types where they occur.
So much for the peasant. The country now is no longer a forest, though well supplied with woods and trees; it is a most fertile district, and is better cultivated and far more enterprising than any other part of Servia.
Kragujevatz, Milosh' capital, is a very go-ahead place, and next to Belgrade is Servia's most important commercial town, busy and flourishing, with some 14,000 inhabitants. It has a fine gymnasium and a large girls' school, both handsome and spacious buildings very well fitted; the girls' school built by private gift. All trace of the Turk has been wiped out of the town, but the relics of Milosh are carefully preserved. His konak, a medium-sized whitewashed house, now forms part of the officers' quarters. The old church stands near, a small plain whitewashed building with a wooden annexe for the women, who were not then admitted to worship in the main body of the church—which shows forcibly how deeply the Turk had set his mark upon the Servian people. By the church stands the long low whitewashed shed that was Servia's first parliament house. Milosh, like Karageorge, took care to assemble his parliament very seldom and to pay little or no attention to it then. Kragujevatz otherwise is brand-new, and here as elsewhere it is easy to see that the Servians have done more in fifty years for the improvement of the place and the conditions of life than the Turk did in four centuries. Much yet remains to be done, nevertheless a journey from Servia into Turkey is like stepping off the pavement into the sewer.
On leaving Kragujevatz I left the railway. None exists in West Servia, which has to rely entirely on ox-carts for the transport of its produce. Carriage travelling in Servia is, as I have said before, but slow work. But it gives one excellent opportunities of seeing the country. The start must be made early. The man usually suggested 4 a.m., but I made it 5 when possible. The peasant was always on the road or already at work; for he, like the coachman, likes to take his time about things, and has to get up very early in order to spread a six or seven hours' job very thinly over sixteen. This gives him ample leisure to lie under a beech tree and play upon a wooden pipe (a double pipe it is, too, two pipes with one mouthpiece), but in spite of the old proverb it has not yet contributed much either to his wealth or wisdom. He is descended from a long line of forefathers who lived oppressed by foreign rule in troublous times, when the accumulation of property would have been labour in vain and would have but enriched the pocket of Pasha or Janissary. He sees no object in exerting himself; it is unjust to call him lazy. He is undeveloped; his wants are so simple that he can satisfy them easily without working up to his full power, and he has no ideas beyond. He walks, thinks, and acts in leisurely fashion, and appears to be slow to wrath and very good-natured. The spare time which remains upon his hands unfortunately is not always harmlessly employed upon the penny whistle, for your Servian peasant is a great politician. Slow to grasp a new idea on this as on all other subjects, and with no traditions of good government behind him, he is eternally dissatisfied with the government he happens to be under. For centuries "government" in Servia meant "the Turk" and was a thing to be resisted or at least evaded, and the Servian peasant still ascribes every evil to it. So the corn waited while the reaper sat in the shade and discussed the latest scandal about Queen Draga. "If our women," said a Serb to me, "took to politics like yours do, I do not know what would happen. All work would be at a standstill."
Very early in the day, even before the peasant has begun politics, the coachman is ready to rest at a "mehana" (inn), and in spite of all my efforts I became acquainted with the interior of a vast number. The bare whitewashed room with fly-blown portraits of Milan and Natalie, and new and gay ones of Alexander represented as about forty, and Draga as, say, five-and-twenty; the boarded floor; the rush of chickens in at the door when they heard the refreshments coming; the cavern in the brick wall where the little copper pots of black coffee are heated in glowing charcoal; the miniature glass bottles about three inches high, in which the slivovitz (plum brandy) is served; the white-kilted, sandal-shod men who sat round on rough benches and consumed it; and the host and hostess eager both to serve me and to find out all about me, made up a homely and not unpicturesque scene. And a plateful of white curd cheese covered with clotted cream (kaimak), a lump of rye bread, some onions, and some thin red wine, are a breakfast a Prince would not disdain, after driving for three hours with nothing but a thimbleful of black coffee inside him. By midday every inn has dinner ready, and supplies food, which is generally far better than the outside of the den leads one to expect, at a very cheap rate. The penny wine of the country is good of its kind, and shows that Servia only requires science to become a first-class wine-growing country. The untravelled Serb has at present but vague ideas as to what West Europe considers first-class wine. "Our wine," said a Serb to me, after I had tasted a thin red variety, "is not so well known as it ought to be. We send a great deal of this to Marseilles and sell it very cheap. The French probably sell it as the best champagne, at a high price!" which showed he had much to learn as yet about vintages.
I had long days upon the road, but was never lonely. All the country life of Servia dawdled past; living pictures of which I never tired. The school children, who often have to tramp a great distance, are out early, carrying their books and inkpots. In bad winter weather they are often unable to return, and are put up at the school for many nights. Or there will pass a gang of Albanian horse-dealers, their tight striped leg-gear, their scarlet sashes and shaven heads looking outlandish even in this out-of-the-way spot. Sitting high on their saddles, they amble smartly past, driving a herd of ponies in front of them. The Albanian does not let the grass grow under his feet, and his movements are full of nervous energy.
Wildest of all in appearance are the gipsies—brown untamed animals, long, lean, sinewy, and half-clad. As a matter of convenience they adopt the dress of the country they happen to be in; their individuality they never change. The Servian looks down on them with contempt; they are the lowest of the population. "Tsiganin! do this," shouts a Serb to any of the swarthy young rascals who are hanging about the street corner, and the boy obeys like a dog. But the gipsy is fiercely proud of his race. "You are English, but I am a Gipsy!" said an old woman to me, with indescribable majesty, as she drew up her head; the coins glittered in her filthy elf-locks, and she fixed me with her eagle eyes. She took the black pipe from her mouth and waved it round her head till she was wreathed in blue smoke, and she smote her bare breast dramatically. "I am a true Gipsy," she repeated. In a piece of a dirty shirt and half a petticoat, she looked like an empress. Yet the savage who possesses a hut, even the wild beast with a den, is a more civilised being. Without any kind of a tent, much less a cart, will they camp; some poles propped against a bush and covered with an armful of fern are often their only covering from the weather, and a couple of lean unhappy bears may share with them the bundle of filthy rags that is their bed, for your gipsy is a great showman. I once passed a group encircling a caldron, asquat and eager for the pot to boil; they turned as I drove by to look at me, and I saw, with something of a shock, that one of the party was a huge blue-nosed baboon. He wore about as much clothing as the others, and it was not till I saw his face that he was distinguishable from his friends. The cavemen and the prehistoric lake-dwellers cannot have lived less luxuriously than do these strange wild folk now, in Europe in the twentieth century. When I met them upon the road, they seemed to have walked out of another age, another world. Untrustworthy and dishonest are the mildest terms applied to them, and they are said to be responsible for a large proportion of the crime of the land. More extraordinary than their filth and their savagery, more wonderful than their superb vitality, is their marvellous gift—a gift that amounts to genius—for playing stringed instruments. It is in the blood to such an extent that there are fiddlers in every gang; it seems as natural for a gipsy to fiddle as for a fish to swim. I am not speaking of those who wear civilised garments and perform in the large towns,—many of these are known to fame,—but of the ragged ruffians who fiddle for their own amusement on the road, by the camp fire, or sprawled under a tree, and who display a command of the instrument and a technical facility that tends to confirm the theory that music is the least civilised of the arts. I have seen a child, of certainly not more than ten years, perched on the top of a loaded waggon, executing the wildest runs, turns, and flourishes upon his fiddle with an ease and certainty that the industrious student of a conservatoire does not attain to after years of labour, the ease and certainty of a singing skylark. But he and his associates were such that it was disgusting to pass on the lee side of that waggon. How these people have attained this art is an insoluble mystery; that it belongs pre-eminently to them as a birthright is shown by the curious fact that most of the world's fiddlers hail from gipsy-haunted lands.
And these strange wild things, with life running fierce in their veins, passed in their turn, and I was alone with the dead.