Rich Soil.--Mysterious Waters.--Treaty of Passarovitz.--The Castle of
Semendria--Relics of the Antique.--The Brankovitch
Family.--Pancsova.--Morrison's Pills.
The soil at Posharevatz is remarkably rich, the greasy humus being
from fifteen to twenty-five feet thick, and consequently able to
nourish the noblest forest trees. In the Banat, which is the granary
of the Austrian empire, trees grow well for fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five years, and then die away. The cause of this is, that the
earth, although rich, is only from three to six feet thick, with sand
or cold clay below; thus as soon as the roots descend to the
substrata, in which they find no nourishment, rottenness appears on
the top branches, and gradually descends.
At Kruahevitza, not very far from Pasharevatz, is a cave, which is, I
am told, entered with difficulty, into the basin of which water
gradually flows at intervals, and then disappears, as the doctor of
the place (a Saxon) told me, with an extraordinary noise resembling
the molar rumble of railway travelling. This spring is called
Potainitza, or the mysterious waters.
Posharevatz, miscalled Passarowitz, is historically remarkable, as the
place where Prince Eugene, in 1718, after his brilliant victories of
the previous year, including the capture of Belgrade, signed, with the
Turks, the treaty which gave back to the house of Austria not only the
whole of Hungary, but added great part of Servia and Little Wallachia,
as far as the Aluta. With this period began the Austrian rule in
Servia, and at this time the French fashioned Lange Gasse of Belgrade
rose amid the "swelling domes and pointed minarets of the white
eagle's nest."[17]
Several quaint incidents had recalled this period during my tour. For
instance, at Manasia, I saw rudely engraven on the church wall,--
Wolfgang Zastoff,
Kaiserlicher Forst-Meister im Maidan.
Die 1 Aug. 1721.
Semendria is three hours' ride from Posharevatz; the road crosses the
Morava, and everywhere the country is fertile, populous, and well
cultivated. Innumerable massive turrets, mellowed by the sun of a
clear autumn, and rising from wide rolling waters, announced my
approach to the shores of the Danube. I seemed entering one of those
fabled strong holds, with which the early Italian artists adorned
their landscapes. If Semendria be not the most picturesque of the
Servian castles of the elder period, it is certainly by far the most
extensive of them. Nay, it is colossal. The rampart next the Danube
has been shorn of its fair proportions, so as to make it suit the
modern art of war. Looking at Semendria from one of the three land
sides, you have a castle of Ercole di Ferrara; looking at it from the
water, you have the boulevard of a Van der Meulen.
The Natchalnik accompanied me in a visit to the fortress, protected
from accident by a couple of soldiers; for the castle of Semendria is
still, like that of Shabatz, in the hands of a few Turkish spahis and
their families. The news from Shabatz having produced a alight
ferment, we found several armed Moslems at the gate; but they did not
allow the Servians to pass, with the exception of the Natchalnik and
another man. "This is new," said he; "I never knew them to be so wary
and suspicious before." We now found ourselves within the walls of the
fortress. A shabby wooden _cafe_ was opposite to us; a mosque of the
same material rose with its worm-eaten carpentry to our right. The
cadi, a pompous vulgar old man, now met us, and signified that we
might as well repose at his chardak, but from inhospitality or
fanaticism, gave us neither pipes nor coffee. His worship was so
proud, that he scarcely deigned to speak. The Disdar Aga, a somewhat
more approximative personage, now entered the tottering chardak, (the
carpenters of Semendria seem to have emigrated _en masse_,) and
proffered himself as Cicerone of the castle.
Mean and abominable huts, with patches of garden ground filled up the
space inclosed by the gorgeous ramparts and massive towers of
Semendria. The further we walked the nobler appeared the last relic of
the dotage of old feudal Servia. In one of the towers next the Danube
is a sculptured Roman tombstone. One graceful figure points to a
sarcophagus, close to which a female sits in tears; in a word, a
remnant of the antique--of that harmony which dies not away, but
swells on the finer organs of perception.
"_Eski, Eski_. Very old," said the Disdar Aga, who accompanied me.
"It is Roman," said I.
"_Roumgi_?" said he, thinking I meant _Greek_.
"No, _Latinski_," said a third, which is the name usually given to
_Roman_ remains.
As at Sokol and Ushitza, I was not permitted to enter the inner
citadel;[18] so, returning to the gate, where we were rejoined by the
soldiers, we went to the fourth tower, on the left of the Stamboul
Kapu, and looking up, we saw inserted and forming part of the wall, a
large stone, on which was cut, in _basso rilievo_, a figure of Europa
reposing on a bull. Here was no fragile grace, as in the other figure;
a few simple lines bespoke the careless hardihood of antique art.
The castle of Semendria was built in 1432, by the Brankovitch, who
succeeded the family of Knes Lasar as _despots_, or native rulers of
Servia, under the Turks; and the construction of this enormous pile
was permitted by their masters, under the pretext of the strengthening
of Servia against the Hungarians. The last of these _despots_ of
Servia was George Brankovitch, the historian, who passed over to
Austria, was raised to the dignity of a count; and after being kept
many years as a state prisoner, suspected of secret correspondence
with the Turks, died at Eger, in Bohemia, in 1711. The legitimate
Brankovitch line is now extinct.[19]
Leaving the fortress, we returned to the Natchalnik's house. I was
struck with the size, beauty, and flavour of the grapes here; I have
nowhere tasted such delicious fruit of this description. "Groja
Smederevsko" are celebrated through all Servia, and ought to make
excellent wine.
The road from Semendria to Belgrade skirts the Danube, across which
one sees the plains of the Banat and military frontier. The only place
of any consequence on that side of the river is Pancsova, the sight of
which reminded me of a conversation I had there some years ago.
The major of the town, after swallowing countless boxes of Morrison's
pills, died in the belief that he had not begun to take them soon
enough. The consumption of these drugs at that time almost surpassed
belief. There was scarcely a sickly or hypochondriac person, from the
Hill of Presburg to the Iron Gates, who had not taken large quantities
of them. Being curious to know the cause of this extensive
consumption, I asked for an explanation.
"You must know," said an individual, "that the Anglo-mania is nowhere
stronger than in this part of the world. Whatever comes from England,
be it Congreve rockets, or vegetable pills, must needs be perfect. Dr.
Morrison is indebted to his high office for the enormous consumption
of his drugs. It is clear that the president of the British College
must be a man in the enjoyment of the esteem of the government and the
faculty of medicine; and his title is a passport to his pills in
foreign countries."
I laughed heartily, and explained that the British College of Health,
and the College of Physicians, were not identical.
The road from this point to Belgrade presents no particular interest.
Half an hour from the city I crossed the celebrated trenches of
Marshal Laudohn; and rumbling through a long cavernous gateway, called
the Stamboul Kapousi, or gate of Constantinople, again found myself in
Belgrade, thankful for the past, and congratulating myself on the
circumstances of my trip. I had seen a state of patriarchal manners,
the prominent features of which will be at no distant time rolled flat
and smooth, by the pressure of old Europe, and the salient angles of
which will disappear through the agency of the hotel and the
stagecoach, with its bevy of tourists, who, with greater facilities
for seeing the beauties of nature, will arrive and depart, shrouded
from the mass of the people, by the mercenaries that hang on the
beaten tracks of the traveller.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: In Servian, Belgrade is called Beograd, "white
city;"--poetically, "white eagle's nest."]
[Footnote 18: I think that a traveller ought to see all that he can;
but, of course, has no right to feel surprised at being excluded from
citadels.]
[Footnote 19: One of the representatives of the ancient imperial family
is the Earl of Devon, for Urosh the Great married Helen of
Courtenay.]