THE GREEK HERMITAGE OF BUCSECS.
In consequence of its proximity to Turkey, Kronstadt wears an almost
Eastern look, while, lying as it does between mountains that separate
Transylvania from Wallachia, its position is exceedingly picturesque,
its walls and towers and bristling spires standing out against a
background of green. It is a bustling town, full of life and animation,
a considerable trade being carried on between it and Moldavia and
Wallachia in articles manufactured in the district, from which cause
Kronstadt is frequently called the “Transylvanian Manchester.”
Its population, which consists of about 50,000 souls, is, like that
of many other parts of Hungary, “mixed,” and the stranger, as he
walks the streets, is jostled, not only by the canny “Saxon” and wily
Székler, the cunning Jew, and the polished Greek, but by the demure and
smooth-faced Armenian, likewise the “Quaker of the East.”
If everything in Hermannstadt reminds one of the “life and times” of
Albert Dürer, how much more does Kronstadt, in spite of its polyglot
population and Eastern habits. What curious old passages, staircases,
and galleries are there, and strong buttresses, gateways, and towers
which seem to be enclosing prison walls!
In the old quarter no two houses are alike. There are high ones
against which small “leans-to” are clinging like barnacles against a
ship’s side, whilst others seem to have thrown out bulbs and bulbous
protuberances like miniature reproductions of themselves, and there is
a hopeless and bewildering medley of masonry everywhere.
In this neighbourhood, as in Hermannstadt, the churches are surrounded
by high battlemented walls and other means of defence against the wild
Moslem hordes, which, pouring in through the passes of the south-east
Carpathians, once swept over the smiling plains of Kronstadt. In the
quaint little suburban villages we are reminded of those of the Sieben
Gebirge on the Rhine, their heavy stillness being full of the poetry of
the middle ages.
In one of these villages it was also our fate to spend Sunday. As the
great bell began to toll for _Gottesdienst_, the people pour out
of the massive oak doorways of the houses as from old picture-frames,
the women in their high, drum-shaped, black velvet hats, and the men
in quaint leathern sleeveless jerkins and small clothes precisely like
those worn in England in the 17th century.
On many of the houses in these villages, painted in large German
characters above the doors or windows, and sometimes stretching across
the whole length of the house, are appropriate verses of Scripture,
such as the following: “The Lord bless thy going out and thy coming
in.” “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build
it;” whilst on a barn where corn was housed, we read the words, “The
earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” and on a house at the
entrance to the village were the words, “Except the Lord keep the
city, the watchman waketh but in vain,”--all testifying to the devout
minds of the inhabitants. But let us follow them into the old church,
and taking our seats on the benches that are arranged, one side for
the men, the other for women, await the commencement of the Lutheran
service. The sermon, happily for us, on this occasion is in “High
German.” The preacher, a funny little man of unusual volubility of
speech for one of the Teuton race, takes for his subject the “Peace of
Heaven.” No sooner had the hymn ceased and the sermon begun, than, with
one accord, the old men and women deliberately folded their arms and
went off into a comfortable doze!
Within the pulpit, as in many old Roman Catholic churches, were several
steps, and the preacher, beginning his sermon on the lowest, mounts
one by one as he warms to his subject. In olden times it would seem to
have been the custom for these “Saxon” grandsires and grandams to fall
victims to slumber, for in the ancient archives of their church are
rules framed when they first settled in the land, one of which imposes
a penalty of eight kreuzers--a large sum in those days--on any one who
should fall asleep during Divine service--a rule that would, however,
seem to be relaxed in these degenerate days.
Presently, whilst the other sleepers maintained rigid silence, an old
goody clad in a black cloth cloak of mediæval pattern, and sitting on
a bench immediately before me, began to snore, an occasion which was
“improved” by a younger woman, who, by a series of strong-minded and
well-directed pokes with her elbow, endeavoured to keep the offender
awake. These demonstrations, however, had no effect, beyond that of
arousing her for the moment. Raising her heavy eyelids and fixing them
upon the region of the pulpit, her head soon drooped upon her chest
again.
The preacher, as he advanced in his discourse, grew more eloquent.
He stood on the topmost step, and leaning over the side looked down
upon the sleepers. “The peace of Heaven? Ah, yes! But not for you who
slander and defraud your neighbour”--turning his head in the direction
of the high-backed canopied seats, where sat the lay dignitaries of the
church;--“not for you who spend your time in idle talk, in dancing and
at _Fests_,” regarding this time the young girls seated demurely
in the chancel with their floating ribbons and drum-shaped hats;--“not
for you-a-a-ah! not for you, and you, and you, and you,”--pointing each
time to an individual still in a state of somnolency, “who waste the
golden moments in this sacred place by yielding to slumber.”
This homethrust was evidently more than the strong-minded female could
endure; for, giving her neighbour an indignant protest with her elbow,
she exclaimed in no gentle tone--
“_Erwachet!_ (Awake!) The Herr Pfarrer is talking to you.”
Thus aroused, the sleepers--accustomed only to the sonorous
ejaculations of the preacher--suddenly awake, and there is a general
stir throughout the little congregation, during which the sermon
happily draws to a close.
The following morning, bidding adieu to Kronstadt, we started for the
Castle of Terzburg and the Greek Hermitage of Bucsecs, situated in the
most south-eastern portion of Transylvania. We are now so near the
Fogaras Mountains that they appear within a stone’s throw, their noble
buttresses and steep sides scoured by a thousand watercourses, showing
rugged in the sunlit portions, and blue, deep, and mysterious in the
shadows.
Towards noon, passing through a forest, a family of gipsies pounce out
upon us unexpectedly, and follow our carriage, turning somersaults,
hopping on one leg, and performing other gymnastic exercises, with the
view to attract our attention whilst keeping pace with us, one and
all looking so inhuman with their dark skin and matted hair that they
might have been demons of the woods. As we near a village, others come
pouring out of a nest of huts on its outskirts, who, joining the first
company, hold out their little hands for kreuzers, and clutch them when
bestowed with a greed as if each had been an infant miser and every
coin had been of sterling gold.
The whole of the plains here are cultivated with hemp, flax, poppies,
buckwheat, and tobacco, and seem a beauteous garden; the deep crimson
and purple of the poppies, tender blue of the flax, delicate pink of
the buckwheat, and yellow flower of the colza forming a wonderful
harmony of colour in the brilliant atmosphere; whilst here and there in
the uncultivated portions a herd of black buffaloes idly browsing give
quite an Eastern appearance to the scene.
Here, as in the Tátra, Slavonia, and other parts of Hungary, many of
the forests have been either cut or burnt down, but nowhere could we
detect signs of replanting, and the romantic name of this beautiful
country--Transylvania--will soon cease to be appropriate unless some
counteracting influences are brought to bear against such reckless
spoliation.
The castles in Hungary are very interesting, and, like those of the
Robber Knights of old, are almost invariably perched on the summit
of some inaccessible mountain or high pinnacle of rock, where the
dwellers could defy all foes. The village of Terzburg, situated on the
extreme confines of Transylvania, is of the most barbarous description,
inhabited solely by herdsmen and their families, who graze their cattle
on the mountains. The castle or fortress, which, with its many turrets
and towers, is a mixture of the Byzantine and Gothic architecture,
stands on the topmost ridge of an isolated rock commanding the pass
into Wallachia, and was originally garrisoned by a military religious
Order of Teutonic Knights. It is approached by a steep pathway, the
interior of the castle being entered by a small postern under the tower
now reached by a wooden staircase, but in ancient time by a movable
ladder.
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Anything more wild and romantic than the position of the castle cannot
be conceived, its accessories reminding the spectator of the nursery
tales of his childhood--of Bluebeard and Giant Despair. Inside there
are grim passages, trap-doors, and yawning depths, all bearing silent
witness to the troublous times when these borders were invaded by the
Tartar and the Turk.
In order to make the excursion to and from the Greek Hermitage in
one day, it was necessary we should sleep at Terzburg this and the
following night; but to bivouac in the “open” with so barbarous and
formidable a folk as the Terzburger herdsmen was a thing we had by no
means bargained for in our travels; András, however, apostrophising his
favourite deity--assured us, “_der Teufel!_” that they were not
a bad “_Herrschaft_”, if we only knew how to take them; and at
once made friends with them by enlisting their services in procuring
wood for our camp-fire, after which, having learnt many useful lessons
from the gipsies, we soon erected the orthodox tripod, and cooked our
evening meal whilst the setting sun was blazing on the castle walls.
Although the day had been extremely hot and sultry the evening air
was chill, and crouching round our cheery camp-fire we watch the
night creeping silently over the hills and upon the castle walls till
they stand out black against the sky. Then, wrapping ourselves in
our _bundas_, we follow with our gaze the stars on their silent
track through space, and note how some burn red to the very verge of
the horizon, while others rise above it but to set again, like those
dear ones who come on earth to bless us for awhile, and then leave
us with nought but their shining pathway to tell us whither they are
gone. Suddenly out of the deep blue zenith shines forth one of those
strange visitants of our firmament, a shooting-star. With inconceivable
velocity the fiery traveller took its course from east to west and
then vanished into space.
Night had far advanced ere we laid our weary limbs to rest within
the shelter of the carriage, which, like our own old friend, was
constructed to permit of our lying in it at full length. How strange
it was to be listening to the soft and gentle noises outside, the
mysterious rustlings of insects in the grass, and the muffled sound
of voices proceeding from the huts, in which lights are flickering
here and there, but we slept soundly and did not awake till a loud
_Alpenhorn_ blown by some muscular herdsman aroused the echoes of
the dawn.
András was already up, and had not only made a fire but was preparing
breakfast for us on the dewy green-sward, his figure, weird and
mysterious in the dim light, looking like some _Erd-Männchen_ as
it moved about. From out the veil above the stars were shining feebly,
and blinking like the weary eyes of persons who have been keeping vigil
all the night. The air which fans our cheeks comes fresh and moist from
its bath of dew, and there is everywhere around a succession of small,
tremulous, and intermittent sounds like those of living creatures
roused from a state of inaction into new life.
The sun was rising, and, like a row of mighty altar-fires, glowed the
snowy pinnacles of the Transylvanian Alps, as, mounting our mules, we
started on our journey, one of the Terzburg herdsmen accompanying us in
the capacity of guide.
Like the Northern Carpathians, those of the south also are
characterised by dense forests and narrow gorges. Our path, formed by
the dry bed of a watercourse, was stony and difficult, but we soon
entered a forest of pines, through whose tall straight stems the snowy
peaks could here and there be seen glistening like silver. At length,
making our way along the rocky sides of a mountain--our path often
scarcely more than two feet wide--we looked down upon a dark and narrow
valley filled with black pines, from which wreaths of vapour were
ascending as from a huge cauldron.
Reaching the Wallachian frontier-post on the edge of the mountain, we
have a splendid panorama, and look down not only upon Burzen-land--as
the country round Kronstadt is called, on account of the river Burzen
which flows through it--but likewise on a portion of Szeklerland with
its sombre pine-clad mountains.
In an hour’s time, and after a most fatiguing ride, far exceeding
in difficulty any of our equestrian experiences in the Snowy Tátra,
we find ourselves at the bottom of a valley terminating in a narrow
gorge, the rocks of which assume all the appearance of cliffs. On the
highest pinnacle of one of the rocks stands a wooden cross, whilst
another erected a little above the pathway indicates the approach to
the cave. Entering the gate of a small enclosure surrounded by a paling
of pine-logs, we ascended the narrow zigzag path, and soon caught
sight of one of the hermits in his long loose toga and high cap, who,
having heard our voices, had wandered out to see who could be coming to
profane these sacred solitudes.
Greeting us in Wallachian, he conducted us to a small door in a wall
built to enclose the entrance to the cave, passing which we found
ourselves standing in the gloomy recesses where, screened from the
light of day, these poor hermits spend their lives.
The cave, which is between sixty and seventy feet high and three
hundred long, contains a small Greek church and two rows of buildings
divided into cells, eight being the full number of the little band when
all are there. At the time of our visit two were “itinerising” in the
neighbouring districts in quest of food--for these brethren of the Holy
Cross live entirely on charity.
Though the cavern is large, the atmosphere, from the absence of
ventilation, was exceedingly damp, the walls in many were dripping, and
we were soon glad to return to the open air.
How suitable is the spot chosen by these hermits for their seclusion!
Shut in on all sides by lofty cliffs and pine-clad mountains which
almost shut out the sky, they are indeed separated from the outer
world; whilst the complete stillness and gloom of their surroundings
naturally favour contemplation. No sound is heard save the murmur of a
waterfall plashing from rock to rock as it comes foaming and tumbling
down a narrow gorge, and now and then the scream of an eagle as
circling over head it settles on some lofty crag.
After wandering about in the vicinity of the cavern for half an
hour, sounds reach us, the meaning of which we had previously been
taught, and, hastily returning to the little community, we find one
of the hermits striking a wooden hammer against a board to announce
to the brethren the hour of worship. Occasionally, facing the east,
he prostrated himself to the earth, and then, walking round and round
the church, continued his hammering, while repeating some prayer in an
undertone as though he had been uttering an incantation or weaving a
mystic spell.
Entering the dark little edifice, which contained anything but the
odour of sanctity, we stood awaiting the commencement of the service.
There were the usual genuflexions and painful bowings to the earth that
are invariably seen in Greek churches, but the chanting of those holy
men was the most barbarous thing I ever heard or could have imagined
possible even in my wildest dreams. Two were exceedingly decrepit, with
long white hair and flowing beards. These hermits belong to the Order
of St. Basil and follow the rules of that fraternity, and it was very
painful to witness the evident difficulty with which they accommodated
their enfeebled and stiffened limbs to the various postures imposed by
the Greek rite.
After leaving the church we were conducted to one of the cells in which
a small oil-lamp was burning, but so feebly that it did little else
than render its immediate surroundings dimly visible--a small brown
and well-worn crucifix standing on a bracket against the wall, a few
dark-coloured pictures of saints, the narrow pallet at the side, and a
gourd and leathern bottle hanging from a nail being all the furniture
it possessed.
In the centre of the cavern a fire was burning on the ground, over
which was an iron pot, suspended from a tripod, containing a kind of
porridge made of Indian corn; whilst in a little three-legged earthen
pot, here called a _labos_, which stood on the red-hot ashes, some
edible fungus was being cooked.
The hermits were very hospitable, and produced from their larder wild
cherries, strawberries, and a kind of sloe, pressing us to partake with
them their homely fare. We had brought provisions with us, however,
and amongst other things a roasted chicken, which we offered them
in return, and which was not only gratefully received but eagerly
devoured in our presence. It is seldom these poor monks get anything
better to eat than _mamaliga_, black-bread--which they make
themselves--together with the roots, fruit, and wild honey which in
summer they manage to find on the surrounding hills; their drink the
milk of goats. Occasionally the Wallachian shepherds bring them fresh
food, but only during a few months in summer, as, during two-thirds of
the year, these exiles from humanity are cut off from all communication
with their fellows, the passes being blocked by snow. There was
something very sad not only in the thought of the complete isolation of
these poor men and their self-imposed exile, but in the uselessness of
their lives and the mistaken zeal which prompts them to renounce the
world and their share in its cares and toils for the love of Him who
“_went about_ doing good.”
[Illustration]
A _douceur_ of five gulden being put into the unwashed palm of a
grey-headed old hermit, and our animals sufficiently rested, we take
our leave of the brethren, and, ascending the valley, are glad to feel
once more the warmth of the blessed sun, which seldom or never visits
the lonely hermits’ caves.
Though the days were long, the sun had set upon the castle walls, and
the last golden gleam had faded in the west, ere we again neared the
village of Terzburg, the distant smoke of fires where the ruthless
Wallachs were burning down the forest trees showing against the purple
ridges of the hills like that from burning craters.
The herdsmen, who by this time had begun to take quite a proprietary
interest in us all, turned out _en masse_ to welcome our return.
A large fire was blazing near our carriage, and during our absence
they had made for us a _Laubhütte_, or hut of boughs, in the
construction of which these hill Wallachs, who are essentially a nomad
people, are great adepts; whilst some fish caught in a neighbouring
stream, eggs, buffalo cream, and delicious honey were also provided for
our repast by these hospitable but uncanny-looking herdsmen.
In these Transylvanian streams and rivers fish abounds, not only
salmon-trout of enormous size, but grayling also, and the angler would
here find ample food for his rod.
As night wears on clouds dim the empyrean, and in addition to their
fires some of the herdsmen--possibly in our honour--light torches made
of resinous pine-wood, which add not a little to the wildness of the
scene, as, with curious lamb’s wool caps and knives stuck in their
belts, they flit to and fro, now standing out black against the fires,
and now disappearing again into the mysterious outer circle of darkness
like demons of unrest rather than peaceful shepherds guarding their
flocks.
A soft bed of leaves with which the Wallachs had lined our hut
rendered it a very dry and comfortable abode for the night. Throwing
one glance around us through the impromptu doorway of freshly-cut
branches, we see that our neighbours, the herdsmen, have already
delivered themselves up to the slumber-god. All have retired within
their dwelling, and the fires themselves, sending up a blaze now
and then by way of expiring effort, are fast dying out. Our wild
_entourage_, however, is anything but provocative of sleep, and
the great silence, broken only now and again by the harsh scream of a
night-bird, becomes eloquent, as the “voices of the night,” now that
human speech is hushed, come whispering on the air like dim echoes from
the far-off unknown land. At midnight the wind rises high and threatens
the stability of our little habitation; whilst a ladder placed against
one of the herdsmen’s huts falls with a loud clatter and awakens all
the sleepers.
The morning broke amidst heavy clouds and threatening rain, but at
seven o’clock, our camp-breakfast partaken of and our coachman punctual
for once, we are once more bowling along towards Western Transylvania.
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