Maidenpek--Well-to-do condition of Servians--Lady Mary Wortley
Montague's journey through Servia--Troubles in Bulgaria--Communists
at Negotin--Copper mines--Forest ride--Robbers on the
road--Kucainia--Belo-breska--Across the Danube--Detention at
customhouse--Weisskirchen--Sleeping Wallacks.
We reached Maidenpek without further mishap, and here I began to make
inquiries again about a horse. I was informed that in some of the
villages farther up I should be sure to find the sort of horse I wanted,
and not sorry for an excuse for exploring the country, I agreed to go,
at the same time getting my friend to join me.
We hired some horses for the expedition, and set off, a party of four:
three Englishmen (for we had picked up a friend at Maidenpek) and a Serb
attendant, who was to act as our guide. He rode a small plucky horse,
being armed with a long Turkish gun slung over his shoulder, while his
belt was stuck full of strange-looking weapons, worthy of an
old-curiosity shop. We were mounted on serviceable little nags, and had
also our revolvers.
The ride was truly enjoyable. We soon left the road, and took our way
along a forest path in Indian file, our picturesque guide leading the
way. The path came to an end before long, and we then followed the
course of a little stream; but as it wound about in a most tortuous
manner we were obliged to be continually crossing and recrossing.
Sometimes we rode through a jungle of reeds, at least eight feet high;
then we had to scramble up a sandy bank. The horses were like cats, and
did their scrambling well; and at rare intervals we found ourselves on a
fair stretch of open lawn which fringes the dense forest. There were
bits here and there which reminded one of Devonshire, where the
luxuriant ferns dipped their waving plumes into the cool waters of the
rocky stream. In the forest, too, there were exquisite fairy-spots,
where, as Spenser says, is found "beauty enregistered in every nook."
After a time the way grew more wild in the character of the scenery, and
at length the route we took was so rough that we had to dismount and
lead our horses up the side of a steep hill. It was tiresome work, for
the heat was intense; but gaining the top, we were rewarded by a grand
view of the Balkan Mountains rising directly south. We ought to have
made out Widdin and a stretch of the Danube at Palanka; but the middle
of the day is the worst time for the details of a distant view.
Shortly after this we arrived at a small uncivilised-looking village.
The men were powerfully built in point of figure, and the women rather
handsome. Both sexes wear picturesque garments. This village, like many
others of the same kind, we found encircled by plum-orchards. Thousands
of barrels of dried plums are sent from Servia every year, not only to
Western Europe, but to America. Besides the consumption of the fruit in
its innocent form of prunes, it is made into the spirit called
_slivovitz_, the curse of Hungary and Roumania.
We made a halt at this village, and sent out a man to look up some
horses. He brought in several, but none of them were strong enough for
my purpose. It was then proposed that we should ride on to the next
village. Here we got dinner but no horses. The meal was very simple but
not unpalatable, finishing up with excellent Turkish coffee.
I am writing now of the _status quo ante bellum_, and I must say I was
struck with the well-to-do aspect of the peasants in Servia. By peasants
I mean the class answering to the German _bauer_. It is true they lack
many things that Western civilisation regards as necessaries; but have
they not had the Turks for their masters far into this century? Turning
over Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letters,[4] there occurs the
following paragraph in her account of a journey through Servia in
1717:--
"We crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite overgrown with wood,
through a country naturally fertile. The inhabitants are industrious;
but the oppression of the peasants is so great, they are forced to
abandon their houses, and neglect their tillage, all they have being a
prey to janissaries whenever they please to seize upon it. We had a
guard of five hundred of them, and I was almost in fears every day to
see their insolencies in the poor villages through which we passed.... I
was assured that the quantity of wine last vintage was so prodigious
that they were forced to dig holes in the earth to put it in. The
happiness of this plenty is scarcely perceived by the oppressed people.
I saw here [Nissa] a new occasion for my compassion. The wretches that
had provided twenty waggons for our baggage from Belgrade hither for a
certain hire being all sent back without payment, some of their horses
lamed, and others killed, without any satisfaction made for them. The
poor fellows came round the house weeping and tearing their hair and
beards in a most pitiable manner, without getting anything but drubs
from the insolent soldiers. I would have paid them the money out of my
own pocket with all my heart, but it would only have been giving so much
to the aga, who would have taken it from them without any remorse....
The villagers are so poor that only force would extort from them
necessary provisions. Indeed the janissaries had no mercy on their
poverty, killing all the poultry and sheep they could find, without
asking to whom they belonged, while the wretched owners durst not put in
their claim for fear of being beaten. When the pashas travel it is yet
worse. These oppressors are not content with eating all that is to be
eaten belonging to the peasants; after they have crammed themselves and
their numerous retinue, they have the impudence to exact what they call
_teeth-money_, a contribution for the use of their teeth, worn with
doing them the honour of devouring their meat."
This is a lively picture of Turkish rule a century and a half ago; it
helps us to understand the saying, "Where the Turk treads, no grass
grows."
The insurrection in Bulgaria had just broken out when I was in Servia: I
cannot say I heard it much talked of; we, none of us, knew then the
significance of the movement. But great uneasiness was felt in reference
to the wide spread of certain communistic doctrines. A disturbance was
stated to have taken place a few days before at Negotin. The foreign
owners of property expressed themselves very seriously alarmed about the
communistic propagandists who were going round the country. No one
seemed certain as to the course events would take.
However--to resume my own simple narrative--after dining in the little
village aforesaid, we set our faces again towards Maidenpek, returning
by another route, which afforded us some very romantic scenery. I
finished the difficulty about the horse by purchasing the one I had
ridden that day. He was smaller than I liked, but he had proved himself
strong and sure footed. I cannot say he was a beauty, but what can one
expect for seventeen ducats--about eight pounds English?
The second day of our stay at Maidenpek was principally devoted to
inspecting some copper mines belonging to an English company. They
appeared to be doing pretty well. We next arranged to ride over to
Kucainia, a place some twenty-five miles off. It was settled that we
were to start at seven o'clock in the morning, but a dense white fog
obliterated the outer world--we might have been on the verge of Nowhere.
It was more than two hours before the fog lifted sufficiently to enable
us to proceed. We went on our way some three miles when a drenching
shower came on, and we took shelter in the cavernous interior of an
enormous, half-ruined oak-tree. Natural decay and the pickaxes of the
woodman seeking fuel for his camp-fire had hollowed out a comfortable
retreat from the storm. Surrounding the tree was a bed of wild
strawberries, which helped to beguile the time. When at length the
clouds cleared away, we resumed our saddles with dry jackets. But, as it
turned out, the half-hour we spent under the tree lost us the chance of
some fun.
I must remark that our road lay the whole way through a majestic forest.
We were actually on the highroad to Belgrade, yet in many places it was
nothing more than a grass-drive with trees on either side. Looking some
way ahead when we found ourselves on a track of this kind, we observed
in the distance two men on horseback standing their horses in the middle
of the road, apparently waiting for some one to pass. One of the
fellows, armed with the usual long Turkish gun, seeing our approach,
came forward as if to meet us. We instinctively looked to our revolvers,
but as he came up we saw that the stranger on the black horse (he must
have been _once_ a splendid roadster) had no sinister intentions upon
us. It turned out that he was the pope from a neighbouring village. He
was in a great state of excitement, but shook hands with us all round
before uttering a word. He then told us that the diligence from Belgrade
had been stopped only half an hour ago by five brigands at the bottom of
the very hill we had just passed. The booty was by no means
insignificant. The robbers had made off with 7000 florins in gold; but
what seemed rather significant was the statement that though the driver
and the conductor of the diligence were both well armed, they had
offered but little or no resistance. They declared they were overpowered
by numbers. If there had been a shot fired we certainly must have heard
it.
Later we ascertained that the money belonged to the copper-mining
company at Maidenpek; the loss was not theirs, however, as the
Government would have to reimburse it. It was just like our ill-luck to
wait out of the shower; but for that delay we should have come in for
the affray. I have my doubts as to whether our assistance would have
been particularly welcome to the driver of the diligence. Robbery on the
highroad is a capital offence in Servia.[5]
Arriving at the next village, we found the whole place in a hubbub and
commotion. The men were arming and collecting horses. We went straight
to the post-office to hear the rights of the story; the facts were
mainly as I have related them. The excitement appeared to increase as
the crowd flocked in from the fields. Horses were being saddled, powder
served out, and arrangements made for a systematic battue of the
robbers. After amusing ourselves by watching the warlike preparations,
we rode on to Kucainia.
We were hospitably received by a fellow-countryman who is working the
mines there. We did justice to his capital dinner, and told our robber
story, which our host capped with the rumours of a communistic rising
down south.
After a short stay at Kucainia, we made arrangements for returning over
the Danube; but this time we proposed to strike the river at
Belo-breska, higher up than Milanovacz. We had dropped our other friend,
so H---- and I hired a light cart for the thirty miles to Belo-breska,
my new horse meanwhile being tied on behind, and so we jogged along. The
road was good, but, like the good people in Thackeray's novels, totally
uninteresting. We drove continually through fields of maize--I say
_through_ the fields, for there was no hedge or fence anywhere. The soil
appeared to be splendidly fertile and well cultivated.
Arrived at Belo-breska, our object was to get across the Danube, and
luckily we found a large flat-bottomed boat used for cattle. The owner
demanded a ducat (about nine shillings) for taking us across. I thought
it a monstrous charge, but the fellow had us in his power. I do not
think the Servians are much liked by those who have to do business with
them. From all I heard, Canning's lines about the sharp practice of some
nearer neighbours would apply very well to the Servians:--
"In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little, and asking too much."
No sooner had we landed on the Hungarian side of the river than up came
a customhouse official, who informed me that I must pay duty for my
horse. Of course, as a law-respecting Briton, I was ready enough to
comply; but the fellow could not tell me what the charge was, saying his
chief was absent, and might not be back for some hours.
This was exasperating to the last degree; the more so that it seemed so
stupid that the man left in charge could not consult a tariff of taxes,
or elicit from the villagers some information. He was stolidly
obstinate, and refused to let my horse go at any price, though I offered
him what H---- and I both thought a reasonable number of florins for the
horse-duty. In less than ten minutes I had worked myself into a rage--a
foolish thing to do with the thermometer at 96° in the shade; but H----
was provokingly calm, which irritated me still more. There is an old
French verse which, rendered into English, says--
"Some of your griefs you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived;
But what torments of pain you endured
From evils that never arrived!"
Now, a little patience would have saved me a useless ebullition of
temper. While I was still at white-heat up came the head official;
removing the cigar from his lips with Oriental dignity and deliberation,
he calmly answered my question, and having paid the money we went our
way.
Our design was now to get to Weisskirchen, and sleep there, that place
being the only decent quarters within reach. Our road was over the
mountains--a lonely pass of ill repute. Several persons had been stopped
and robbed in these parts quite recently. The Government had formerly a
small guardhouse at the top of the pass; but it has been deserted since
1867, when the district ceased to be maintained as the Military
Frontier. Since that time crime has been very much on the increase all
along the border-country. The lawlessness that is rampant at the
extremities of the kingdom shows a weakness in the Central Government
which is very reprehensible. But for this laxity on the borders, the
recent Szeckler conspiracy for making a raid on the Russian railway
could never have been projected.
We arrived all right at Weisskirchen, which was good-luck considering
the chances of an upset in the darkness, for night had overtaken us long
before our drive was half over. Thoroughly tired, we were glad enough to
draw up in the innyard, the same I had visited some weeks before; but
great was our disgust at being told that there was not a bed to be
had--every room was taken. We drove on to inn No. 2, where they had beds
but no supper. We were nearly starving, for we had had nothing to eat
since the morning, so back we had to go to No. 1 to procure supper. When
this important meal was finished, we had to make the return journey once
more. The streets were perfectly dark, and it was an affair of no small
difficulty to find our way. It happened to me that I stepped into
something soft and bumpy. I could not conceive what it was. I made a
long step forward, thinking to clear the obstacle, but I only stumbled
into another soft and bumpy thing. Was it a flock of sheep lying packed
together? The skins of the sheep were there, it is true, but as covering
for the forms of prostrate Wallacks. A lot of these fellows, wrapped in
their cloaks, were sleeping huddled together at the side of the street.
I found afterwards that this is a common practice with these people. The
wonderful _bunda_ is a cloak by day and a house by night.
[Footnote 4: Letters and Works, edited by Lord Wharncliffe, 1837, p.
351, 359.]
[Footnote 5: The robbers were subsequently taken and executed.]