JOURNEY FROM HERMANSTADT TO KRONSTADT.
The railway from Hermanstadt to Kronstadt takes us mostly through a
rich undulating country, for, leaving the mountains always farther
behind us, we near them again only as we approach the end of our
journey.
Salzburg, or Vizakna as it is named in Hungarian, renowned for its
salt-mines, is the first station on the line on leaving Hermanstadt—a
melancholy, barren-looking place, seemingly engendered by Nature in
one of her most stagnant moods. A wearisome stretch of sandy hillocks,
their outlines broken here and there by unsightly cracks and fissures,
is all that meets the eye; not a tree or bush to relieve the monotony
of the short stunted grass, where starved-looking daisies, and
spiritless, emaciated chamomiles, are all the flowers to be seen. No
wonder the great white cattle look moody and dissatisfied, as from the
sandy cliff above they sullenly gaze down at their own reflections in
the dull green waters of the Tököli Bath. This bath, highly beneficial
in cases of acute rheumatism, is nothing more than an old salt-mine
dating back to the time of the Romans, and which, through some accident
or convulsion of nature, has been flooded. The brine it contains is
so strong as to bear up the heaviest bodies and render sinking an
impossibility, so that, though of tremendous depth, persons absolutely
ignorant of swimming can walk about in it in perfect safety, with head
and shoulders well above the surface.
There are various other baths in the place, all somewhat weaker than
the Tököli and other salt-mines, which, only worked in winter, yearly
furnish some eighty thousand hundred-weight of salt. But the weirdest
and gloomiest spot about Salzburg is an old ruined mine, deserted since
1817, and where over three hundred Honved soldiers found their grave in
1849. They fell in battle against the revolutionary Wallachians, and,
as the simplest mode of burial, their bodies were thrown down the old
shaft, which is over six hundred feet deep and filled with water to
about a quarter of its depth.
A magnificent echo can be obtained by firing a gun or pistol down
the shaft; but it is dangerous to approach the edge, because of
earth-slips, for which reason the place is enclosed by a wire railing.
However, neither this danger nor the fear of the three hundred ghosts
who may well be supposed to haunt the spot is sufficient to restrain
the Roumanians from prowling about the place. On fine moonlight
nights—as I was told by the revenue officials, whose guard-house
is close by—they will let themselves down by ropes to chip off
whole sackfuls of salt. Sometimes they are caught in the act by some
wide-awake official, who then threatens to cut the rope and send the
culprits to rejoin the Honveds below, till the unfortunate wretches are
forced to sue for their lives in deadliest fear.
The prettiest of the Saxon towns we passed on our way to Kronstadt is
Schässburg, situated on the banks of the river. Towers and ramparts
peep out tantalizingly from luxurious vegetation, making us long to get
out and explore the place; particularly inviting is a steep flight of
steps leading to an old church at the top of a hill.
It is here that Hungary’s greatest poet, Petöfi, perished in the battle
of Schässburg on the 31st of July, 1849, when the revolted Hungarians,
led by the Polish general Bem, were crushed by the superior numbers of
the Russian troops come to Austria’s assistance.
Petöfi’s body was never found, nor had any one seen him fall, and for
many years periodical reports got afloat in Hungary that the great poet
was not dead, but pining away his life in the mines of Siberia. There
seems, however, to be no valid reason for believing this tale, and more
likely his was one of the many mutilated and unrecognizable corpses
which strewed the valley of Schässburg on that disastrous day.
[Illustration: SCHÄSSBURG.
(Reprinted from publication of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society.)]
To the west of the town we catch sight of a solitary turret perched on
the overhanging cliff above the river; it is said to mark the place
where a Turkish pacha, besieging the town with his army, was slain by
a shot fired from the goldsmiths’ tower. The pacha was buried here
sitting on his elephant, and this tower raised above them, while that
other tower from whence the shot was fired, held ever since in high
honor, was decked out with a golden ceiling. This latter has now fallen
into ruin, and the inscription on the pacha’s resting-place has become
almost illegible, but the legend still runs in the people’s mouths, and
is told in verse as follows:
“By Schässburg, on the mountain
A turret gray doth stand,
And from the heights it gazes
Down on the Kokel land.
And ne’er a passing wand’rer
This turret who doth see,
But pauses to inquire here
What may its meaning be.
“It is a proud remembrance
Of doughty deeds and bold.
Still faithfully the people
Relate this legend old:
In by-gone days of trouble
Went forth, with sword and brand,
A mighty Turkish pacha,
To devastate the land.
“Thus also would he conquer
This ancient Saxon town;
But here each man was ready
To die for its renown.
And there upon the mountain
The pacha took his stand,
An elephant bestriding,
And cimeter in hand.
“The mighty Ali Pacha,
He swears with curses wild,
That by his beard will he destroy
The Saxon, chick and child.
Then struck the haughty Moslem
Full in the breast a ball;
With curses yet upon the lip,
A death-prey he must fall.
“The leaden ball came flying,
Full thousand paces two,
From out a fortress turret,
With deadly aim and true.
A sturdy goldsmith was it
Who fired this famous shot;
The Turkish horde, which seeing,
Their courage all forgot.
“And panic-struck escaping,
Their pacha left to die,
The elephant still bestriding,
With fixed and glassy eye.
Then sallied forth the Saxons
As thus the Moslems fled,
And gazed on the dead pacha
With joy and yet with dread.
“They built up Ali Pacha
Within that turret gray,
From head to foot still armed
In battle-field array;
His elephant beside him
Was buried here as well,[77]
And outside an inscription
Their history doth tell.
“By times a plaintive wailing
May here be heard at night;
Or chance you to see flitting
A phantom figure white,
The pacha ’tis, who cannot
Find lasting rest, they say,
Because ’mid heavy curses
His spirit passed away.”
Another point of interest we see from the railway is the ruined castle
of Marienburg, crowning a bare hill to our right hand, about half an
hour before reaching Kronstadt, built by the knights of the Teutonic
order during their occupation of the Burzenland in the early part of
the thirteenth century.
These knights, whose order unites some of the conditions of both
Templars and Maltese knights, had been founded in Palestine about
the year 1190, for the double purpose of tending wounded crusaders,
and, like these, combating the enemies of the Holy Sepulchre. Only
Germans of noble birth were admitted as members, under condition of
the customary vows of chastity and obedience. They had, however, not
been long in existence when their position in Palestine began to grow
insecure; and casting about their eyes in search of some more tenable
position, they were met half-way by the King of Hungary, Andreas II.,
who, on his side, was in want of some powerful alliance to secure the
eastern provinces of Transylvania against the repeated invasions of the
Kumanes.
The negotiations between the monarch and the Teutonic order seem to
have lasted several years, being finally brought to a conclusion
in 1211 in a treaty signed by the King in the presence of eighteen
distinguished witnesses. This treaty distinctly sets forth that the
part of the country called the Burzenland, and whose boundaries are
exactly defined, is bequeathed as an irrevocable gift to the knights of
the Teutonic order by the King, who, hoping thereby to obtain pardon
of his sins and secure eternal salvation for himself and his ancestors
likewise, intrusts to them the defence of the eastern frontier of his
kingdom against barbaric invasions. In this document, which is lengthy
and involved, are likewise set forth all the rights, obligations,
privileges, and restrictions of the said knights. They were exempted
from all the usual taxes and tributes to the King, who, however, did
not resign his claim to the sovereignty of the land, reserving to
himself on all occasions the right of ultimate decision in cases of
contested justice. Whatever gold or silver was discovered in the soil
was to belong, half to the King, half to the order. Though granting
the utmost freedom in all matters relating to trade and commerce,
the Hungarian monarch retained the sole right of coinage; and while
permitting the knights to erect the wooden fortresses and citadels
which were amply sufficient to resist attacks from the barbarians,
it was distinctly stipulated that they were not to build castles or
fortifications of stone.
Barring these few restrictions, the land was to be absolutely their
own; and had the knights been wise enough to keep to the compact,
no doubt the Teutonic order might yet be flourishing to-day in
Transylvania, instead of having been ignominiously expelled after
scarce a dozen years’ residence.
At first the new arrangement seems to have been most beneficial to
the country, for we hear of growing prosperity and of flourishing
agriculture and commerce; and many German villages which acknowledged
the Teutonic knights as their feudal masters were founded at that time.
But the good understanding between King Andreas and the knights was of
short duration, for before ten years had elapsed we already read of
dissensions cropping up; the knights are accused of extending their
boundaries beyond the prescribed limits, of issuing an independent
coinage, of building stone castles, and of bribing away German
colonists to settle on their own land to the detriment of other
provinces—all of which things were distinctly interdicted by the
terms of agreement. Many stories, too, are told of their cruel tyranny
towards unfortunate serfs—such, for instance, as compelling several
hundreds of them to pass whole nights in the marshes round Marienburg,
each man armed with a long switch wherewith to flog the troublesome
frogs, whose croaking disturbed the slumbers of the holy men up in the
castle.
King Andreas, who was of a weak, vacillating disposition, was easily
persuaded by counsellors antagonistic to the order to revoke the deed
of gift, which proclamation was issued in 1221, accompanied by an order
to the knights to evacuate the territory and the strongholds they had
built. Before, however, this had been effected, the Pope, Honorius
III., himself a special protector of the order, intervened, effecting
a reconciliation, the result of which was a fresh treaty confirming
the previous donation. This renewed deed of gift not only ratified
all the terms of the previous document, but actually increased the
privileges enjoyed by the knights, granting them among other things the
much-coveted right of building stone castles.
In spite, however, of some notable victories over the Kumanes in 1224,
and the brilliant prospects thereby opened of enlarging their domains,
the Teutonic knights were not destined to shine much longer in the land
they had thus successfully civilized and made arable. No doubt they
hastened their own downfall by the signal short-sightedness of their
grand-master, Hermann von Salza, who committed the error of taking
upon himself to offer the supremacy of the Burzenland to the Holy See,
begging the Pope to enroll this province among the Papal States. Of
course the knights had no right thus to dispose of a domain which they
only held as subjects of the Hungarian Crown; and though the Pope, as
was to be expected, gladly accepted the handsome donation, the King as
naturally resented a proceeding which could only be regarded as the
blackest high-treason. This time the breach was such as could no longer
be bridged over by any attempt at reconciliation. The Teutonic knights
had made themselves too many enemies, and especially the King’s eldest
son (afterwards Bela IV.) was strenuous in urging his father to eject
the order from the land. This sentence was carried out, not without
much trouble and bloodshed; for the knights were little disposed to
disgorge this valuable possession. Even when at last compelled to
turn their backs on Transylvania, which appears to have been about
1225, it was long before they relinquished the hope of ultimately
regaining their lost paradise. But all efforts in this direction proved
unavailing; for it was decreed that the German knights were to behold
the Burzenland no more.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF TÖRZBURG.]
I have not been able to obtain any picture of Marienburg, and to the
best of my knowledge none such has ever been executed, which is all
the more to be lamented, as this interesting ruin, like so many others
in the country, bids fair to vanish ere long without leaving any trace
behind. In default, therefore, of Marienburg, I offer a picture of the
Castle of Törzburg, another of those seven fortresses raised by the
Teutonic knights during their brief but brilliant reign. This castle,
lying south of Kronstadt, at the entrance of the similarly named pass,
has, however, lost much of its former romantic appearance. Since 1878,
when the Hungarian Government thought necessary to guard the frontier
against Roumania, it was converted into a soldiers’ barracks; and
though no longer used for that purpose, no steps have yet been taken
to restore the edifice to its original form by rebuilding the slender
turrets of which it had been divested.
* * * * *
Shortly before reaching Kronstadt our train came to an unexpected
stand-still in the midst of a wide-stretching plain. Some flocks
were grazing on either side of the rails, but there was no station
or guard-house in sight to explain this unaccountable stoppage, and
there seemed to be nothing to suggest an accident, till, stretching
our heads out of the window, we saw a group of people bending over a
formless mass which lay on the rails some hundred yards to our rear.
One of the passengers who happened to be a doctor was hastily summoned
to the spot, but he returned shaking his head, for his science could
do nothing here. A shepherd lad aged twelve or thirteen had been lying
across the rails seemingly asleep in the sun. He lay so flat that the
engine-driver had failed to perceive him till the last moment, and
then only had seen how a white figure had jumped up in front of the
engine, but instantaneously caught by a blow from the engine-fliers,
was stricken down to rise no more.
Had the boy been asleep or intoxicated, or whether it were an accident
or a suicide, none could tell. We were thankful to be far enough from
the scene to be spared the sight of the horrible details—how horrible
could be guessed from the expression of those who were now slowly
returning to resume their places in the train.
As we moved away I could only discern how two men were lifting the body
from the rails, and how a woman with uplifted arms was running across a
field towards them.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] Why the elephant was also buried is not very apparent, as it is
hardly to be supposed that it was killed by the same shot which slew
the pacha.