ACROSS COUNTRY
Travel in Turkey is severely restricted. If a native succeeds in
obtaining a _teskeré_, or the _visé_ thereto, necessary for making a
journey, there is still the deterring danger of arrest on suspicion
at his destination or _en route_, in spite of his papers. If he is a
non-Moslem he is suspected of nothing worse than being a revolutionist,
and is only set upon by polite police officers; but if he be Mohamedan,
he is required to deal with the spies of the Sultan. I once witnessed
in Salonica the impressive military funeral of a pasha who had been in
high favour at Court. So highly was the pasha esteemed that the Sultan
sent one of his own physicians, a Greek, from Constantinople to attend
him--though, incidentally, the doctor arrived after the pasha’s death.
But the unfortunate Turk had not possessed sufficient of Abdul Hamid’s
confidence to secure for him permission to visit Constantinople--for
which he had applied several months before--in order to have an
operation performed there by competent surgeons.
Foreigners fare better. They may travel to the limits of the few
railway lines without serious annoyance--if they confine their stops
to Consular towns. To enter the ‘interior,’ however, permission is
seldom given, and Europeans (in Turkey the name includes Americans)
are never allowed to leave the railways without an escort. Only on
one occasion did we get away from the railways with the consent of
the authorities. This was at the instance of a certain Consul, a man
who demanded things and got them. The journey was across a section of
Macedonia from Monastir, the terminus of one railway, to Veles, an
intermediary point on the north-and-south line. As might be supposed,
the country was comparatively quiet at the time, the crops were being
gathered, and the authorities informed us (the Englishman and me) that
all insurgents had been ‘suppressed.’
We rode out of Monastir perched high on Turkish saddles, at a dizzy
distance above our diminutive steeds. At first we sought to secure our
lofty positions by a tight grip of the reins, but they pulled on curb
bits, and so tortured our poor little ponies that we soon sacrificed
our pride, gave the animals their heads, and ‘gripped leather’ until
we learned to balance. Just outside the town our escort, six mounted
men, awaited us and fell in with us without so much as a salaam. They
were the usual ragged beggars, much patched where they sat, tied up in
places, and generally off colour. Across their faded chests stretched
many yellow stripes--in lieu of gold braid--which designated them of
the corps of _Zaptiehs_. Three of them wore shoes of the regulation
order issued by the Imperial Ottoman commissary department, but the
others were more fortunate. Of these latter two possessed native
woollen stockings and charruks, and the third had a high boot on one
foot and a shoe and leather legging on the other. The leather legging
hardly met about the calf to which it was applied, and lacing was
necessary to fill a slight breach, while the boot was large enough
to admit a long, flute-like cigarette-holder, a tobacco-pouch, and a
flint. The fezzes of this brigade were the one uniform thing other than
their guns; they were all good, possessed tassels, and one even showed
signs of having been pressed at a not far distant date--unlike those
which sat upon Christian heads.
We discovered early that our escort were very poor horsemen. They did
not seem to understand their animals; for though the ponies they rode
could have been managed without any bit at all, yet they all kept a
heavy hand on a cruel curb. The ponies were small, and had none but
natural gaits, and the short trot was most uncomfortable unless one
rose in the saddle. This the Zaptiehs were unable to do. In consequence
the horse suffered. Two at a time they took turns at riding with us
at a steady trot, while the others galloped and walked alternately,
thereby covering the same distances we did in the same time.
A ride across Macedonia affords a wealth of interest. Your escort is a
study in Turk; every peasant you meet is a new picture; the mud-brick
houses of the Christians and the Mohamedan _chiflics_ are curious and
picturesque, and you must stop at times and absorb the scenery. You can
sympathise on a journey like this with the small boy who cried because
he had so many sweets he could not eat them all. Our route the first
day lay through open country, and our escort was therefore quite small.
We traversed the length of the Monastir valley and stayed the night
at Prelip. It should be a happy, prosperous valley, for Nature smiles
on it, but it is desolate and almost deserted. The cornfields hug the
towns, and the villages hide themselves in obscure corners of the
mountains. The ‘high road,’ a waggon-track, which we followed, skirted
one village and passed through another, but they were made up of such
huts as brigands would not stoop to enter. A sheep-dog, big framed and
thick coated--but a bread-fed, skinny animal, with an uncertain lope
and an unsound bark--came at us. One of the Zaptiehs drew his sword
and gave it a trial swing at a low bush near his horse’s feet; but a
peasant came crying after the dog, and called the brute off before it
got within reach of the Turk’s blade. This was a Turk of less religious
fervour than his fellows.
The Zaptiehs smoked continually as they rode, and rolled cigarettes for
us. They gave us lights from their cigarettes, but only the irreligious
fellow would accept the same favour from us, for which I asked the
reason. ‘They will not take fire from a giaour,’ he said.
The insurgents had boasted that the crops would not be harvested this
year, but the corn and the tobacco were already on their way to
market. We passed Christian caravans which took the fields to give us
the road, and Mohamedan carts which made us give them the right of way.
The former were unarmed and most meek, doffing their dejected fezzes
and standing abject with hands clasped on their stomachs as we passed.
The others, down to the half-grown boys, carried pistols and guns, and
bore themselves like a ruling race. The Turks, however, appeared to be
as poor as the Christians, and once two veiled women, gathering their
faded rags about them, even to covering their henna-tipped fingers,
came up to our horses to beg. Nevertheless, their husband, riding a
dwarfed donkey, carried a revolver.
The lot of the animals in Macedonia is similar to that of the people.
The one survives on grass as the other lives ‘by bread alone.’
The peasant lies down to sleep at night in his clothes, and the
heavy-saddled pack-animals are relieved only of their loads. The long,
latticed saddle, reaching from before the animal’s shoulders to his
haunches, is seldom removed. It becomes in time an integral part of the
animal, it conforms somewhat to his shape, and he gives way in places
to its lines; and when it does leave a back it often brings hair,
and sometimes skin, with it. The animals are not pegged out or tied
together when the caravan halts. The system practised is to lock their
fore feet with short-chained iron cuffs, or else to tie them with a bit
of rope. There are various means of propelling the beasts of burden,
but only the carriage-driver uses the Western lash. A donkey is
generally sat upon sideways, not astride, and continually beaten with
the heels; the horseman wears heavy spurs; the driver of pack-trains,
oxen and buffalo teams, carries a pointed stick or a staff with a nail
in the end. These last instruments are gently pressed against the hind
quarters, and the pressure is kept on till the animal attains the
required speed.
The buffalo, which is a heavy creature and unable to acquire speed
rapidly, lifts his long, snake-like tail and veritably twists it about
the tantalising stick. These pitiful-eyed, straight-necked, knock-kneed
creatures are larger and more powerful than the ox, and the buffalo cow
gives considerably more and richer milk than the domestic variety. But
the buffalo is an exceedingly delicate creature, and requires constant
care. His hair is long, but thin and scant, and he is addicted to early
baldness on the back. In this condition his skin resembles the hide
of a rhinoceros. When the weather is warm he drags his slow way along
the roads, covered with soft, slimy mud. The driver walks beside him
with a crude, long-handled dipper, and at every puddle replenishes the
supply of cooling mud. In the winter the black beast maintains the
same measured pace, but then he wears a different covering. His thick,
coarse blanket protects him from the cold--a thing of broad stripes,
brown and white, made of the same material of which his master’s cloak
is woven, spun by the peasant wife, probably in the same piece of
cloth.
At several places at which we stopped the peasants came to us to
ask medical advice for themselves and their animals, and we were
exceedingly sorry that we could not prescribe for either; for their own
ideas of doctoring border on superstition, and seem to follow the plan
of killing pain by pain. At one village we witnessed (and protested
against) the treatment of an unfortunate horse which had, by strange
mishap, swollen to an abnormal size. A stout cord was put around its
tail close to the root and twisted with a stick until all circulation
in the tail was stopped. Then, when the appendage had become numb,
a wire nail was driven into it in four places. The horse died of
complications, including lockjaw. A horse which, at a stage of the
journey, carried our luggage, possessed but one ear. We asked what had
become of the other, and were told that it had been cut off piece by
piece to cure repeated fits.
There is often to be seen in Macedonia, especially in the Monastir
district, a thing resembling a big bird’s-nest built on stilts.
The nestling wears a soldier’s costume and carries a gun. He is a
field guard, an institution of the Government designed to ‘protect’
Christian peasants from ‘brigands,’ Albanian and Bulgarian. This he
often accomplishes by becoming a member of a band of the former. The
Governor-General will show you yard-long petitions stamped with many
tiny seals, the marks of the peasants, pleading that no Christians be
put to guard them, as the Austro-Russian reform scheme provides. The
signatures to these petitions are not secured in the general way, by a
Turk with a loaded gun; they are _bona fide_. The peasants really do
not want the protection of a half-hearted Christian, who has probably
never before handled a gun, and who will only bring disaster upon them.
The Turkish guard is a contemptuously tolerant creature. His band is
strong enough to defend the peasants from other marauders, and so
long as they pay the annual tribute of so many sheep or goats, and so
much grain, there is no other call upon them--except for the needs of
the bird in the nest. The committee’s agents, when laying their cause
before Europeans, will designate this bird a vulture, and tell you how
he exacts maidens of the peasants; but the Greeks, who claim to be the
enlightened people of the country, explain that this, to a Macedonian
peasant, is not what it is to an Englishman or an American. There are
always two sides to a question.
Though the revolution had not yet occurred, and the peasant population
was still engaged in peaceful pursuits, the country swarmed with
soldiers. Cavalry and infantry patrols, Turks, Albanians, and Asiatics,
passed us by. Occasionally we met a guard with handcuffed prisoners,
Bulgarians and sometimes Albanians. Now and then a member of our escort
would meet a long-lost friend, and the old comrades would drop from
their horses and embrace each other, pressing cheeks first one side and
then the other. We were yet an hour off from Prelip when the white
tents about the town came into view. Soon we came to the cornfields.
The corn was ripe and glowing under the slanting rays of the evening
sun, and here and there red poppies had wandered in to stud the golden
fields. Once the road led by a milk-white field, most innocent in
appearance, but covered with the deadly blooms of opium. Many houses on
the edge of the town, and some in the narrow streets, were hung from
roof to ground with strings of tobacco leaves, changing colour in the
sun.
[Illustration: Albanians. Bulgarians.
CAPTIVES.]
When we entered Prelip the natives were gathered at their gates
preparatory to withdrawing for the night. It was too late for
Christians to follow, and the Turks are too dignified to do more
than bestow a casual glance at any traveller. But in the morning our
appearance caused a commotion in the town. Greeks left their shops,
Bulgarians deserted the market-place, Vlachs followed us with their
pack-animals, Jews and gypsies came after us, the one to sell, the
other to beg of us; men, women, and children joined in our train. They
followed us until we crossed a narrow street, at the other side of
which only a few veiled women were visible; then the whole throng came
to an abrupt stop.
‘What is the matter with the crowd?’ I asked one of our guards.
‘They are like the dogs,’ he replied; ‘they have their boundaries. At
this street begins the Turkish quarter.’
We walked on through the quiet, clean, Turkish quarter and came upon
a group of bashi-bazouks, who had been called into service as village
guards, squatting by the roadway smoking. They were kind enough to
rise and permit me to photograph them standing. This was rather an
exceptional case; the Mohamedans generally resented my camera. A gypsy
minstrel, a thing of shreds and patches, on his way to a wedding feast,
protested that the Evil Eye would be upon him if I took his likeness,
but I ‘snapped’ him while he argued. It would have been unkind to
inform him.
We then followed the Tzigane to the wedding, of which, of course, we
were permitted to witness only the street celebrations, those of the
male side of the house. This took the form of an almost uninterrupted
dance to the monotonous music of two reed flutes and two crude bass
drums. The flutes had a range of about three shrill chords, and the
drums had two notes apiece. With the right hand and a heavy stick the
drummers beat a slow, steady boom, while with a lighter stick in the
other hand they kept up a rapid tattoo. They played by ear, of course,
and the strain of a single bar of music went for hours. Monotony is
bliss to the Mohamedan. A long mixed line of men gave the dance. There
were Turks with red fezzes, Albanians with white skull-caps, soldiers,
and bashi-bazouks. The leader of the line, swinging a red handkerchief,
led the way round a circle formed by the crowd and set the figures,
which varied little more than the music. The dance was evidently
copied from the Bulgarian _horo_. Sometimes the leader withdrew in
favour of the second man, and now and then a man in the line would fall
out, to have his place filled sooner or later. But on went the dizzy
dance to the doleful sound all the afternoon.
[Illustration: TURKISH WEDDING FESTIVITIES.]
My companion trounced a Greek barber at Prelip, and I had my hair cut
by accident. We had begun to look like Bulgarian insurgents, with full
crops of hair and unshaven faces, and, resolving here to abolish the
dangerous likeness in so far as our beards were concerned, we repaired
forthwith to the nearest barbers’. The Englishman chose a Greek
barbershop, and was shaved by a man with a characteristic nose of large
proportions. At the conclusion of the ordeal he inquired the price, and
was told that he owed the sum of two piastres. He handed the Greek a
mijidieh, which is worth nineteen piastres in Prelip, and received five
piastres in change. At this the Englishman protested, and the Greek
yielded up another small coin. But more than this no gentle persuasion
could move him to give. Among the crowd which had gathered to see the
‘Frank’ shaved was one accommodating individual who spoke a garbled
French. The Englishman enlisted his services to make known to the man
with the nose that, unless he produced the proper change forthwith he
would have his olfactory organ promptly and vigorously pulled. This had
no effect, and the threat was put into execution, to the wonderment and
increase of the crowd. But nobody protested, and the Greek produced
another insignificant coin. Again the interpreter was employed, and
again without result. So again the Englishman laid his hands on the
Greek, and this time so ill-used the poor man that he handed the key to
him and told him to help himself with piastres from the money drawer.
The Englishman took the proper change and departed.
My experience was less thrilling, but the disfiguring was of me. I
discovered a Turkish barbershop, consisting of a Turk and a towel,
a cane-bottomed stool, and some utensils made in Austria. The shop
occupied the narrow pavement with the dogs, out of the way of the
pedestrians. After shaving me with a heavy weapon, the Turk held up a
formidable pair of scissors by way of asking if I wished to have my
hair cut. For the moment I forgot that a shake of the head in Turkey
means ‘yes,’ and a nod means ‘no’--and I shook my head. I was rescued
from the wall against which I had been reclining during the process of
shaving, and straightened up for the purpose, I thought, of having my
hair combed. But the Turk, with a single clip, took off a large bunch
of hair, and left me, without alternative, to be barbered in the latest
Prelip fashion.
The Turk does a great many things in an opposite way to which we
do them. He writes backwards; the conductor on the horse-car at
Constantinople and Salonica punches the tickets for the station at
which one gets aboard instead of that to which he is destined; the
wood-sawyer rubs the wood on the saw, which he holds between his
legs; the sailor, feathering oars, turns the blades forward instead of
backward; the officer salutes the soldier.
[Illustration: A GYPSY MINSTREL.]
[Illustration: A TURKISH TRUMPETER.]
In the interior of Macedonia it is not necessary for the authorities
to preserve the same show of order that is required in Consular towns,
and our escort for the next stage of the journey came to the khan for
us. There were a score of Zaptiehs in the charge of a fat but ragged
sergeant, who gave me his name but could not write it. This is nothing
extraordinary; one of the foreign officers of the reform scheme told me
he had found but two sub-lieutenants in the whole Kossovo vilayet who
could read and write.
For several hours the road led along the sides of a stream winding
between two ridges of mountains. The mountains were said to be infested
with insurgents; this was a part of the country through which Sarafoff
operated. Turks’ heads peered down at us, and silently assured us
that the road was overlooked for miles beyond. Studded over the steep
slopes, wherever a great boulder protruded far enough for a footing,
soldiers were suspended between us and the clouds, which the mountains
often pierced. Despite this survey of the route, five of our men
straggled out to the front, the foremost a mile in advance. As we
would descend one steep slope we could see the vanguard climbing the
next. Whenever we came to a blockhouse, always pitched on the highest
peak, one of the garrison would bring us cool water from the nearest
fountain.
The road was good for many miles; it had been constructed only a year
before. But the contract had not called for bridges, so bridges there
were none, and it was necessary for us to ford every stream. But a few
months after this excursion a war-scare set the Government to honest
work, and this and several other excellent roads, most of them leading
towards the Bulgarian border, were hurriedly completed. Millions to
retain, but not one cent to maintain.
Not a single village did we pass this day, only one lone wayside khan.
Macedonia is sparsely inhabited. Once we came over the crest of a hill
and descried a gathering of twenty or thirty men far down in a valley
below--a little island formed by a split in a thin stream. It took us
an hour to get to the island, which lay in our route, and meanwhile
men mounted their horses and rode away into the mountains, and others
appeared from unseen places and came to the meeting. This was too open
a spot--visible from any of the surrounding hills--for brigands to
divide spoils; nevertheless the business was illicit. We got off our
horses and penetrated the crowd. In the centre sat a Turk with two
sacks of cut tobacco. This he was selling direct to consumers, without
paying the tax levied by the Turkish Regie. We filled pockets for two
metaleeks--a penny between us--and proceeded on our way up the opposite
mountain-side.
[Illustration: OUR ESCORT FORDING A STREAM.]
This was a hard day’s ride. It would not be exact to say that we were
in the saddle ten hours, for we dismounted and walked over many steep
mountains, but we were on the road from six in the morning until
six in the evening, allowing two hours for halts. We passed through
the camp of an Anatolian regiment pitched beside the vast caverns of
Veles, dropped down the Vardar, and crossed by the only bridge in view
of many primitive wooden water-wheels. The bazaar began at the bridge
and ended at a Turkish khan, at which we alighted. There was but one
sleeping-room in the khan, and this chamber was equipped with six cots
filled with loose cornshucks in lieu of mattresses; there was no other
furniture in the room. We wanted to take the room and pay for all six
beds, but the landlord preferred to accommodate two Turkish friends,
and offered to let us have the other four beds.
We washed at the tap of the inevitable petroleum tin in the stable,
and the proprietor’s son brought us clean but exceedingly rough
towels. After our ablutions we repaired to the front of the house,
where a dozen or more Turkish officers sat sipping coffee. The ranking
man among them, an Albanian, rose as we appeared, and addressed us
in French. A Turk would not have spoken without some substantial
motive. The Albanian asked where we had come from, where going, how
old we were, whether married or not, as rapidly as he could put the
questions--which is polite in Turkey. We both understood that this
was all in good taste, as was also the noise the other officers
made drinking coffee. It was difficult for the Englishman, however,
bound by the heavy fetters of British restraint, to reply to this
interrogatory readily and with any marked show of pleasure, and quite
impossible for him to sip his coffee in the manner of the company.
But, having come in contact with many queer people in the course of my
travels, I was experienced in such a situation, and not only answered
all the Albanian’s questions with alacrity, but put them straight back
to him, and while he was speaking I sucked coffee and sighed heavily
after each mouthful as though in the height of bliss. This display
of good manners met with a cordial reception by the Turks, and they
invited us to dine with them at the officers’ mess--an exceptional
invitation.
We went with them to their quarters in a clean Turkish house, off a
narrow street half covered by the extended second storey. We climbed
a bare, ladder-like staircase and entered a small, unpainted room
with many rugs on the rough boards. There was a long, covered thing
like a mattress on one side, stretching from end to end of the floor,
and a high divan, likewise stretching the length of the wall, on the
other side. I was weary, and the long cushion offered more excuse for
reclining, so I dropped myself upon it; but the other man got upon the
divan and let his feet hang. We looked foreign to the place, I know;
for when the officers were seated there were many pairs of shoes on the
floor, but ours were the only feet to be seen, and ours were the only
bare heads. Once in a while a Turk would remove his fez and rub his
head, but generally the red cap sat somewhere on the skull of its owner.
A strong native drink, which changed colour like absinthe when water
was added--mastica it is called--was served by a Bulgarian boy, who
shed his shoes at the door and entered in stocking feet. One of
the officers made the boy tell us what good masters the Turks are.
Radishes, sliced apple, roasted monkey-nuts, and a delightful little
Turkish nut were served and left in the room an hour before dinner. The
Englishman and I ate heartily of these, for we were ravenous, and it
was well that we did. When the meal came on we all drew around a small
wooden table. Six of us sat in so many chairs, and the others stood
around behind us, and reached over our heads for their food. We were
each supplied with a hunk of bread, a fork, a spoon, and a towel, but
no plates were distributed. One dish at a time was placed in the centre
of the table, and removed when it was empty. The meal varied from
stewed lamb to little squares of lamb toasted on sticks, going through
five courses of lamb. Then there was fruit and coffee. There was wine,
and five of the Turks drank it; devout Mohamedans do not.
At this meal I failed in Turkish manners, even as the Englishman had
done previously. We were all required to stick our forks and spoons
into the single dish and dig for ourselves, and when the meat was gone
to sop our bread in the gravy. But we were both continually withdrawing
our forks as another man advanced his, which the Turks did not
understand. Of the first few courses we got very little, but then the
Albanian caused the officers to give us a two minutes’ handicap at the
succeeding dishes.
After dinner there was Turkish music--which was not pleasant. The reed
flute played in the Turkish street harmonises with the character of
the country, and is not unattractive; but in a close room its monotony
is inclined to put the weary travellers to sleep. The low wail of a
Mohamedan priest calling the ‘faithful’ from a minaret is ‘like the
sighing of the pines,’ but the whine of a Turk at close quarters,
accompanied by the facial contortions necessary to his nasal chant, is
conducive to bad dreams. We had our revenge; the other man retaliated
with ‘Alice, Ben Bolt.’
Several of the officers escorted us back to the khan through the silent
street, answering the challenges of the night patrols.
Two dark figures, which followed us from the officers’ quarters,
entered the khan behind us and stretched themselves on the floor
before the door of the general sleeping-room. There we found them when
we emerged in the morning; they proved to be two soldiers to whom
the authorities had assigned the duty of ‘shadowing’ us. They told
us, with much amusement, of how they had lost us the night before.
Arriving at the khan about nine o’clock, they were informed that we
had ‘disappeared’; the _khanji_ had not seen us leave with the Turkish
officers. This alarmed the soldiers, and they started on a search for
us. They were about to report our disappearance to headquarters, when,
coming to the Turkish quarter, they heard strange sounds never before
perpetrated in Veles. This was the song of ‘Sweet Alice.’
In the morning a negro merchant arrived at the khan from Istip and
told us of a fight ‘in progress’ at Garbintzi, a little village about
eight hours’ ride to the east. We had intended to take the train that
afternoon for Uskub, but the chance of seeing a fight caused us to
change our plans. We gathered as much hurried information as we could
about the route, hired a Turkish guide, and set off for Garbintzi
before noon. We planned to go unescorted, but this was not to be.
Our guide, in pursuance of police orders, had informed the Konak of
our sudden change of destination, and the _kaimakam_ despatched four
Zaptiehs to accompany us. We were surprised that they permitted us to
proceed.
Being anxious to reach the scene of the combat as quickly as possible,
we rode rapidly over the mountains, and came to Istip about six o’clock.
An officer came up as we entered the town and greeted us like long-lost
brothers. He was a Turk, and had a mission to perform. He informed
us that the kaimakam had received a telegram from Veles advising him
of our approach, and instructing him to see that we were treated in
a manner befitting our exalted positions. The only place they could
offer such worthy guests, who had so honoured Istip with a visit, was
the kaimakam’s own house. The kaimakam, I may explain, lived above the
gaol.
We were presented to the kaimakam, and the official congratulated the
Englishman on belonging to that great race which had so long befriended
the Turks. To me he said he thought it wonderful that a great New York
paper would send so youthful a man so many miles on so important a
mission.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘Twenty-five,’ I replied.
‘You look eighteen.’ He did not ask why I wore no moustache, probably
fearing it was because I could not. The Turk is a gentleman.
Information had evidently been given by our escort that we carried
revolvers, for two officers entered the room through a door at the
back, drew up chairs, and seated themselves immediately behind us. But
we did not attempt to shoot the kaimakam. Another officer, perhaps the
spy attached to the governor, also entered and occupied a seat beside
his quarry.
Then the kaimakam brought his compliments to an end and sat silent.
Nobody spoke for forty seconds. We sought to end the uneasy interview,
and informed the kaimakam, what we were sure he already knew, that we
were on our way to Garbintzi.
‘The fight is over; the troops have just returned,’ he informed us.
‘That is unfortunate,’ I replied, ‘but as we have come this far I guess
we’ll visit the scene.’
But the kaimakam guessed we wouldn’t.
‘I have orders,’ he said, ‘to prevent you from going any further. You
must return to Veles.’
We suggested that the Governor-General was making a mistake; if we were
not allowed to visit Garbintzi we must conclude that the reports that
massacre and arson had accompanied the fight were true. The Englishman
added that, if the Turkish version were based on fact, it would be
well to let us verify it. But the kaimakam shook his head; he had his
instructions.
We left the house extremely disappointed, and on the way to the
khan--for he had said nothing about putting us up--began to think out
a plan for getting to Garbintzi. We went to our guide, and, feigning
extreme dejection, instructed him to saddle, and be ready himself at
eight o’clock next morning; we were going back to Veles. An officer
visited us during the evening to ascertain what time an escort should
be ready to take us back. The information we gave him agreed with that
we had given the Turkish guide--which had been imparted to him. Putting
the question to us was only a point of politeness: the horses were
being watched.
We rose at five o’clock next morning, dressed hurriedly, and went to
the stables. Two soldiers had slept there, and one set off at a run to
the Konak. But the hour was early for the Turks, and we got out of town
without a soldier on our heels.
We passed the sentinels on the border of the town and rode hard in the
direction of Veles until we had passed out of sight of a blockhouse
which stood high on a hill a few miles beyond, and would, no doubt,
report that we had fairly gone by towards the railway. It was a ride
of barely ninety minutes from Istip to Garbintzi by road; with a good
hour’s start, we calculated that we could get there before being
overtaken, even though we went by a roundabout route. But we did not
reckon with our guide. When we called a halt and asked him if there
was not a road over the mountains to Garbintzi, he was frightened. He
answered that there was a way, but the road was bad, and it would take
four hours to go by it from the spot where we stood.
‘Lead us over it,’ we said to the dragoman, who repeated the words to
the guide.
There was a parley of ten minutes, during which our nerves were at high
tension. Every minute we expected to see a troop of cavalry coming
after us. At last we got the information. ‘He won’t go.’ There was no
time for argument, when it had taken so much time and all the Turkish
which we had heard to convey that fatal negation.
‘How much does he want?’ the Englishman demanded.
‘He will not go at any price,’ came the reply. ‘He has a wife and
children depending on him, and an officer has been to him last night
and told him that he should lead us to Veles and nowhere else.’ It was
no use arguing. We turned our horses’ heads towards a village of some
ten houses a few miles off, half way up a mountain side. The dragoman
followed. The guide would not leave the road to Veles, literally
following instructions.
It was Sunday, and the peasants were all in their brightest clothes.
They were dancing a _horo_, but our appearance among them broke up
the festivities. Every man, woman, and child in the village collected
about these queer travellers. They understood the dragoman’s Bulgarian,
as was apparent by the state of alarm into which they fell. Not for a
hundred liras, said the headman of the village, would one of them guide
us over the mountains.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why!’ came the answer, ‘the man who should take you over those
mountains would be shot by the committajis, for we have refused to
arm. Were the Turks to find out that one of us had left here without
a _teskeré_, and taken you to see a village which they had destroyed,
they would come and do the same to this place.’
‘Please leave us,’ they begged, as we still argued, ‘and get away
before the Turks see you.’ Several old women began to cry.
We returned to our guide, our last card played, and said demurely,
‘Lead us back to Veles.’
We made our way slowly, and waited at the next khan for a cloud of
dust on our trail to develop into a troop of cavalry, who kept a close
cordon about us for the rest of the journey back to the railway.
Defeated we had been, but we had learned a lesson in the ways of
the Turk, who thinks his intelligence is superior to that of a mere
‘giaour.’