FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD AND BABYLON
_BOOKS BY J. A. ZAHM_
(H. J. MOZANS)
FROM BERLIN TO BAGDAD AND BABYLON
THE QUEST OF EL DORADO
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTHLAND
UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE
MAGDALENA
ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE
AMAZON
WOMAN IN SCIENCE
GREAT INSPIRERS
FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD _AND_ BABYLON
BY
THE REV. J. A. ZAHM, C.S.C., PH.D., LL.D.
(H. J. MOZANS)
MEMBER OF THE AUTHORS’ CLUB, LA SOCIÉTÉ FRANÇAISE DE PHYSIQUE, THE
ARCADIA OF ROME, AND OTHER LEARNED SOCIETIES; AUTHOR OF “UP THE
ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA,” “ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE
AMAZON,” “THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTHLAND,” ETC.
[Illustration]
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: LONDON :: MCMXXII
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
EVER LOYAL AND INSPIRING
MR. AND MRS. CHARLES M. SCHWAB
IN WHOSE HOSPITABLE HOME EVERY BOOK I
HAVE WRITTEN DURING THE LAST QUARTER
OF A CENTURY HAS HAD EITHER ITS INCEPTION
OR ITS COMPLETION THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
PARAPHRASE OF VERSES FROM SHAIKH SADI
BY EDWIN ARNOLD
_In many lands I have wandered, and_
_wondered, and listened, and seen;_
_And many my friends and companions,_
_and teachers and lovers have been._
_And nowhere a corner was there but I_
_gathered up pleasure and gain;_
_From a hundred gardens the rose-blooms,_
_from a thousand granaries grain;_
_And I said to my soul in secret, “Oh_
_thou, who from journeys art come!_
_It is meet we should bear some token of_
_love to the stayers at home;_
_For where is the traveller brings not from_
_Nile the sweet green reed,_
_Or Kashmiri silk, or musk-bags, or coral,_
_or cardamum seed?”_
_I was loath from all that Pleasaunce of_
_the Sun and his words and ways,_
_To come to my country giftless, and showing_
_no fruit of my days:_
_But, if my hands were empty of honey,_
_and pearls and gold,_
_There were treasures far sweeter than_
_honey, and marvellous things to be told._
_Whiter than pearls and brighter than_
_the cups at a Sultan’s feast,_
_And these I have brought for love-tokens,_
_from the Lords of Truth, in my East._
FOREWORD
The following pages are the result of observations made and impressions
received during a recent journey between one of the greatest capitals
of Europe and the crumbling remains of what was in the long-ago the
greatest capital of Asia. The route I followed was that which has been
rendered famous by the migrations of the nations from the East to the
West and by the march of armies from the days of Asurbanipal, Darius
and Alexander to those of Harun-al-Rashid, Godefroy de Bouillon and
Kolmar von der Goltz.
The journey in question I made not as a tourist but as a student--as
one interested not only in the present condition--social, economic,
religious and intellectual--of the peoples of the countries through
which I passed, and as one who had had an intense and life-long
interest in the history and civilization of the lands which intervene
between the headwaters of the Danube and the lower reaches of the
Tigris and the Euphrates.
The ordinary tourist on pleasure bent would regard most of my journey
as having been made through what is usually spoken of as “the
unchangeable East.” But to the student who is conversant with the long
and eventful past of the Near East the storied belt which connects
the Bosphorus with the Persian Gulf has been the theater of more and
greater changes in humanity’s development than any other portion of
the earth’s surface. It is the _fons et origo_ of the oldest
civilization--a civilization whose traditions carry us back to the
Garden of Eden. It has witnessed the successive civilizations of the
Babylonians and the Assyrians, of the Greeks and the Romans and of the
Saracens under the caliphs. And each of these consecutive civilizations
has left its monuments of imperial splendor--its temples and palaces
and colonnades and its priceless gems of plastic art. Some of these
magnificent vestiges of a glorious past, like those of Palmyra, are
still standing in the heart of the desert and have long since been
abandoned to the roving Bedouin or the rapacious jackal. Others, like
those of Ephesus and Pergamum and Nineveh, were long buried under sand
and clay and have only recently been unearthed by the pick and the
spade of the explorer and the archæologist. But wherever found, whether
on the lonely plains and hillsides of Anatolia, or in the solitudes
of the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts, they possess for the studious
traveler an attraction that is not offered in the same degree by any
other section of the wide world.
Unlike the mysterious ruins in the steaming jungles of Yucatan or
on the chilly plateau of Bolivia, which speak of an enigmatic race
quite alien to our own, the remains of antiquity everywhere found in
the lands between Stamboul and Babylon are of forms and designs with
which we have been familiar from our youth and which belong to the
same civilization from which our own is derived--the civilization
that had its origin in the city-states of ancient Greece and that
was subsequently introduced into western Asia by the soldiers of
Alexander and Seleucus and firmly maintained there for centuries by the
legionaries of imperial Rome.
To the student traveling through the Near East--especially along the
route which I selected--the experience is, in many respects, like
that of one passing through a vast museum. At every turn he meets
something of rare and enthralling fascination. Now it is a remnant of
a marble capital or architrave in a nomad’s hut; then it is a forlorn
granite column near a squalid Turkish village--all that remains of
some stately temple or sumptuous theater of Greek or Roman greatness.
Again it is the fragment of a tomb which was erected to the memory
of one who played an important rôle in his day, but whose name and
achievements have long since been forgotten. And hovering over these
crumbling monuments of a misty past are legends innumerable, but all
of entrancing human interest--an interest that is accentuated by the
discovery of a Greek or Latin inscription carved in a slab of granite
or marble or by the finding of a terra cotta tablet covered with
cuneiform characters that carry one back to the stirring reigns of
Esarhaddon or Sennacherib.
And then there are the people--especially those of Asia Minor--with
whom the author always loved to mingle and of whose kindness and
hospitality he will ever retain the fondest memories. No people that I
know has been less understood and more misrepresented than the gentle,
industrious, home-loving Osmanlis of Anatolia. But of these I shall
speak at length when relating my experiences in Asia Minor.
Traveling as a student, I have also written as a student and for
students. But I have at the same time endeavored to record my
observations and impressions so as to make them of interest to the
general reader as well. And while I have given prominence to subjects
that specially appealed to myself, these will, I trust, not be devoid
of value to others who may wish to have in popular form an account
of some of the most famous cities and peoples of the Near East when
civilization was in its infancy, or when it was in full bloom under the
beneficent influence of Helenism and Christianity.
As many parts of this volume are controversial in character, I have not
confined myself to giving simply the results of my own observations
and impressions, but I have taken pains to corroborate them by the
conclusions of eminent scholars and investigators who have devoted
to all the more important subjects long and careful study, and
whose opinions, therefore, are entitled to special weight. And that
the reader, if so minded, may be able to control my statements and
deductions I have invariably given references to my authorities.
In the matter of the orthography of Turkish and Arabic proper names
I have had the same experience as Howorth refers to when he writes
in his _History of the Mongols_: “There are hardly two authors
whom I have consulted who spell the names in the same way, and very
often their spelling is so different that it is nearly impossible
to recognize the name under its various aspects.” This arises from
the fact that there is as yet no generally accepted system among
English scholars for the transliteration of Turkish and Arabic
names. Scientific accuracy, therefore, is in this respect difficult,
if not impossible. My sole aim, consequently, has been to make
myself intelligible. I have, accordingly, followed the orthography
adopted by our standard English dictionaries and encyclopedias. In
doing this I have, I am aware, exposed myself to the criticism of
Oriental philologists, but I shall, I trust, have compensation in the
satisfaction of being “understanded of the people.”
IMMERGRÜN, LORRETO, PA.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE 1
II. THE EUXINE AND THE BOSPHORUS IN STORY, MYTH
AND LEGEND 35
III. ROMA NOVA 51
IV. THE HELLESPONT AND HOMER’S TROY 76
V. THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS 94
VI. HOME LIFE OF THE OSMANLIS IN ANATOLIA 121
VII. THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 151
VIII. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CRUSADERS 171
IX. IN HISTORIC CILICIA CAMPESTRIS 193
X. ISLAM PAST AND PRESENT 220
XI. ALONG THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE NEAR EAST 253
XII. FROM THE EUPHRATES TO THE TIGRIS 278
XIII. THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST 303
XIV. NINEVEH AND ITS WONDERS 341
XV. FLOATING DOWN THE TIGRIS IN A KELEK 370
XVI. BAGDAD 402
XVII. MOTORING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN 437
XVIII. BABYLON 471
INDEX 517
FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD AND BABYLON
CHAPTER I
ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE
_Wenn ich dann zu Nacht alleine_
_Dichtend in die Wellen schau’,_
_Steight beim blanken Mondenscheine_
_Auf die schmucke Wasserfrau_
_Aus der Danau,_
_Aus der schönen, blauen Danau._[1]
BECK
FROM RATISBON TO BUDAPEST
Berlin to Bagdad! How these words, during the past few years, have
stirred the chancelleries of Europe and how they have echoed and
reëchoed throughout the civilized world! How they evoke Macchiavellian
schemes of rival powers for territorial expansion and recall prolonged
diplomatic struggles and countless sanguinary battles for military
and commercial supremacy! How they tell of a welter of intrigue, of
ambitions foiled, of treaties violated, of nations plunged into the
miseries and horrors of the most frightful and most destructive of
wars!
No portion of the world’s surface in the entire history of humanity
has witnessed so many and so great revolutions as has that narrow
strip which connects what was once the palm-embowered capital of
Harun-al-Rashid, near the reputed birthplace of our race, with the
once proud metropolis of the Hohenzollerns in far distant Niflheim.
Across this restricted belt have swept Babylonians and Assyrians,
Persians and Greeks, Saracens and Mongols in their careers of rapine
and conquest. And across it surged the countless hordes of Huns and
Goths, Turks and Tartars, during that protracted migration of nations
from the arid steppes of Asia to the fertile plains of Europe. And
across it, too, at the head of their victorious armies, forced their
way all projectors of world domination from Ashurbanipal and Alexander
to Timur and Napoleon.
As a boy no part of the world possessed a greater fascination for me
than Babylonia and Assyria. This was, probably, because the first
book I ever read contained wonderful stories of the Garden of Eden;
of Babylon and its marvelous hanging gardens; of Nineveh and its
magnificent temples and palaces; of the Tigris and the Euphrates whose
waters were made to irrigate the vast and fecund plain of Mesopotamia,
the cradle of civilization. So profound, indeed, was the impression
made on me by the reading of this volume that one of the great desires
of my life was one day to be able to visit the land whose history
had so fascinated my youthful mind and whose people had played so
conspicuous a rôle in the drama of human progress.
After many years, when the realization of my dreams seemed no longer
possible, events so shaped themselves that I finally found myself,
almost as if by enchantment, in a comfortable hotel on the famous Unter
den Linden in Berlin making final arrangements for my long journey to
_Romantic Bagdad, name to childhood dear,_
_Where the sorcerer gloomed, the genii dwelt,_
_And Love and Worth to good Al Rashid knelt._
Had I been in haste and been disposed to follow the most direct route,
I should have taken the Orient Express which would have delivered
me forty-nine hours later in the famed City of Constantine on the
picturesque Bosphorus. But that would have been too prosaic and would
have prevented me from feasting my eyes on many things which, during
previous visits to Europe had given me special pleasure.
Chief among these was that supreme performance of pictorial art,
Raphael’s Madonna of San Sisto in the Royal Art Gallery of Dresden.
Although I had many times spent hours in silent contemplation of
this masterpiece of the great Umbrian artist, I now felt a greater
desire than ever to behold again this matchless creation of genius
and feel myself again under the spell of its serene beauty and gaze
once more on what has been called “the supernatural put into color and
form”--“Christianity in miniature”--what Goethe sings of as
_Model for mothers--queen of woman--_
_A magic brush has, by enchantment,_
_Fixed her there._
Could one have had before one’s mind during long months in many lands
a more elevating or a more inspiring image than that of her whom
Wordsworth has so truly characterized as
_Our tainted nature’s solitary boast?_
From Dresden I went to Ratisbon which, according to a venerable
tradition, occupies the site of a town founded by the Celts long
centuries before the Christian era and which subsequently became known
as Castra Regina, an outpost of the Roman empire on its long northern
frontier. In few places of Germany is there more to engage the lovers
of historic and legendary lore than this ancient city.
The most conspicuous object is the noble Gothic Cathedral with its
delicate crocketed spires. As in the case of the cathedral of Cologne,
full six centuries elapsed from the laying of the cornerstone to the
completion of the towers of this imposing building. And as in the
marvelous church of the Certosa di Pavia the architectural and artistic
decoration of this magnificent temple passed from father to son. To
these rarely gifted artisans and designers one can apply the words of
Longfellow about the Cathedral of Strassburg:
THE ARCHITECT
_Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,_
_And with him toiled his children, and their lives_
_Were builded with his own into the walls_
_As offerings to God._
The numerous square towers which are visible in certain parts of the
city remind one of similar towers that are so marked a feature in San
Gimignano. They date back to a time when the nobility of Ratisbon,
like the noble families of Florence in Dante’s time, employed them as
defenses against their enemies.
But it is not my intention to describe even briefly the countless
objects which have so long rendered this famous old city a favorite
object to the tourist. To do even partial justice to its multitudinous
attractions and historical associations would require a large volume.
My purpose in coming to Ratisbon was to embark on one of the small
boats that here ply on the Danube, with the view of connecting at
Passau, further down the river, with one of the larger boats of the
Danube Steamship Navigation Company, which would take me to Vienna.
Thence I planned to go by steamers of the same company to Budapest,
Belgrade and the mouth of the Danube, whence I had planned to sail by
the Black Sea and the Bosphorus to Constantinople.
But why, the reader will ask, did I elect the slower and more
roundabout route rather than the direct one by rail? I answer in the
words of Ovid:
_Ignotis errare locis, ignota videre_
_Flumina gaudebant, studio minuente laborem._[2]
I had always loved the water and traveling by river has always had
a peculiar fascination for me. Besides this, I had for years been
specially eager to journey by the Danube from its source to its mouth.
Having had the good fortune to sail the entire navigable length of many
of the world’s largest rivers, I was doubly desirous of sailing down
the historic waterway which connects the noted Black Forest with the
famed Euxine Sea of antiquity.
In one of his charming travel-books, Victor Hugo declares:
The Rhine is unique: it combines the quality of every river.
Like the Rhone, it is rapid; broad, like the Loire; encased like
the Meuse; serpentine like the Seine; limpid and green like
the Somme; mysterious like the Nile; spangled with gold, like
an American river; and, like a river of Asia, abounding with
phantoms and fables.[3]
Hesiod, who first makes mention of the Danube, under the name of
the Ister, gives it the epithet of καλλίρέεδρος--the beautifully
flowing--and calls it the son of Tethys and Oceanus. Ovid was
so impressed with it that he declares in one of his _Paitic
Epistles_, that it is not inferior to the Nile:
_Cedere Danubius se tibi, Nile, negat._[4]
Hugo’s brief but graphic description of some of the world’s famed
rivers applies with even greater truth to the legendary, the historic,
the romantic, the picturesque Danube. No watercourse in the world is
tenanted by a larger number of fantastic and mysterious beings; some,
like the swan-maidens and the water nymph Isa, making their home in
its waters; others, like fairies and pixies and elves, dwelling in the
bays, forests, caverns and old dismantled castles on its banks.
According to Pindar, the region about the source of the Danube was a
land of perpetual sunshine and teeming with the choicest fruits. It was
inhabited by a people who enjoyed undisturbed peace, were immune from
disease and lived a thousand years, which they spent in the worship of
Apollo. It was from this highly favored land, Pindar tells us, that
Hercules brought the olive which, it was averred, grew in profusion
about the sources of the Danube.[5]
And, from its headwaters to its entrance into the Euxine, the Danube
was as rich in myths and legends as were ever the rivers and mountains
and groves of ancient Hellas. According to the great German epic, the
Nibelungenlied, it was at Pforring, a short distance above Ratisbon,
that the legendary heroine, Kriemhild, bride-elect of Etzel, took leave
of her brothers when on her way from the Rhine to far-off Hungary,
where she was to join her new husband, the famous Etzel--Attila--king
of the Huns, and where she was to consummate her plans of wreaking
vengeance upon the murderers of her first husband, Siegfried.
It may here be remarked in passing that the illustrious Albertus
Magnus, probably the greatest scholar of the Middle Ages, reputed to be
a magician as well as an eminent theologian and philosopher, was bishop
of Ratisbon.
About a half hour after leaving Ratisbon, in a cosy little steamer, we
find ourselves near the foot of a wooded hill on whose brow
_The Walhalla rises, purely white,_
_Temple of fame for all Germania’s great._
Seen at a distance it appears to be almost a reproduction of the
Parthenon, both in dimensions and style of architecture. It is due to
the munificence of Ludwig I, of Bavaria, who erected it as a Temple
of Fame for those who had in any way signally honored the Fatherland.
Some even, whose names are unknown, are duly commemorated in this
magnificent edifice. Among them are the architect of the Cologne
Cathedral and the author of the great German epic, the Nibelungenlied.
When this temple was solemnly dedicated in October, 1842, Ludwig I, in
the course of a stirring address, said, “May the Walhalla contribute
to extend and consolidate the feelings of German nationality. May all
Germans of every race henceforth feel they have a common country of
which they may be proud, and let each individual labor according to his
faculties to promote its glory.” It is the use of the word “German” in
its broad historic and ethnological sense that explains the existence,
in this Teutonic Hall of Fame, of tablets in honor of Hengist and
Horsa, Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great.
From Walhalla to Passau, near the Austrian frontier, we had a splendid
opportunity, as our little steamer glided along the sinuous Danube, to
observe the attractions of the celebrated Dunkelboden, so called from
its dark, fertile soil. Much of the country through which we passed was
a broad, unbroken plain, dotted with small farmhouses, pretty villages
adorned with chaletlike homes, and white churches surmounted by quaint,
salmon-colored steeples.
Arrived at Passau I embarked for Vienna on one of the trim and
commodious steamers of the Danube Steamship Navigation Company. The
appointments and service of these boats are all that could be desired
and are fully equal to the best of the excursion steamers on the Hudson
or the St. Lawrence. Indeed, for one who desires perfect rest, combined
with comfort, while sailing on the most romantic and picturesque
waterway in Europe, I know of nothing I can more cordially recommend
than a few weeks’ excursion on the Danube.
From time immemorial travelers have sounded the glories of the Rhine.
I should be the last to depreciate the many and great attractions of
this noble river on which I spent so many happy days, but truth compels
me to declare that the Danube, not only in scenic beauty and grandeur,
but also in historic and legendary association, far surpasses what the
Romans were wont to call _Rhenus Superbus_.
On the way from Passau to Vienna I spent all my time on deck, as I did
not wish to miss any of the countless objects of interest which here
make the course of the Danube so famous. What with historic towns and
villages, crenelated and machicolated castles--some still inhabited,
others long since in ruins--there was much to engage one’s attention.
If the massive walls and somber towers of these moss-covered old
castles could speak, what tales could they not tell of love and
romance, hate and revenge? What stories could they not tell of wars and
sieges when the crossbow, halberd and the broadsword were the chief
weapons of offense and defense? And how much would they not have to
relate of the lawlessness and cruelty of the robber-barons who sallied
forth from these almost inaccessible strongholds to confiscate passing
vessels or to pillage the surrounding country. Manzoni, in his vivid
pictures of the _prepotenti_, as portrayed in his masterly _I
Promessi Sposi_, gives one some idea of the insatiable rapacity of
the titled brigands of the period which we are now considering. Good
old Froissart was right when he denounced them as “people worse than
Saracens or Paynims”; as men whose “excessive covetousness quencheth
the knowledge of honor.”
Everywhere along the Danube one hears stories about the activities of
the Devil in days gone by and of his determined efforts to thwart the
works and projects of those whom he regarded as his natural enemies.
In Ratisbon is shown a bridge which he is said to have built in
exchange for the soul of his employer. Owing, however, to the superior
shrewdness of his employer, he lost the remuneration he so greatly
coveted.
Further down the river, near Deggendorf, is a great mass of granite
which the Devil is said to have brought all the way from Italy in
order to destroy the town, because its people were too religious to
please his Satanic Majesty. But just as he was about to drop his
massive load on the unsuspecting inhabitants, the Ave Maria bell was
sounded in the adjacent monastery when the Evil One was forced to let
fall his burden before he could compass his purpose. At another point
is shown a rock known as the Devil’s Tower, and at still another is
a curious mass of rock which, from its peculiar formation, is called
Teufelsmauer--Devil’s Wall.
* * * * *
According to a time-honored ballad
_There came an old Crusader_
_With fifty harnessed men_
_And he embarked at Ratisbon_
_To fight the Saracen._
These Crusaders and others that followed them down the Danube on their
way to the Holy Land so exasperated the Demon that “he plucked up rocks
from the neighboring cliffs and pitched them right into the channel
of the river, thereby hoping to arrest their progress. But in this he
was completely deceived; for after the first rock came plunging down
amongst them, every man made the sign of the cross, and uniting their
voices in a holy anthem, the fiend was instantly paralyzed, and slunk
away without further resistance. So huge, however, was the first stone
he threw that for ages it caused a swirl and a swell in this part of
the river which nothing but the skill and perseverance of the Bavarian
engineers could remove.”[6]
As the Danube moves majestically between ever recurring islets, green
with willow and birch, and wooded heights crowned with ruins of castles
and monasteries telling of times long past, the veil of romance, with
which legend invests everything, seems to become heavier and more
variegated. Here are elf-haunted glens and primeval forests which were
once declared to be the home of the Erl-King. There is the dark cavern
where the lindwurm, like the one slain by Siegfried, lay in wait for
his prey, and at still another spot is the lakelet where Hagen met
the swan-maidens on his return with the Nibelungs to the lands of the
Huns. Further down the stream are the Strudel and Wirbel, the Scylla
and Charybdis of the Danube, for ages the reputed trysting-place of all
kinds of phantoms and monsters.
But here in
_Imperial Danube’s rich domain_
sober history has far more to recount than saga and legend, for every
spot we pass has its story of ambition, intrigue and revenge; of wars
involving the loss of thrones and far-reaching changes in the map of
the then known world.
At Dürrenstein, further down the river, are the ruins of a great feudal
stronghold in which is still shown the dungeon in which tradition
says Richard Coeur de Lion, on his return from the Third Crusade,
was imprisoned by his inexorable enemy, Duke Leopold of Austria. The
legend, telling how the English King’s liberation was finally effected
through his devoted minstrel, Blondel, has long been a favorite theme
of poets and artists.[7]
It was not far from Dürrenstein that Julian the Apostate engaged a
flotilla for his famous voyage down the Danube--the beginning of that
long campaign which was to end so disastrously for him and his army on
the sun-parched banks of the far distant Tigris.
At a subsequent period Charlemagne and his Paladins descended the
Danube on his campaign against the Avars. Later on he was followed by
numerous contingents of Crusaders, among them heroic Barbarossa and his
valiant band, on their way to Constantinople and the Holy Land.
It is safe to say that no waterway in Europe has more frequently
witnessed the march of vast armies or heard more frequently the echoed
roll of battle than has the broadly sweeping Danube. In its wide and
fertile valley have met in deadly conflict the well-trained legions
of a Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Gustavus Adolphus, a Marlborough, a
Bonaparte, and on the issue of the battles in which they were engaged
were decided the fate of nations and the course of civilization.
Augustus, it was, who made the Danube the northern boundary of the
Roman Empire. It extended like a broad and impassable moat from the
Schwartzwald to the Euxine, and, like the Rhine on the East of Gaul,
served to keep the barbarians of the north confined within their
primeval forests. All along the Danube from its source to its delta
are still found countless traces of what were once important military
outposts, flourishing towns and centers of advancing civilization and
culture.
After passing through the picturesque gorge of Wachau, famed for
its wild scenery, its haunted castles, its oak-covered heights, its
precipitous crags once crowned by massive strongholds which were
tenanted by robber knights who were long the terror of the surrounding
country, we enter an extensive plain which the branching Danube cuts
into a number of willow and birch-covered islands. Soon, on the right,
we reach the mouth of the river Traisen, near whose confluence with
the Danube stands Traisenmauer, noted in the Nibelungenlied as being
the home of Helka, Etzel’s first queen, and the last stopping place of
Kriemhild before her arrival at Tulna, where the King of the Huns was
awaiting her.
The progress of the brilliant cavalcade, with all its glittering pomp
and pageantry, composed of
_Good knights of many a region and many a foreign tongue_,
from Tulna to Vienna and thence to the capital of the Huns, is best
told in the simple words of the Nibelungenlied:
_From Tulna to Vienna their journey then they made._
_There found they many a lady adorned in all her pride_
_To welcome with due honor King Etzel’s noble bride._
* * * * *
_Held was the marriage festal on Whitsuntide_
_’Twas then that royal Etzel embraced his high-born bride_
_In the city of Vienna; I ween she ne’er had found_
_When first she wed, such myriads all to her service bound_.
* * * * *
_So court and country flourish’d with such high honors crown’d_
_And all at every season fresh joy and pastime found._
_Every heart was merry, smiles on each face were seen;_
_So kind the King was ever, so liberal the Queen._[8]
Having been frequently in Vienna before, I tarried this time hardly
long enough to refresh my memory regarding certain things and places
that always had a peculiar attraction for me. Among these were its
admirable museums and art galleries, its delightful drives and
sumptuous palaces. But above all I was particularly eager to revisit
the imposing Cathedral of St. Stephen, for it is not only one of the
noblest specimens of Gothic architecture in Europe, but is also one of
the most beautiful temples of Christian worship in existence. Although
erected in the twelfth century, it has survived all the sieges to
which Vienna has been subject and is still, after seven centuries, the
most conspicuous of the many grandiose structures of Austria’s superb
capital. As I examined the exquisite carvings of portal and window and
delicate crocketed spire of this stupendous fane I realized as never
before how the builders of the Ages of Faith wrought the parts unseen
by men with the same care as those which were exposed to the gaze of
all. For they labored for God, and God sees everything and everywhere.
And then, too, I desired to spend an hour or two at the Glorietta
of Schönbrunn, of which, from a previous visit, I had retained such
pleasant memories. From this enchanting spot one has a magnificent
panorama of the city and the surrounding country--the theater of many
sieges and battles in which, during the heyday of Ottoman power, the
fate of Europe seemed to tremble in the balance.
In the memorable siege of 1863, the walls of Vienna had already
been breached by the thundering guns of the Moslems, whose tents in
countless thousands covered the surrounding plain, and only a miracle,
it seemed, could save the city from its impending doom. Famine and
death and wan despair stalk through the beleaguered capital. One by
one the soldiers of the Cross fall from the fast crumbling ramparts.
Everywhere are heard the groans of the dying and the wild laments of
its dismayed and enfeebled inhabitants, who are no longer able to stem
the resistless onrush of the barbaric host. Mothers press their infants
to their bosoms and trembling virgins, sobbing as if their hearts would
break, are overwhelmed with dread of a fate worse than death itself.
But, behold! The advancing columns of the infidel horde falter, then
halt suddenly as if confronted by some horror-inspiring apparition, or,
paralyzed by a colossal Medusa. What appalls proud Mustapha’s haughty
warriors? What panic has seized his swarthy Janizaries?
The standards of John Sobieski, the scourge and terror of the
Moslems, are seen floating from the crest of Kahlenberg. Presently
the hero-king, at the head of his resistless cuirassiers, dashes like
a thunderbolt against the enemy and the luckless troops of the grand
vizier melt like a mist before the morning sun.
_Now joy was in proud Vienna’s town;_
_Brave Starenberg had won renown:_
_The sweet Cathedral bells were rung_
_As for a May-day festival,_
_And Sobieski’s fame was sung_
_Throughout the lordly capital._
The Cross had again triumphed over the Crescent and Christian Europe
had blasted all Moslem hopes of further progress up the Danube. On
Vienna’s ramparts might well be inscribed in letters of gold:
_Warring against the Christian Jove in vain,_
_Here was the Ottoman Typhœus slain._
Some twenty odd miles east of Vienna, near Hamburg, are extensive ruins
supposed to be remains of the ancient Roman town of Carnuntum. The
place is interesting from the fact that Marcus Aurelius spent three
years here during his wars with the Quadi and the Marcomanni. Here also
he wrote a part of his “Meditations,” which have contributed more to
perpetuate his name than all his achievements as Roman Emperor. Here
Septimus Severus was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers and here, too,
Rome had a station for a part of its Danube flotilla. And the empire
had need of many flotillas and many frontier garrisons along the
extended Danube to keep in check the barbarians on its northern banks,
when the prolific North poured them forth
_From her frozen loins to pass_
_Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons_
_Came like a deluge on the south and spread_
_Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands._
Augustus and his immediate successors had hoped that this broad
waterway would serve as an impassable barrier, but subsequent events
showed that they were mistaken. Neither the Danube, nor the Rhine,
nor the _Limes Romanus_--a high stone wall connecting these two
rivers--which had been constructed by the Emperor Probus, nor other
defenses of the empire, which had been developed by his successors,
were adequate to prevent the ever increasing incursions of the
barbarians into Roman territory. Among them, besides the Marcomanni and
the Quadi, whose warlike activities engaged the attention of Marcus
Aurelius during his stay in Carnuntum and Vindobona--Vienna--were the
Suevi, the Gepidæ, the Alemanni, the Vindelici, the Heruli, and other
peoples of Celtic and Germanic stock. These were followed by Slavs, by
the Avars, the Goths, the Huns, the Alani, the Vandals, the Langobardi,
who in ever increasing numbers crossed the Danube and laid waste to
lands far distant from their original homes, until eventually their
impetuous hosts had swept the vast region from the Baltic Sea to the
desert of Sahara, from the Caucasus to the Pillars of Hercules, and
until Alaric “secretly aspired to plant the Gothic standard on the
walls of Rome and to enrich his army with the accumulated spoils of a
hundred triumphs.”
Gliding down the tortuous Danube past picturesque towns and villages
and through delightful woodlands and sun-kissed vineyards our steamer
soon carries us over the short distance which intervenes between
Carnuntum and loyal old Pozsony--the capital of Hungary before it was
transferred to Budapest. In this cosmopolitan city of historic and
traditional lore an incident is recalled which puts in strong relief
the bravery and chivalrous character of the Hungarians and shows how
quick they are to act when a strong appeal is made to their loyalty and
patriotism.
Queen Maria Theresa, finding herself threatened by enemies on all
sides, convened the estates of the realm in the throne room of the
castle of Pozsony. Here the fair young sovereign, with the crown of St.
Stephen on her head and an infant son in her arms, delivered in Latin
this brief but stirring address:
The disastrous situation of our affairs has moved us to lay before our
dear and faithful States of Hungary the recent invasion of Austria,
the danger now impending over this Kingdom and a proposal for the
consideration of a remedy. The very existence of the Kingdom of
Hungary, of our own person, of our children and our crown is now at
stake. Forsaken by all, we place our sole resource in the fidelity,
arms and long-tried valor of the Hungarians; exhorting you, the States
and Orders, to deliberate without delay in this extreme danger, on the
most effectual measures for the security of our person, of our children
and of our crown, and to carry them into immediate execution. In regard
to ourself, the faithful States and Orders of Hungary shall experience
our hearty coöperation in all things which may promote the pristine
happiness of this Kingdom and the honor of the people.[9]
The effect of this indirect and impassioned appeal was electrical. The
assembled multitude, the _élite_ of Hungary’s nobility, instantly
drew their swords and shouted, “_Vitam et sanguinem. Moriamur pro
rege nostro Maria Theresa_”[10]--“Our blood and our life. Let us die
for our King Maria Theresa.” From this moment the entire nation rallied
to the support of their sovereign and her eventual triumph was assured.
This dramatic episode is commemorated by an imposing equestrian statue
of Maria Theresa in the Coronation Hill Platz which bears the simple
but eloquent inscription--_Vitam et sanguinem_.
The fact that Maria Theresa and her audience spoke Latin, instead of
Hungarian or German, on the memorable occasion referred to is easily
explained. For centuries Latin had been in Hungary the language of
diplomacy. Lectures in the University were given in Latin and the
language of Cicero and Virgil was spoken by the deputies in Parliament.
Indeed, until a few decades ago, every man of liberal education was
supposed to be able to write and speak Latin with ease and fluency.
“When I was a girl,” a Hungarian countess told me, “the language at
table in my father’s house was always Latin. All of us, boys and girls,
spoke it as well as our mother tongue.”
I met many Hungarian priests who spoke Latin in preference to their
native Magyar. One of them was an orator of exceptional eloquence and
could give an extemporaneous address in Latin without hesitating for a
word and always in the purest Latinity.
An Englishman who made a journey up the Danube near the middle of
the last century tells us that he heard on the steamer a “party of
Hungarian priests and a large assemblage of second-class passengers
conversing in Latin with as much facility as if it were their native
tongue.”[11]
The German traveler, J. G. Kohl, who wrote about the same time as the
writer just quoted, gives a part of the conversation he had with a
Benedictine monk at the abbey of Tihany during a game of billiards.
Those of my readers who understand Latin will be interested in some of
the peculiar words and expressions used:
“_Ubi globus Dominationis?_”--“Where is your Lordship’s ball?”
“_Ibi. Incipiamus._”--“Here. Let us begin.”
“_Dignetur procedere._”--“Please begin.”
“_Dolendum est. Si cærulous huc venisset._”--“What a pity! If the
blue had but come this way.”
“_Fallit, fallit._”--“It misses, it misses.”
“_Nunc flavus recte ad manum mihi est._”--“Now the yellow ball is
right to my hand.”
“_Bene! Bene! Nunc Hannibal ad portam._”--“Good! Good! Now, look
out.”
“_Dignetur duble._”--“Please double.”
“_Fallit._”--“A miss.”
“_O si homo nunquam falleret, esset invincibilis._”--“If one never
missed, one would be invincible.”
“_Reverende Pater! Nunc tota positio difficilis est._”--“Reverend
Father, the position is now very difficult.”
“_Nihil video, nisi cæruleum et rubrum percutere velles._”--“I see
nothing except a carom on the blue and red.”
“Ah! Ah! _Subtiliter volui et nihil habeo._”--“Ah me! I wished to
make an extra good play and I have nothing.”
“_Bene! Bene! Fecisti. Finis ludi._”--“Good! Good! You have made
it. The game is ended.”[12]
After reading the foregoing who will say that Latin is a dead language
in Hungary!
FROM BUDAPEST TO THE BLACK SEA
_Again the scene has changed and dim descried_
_A silver crescent marks the Danube’s tide;_
_Where broad sails glancing o’er the regal stream,_
_Spread their white bosoms to the morning beam,_
_With towers that skirt and towns that seem to lave_
_Their tattled walls in that majestic wave._
From Pozsony to Budapest we passed many places of great scenic beauty
and historic interest. Among them was Esztergom, which possesses
the most beautiful cathedral in Hungary. It is the birthplace of
St. Stephen, patron saint of the country and the see of Hungary’s
ecclesiastical primate.
No city in Europe offers a more superb approach than does Budapest to
the traveler who enters it on the deck of one of the beautiful steamers
of the Danube Navigation Company. As we glide downstream towards the
twin city, an immense mass of palatial structures suddenly bursts on
our view. Among them is the imposing Royal Palace, which crowns an
eminence on the right bank of the many-spired House of Parliament,
which stands on the left. Soon we get a glimpse of the beautiful
boulevards along the river, which, at the hour of our arrival, are
crowded with animated, happy multitudes, who are enjoying their daily
promenade and watching the arrival and departure of the numerous
steamers and smaller craft which contribute so much to the life of the
city.
Hungarians declare that theirs is the most beautiful of all European
capitals, and, judging by one’s impression of the city as seen from
an arriving steamer, most visitors, I think, will agree with them.
Certain it is that neither Paris nor London nor Petrograd can claim
such an enchanting river view as that in which Budapest so justly
glories.
And they are as proud of their country as of their capital.
According to an old Hungarian proverb, “_Extra Hungarian non est
vita_”--“Life is not life outside of Hungary.”[13] “Have we not,”
the people here ask, “all that is necessary for our welfare? Our
blessed soil provides for all our wants.” And Sandor Petöfi, Hungary’s
greatest lyric poet, does not hesitate to declare:
_If the earth be God’s crown,_
_Our country is its fairest jewel._
But it is the people of this fair capital that make the strongest
appeal to the traveler. It matters not if he be a stranger. Their
proverbial hospitality immediately makes him feel at home. Like the
Viennese they have a _savoir vivre_ that is truly admirable. Their
courtesy and cordiality are boundless and make one desire to prolong
one’s sojourn among them. And one no sooner comes in contact with them
than he is conscious of a certain indefinable charm that is found only
among people of rare culture and refinement. In leaving them--old
friends and new--I experienced in a peculiarly keen manner the sincere
regret that I have so often felt in other parts of the world when the
hour came for departure from people whom I had learned to admire and
love for their exceptional goodness and worth.
From Budapest to Belgrade our course for the greater part of the
distance was almost due south. For twenty-four hours we journeyed
through the Alfold--the great central plain of Hungary--about which so
much has been written during the last few years. In many respects it
reminds one of the broad maize lands of eastern Kansas and Nebraska. It
is also equally productive and has for centuries constituted one of
the most important granaries of Central Europe.
Although to the traveler the Alfold--the Hungarian word for
lowland--offers little of scenic interest, the Magyar bard finds in
it as much to awaken his muse as does the Arabian poet in the broad
expanse of his much-loved desert; and each would recognize as his own
the sentiment of Sandor Petöfi, when he sings:
_I love the plains. It is only there I feel free._
_My eyes can wander as they please, quite unconstrained._
_One is not confined by barriers._
Throughout the region which we are now traversing legend still lingers,
but it is history that has now most to tell. And how much could it not
relate regarding the struggle between the barbarians and the Romans in
these parts--of the long contests between Christians and Ottomans. It
was at Mohacs that the Turks, under Solyman the Magnificent, achieved,
in 1526, the decisive victory which enabled them to hold Hungary in a
state of vassalage for a hundred and fifty years. It was at the same
place that the Ottoman forces, after being defeated by Sobieski in
Vienna, made their final stand before they were forced to relinquish
the land which they had so long held in subjection.
Further down the river is Illock, which was for a time the home, as
it is the burial place, of St. John Capistran. It was this celebrated
Franciscan friar who led an army of Crusaders, which he had collected
by his preaching, to the assistance of Hunyady Janos when this renowned
warrior compelled the Turks under Mohammed II to raise the siege of
Belgrade.
Still further down stream is the little town of Petervarad with its
strong fortress, long known as the Gibraltar of the Danube. It is so
named because Peter the Hermit here marshaled in 1096 the hosts which
he had assembled from far and wide for the First Crusade.
As the tones of the vesper bell of a village chapel are wafted over
the peaceful waters, the famed “White City” of Serbia appears in the
distance. Situated at the confluence of the Danube and the Save,
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has for more than two thousand
years been a strategic point of prime importance. Occupied by Celts,
generations before the Christian era, it became, under the name
Singidunum, a stronghold of the Romans, who held it for four centuries.
It subsequently belonged to the Byzantine Empire and, later on, was
occupied at various times by Avars, Huns, Gepids, Goths, Sarmatians,
Turks, Hungarians, Austrians, until in the beginning of the nineteenth
century the Serbians made it their capital. The Turks, however, did not
relinquish possession of its citadel until 1867.
Few places have passed through more sieges or experienced more
frequently the horrors of war than Belgrade. Aside from its historical
associations, I found little of interest in the city. The inhabitants
had none of the gayety and animation of the people of Vienna and
Budapest. Their cheerless faces were like those of a race that has
witnessed many tragedies and is living in constant fear of impending
disaster.
And what country, indeed, has passed through more and greater disasters
than Serbia? For it is not too much to say that during the past
twenty-five centuries of its history it has been almost continually in
a condition of social unrest and political chaos. Times without number
the tides of invasion and devastation have swept over this unfortunate
land. The general poverty and intellectual stagnation of the people
were aggravated by the follies of their rulers and by dynastic
scandals that shocked the civilized world. For generations at a time
the administration of the country was little better than organized
brigandage. Unscrupulous officials, living in Oriental indolence,
prospered on the life-blood of the down-trodden peasantry, for whom
justice was but a myth. Blood feuds, political murders and internecine
strife were long endemic, and guaranties for life and property were,
consequently, impossible.
And this was true not only for Serbia but also for the whole of the
Balkan peninsula--for Bulgaria, for Macedonia, for Roumania and for
the half-barbarous principalities along the Adriatic. So completely
separated were they from the rest of the world that little was known
of them in western Europe until less than a century ago, when they
began to give stronger evidence of national consciousness than they
had previously exhibited, and to manifest a united purpose to liberate
themselves from the Ottoman yoke, under which they had suffered for so
many centuries.
But it would be contrary to the teaching of history to assert that all
the disorders endured and all the cruelties suffered by the inhabitants
of the Balkans during the long period when they were deprived of their
independence were due to the Turks. Nothing is farther from the truth.
The fact is that the various Balkan races--the Greeks and Bulgars for
instance--hated one another far more than they--either individually or
collectively--hated the Turks.
* * * * *
From the point of view of humanitarianism [as has been well said]
it is beyond a doubt that much less blood was spilt in the Balkan
Peninsula during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during
the five hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed
it would have been difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion
to think of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just
as good-natured and as good-humored as anybody else; it is only when
their military and religious passions are aroused that they become more
reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks who
taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan Peninsula; the latter
had nothing to learn in this respect.[14]
* * * * *
But, notwithstanding the long and trying ordeal through which the
peoples of the Balkans have passed, a new era seems to be dawning for
them at last. Education is receiving more attention and law and order
are gradually assuring to the masses the blessings of civilized life.
When, however, we think or speak of the Balkans and their inhabitants
there are, as the distinguished British writer D. G. Hogarth reminds
us, certain salutary things to bear in mind, among which is that “less
than two hundred years ago England had its highwaymen on all roads and
its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland its caterans and Ireland its
moonlighters.”[15]
As I viewed from the citadel the magnificent panorama that unfolded
itself before me in the broad valleys of the Save and the Danube, I
recalled certain alliterative verses which I was wont to recite in my
youth, beginning with
_An Austrian army awfully arrayed,_
_Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade,_
_Cossack, commander, cannonading come,_
_Deal devastation; dire destructive doom._[16]
While gazing at the sun-bathed vineyards, ruin-crowned heights and
broad, verdant plains which followed one another in rapid succession
as our steamer bore us seawards, I was especially impressed by the
multiplicity of languages I heard spoken by the passengers. For among
my fellow travelers were Germans, French, Turks, Serbs, Croats,
Russians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Greeks, Albanians, Italians, Poles,
Slovaks, English, and Americans, and probably several others whom I
did not recognize. There was, indeed, a Babel of tongues such as one
would scarcely find elsewhere. How the famous polyglot, Mezzofanti,
would have reveled in such a gathering where he could have held
converse with all of them, as he was wont to do with the students of
the Propaganda, in Rome, who came from all parts of the world and
with the languages of all whom the illustrious Cardinal was perfectly
familiar.[17]
And variety of garb of this motley crowd was almost as manifold as was
that of their languages and dialects. From the sedate Englishman in
tweed to the animated Roumanian in his Phrygian cap of liberty, the
tarbooshed Ottoman dreamily fingering his tespis (string of beads), the
sad-faced Serb with his conical Astrakan cap, and the voluble Albanian
in a snow-white fustanella, there was every conceivable variety of
wearing apparel. And the styles and colors of the dresses worn by the
women exhibited even greater diversity. They could be compared only
with those of the infinitude of shades and adornments of the feathered
songsters of a large aviary or of the multitudinous flowers of a
botanical garden.
From Belgrade eastwards Oriental color becomes rapidly more pronounced.
This results from the long occupation by the Ottomans of the country
through which we are now passing and constant communication between
Turkey and the Balkans.
The first objects of note to arrest our attention below Belgrade are
the great ruined fortress of Sendria and, further downstream, the
ruins of the two castles of Galambocz and Laszlovar. These massive
strongholds, located on opposite sides of the river, guarded what was
long known as “The Key of the Danube.” They, like the scores of ruins
which we have passed on our way from Ratisbon, are rich in historic and
legendary associations of the most interesting character.
Near Galambocz is shown a great cavern, in which, legend has it, St.
George slew the dragon. When we reflect that practically nothing is
known of the patron of chivalry and the champion of Christendom, except
that he suffered martyrdom at or near Lydda in Palestine before the
time of the Emperor Constantine, it becomes difficult to account for
the existence of this dragon-slaying tradition in this spot. Its origin
may be due to pilgrims or Crusaders, who brought it from the Holy Land
in the same way as they popularized the _cultus_ of the Saint in
England as early as the days of Arculph and Richard Coeur de Lion.
But after all, it is no more difficult to account for the contest
between St. George and the dragon here than at “a stagne or a pond like
a sea,” near Silena in Libya, as we read of it in Caxton’s version
of the _Legenda Aurea_, or, to explain the associations of the
martyr-knight with the Order of the Garter, the Union Jack or the white
ensign of the British Navy.
Immediately below Galambocz we enter the wildest and grandest scenery
along the Danube. The foaming rapids and the towering cliffs of the
gorge of Kazan recall the famed cañons of Colorado or Montana, although
in magnitude and grandeur it is far inferior to the stupendous gorges
of the Arkansas or the Yellowstone.
But far more interesting to me than the gorge itself was an inscription
at the lower end which is cut in the solid rock and commemorates the
completion of the marvelous roadway which the Romans constructed along
the western face of this formidable defile. To me it seemed one of the
most extraordinary of all the countless achievements of imperial Rome
in the entire length of the Danube valley. The inscription reads:
IMP. CÆS. D. NERVÆ. FILIUS. NERVA. TRAJANUS.
AUG. GERM. PONT. MAX....
But even more noteworthy than the wild Kazan ravine and the wonderful
Roman thoroughfare is the celebrated Iron Gate at the confines of
Serbia, Hungary and Roumania. This narrow defile long constituted
an almost impassable barrier to intercourse between the peoples of
the upper and lower Danube. During low water, navigation, except for
the smallest craft, was impossible, until the completion, in 1896,
of a channel which was blasted out of the living rock on the Serbian
side of the seething cataract. This canal guarantees a sufficient
depth of water the entire year for steamers of considerable draft and
contributes enormously to the importance of the Danube as a highway of
international commerce.
Shortly below the Iron Gate we were shown remains of the mammoth stone
bridge which was built by Trajan across the Danube. This was even a
more astonishing achievement than the construction of the roadway
through the gorge of Kazan. I had often admired the wonderful, lifelike
reliefs of Trajan’s column in Rome, which represent, among other
things, the celebrated campaign of the emperor in Dacia, and I was
delighted to have the opportunity to contemplate the remains of the
road and the bridge he built during this memorable period of his reign.
Dacia, which embraced modern Roumania, is noted as being the only
province that the Romans ever possessed north of the Danube. And “the
last province to be won, it was,” as Freeman puts it, “the first to be
given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it and transferred its name to the
Mœsian land, immediately south of the Danube.”[18]
But the remarkable thing about Roumania, as the same eminent historian
observes, is that although it has been cut off “for so many ages
from all Roman influences, forming, as it has done, one of the great
highways of barbarian migration, a large part of Dacia, namely, the
modern Roumanian principality, still keeps its Roman language no less
than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is to this day more Roman
than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call themselves by the Roman
name.”[19]
The Roumanians are not only proud of their Roman origin but take
special pleasure in recalling the fact, especially when conversing with
foreigners. “We are,” they will tell you, “neither Slavs, nor Germans,
nor Turks; we are Roumanians.”
Roumania, they will insist, is a Latin islet in the midst of a Slavic
and Finnish ocean which surrounds it. This island when known as Dacia
was in reality a new Italy and its inhabitants were the Italians of the
Danube and the Carpathians. In a recent speech delivered in Rome, the
distinguished Roumanian historian, V. A. Urechia, proudly claimed the
capital of the Cæsars as the mother of his country--“_Nous sommes ici
pour dire à tout le monde que Rome est noire mère._”
A short distance below the ruins of Trajan’s bridge we pass, at the
embouchure of the Timok River, the frontier of Serbia and Bulgaria.
Thenceforward, until we reach the Black Sea, we have Bulgaria on our
right and Roumania on our left. But there is little on either side to
arrest our attention, for the history of this part of the world is
little more than a chronicle of the horrors of warfare and marauding
armies from the time of Alexander the Great. No part of Europe, not
even Belgium or northern Italy, can point to so many battlefields in
the same limited area, and none of the many peoples inhabiting the vast
Danube basin have suffered more than Roumania from the calamities of
war--of the long and bloody struggle between the Cross and the Crescent
for the mastery of this part of Europe.
As I surveyed the broad plains of Bulgaria, I vividly recalled the
thrill of horror that stirred the civilized world when my old friend
and schoolmate, Januarius A. McGahan, of Perry County, Ohio, there
penned his famous letters to the London _Daily News_ on the
Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.[20]
He told the Ottoman authorities that their depredations and carnage
would have to cease forthwith or he would have the Russian army across
the Danube in six months. They laughed him to scorn. But he was as
good as his word. In a brief space of time the Russians, accompanied
by their brave Roumanian allies, were in Bulgaria, and at Plevna and
Shipka Pass the fate of Turkey in this part of Europe was sealed and
the greater portion of the Balkan peoples was at length liberated
from the Turkish yoke. The Russians, under their gallant commander,
Skobeleff, pushed on to San Stefano, within sight of the domes and
minarets of Constantinople. Then, by orders from St. Petersburg,
the conquering general was halted in his course just when Russia’s
long-coveted goal, the capital on the Golden Horn, was within his grasp.
The chivalrous McGahan, whom his distinguished associate, Archibald
Forbes, declared to be the most brilliant war correspondent[21] that
ever lived, was stricken with typhus and after a very brief illness
died in Constantinople, June 10, 1878, in the early bloom of a glorious
manhood. His chief mourner was his bosom friend, the noble Skobeleff,
who, with unfeigned emotion, declared at the grave of his illustrious
friend, whom he loved as a brother, that his heart was interred with
his beloved Januarius and that he had nothing more to live for.
The grateful Bulgarians erected a splendid monument to the memory of
McGahan, whom they recognized as their deliverer from the age-long
domination of the hated Turks. On this monument were inscribed the
words, Januario Aloysio McGahan, Patri Patriæ. Some years later his
remains were transferred to his home town, New Lexington, Ohio, and in
its modest little cemetery is seen above his last resting-place a plain
block of granite which bears beneath the deathless hero’s name the
simple but well-earned tribute--_Liberator of Bulgaria_.
On the left bank of the Danube, slightly northeast of Plevna, is the
little town of Giurgevo, which was founded centuries ago by that
wonderful commercial metropolis, Genoa. Like its great rival, Venice,
it was long celebrated for its commercial and military activities in
the Levant and in the Crimea. But that its merchant princes should have
extended their trade to the lower Danube in that early period when the
navigation of this great river was so difficult and dangerous is indeed
remarkable.
From Giurgevo I made a hasty trip to Bukharest. I did not wish to
pass “The City of Delight,” as the attractive capital of Roumania is
named, without calling on some friends there whom I had not seen in
several years. But neither the capital nor the country was what it had
been but a few years before. A note of sadness, in consequence of the
ravages of the recent war, seemed to dominate the joyful greetings of
an erstwhile happy and pleasure-loving people. It will, I fear, be a
long time before one can again apply to Roumania the epithet--_Dacia
Feli_--Happy Dacia--which it bore in the days of long ago, when it
was one of the most flourishing colonies of the Roman Empire.[22] But
the self-reliant people of Roumania are not depressed or discouraged
by the present condition of their war-tried country. These descendants
of the Dacians, whom the Romans called “the most warlike of men,” have
abiding confidence in their recuperative power and their ability to
make good their claim to an honorable position among the nations of the
civilized world. Their native proverb--_Romanul non père_--The
Roumanian never dies--shows in three words what manner of men they are
and what may be expected of them when they shall have rallied from
the havoc of war and shall again be free to devote themselves to the
stimulating arts of peace.
Among the many things that especially impressed me in Roumania was the
large number of gypsies. In no part of the world, it is said, are they
so numerous in proportion to the population as among the descendants of
the ancient Dacians. The chief reason for this is that these strange,
dark-eyed, music-loving nomads from India have met a kinder reception
here than in other countries, where they have been regarded as pariahs
and often treated with harshness bordering on cruelty.
From Giurgevo to the Black Sea the broad, multi-islanded Danube sweeps
majestically through the ever-expanding, reed-covered lowlands--the
home of many kinds of water-fowl--and the far extending acres devoted
to pasturage and agriculture, which contribute so much to the commerce
and wealth of the Balkan Peninsula. Near the village of Rassova, on
the right bank of the river, we see what remains of Trajan’s wall,
which extends from the Danube to Constanza on the Black Sea. This
earthen rampart was constructed during the Roman occupation of the
country to prevent barbarian incursions into the colonial possessions
of the empire. But, like the wall of Probus, connecting the Danube with
the Rhine, it withstood but a short while the ever-increasing onrush of
the savage hordes from the north.
Not far from this relic of Roman dominion in this part of the world is
the colossal steel railway bridge across the Danube, completed in 1895,
and justly regarded as one of the greatest engineering achievements of
modern times.
At Braila and Galatz--Roumanians great ports of entry--we were greatly
impressed by the activity and enterprise of these flourishing entrepôts
of commerce. But I must confess I was here more impressed by what
tradition declares to be the spot where Darius Hystaspes built a bridge
across the Danube at the time of his famous campaign against the
Scythians, more than five centuries B. C.[23]
And what a war-theater this ill-fated land has been since that far-off
time! Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Trajan, and countless
leaders of barbarian and Turkish hordes have been here or in the
vicinity during the twenty-five centuries that have intervened between
the advent of Darius and his resistless legions. Certain spots of the
earth seem to be perennial battle centers and the land bordering this
part of the Danube, as history shows, is one of the most notable of
them.
It is in this part of the Danube that one begins to have an adequate
idea of the size of this historic waterway and of its transcendent
importance in the mercantile life of Europe. It is surpassed by no
other European river except the Volga. From its source in the lovely
park of Prince Fürstenberg, at Donaueschingen, to where it delivers its
mighty tribute to the Black Sea, the length of the Danube is nearly
eighteen hundred miles--more than two-thirds of that of our famed
Mississippi.
But in the amount and character of the traffic it bears and the number
of people it serves, the Danube is incomparably superior to the
Volga and even to our great “Father of Waters.” The Volga, like the
Mississippi, is only a national river, while the Danube majestically
sweeps through many principalities and kingdoms and empires of Europe
and assures easy relations between regions widely separated. And, as
the Danube in the past has served as the great natural route for the
migrations of nations and the warring hordes of Asia and Europe, so it
is now, more than ever before, one of the world’s great highways of
commerce and industry, and from present indications the day is not far
distant when, economically, it will be the greatest.
The reason for this seemingly paradoxical assertion is not far to
seek. The importance of rivers is not due to their length and volume
of water, but rather to the density of the population on their banks
and to the industrial productivity of the peoples who dwell in their
vicinity. Thus, the Danube not only passes through some of the most
fertile lands in the world, where intensive agriculture is carried to
the highest degree of efficiency, but also facilitates the exchange of
commodities of all kinds between distant nations and delivers supplies
and the necessary raw material to the countless industrial centers of
middle Europe.
Of the affluents of the Danube that are navigable, or large enough to
float rafts, there are more than sixty, while the number of inhabitants
along the course of the Danube alone is more than fifty millions. Add
to this the myriads of people who dwell along its numerous tributaries
and this immense number will be greatly augmented. It will not only far
exceed the number of people who live along the Volga and are benefited
by its traffic, but will also far surpass that of the Mississippi
basin, if it does not indeed equal that of the entire United States.
It was for this reason that Napoleon considered the Danube the king of
rivers and Talleyrand declared that “the center of gravity is not Paris
nor Berlin but the Mouths of the Danube.”[24]
If these two eminent personages were now living they would have much
stronger reasons for entertaining such views than existed a century
ago. For, thanks to the genius of modern engineers, the value of the
Danube as a great commercial highway has been immensely enhanced. By
dredging the canal at the Iron Gate, by jettying the Sulina branch of
the delta and by making innumerable other improvements along the course
of the river, the European Danube Commission, which has had charge for
more than half a century of the betterment of this great international
waterway, has eliminated the dangers to navigation which previously
existed and has made the river navigable for much larger craft than
was before possible. Since the establishment of this International
Commission by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, the amount of traffic
passing through the mouth of the Danube has increased enormously.
According to a recent official report of the Commission, “Sailing Ships
of two hundred tons register have given way to steamers up to four
thousand tons register, carrying a dead weight of nearly eight thousand
tons and good order has succeeded chaos.”[25]
But this is not all. The far-reaching utility of the Danube has been
greatly augmented by the construction of such canals as the one which
connects it with the Tisza, and still more by the famous Ludwig Kanal
which links it with the Rhine. It was a matter of particular pleasure
to the late King Charles of Roumania when the Roumanian flotilla of
gunboats was able, thanks to the Ludwig Kanal, to steam directly from
London to the Black Sea by way of the Rhine and the Danube.
And yet more. When the projected Danube-Salonica Canal, the Danube-Elbe
and the Danube-Oder Canals, both under construction, shall be
completed, the Danube will tap the greatest industrial centers of
middle Europe and will reduce by one-half the trade water route between
the Suez Canal and the ports of the North and Baltic Seas as compared
with the present water route by way of Gibraltar.[26]
Recalling the days when the Danube was controlled by the robber barons
who tenanted the massive castles along its banks, and trade was all
but paralyzed; when Genoese and Venetian merchants sailed their small
craft down its treacherous waters to collect grain from the fertile
fields of Wallachia and hides and furs from the vast plains and
forests of Russia; when it was but a Turkish River as the Black Sea
was but a Turkish Lake, we can better appreciate its various phases of
development during the past and more fully realize the vast expansion
of trade which it has witnessed since its navigation was, in 1856,
declared to be free to all nations. And looking forward to the time
when all the numerous artificial waterways, now projected or nearing
completion, shall extend the arms of the Danube to all the commercial
and industrial metropolises of Central Europe, we can well believe that
historic river will then, from the standpoint of international trade,
be not only the most important river in Europe, but also the most
important in the world. Then, indeed, will this highway of commerce be,
in the words of Napoleon, the king of rivers, and then, too, will be
verified the statement of Tallyrand, if it was not justified when he
made it a century ago, “_Le centre de gravité de l’Europe n’est pas à
Paris, ni à Berlin, mais aux Bouches du Danube_.”[27]