Leave Widdin.--The Timok.--Enter Servia.--Brza Palanka.--The Iron
Gates.--Old and New Orsova.--Wallachian Matron.--Semlin.--A
Conversation on Language.
I left Widdin for the Servian frontier, in a car of the country, with
a couple of horses, the ground being gently undulated, but the
mountains to the south were at a considerable distance. On our right,
agreeable glimpses of the Danube presented themselves from time to
time. In six hours we arrived at the Timok, the river that separates
Servia from Bulgaria. The only habitation in the place was a log-house
for the Turkish custom-house officer. We were more than an hour in
getting our equipage across the ferry, for the long drought had so
reduced the water, that the boat was unable to meet the usual
landing-place by at least four feet of steep embankment; in vain did
the horses attempt to mount the acclivity; every spring was followed
by a relapse, and at last one horse sunk jammed in between the ferry
boat and the bank; so that we were obliged to loose the harness, send
the horses on shore, and drag the dirty car as we best could up the
half dried muddy slope. At last we succeeded, and a smart trot along
the Danube brought us to the Servian lazaretto, which was a new
symmetrical building, the promenade of which, on the Danube, showed an
attempt at a sort of pleasure-ground.
I entered at sunset, and next morning on showing my tongue to the
doctor, and paying a fee of one piastre (twopence) was free, and again
put myself in motion. Lofty mountains seemed to rise to the west, and
the cultivated plain now became broken into small ridges, partly
covered with forest trees. The ploughing oxen now became rarer; but
herds of swine, grubbing at acorns and the roots of bushes, showed
that I was changing the scene, and making the acquaintance not only
of a new country, but of a new people. The peasants, instead of having
woolly caps and frieze clothes as in Bulgaria, all wore the red fez,
and were dressed mostly in blue cloth; some of those in the villages
wore black glazed caps; and in general the race appeared to be
physically stronger and nobler than that which I had left. The
Bulgarians seemed to be a set of silent serfs, deserving (when not
roused by some unusual circumstance) rather the name of machines than
of men: these Servian fellows seemed lazier, but all possessed a
manliness of address and demeanour, which cannot be discovered in the
Bulgarian.
Brza Palanka, at which we now arrived, is the only Danubian port which
the Servians possess, below the Iron Gates; consequently, the only one
which is in uninterrupted communication with Galatz and the sea. A
small Sicilian vessel, laden with salt, passed into the Black Sea, and
actually ascended the Danube to this point, which is within a few
hours of the Hungarian frontier. As we approached the Iron Gates, the
valley became a mere gorge, with barely room for the road, and
fumbling through a cavernous fortification, we soon came in sight of
the Austro-Hungarian frontier.
_New_ Orsova, one of the few remaining retreats of the Turks in
Servia, is built on an island, and with its frail houses of yawning
rafters looks very _old_. Old Orsova, opposite which we now arrived,
looked quite _new_, and bore the true German type of formal
white-washed houses, and high sharp ridged roofs, which called up
forthwith the image of a dining-hall, where, punctually as the
village-clock strikes the hour of twelve, a fair-haired, fat,
red-faced landlord, serves up the soup, the _rindfleisch_, the
_zuspeise_, and all the other dishes of the holy Roman empire to the
Platz Major, the Haupt-zoll-amt director, the Kanzlei director, the
Concepist, the Protocollist, and _hoc genus omne_.
After a night passed in the quarantine, I removed to the inn, and
punctually as the clock struck half past twelve, the very party my
imagination conjured up, assembled to discuss the _mehlspeise_ in the
stencilled parlour of the Hirsch.
Favoured by the most beautiful weather, I started in a sort of caleche
for Dreucova. The excellent new macadamized road was as smooth as a
bowling-green, and only a lively companion was wanting to complete the
exhilaration of my spirits.
My fair fellow-traveller was an enormously stout Wallachian matron, on
her way to Vienna, to see her _daughter_, who was then receiving her
education at a boarding-school. I spoke no Wallachian, she spoke
nothing but Wallachian; so our conversation was carried on by my
attempting to make myself understood alternately by the Italian, and
the Spanish forms of Latin.
"_Una bella Campagna_," said I, as we drove out Orsova.
"_Bella, bella_?" said the lady, evidently puzzled.
So I said, "_Hermosa_."
"_Ah! formosa; formosa prate_," repeated the lady, evidently
understanding that I meant a fine country.
"_Deunde venut_?" Whence have you come?
"Constantinopolis;" and so on we went, supposing that we understood
each other, she supplying me with new forms of bastard Latin words,
and adding with a smile, _Romani_, or Wallachian, as the language and
people of Wallachia are called by themselves. It is worthy of remark,
that the Wallachians and a small people in Switzerland, are the only
descendants of the Romans, that still designate their language as that
of the ancient mistress of the world.
As I rolled along, the fascinations of nature got the better of my
gallantry; the discourse flagged, and then dropped, for I found myself
in the midst of the noblest river scenery I had ever beheld, certainly
far surpassing that of the Rhine, and Upper Danube. To the gloom and
grandeur of natural portals, formed of lofty precipitous rocks,
succeeds the open smiling valley, the verdant meadows, and the distant
wooded hills, with all the soft and varied hues of autumn. Here we
appear to be driving up the avenues of an English park; yonder, where
the mountain sinks sheer into the river, the road must find its way
along an open gallery, with a roof weighing millions of tons,
projecting from the mountain above.
After sunset we arrived at Dreucova, and next morning went on board
the steamer, which conveyed me up the Danube to Semlin. The lower town
of Semlin is, from the exhalations on the banks of the river,
frightfully insalubrious, but the cemetery enjoys a high and airy
situation. The people in the town die off with great rapidity; but, to
compensate for this, the dead are said to be in a highly satisfactory
state of preservation. The inns here, once so bad, have greatly
improved; but mine host, zum Golden Lowen, on my recent visits, always
managed to give a very good dinner, including two sorts of savoury
game. I recollect on a former visit, going to another inn, and found
in the dining-room an individual, whose ruddy nose, and good-humoured
nerveless smile, denoted a fondness for the juice of the grape, and
seitel after seitel disappeared with rapidity. By-the-bye, old father
Danube is as well entitled to be represented with a perriwig of grapes
as his brother the Rhine. Hungary in general, has a right merry
bacchanalian climate. Schiller or Symian wine is in the same parallel
of latitude as Claret, Oedenburger as Burgundy, and a line run
westwards from Tokay would almost touch the vineyards of Champagne.
Csaplovich remarks in his quaint way, that the four principal wines of
Hungary are cultivated by the four principal nations in it. That is to
say, the Slavonians cultivate the Schiller, Germans the Oedenburger
and Ruster, Magyars and Wallachians the Menesher. Good Schiller is the
best Syrmian wine. But I must return from this digression to the guest
of the Adler. On hearing that I was an Englishman, he expressed a wish
to hear as much of England as possible, and appeared thunderstruck,
when I told him that London had nearly two millions of inhabitants,
being four hundred thousand more than the population of the whole of
the Banat. This individual had of course learned five languages with
his mother's milk, and therefore thought that the inhabitants of such
a country as England must know ten at least. When I told him that the
majority of the people in England knew nothing but English, he said,
somewhat contemptuously, "O! you told me the fair side of the English
character: but you did not tell me that the people was so ignorant."
He then good-humouredly warned me against practising on his credulity.
I pointed out how unnecessary other languages were for England itself;
but that all languages could be learned in London.
"Can Wallachian be learned in London?"
"I have my doubts about Wallachian, but"--
"Can Magyar be learned in London?"
"I suspect not."
"Can Servian be learnt in London?"
"I confess, I don't think that any body in London teaches Servian;
but"--
"There again, you travellers are always making statements unfounded on
fact. I have mentioned three leading languages, and nobody in your
city knows anything about them."