Through the Land of the Serb Part 7

My journey to Obrenovatz, the next town on my route, was amusing, as I shared a carriage with a "commercial," a Jew who among other things was agent for a life-insurance company. He was on his return journey, and we halted from time to time at various houses, that he might, if possible, reap the results of the seeds he had sown on his outward march.

Everywhere he preached the benefits of life insurance. He suggested at last that I should insure for the sake of my fiance! When I said I hadn't one, he saw a fresh opening for business. He had, he said, married his own daughter extremely well. He enlarged upon the highly successful nature of his own marriage, and told me about Someone-avich who had married an English wife who is exceedingly happy. Finally, worn out by his fruitless exertions, he fell asleep.

At eleven we put up at Ub, and I had plenty of time to amuse myself.

Sitting on the bench by the inn door, I made folded paper toys for the children, and soon had a semicircle of tiny boys round me. A little gipsy girl looked on at them with superb contempt. As soon as they had cleared off, she sailed up and seated herself by my side with the air of one conferring a favour. She was a slip of a thing, nine years old, but with the self-possession of fifty. "I am ciganka" (gipsy), she said.

"Where do you come from?" I told her, but she had never heard of my native land. She was brown as a berry, and had on nothing but a dirty old scarlet frock which had shed its fastenings. She dangled her skinny brown legs and fixed me with her sparkling black eyes; her hair, she told me, was far superior to my own; in proof of her words, she took off the yellow handkerchief in which her head was swathed and offered for inspection a small and most filthy plait of coal-black hair in which were fastened three or four coins, which she pointed out with glee. It was, in fact, the savings bank in which she had just opened an account.

I at once produced a nickel 2d., which she accepted with much satisfaction. A man on the next bench threw down a cigarette end, and she pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. When she returned with it, she looked cautiously round to be sure that no one else could see, and then, sheltered by my skirts, she extracted from inside her frock a handkerchief tied up in a bundle, and displayed with great pride a ma.s.s of cigarette ends and other valuables. I duly admired; the new one was added to the collection, and it was all stowed away again with great precaution. Then she tried to look unconscious. Muttering something I didn't understand, she peeped in at the inn door. The floor was richly strewn with cigarette ends. She slipped in and crept round the room swiftly and silently. The lady of the inn and most of the other people saw her quite well; I don't think they had the least objection to her clearing the floor of rubbish. She preferred, however, to consider it as a dangerous raiding expedition, dashed from cover to cover quite scientifically, collecting as she went, and sneaked out again with her spoils, the spirit of all her horse-stealing ancestors twinkling in her eyes. She displayed her loot to me, for she took it for granted that I was a sympathetic soul; and as there is reason to believe that one of my forefathers sold horses in Queen Elizabeth's reign, it is possible that we may have had ideas in common.

By the time the carriage and my travelling companions were ready, I had interviewed several other people, and felt quite at home in Ub. It was hot on the road. Both the "commercial" and the driver felt it very much, and stopped at all the wells and drank quant.i.ties of cold water, and as a natural consequence perspired a great deal. When they had had seven or eight drinks to my one, they began to get anxious about me, and when they found I had been playing about the streets of Ub instead of going to sleep as they had both done, they were still more astonished, and foretold that by the time I reached Obrenovatz I should be exhausted. We arrived there safely, however, at about 2.30 without my expected collapse.

Obrenovatz was fearfully excited by my arrival, and produced a commercial (a Hungarian) who spoke English, in order to extract a full and particular account of me. My fame had flown before me, for he had seen me a few days ago in Shabatz, had gleaned a few facts about me, and Obrenovatz had already learned that there was an Engleskinja loose in the land, though it had not hoped to see me. When I went out for a walk, all Obrenovatz stood at the door to see. Such notoriety was embarra.s.sing. However, I succeeded in concealing my feelings so effectually that in the evening the conversation turned mainly on the cold-bloodedness of the English nation. Nothing surprised them! nothing upset their equanimity! "Fish blood," they said, "fish blood and steel!"

And the insurance agent recounted how I had only had one drink on the road and had remained quite cool all the day, though he and the driver felt the heat badly; here he gave an unnecessarily realistic description of the state of his s.h.i.+rt.

Obrenovatz is remarkable for nothing but its hot sulphur springs and its well-arranged bath house, where it hopes to work up a rheumatism cure. I returned to Belgrade by boat, nor, save the floating watermills and the timber rafts that drift from the forests of Bosnia and Servia down the Drina to the Save and thence to the Danube, is there much to see upon the river.

CHAPTER XII

NISH

From Belgrade to Nish, down the valley of the Morava, the mark of the Turk is still upon the land, and a minaret tower shoots up from more than one little town by the rail-side. The train rushes into Stalacs, where the two Moravas join, and we are on the track of recent fighting--fighting that we can all remember; we are in the valley which was the scene of poor Milan's unsuccessful attempts, when in 1876 he resolved to take his part in that uprising against the Turks which had already been begun by the Herzegovinians. Near Alexinatz we cross Servia's old frontier, and enter the land that was Turkish twenty-five years ago.

I arrived at Nish, and found myself in a new and more oriental Servia.

Nish, like other places, was surprised to see me. The hotel hoped I was leaving to-morrow, as it feared the police, and got more and more nervous about harbouring me as I stayed on. Nevertheless, I liked Nish.

Its position on the highways both to Bulgaria and Turkey make it strategically and commercially important, and it is gay with soldiers and with peasants from all the surrounding districts. The Turk has not yet quite left; closely-veiled women shuffle furtively down the streets, and both men and women have an apologetic and subdued appearance, very different from the swagger of the Mohammedan on the other side of the frontier. The new Servian town lies one side of the river Nishava, and the old Turkish one and the big fortress upon the other.

I saw Nish at its best, for I had the good luck to light upon a great fair and cattle market, and spent the day wriggling between buffaloes'

horns and horses' heels, with a dense crowd of strange folk and their wares, who trailed into the market field in a ceaseless stream from early dawn. The buffalo is the favourite draught animal here, a villainous-looking beast with a black indiarubber hide, a sprinkling of long bristles, a wicked little eye, and heavy back-curved horns; but his appearance belies him, he seems extremely tame, and grunts amiably when scratched. Goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and cattle, all were equally tame, having been probably all brought up with the family, which was a good thing, as they were none of them penned, and the greater number not even tied up. Their owners were just as friendly, and showed me everything. A mounted patrol rode round at intervals, but did not seem necessary; good-nature and friendliness prevailed everywhere. There was plenty of food both for man and beast. The hot-sausage man ran about with his goods in a tin drum. The cake man sold his from a large wooden tray placed on a tripod. The roast-meat man brandished his knife over an impaled lamb roasted whole, which sent up a rich odour and oily swirls of steam in the suns.h.i.+ne. Under little huts, built of leafy beech branches, cooks were grilling bunches of peac.o.c.k's feathers, and tufts of feathery gra.s.s to their bodices and white head-dresses, already a-sparkle with coins and dingle-dangles. The peasants took to me quite naturally, and offered me young pigs and buffaloes without any idea of the difficulty I should have in getting them home.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: SERVIAN PEASANTS.]

The officer, however, in charge of the hut in the kebabs on long skewers, over a heap of charcoal embers; there was a great run on iced lemonade, and a crowd was always waiting its turn at the well. The women were extraordinarily gaudy; not content with their brilliantly orange or scarlet sashes and white dresses, they pinned great bouquets of flowers, middle where the market tolls were paid, was much mystified.

"Mademoiselle doubtless speaks French?" he asked politely. "Yes," I said. "Then please tell us from what land you come," he begged, "for we cannot imagine. Mademoiselle is perhaps Russian?" he hazarded. "No, English," said I. "Bogami! is it possible? English, and in Nis.h.!.+ Where are your friends?" "In England." "You are alone in Servia? Bogami, Mademoiselle, but you have courage!" "Oh no, I haven't," said I, "only I am English." Then he laughed and repeated my remark to his friends, and they all appeared to be highly amused. I went on, "Besides, Monsieur, your country is doubtless civilised?" "Perfectly," said he, "perfectly; there is no danger, but no one knows it. How have you learned this in England? We are a Balkan state, and all the world believes the Balkan states are wicked. If I can a.s.sist you in any way, pray command me." I told him I was not needing help and thanked him for the offer. "No,"

said he gallantly, "it is we who owe thanks to you, for you pay us a great compliment." He saluted and withdrew, and I returned to my quest after things old-world and Servian.

A man was driving wire hooks into wooden bats, and his wife squatted near and carded wool with them with great dexterity to show how well they worked, and not far off a great trade was going on in big wooden chests, rough-made boxes on legs, pegged together with wood, stained crimson and decorated with a scratched curly pattern that showed white on the coloured ground. And the gipsies were selling troughs and bowls of prehistoric simplicity hacked and dug out of chunks of wood without much attempt at symmetry, and very thick and clumsy.

The horse market was very full. There were some showy little beasts whose outstanding plumy tails and slim legs showed their Eastern blood.

A tall snaky Albanian was riding them bare-backed, and held only by a halter, through the thick of the crowd. He rode slowly along till he had bored a pa.s.sage of sufficient length, then turned suddenly and came back _ventre a terre_. Every bare s.p.a.ce of ground was used to gallop horses across, and it was a case of a cloud of dust, a hammer of hoofs, and everyone for himself.

At midday and past, when the sun blazed overhead, the air was thick with dust and rich with billy-goats, and the bulls were roaring and the stallions squealing insults at each other, the people who had finished eating hot sausages in the sun thought it an admirable opportunity for beginning to dance. The bagpipe man appeared, and struck up at once one of the odd monotonous airs for the "kolo"; men and women joined in a long line, each holding the next at arm's length by the sash, and were soon serpentining in and out and round and round, surrounded by a suffocating crowd of lookers-on. The Albanian was showing off a roan stallion, a red-hot beast, which he managed beautifully almost entirely by his knees. Its apparent docility tempted a young officer to mount. He picked up the curb, drove in his spurs, and in another moment the squealing, plunging animal was in mid-air, over the dancers. The scattering was great, the roan appearing at intervals high above the crowd. No one was hurt, the interruption was only temporary, but the roan did not change hands that time at any rate. Nothing will stop a Servian from dancing the kolo.

All the animals had been supplied with green forage, for the Servians are kind and careful of their beasts, and now the draught oxen were being taken in detachments to the river to drink. As each pair of oxen returned from watering, it was yoked and set off on its homeward journey, till there was a processional frieze all along the road. The market slowly dissolved, and by four o'clock there was not much of it left but debris on the field.

Nish is a bright and attractive town, with about 20,000 inhabitants. Two slim minarets show that it was once Mohammedan, and a fat new church, bloated with cupolas, proclaims its orthodoxy. The buffalo carts in the streets, the variety of peasant costume, the wild luxuriance of crimson roses in the Park, the pretty wooden trellis bridge over the river, the number of houses still remaining with screened windows, the silver filigree workers and the veiled women give it picturesqueness and a dash of the Orient; but you must not tell it so, unless you wish to hurt its feelings. If a long pedigree be a claim to respect, Nish deserves much; for Nish, as Naissus or Nissa, existed before Servia, and quite early in the Christian era was a considerable town in Upper Moesia. It claims to be the birthplace of Constantine the Great, and the claim is very generally admitted. Constantine's mother, the celebrated St. Helena, the discoverer of the True Cross, was the daughter of an innkeeper at Naissus, while his father was of "Illyrian" blood.

I looked with interest at the Albanians who cantered through Nish with a lot of half-broken ponies, and with interest also upon the stout daughter of the inn, but I did not feel that either were destined to disturb the balance of Europe.

Nish was part of the kingdom of Stefan Nemanja in the twelfth century, and Servian it remained till the Turks took it in 1375. Though not freed till 1878, Nish made a gallant struggle for liberty in 1809, when the general uprising was taking place--all the characteristics of which are now being repeated in Macedonia.

The "chela kula" (tower of skulls), on the Pirot road, is a grim monument of the times. A little Servian stronghold near this spot, commanded by Stefan Sindjelich, resisted successfully for a short while.

Then the Turks brought up a large force and "rushed" the place. As the Turkish soldiery were pouring in, Sindjelich seeing all was lost, fired his pistol into the powder magazine and blew up self, friend, foe, and the whole place in one red ruin. The Turkish losses were very heavy, and the Pasha, enraged at losing so many men over such a hole of a place, commemorated his costly victory in a manner most hateful to the vanquished. He ordered the heads of the dead Serbs to be collected, paying twenty-five piastres apiece for them, and obtained over nine hundred. These were embedded in rows in a great tower of brick and cement, the faces staring horribly forth, till the flesh rotted and nothing but the bare skulls remained. From time to time these were removed and buried by patriotic Servians, but the ruins of the tower still stand to tell of Turkish vengeance and to keep alive the hatred of the two races. By order of King Alexander Obrenovich, a chapel has been built over it. Four skulls yet stare from the sockets where the Turk placed them. An inscription in several languages tells of Sindjelich's heroism.

A polite young officer, reeking with carbolic from the military hospital hard by, admitted me to the chapel, and doubted which language to point to. I need hardly say English was not one of them, for in Europe except in the most beaten of tracks English is one of the least useful languages. As soon as it was known in Nish that I was English I was asked to go to someone's office to translate an English business letter.

"It is impossible to trade with England," said the man; "many of their goods are better than those of Austria, but they will not write in a language that we can understand. We wrote them in French, and begged them to reply in either French or German. They have replied for the second time in English. This is the first and last time that I do business with England." I, of course, went to the office at once, but was too late. The letter had just been posted to Belgrade for translation. This I gathered was a fair sample of the proceedings of British traders in this country. The profits that are to be made in the poverty-stricken states of the Balkans are not great, but such as they are they are all swept up by the ubiquitous Austrian bagman.

Nish tries hard to be Western, but, as I walked about it, I grinned to think of the man who had written in English to it Even the hotel has so many peculiarities that the solitary traveller from the West is well amused observing them. Like other hotels, it provides beds and drinks and food, but the latter also flows in freely from the streets, and the hotel does not seem to care from whom you buy. All day long the bread-roll man runs in and out with his basket; or two or three bread-roll men, if there is much company. The Servians rarely seem tired of eating rolls, and eat them all day long. Next in frequency to the bread man is the salad man, with a tray of lettuces and a big bunch of onions. The cake man does a good trade in the afternoon. But the oddest of all is the hot-stew man. He appears in the evening with a large tin drum slung round his neck, in which is an enamelled iron soup tureen.

Such a cloud of steam rolls out when he lifts the lid that I think there must be heating apparatus in the drum, but he wears it next his stomach and does not appear unduly warm. The pockets of his white ap.r.o.n are full of not over-clean plates, and a formidable array of knives and forks bristles about the drums edge. His customers take a plate and clean it with their handkerchiefs, serviettes, or the tablecloth, and then select t.i.t-bits from the pot, and the man returns later and removes the plate, knife and fork, when done with. If you do not care for stew, there is the hot-sausage man, whose wares look singularly unattractive; and, lastly, there is a man who sells very dry nuts. Except for wine and beer, you can get your whole meal from wandering caterers; the supply seems unfailing. Servian food and cooking, I may here note, is on the whole very good. It is peppery and flavoursome; mint, thyme, and other herbs, and the very popular "paprika" (a mild variety of red pepper), are largely used, and the soups are meaty and nouris.h.i.+ng. A fourpenny plate of kisela chorba (soup with lemon juice in it) often includes half a fowl, and is enough for a meal.

Having explored the town and seen all the shops, I wandered about and waited for people to do something Servian, nor had I long to wait.

Servia is striving to be Western and striving to be up to date, and this is the side she shows to the world from which she was for so long cut off. In her heart she cherishes old, old customs, whose origins are lost in dim antiquity, and one of these is the commemorative funeral feast When we wander through the outskirts of Pompeii or visit the tombs on the Latin Way, we look at the stone benches and recall vaguely that the Romans here held banquets in honour of the dead; but the banqueters are dead and buried and the feasts forgotten. It all belongs to a distant past and is hard to realise, it seems so far away. But the Christian Church in early days adopted many of the existing rites and ceremonies of pagan times, and the Orthodox Church has clung tightly to its old traditions. So much so that the Orthodox Church of to-day is said to bear far stronger resemblance to the Church of the fourth or fifth century than do now the Churches of either England or Rome.

And from the time of the Turkish invasion till the nineteenth century the ma.s.s of the people of the Balkans stood still and had no communication with the outer world. The Macedonian peasant still sacrifices sheep on ancient altar stones, and the Servian reads the funeral feast in the Christian graveyard.

Quite early in the morning solemn little parties of women and children were walking down the streets carrying big baskets and trays covered with clean white cloths; I followed, and we crossed the railway line and turned to the cemetery on the hillside. Round the gates sat the lame, the aged, and the blind; each with his wooden bowl, his bottle gourd and bag. "A Bagge and a Bottle, he bar bi his seyde," sang Langland in England in the fourteenth century; thus did the folk of Piers Plowman gather alms. Within the gates, in the big graveyard, through the long thick gra.s.s and by the rose-tangled headstones went each little party to the grave it sought, and the wailing of the death-songs arose on every side. The women brought little girls with them and taught them how to honour the dead. They lighted little beeswax tapers stuck into the grave, and they filled a green earthen pot with incense and lighted that too. Then they stood round, and one began the long-drawn, melancholy cry, "Kuka mene, kuka mene!" (Woe is me, woe is me![1]) and beat her breast and clasped her hands, swaying to and fro, as she sang the verses of the song; the other mourners joined in, the song became a heart-breaking wail, she caught her breath in long sobs and she threw herself on the grave, clasping the cross at its head and weeping bitterly. When the lament was finished, they spread their white cloth on the grave and arranged the meal, for it was a real meal, not merely a symbolic mouthful; a large bowl of the favourite hash (gulyash), and another of rice, which steamed as it was uncovered, a large loaf of bread and perhaps cheese, and a handkerchief full of cherries.

The very poor sat on the ground. Those that were wealthy engaged a priest to pray with them by the graveside. There were wooden or stone benches and tables built up by some graves, and sometimes railed in. It was a dull day; the crimson roses were shedding petals everywhere, the tapers twinkled like glow-worms in the gra.s.s, and the thin blue smoke curled from the censers. The air was heavy with the mingled scent of dying roses and incense, there was a hum of prayer, and the minor notes of the long laments rose and fell, swarms of pigeons and grey hooded crows soared round and, settled on the grave-stones near, greedily waited to pick up the crumbs of the feasts. It was a strangely impressive scene. Forty days after the funeral does this feast (the dacha) take place, then after six months, and then yearly, either upon a Sat.u.r.day, a Sunday, or a Saints day.

As each group of mourners left the graveyard, they distributed food among the beggars at the gate. Their bowls were heaped with stew and rice, their bags stuffed with bread, and their gourds filled by means of a funnel with a mixture of all the various wines. The tapers were left to twinkle out in the gra.s.s, and by the middle of the day the graveyard was deserted.

[1] Kukavichiti = to lament, to cry like the cuckoo; for in Servia the cuckoo is not the depraved bird that it is with us, but is a bereaved woman who wails ceaselessly for the dead.

CHAPTER XIII

PIROT

I left Nish, in a chill wet fog, at 4.30 a.m. by the only quick train in the day. It was full of sleeping men, and I stood in the corridor that I might not disturb them. Scarcely anyone got in besides myself, and the train rushed on over the plain of Nish, plunged into the mountains, began to climb the valley of the Nishava, and entered the pa.s.s of Pirot.

The scenery is of the kind that the Germans call "wild-romantic." The defile is extremely narrow and the rocks high and steep; there is but room for the stream and train at the foot of them. It is like travelling through a deep cutting, but is considered very fine. The earth is dark red, like anchovy paste, and gives the river such an unpleasantly gory appearance that one half expects it to steam, and the station at the top of the pa.s.s is called Crvena Reka, "The Red Stream."

"What is the name of this station?" asked a stout man in Servian.

I replied.

"What is ..." he began again, and stuck fast. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he ended rather feebly.

We conversed for some minutes. Then "You come from Nish?" he said.

"Yes," said I.

"You speak German very well for a Servian. I did not know that the ladies learned foreign languages."