THE BALKAN TRAIL
[Illustration: _From a Drawing by_ GILBERT HOLIDAY.
‘NOBODY BLUNDERED.’ [_See page 110._]
THE BALKAN TRAIL
BY
FREDERICK MOORE
_WITH 62 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP_
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1906
[All rights reserved]
TO MY FRIEND
I. N. F.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BULGARIAN BORDER 1
II. THE ROAD TO RILO 15
III. THE TRAIL OF THE MISSIONARIES 34
IV. SOFIA AND THE BULGARIANS 49
V. CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE TURKS 68
VI. SALONICA AND THE JEWS 82
VII. THE DYNAMITERS 105
VIII. MONASTIR AND THE GREEKS 134
IX. ACROSS COUNTRY 159
X. USKUB AND THE SERBS 183
XI. METROVITZA AND THE ALBANIANS 212
XII. THE LONG TRAIL 228
XIII. THE TRAIL OF THE INSURGENT 246
XIV. ON THE TRACK OF THE TURK 262
XV. THE LAST TRAIL 277
ILLUSTRATIONS
‘NOBODY BLUNDERED’ _Frontispiece_
_From a drawing by Gilbert Holiday_
COUNTING ANIMALS AVAILABLE FOR MILITARY SERVICE _To face p._ 6
ON A FRONTIER BRIDGE ” 10
THE AMAZON }
} ” 12
THE MASCOT }
THE ROAD TO RILO ” 20
A BULGARIAN BLOCKHOUSE }
} ” 24
THE BRIDGE OVER THE STRUMA: TURK AND BULGAR }
RILO MONASTERY: GRACE BEFORE GRUB ” 28
FATHER COOK AND THE BRIGAND ” 32
BULGARIAN PEASANTS, SAMAKOV ” 36
BULGARIAN INFANTRY ” 48
THE CATHEDRAL, SOFIA }
} ” 54
THE BRITISH AGENCY, SOFIA: A DEMONSTRATION }
A VIEW OF SOFIA, VITOSH IN THE BACKGROUND ” 58
ON THE MARKET PLACE, SOFIA ” 60
DOGS OCCUPY THE PAVEMENT; PEOPLE WALK IN THE STREETS }
} ” 70
THE TURKISH BARBERSHOP }
CONSTANTINOPLE: MOSQUE OF YÉNI-DJAMI ON THE BOSPHORUS ” 74
A HAMMAL AND A LOAD OF PETROLEUM TINS ” 78
THE WALL AND BEYOND, SALONICA ” 86
THE ANCIENT ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, SALONICA ” 90
THE TURKISH BUTCHER ” 92
JEWS }
} ” 96
JEWISH WOMEN }
ASIATIC SOLDIERS: ‘REDIFS’ }
} ” 106
WAITING FOR DYNAMITERS, SALONICA }
THE WRECK OF THE OTTOMAN BANK }
} ” 116
ENTERING THE DYNAMITERS’ DEN }
EXILES, SHIPPED WEEKLY FROM SALONICA ” 126
ON A MACEDONIAN LAKE ” 136
A GREEK ” 142
A BIT OF OLD MONASTIR ” 148
ORTHODOX PRIESTS ” 154
CAPTIVES ALBANIANS, BULGARIANS ” 166
TURKISH WEDDING FESTIVITIES ” 168
A GYPSY MINSTREL }
} ” 170
A TURKISH TRUMPETER }
OUR ESCORT FORDING A STREAM ” 172
‘8 CHEVAUX OU 48 HOMMES’: ALBANIAN RECRUITS ” 184
GRAVES OF DEAD COMMITTAJIS }
} ” 194
THE OLD TURKISH SEXTON WHO LIVED IN A GRAVE }
THE HORSE MARKET }
} ” 198
SWEARING TO A BARGAIN }
ALBANIAN WOMEN ” 210
THE ALBANIAN AND HIS KULER }
} ” 220
ALBANIAN }
A GROUP OF ALBANIANS ” 222
WAYFARERS AT A ROADSIDE FOUNTAIN: TURKS ” 228
IN A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE: BULGARIAN PEASANTS DANCING THE HORO ” 236
THE TURKISH QUARTER: DJUMA-BALA ” 242
RUINS OF KREMEN ” 244
A TURKISH BAND LEAVING MONASTIR }
} ” 252
BASHI-BAZOUKS }
TURKS ON THE MARCH ” 256
TURKISH TROOPS ” 260
VLACHS ” 266
‘HELL HOLE,’ KRUSHEVO ” 274
THE MACEDONIAN ” 280
COMMITTAJIS OFF DUTY ” 292
MAP OF THE BALKANS ” 296
THE BALKAN TRAIL
CHAPTER I
THE BULGARIAN BORDER
Men of position are proud and prejudiced. In humble Sofia, where there
is little pretence, the judge of a supreme court, whose salary was
72_l._ a year, declined an offer of double that wage to serve me as
interpreter. An officer in the army, and other Government officials to
whom I made approaches, displayed similar pride and lack of enterprise.
I was bound for the border, and the only individuals willing to
accompany me were two fallen stars of feeble age, in circumstances of
despair; and at last I was obliged to choose between these luckless
linguists. One was an anarchist, light of head and heavy of heart, the
other a bankrupt viscount with a bad eye. I selected the nobleman, but
a word for the anarchist; he is dead.
He was a very dirty anarchist, with long, shaggy, unkempt mane, and
a hungry, haunted look. He wore a silk-lined frock coat of ample
capacity, a pair of trousers of doubtful suspension, shoes in which
his feet flapped, a silk hat of bygone glory, no collar, no cuffs. He
was of small stature, but his outfit had been created for no little
man. A wonderful ‘gift of gab’ had he; in a few moments I knew his
whole history. He had acquired his knowledge of English in the States,
where in the ’sixties he had served (probably soup) with the Stars
and Stripes when the Stars and Bars were in the field. But--and the
veteran is unique in this regard--he could not procure a pension from
the United States Government. Nevertheless he loved my country. He had
never gone hungry there, while he had often felt the pangs in Bulgaria.
What had Bulgaria done for him? Even the clothes he was wearing had
been given him by an Englishman. For his country’s neglect of her
travelled son, he had acquired the Irish complaint, he was ‘agin’ the
government.’ He was for sending Prince Ferdinand to the hereafter, and
favoured the fashionable dynamite bomb. He was a simple soul; before
he could execute his plot he was sent to eternity himself--though not
quite hoist by his own petard. He was shot, one bright summer evening,
in the public park in front of the palace. Old Barnacle had not known
David Harum’s precept, ‘Do unto the other feller what he would do unto
you--but do it furst.’
Barnacle was an honest man, and he would have been faithful; all he
needed to make him generous was a little success. I knew him well
before he died. But in selecting my interpreter I felt compelled to act
on the principle that a clever crook is sometimes a safer companion
than an honest simpleton.
The man with the bad eye proved to be a character with a most romantic
past, a Continental count who had fallen from his high estate, but
still a man of good taste--particularly for food. He, too, had been a
soldier; he had commanded a company of cavalry in the Russo-Turkish
war, and could still, in his age, ride me out of my saddle. But he was
a Jew, and wisely, as time has proved, did not return after the war
to the land of his birth. He was not a dragoman by profession, there
was nothing servile about him. An English correspondent would not have
tolerated his patronage. But in America, a man and his master, and a
master and his man, equal pretty much the same thing; and we have heard
that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
No serious class prejudices hampered me, and I was content to permit my
man to be my companion in a land where I could communicate direct with
so few.
The Count had Bulgarian, Turkish, and Russian history, as well as all
the languages of Europe, at his fingers’ ends. In view of his many
accomplishments I agreed to pay him six francs a day and his living and
travelling expenses. But this was not all my man got from me.
The price of a good lunch in London will keep two men for a day in
Balkan country, but I did not know this when I commissioned the Count
to provide a hamper of food for the first days of our journey. Three
loaves of bread, a hunk of Bulgarian cheese, some dried lamb, and
two bottles of native wine cost him more of my money than twice the
quantity would have come to in London. After the investment he dined at
the ‘Pannachoff.’ I sat behind him unnoticed and watched him consume
three times as much food as an ordinary man.
His string of names did justice to his characteristics, Isaac
Swindelbaum von Stuffsky. He was a real count: Isaac Swindelbaum was
all his card bore; an impostor in his predicament would have flaunted
the title. He was called ‘count’ to his face and a ‘Russian spy’
behind his back. But he was not the latter, he was too poor. Until the
correspondents came, he had lived on the meals and the drinks which
tales of his exploits in the war that created Bulgaria won him from her
officers.
When a man has no visible means of support in either Bulgaria or Turkey
he is always labelled Spy. In Bulgaria the term is one of reproach, but
in Turkey spies are looked up to and envied as among the only regularly
paid servants of the Sultan. But the officers of Sofia knew that my man
was not a spy. They said he was an emissary of Russia simply because he
insisted that the great Slav country and Austria, allies for reform,
were sincere in their desire to bring about peace in Macedonia, which
none of the officers believed.
It was a run of only forty kilometres from Sofia to Radomir, but
it took our train half the day to cover the distance. Radomir is
the terminus of the railway to the south, and about half-way to the
frontier. Only one mixed goods and passenger train makes the trip to
and from Sofia each day, and the line is not very profitable. If the
Turkish Government would allow a junction railway to be constructed
from Uskub or Koumanova up to Egri-Palanka, this road would then be
continued to meet it, and all Bulgaria as well as Macedonia would reap
a benefit. But the Turkish rulers like not civilising institutions.
Our train stopped now and again to pick up some peasant’s pig or
waited ten minutes for a late passenger, and we had opportunity to see
something of the villages at which it stopped. At one little town there
was a striking scene. It was early in March; the snow on the Balkans
had not yet begun to melt, and the peasants were still clad in their
sheepskin coats. Before a low _khan_ (a caravansary) were two cavalry
officers and several private soldiers; and all about surged to and
fro white-clad, furry peasants leading horses of all breeds and in
all conditions--nags which had never eaten other feed than grass, and
well-groomed, blooded beasts, bred from the special stables maintained
by the Government for the purpose of improving the native stock. The
officers were counting animals available for military service in case
of war, and the peasants had come from miles around, eager to have
their horses tried and graded.
As a result of this fair, riding horses were not to be hired when
we arrived at Radomir; so we negotiated for one of the customary
cross-country conveyances, cast-off city carriages of all designs,
drawn by numerous nags. The drivers told my Count that were he not
with me they would get thirty francs a day from me. I should have
thought that charge cheap. But, despite my price-elevating presence,
my dragoman brought them down in the end to regular fares. This Jew
of mine saved double his wage every day, and though he swindled me
whenever he had an opportunity, no one else had the chance while he was
with me.
But the bargain took a long time to strike. For an hour he wrangled
with these drivers, who seemed to have formed an anti-American trust.
At last I entered the negotiations, and demanded what all the talk was
about.
‘I’m saving money for you,’ the Count informed me. ‘I’ve got them down
to twelve francs.’
‘Good! then hire a team and we will start.’
‘I’ve just hired this man,’ said the Count, and he proceeded to inform
one of the clamouring coachmen that he was engaged. The delighted
driver dashed off to get his team, and in a few minutes a jingle of
bells announced his return with the coach. It was a most dilapidated
vehicle, patched and strengthened with many pieces of rough plank and
bits of rope; but they were all alike.
I had particularly fancied a four-horse team, the horses all abreast as
in a chariot, but this hired by the Count had only three.
[Illustration: COUNTING ANIMALS AVAILABLE FOR MILITARY SERVICE.]
‘I think we had better have four horses, Count,’ I suggested. ‘We have
a long drive before us, and I don’t like moving slowly.’
‘I have already engaged this man, sir. He asks only twelve francs a day
and guarantees to get us over the mountains in the best time possible.’
‘What’s the price of a four-horse team?’
‘They ask fifteen francs.’
‘Well, I think we can afford twelve shillings for a conveyance, four
horses and a man, Count!’
‘But I have already engaged this man, sir.’
‘Count, we will take a four-horse team.’
The Count expostulated, and I had to repeat. It was then I discovered
that there was something of the Rob Roy in my old Jew. He would rob me
because, as he informed me later, Americans were rolling in wealth, but
he was going to do the right thing by a peasant.
‘But I have hired this man, sir,’ he said again. ‘We shall have to pay
him if we take another.’
I told the Count to give him half a day’s wages, which he did, and the
peasant nearly collapsed with surprise.
The drive over the mountains to Kustendil consumed six hours, so we did
not arrive there until long after dark.
My advance had been telegraphed ahead from Sofia, and soon after
breakfast next morning I was waited on by the governor of the district
and all his staff in a body. The governor had instructions from the
Minister of the Interior to facilitate my journey in every way, and was
ready to do anything he could to aid me. I expressed my appreciation of
his kindness, and promised to avail myself of it if necessary. There
was method in this hospitality: the Bulgarians are not ordinarily so
polite.
The arrival of an American correspondent was a great event in
the little town, and hard on the heels of the governor came two
English-speaking Bulgars, college graduates respectively of Princeton
and the University of West Virginia. One of them was a magistrate,
the other a minister acting under the direction of the American
missionaries. Politically the magistrate and the governor were enemies,
and the officials, all members of the Orthodox Church, were none too
friendly with the Protestant preacher. The courtesy between the parties
was stiff and measured. When the governor and his staff took their
leave, the minister and the judge commandeered me for the rest of the
day to talk over old times in America. We went over to Fournagieff’s
home, a plain building with whitewashed walls of stucco, a low door,
and a narrow, ladder-like staircase leading up to the mission-room.
There we hunted out a book of college songs, and all three sang old
Princeton airs for an hour to the accompaniment of an American melodeon.
Fournagieff’s father was among the refugees from Macedonia who were
then in Kustendil, having come across the border to escape a search for
arms in the Raslog district. I could not get the old man to admit his
association with the _Committajis_ (committee-men), but I think there
is no doubt that he was a local _voivoda_. At any rate, the Turkish
officials suspected him of being a chief, of organising and arming the
peasants of his village, and planned to subject him with others to an
inquisition; but a friendly Turk warned him of the prospective arrival
of troops and advised escape. Old Fournagieff’s Turkish friend supplied
a testimonial vouching for his loyalty to the Padisha, which enabled
him to pass over to Bulgaria by the bridge on the Struma, and saved him
the hardship and dangers of climbing the border Balkans between Turkish
posts.
Kustendil is not a favourite place of refuge, and there were few
fugitives here; but the town suits the purposes of the insurgents, and
rightly has a bad name among the Turks for breeding ‘brigands.’ The
mountains in this district are wooded and rugged, and an infinitely
larger and more vigilant force than the Turkish Government maintains
on the frontier is necessary to close it to the committajis. There
were several bands in Kustendil at this time, preparing to cross into
Turkey, and the leaders of one called at the hotel and invited me to
accompany them. I should see everything in Macedonia, they said, if I
went under their guidance, whereas, if I trusted myself to the Turks,
I should see only the beauties of the land and none of its horrors.
I questioned these fellows as to the conditions of the scheme, and
learned these: I should have to travel by night and keep closely
hidden by day; I should have to wear the peasant garb peculiar to
the district in which I was, and raise a beard to hide my foreign
physiognomy; I should have to live on the coarsest of native food and
sometimes go without any; I should not be allowed to talk to anyone,
for the band could not take along my antique interpreter.
I was very anxious to see one of their fights, I said, and I asked if
they would have one within a reasonable time.
Certainly, came the reply; they could have a small one whenever I liked.
I was much tempted to the adventure, but afraid to trust myself to the
tender mercies of these ‘brigands,’ and mildly told them so. This gave
the leader an idea.
‘Would you like to get rich?’ he asked.
‘I would,’ I replied.
‘If you will permit us to capture you, we will share whatever ransom we
obtain.’
Before I could reply the Count delivered his advice, which it suited me
to follow. The Count did not like the idea of the brigands taking me
out of his hands.
[Illustration: ON A FRONTIER BRIDGE.]
While I was entertaining the committajis the governor returned to the
khan to invite me to luncheon, and entered my room unannounced. I
expected to see a hurried scattering of my guests, but none of them so
much as changed countenance. The governor took them in at a glance,
but otherwise completely ignored them. At this time the Bulgarian
Foreign Office was declaring emphatically that every effort was
being made to prevent the passing of bands from the Principality into
the sovereign State, so it rested with the governor to make excuse for
the inactivity of the law in this case. The governor gave explanation
at his table. He said he knew every one of the insurgents who were in
my room, and that they were all bogus warriors, not worthy of arrest.
None of them had ever been to Turkey. They belonged to the External
Committee, and they took good care to do no internal work.
While strolling through the town with my Count at a later day, there
appeared a band of some twenty unarmed insurgents under arrest. One
gendarme had charge of the whole party, and took little heed of their
scattering. They were on their way to Sofia. They had just come back
from Macedonia after hiding their arms in the mountains, and had
come down to the town to surrender. If they allowed themselves to
be arrested, I understood, they received free transportation to the
capital, where their names were recorded and they were set free on
parole; whereas, if they avoided arrest, they were compelled to walk to
wherever they would be, for none of them possessed sufficient money to
pay railway or coach fare.
They were a mongrel crew, only one clean ‘man’ among them, and that a
woman. They looked as if they had seen service. Their outfits covered
a wide range of variety, and were much torn and tattered. A few had
military overcoats with many patches, some wore native cloaks of
broad black and white stripes, and others were wrapped in blankets
like American Indians. The woman had no greatcoat, but her uniform
was warmer and in better condition than those of the men: the patches
were perfect. She carried a needle and thread, but only one kind of
medicine, though a red cross decorated her arm. She caught my eye at
once, and I sent the Count into the band to ascertain if she would
honour me with an interview. My man went up to her with the blunt and
burly manner he was wont to wear, grabbed her by the arm, and explained
his errand in a word. This, I can imagine, is what he said: ‘Come with
me; an American correspondent wants to hear your story!’ The whole
band, including the single guard, stopped, wheeled round, and followed
the bad-eyed Count and his captive. They gathered about the girl and
me, and prompted her memory whenever it failed on points of detail.
We sat on two empty wine casks in front of a peasant’s khan, and I took
notes as the Count drew from the Amazon an account of her adventures
beyond the border.
This band had been in the enemy’s country for about six months, in
which time they had had five fights, and she estimated that she herself
had killed and wounded no fewer than eight Turks. While she talked she
crossed her trousered limbs and drew a dagger from her legging as a
Scot would from his sock. She tossed the weapon about and caught it
dexterously by the handle, and told me how she marched with her
brothers-in-arms fifty miles and more a night.
[Illustration: THE AMAZON.]
[Illustration: THE MASCOT.]
In the daytime they rested at the summit of some lonely mountain
which commanded a length of road and a breadth of valley, and from
these ‘crows’ nests’ in the height descended by night to ambush small
bodies of Turks or swoop down on little towns, attempting the total
destruction of the garrison and the last male Moslem therein. This
woman had no mercy on Turks; she said they had slain her mother, her
father, and all her brothers in one day. She was a soldier of fortune;
revenge was hers, and hope for Macedonia. In concluding her remarks
the lady drew a phial of arsenic from her trousers-pocket and informed
me that the poison was for the purpose of taking her own life in case
of capture by the Turks. I took her photograph, with and without her
companions, and the whole band shook hands with me and resumed their
march to the railway terminus.
This was the only female fighter I encountered on my tracks through
the Balkans, but there are many with the bands. A missionary told
me an interesting story of one, which throws light on the strange
mental workings of some of the insurgent chiefs. The missionary met
the Amazon, a pretty young woman about twenty, wandering along a high
road near Samakov. The girl asked the way to the town, and told the
following story: She had been betrothed to a young man who felt called
to the service of his country. She threatened her lover that if he
joined a revolutionary band she would go with him. Both firm in their
purpose, they both joined the band, and for several weeks fought side
by side. But the girl was not able to stand the hardships, and the
heavy work soon began to tell on her. She began to lag behind the
others on the hard night marches, and would not have been able to keep
up at all except for the assistance of her strong young lover. Finally
the voivoda called the man before him and delivered himself thus:
‘Committajis have their work to do and cannot be hampered with women.
The woman must be left behind to-night, but you must continue with the
band.’ The man protested, entreated, threatened, but all to no avail.
That night the insurgents started, leaving the woman to an unknown
fate; the man refused to accompany them. The chief did not hesitate to
order the recognised punishment, and his men, though they liked the
young man well, did not hesitate to execute the command.
The youth was taken into a secluded dell, from which he never came
forth. The girl listened, but no sound escaped. The report of a gun
might have attracted Turks.
She found his body later, stabbed, and buried it in leaves. The
insurgents punish with death; they have no prisons.