Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family Part 11

This was meant as a cut to the reverend Farniente. He looked blank, but evidently wanted the boldness and ingenuity to frame an answer to this redoubtable innovator. At last he gaped at me to help him out of the dilemma.

"I should be sorry," said I, "if any thing were to happen to this convent. It is a most interesting and beautiful monument of the ancient kingdom of Servia; I hope it will be preserved and honourably kept up to a late period."

"_BlaG.o.darim_, (I am obliged to you,)" said the Superior, pleased at the Gordian knot being loosed, and then relapsed into his atrophy, without moving a muscle of his countenance.

I now examined the church; the details of the architecture showed that it had suffered severely from the Turks. The curiously twisted pillars of the outer door were sadly chipped, while noseless angels, and fearfully mutilated lions guarded the inner portal. Pa.s.sing through a vestibule, we saw the remains of the font, which must have been magnificent; and covered with a cupola, the stumps of the white marble columns which support it are still visible; high on the wall is a piece of sculpture, supposed to represent St. George.

Entering the church, I saw on the right the tomb of St. Simeon, the sainted king of Servia; beside it hung his banner with the half-moon on it, the insignium of the South Slavonic nation from the dawn of heraldry. Near the altar was the body of his son, St. Stephen, the patron saint of Servia. Those who accompanied us paid little attention to the architecture of the church, but burst into raptures at the sight of the carved wood of the screen, which had been most minutely and elaborately cut by Tsinsars, (as the Macedonian Latins are called to this day).

Close to the church is a chapel with the following inscription:

"I, Stephen Urosh, servant of G.o.d, great grandson of Saint Simeon and son of the great king Urosh, king of all the Servian lands and coasts, built this temple in honour of the holy and just Joachim and Anna, 1314. Whoever destroys this temple of Christ be accursed of G.o.d and of me a sinner."

Thirty-five churches in this district, mostly in ruins, attest the piety of the Neman dynasty. The convent of Studenitza was built towards the end of the twelfth century, by the first of the dynasty.

The old cloister of the convent was burnt down by the Turks. The new cloister was built in 1839. In fact it is a wonder that so fine a monument as the church should have been preserved at all.

There is a total want of arable land in this part of Servia, and the pasture is neither good nor abundant; but the Ybar is the most celebrated of all the streams of Servia for large quant.i.ties of trout.

Next day we continued our route direct South, through scenery of the same rugged and sterile description as that we had pa.s.sed on the way hither. How different from the velvet verdure and woodland music of the Gutchevo and the Drina! At one place on the bank of the Ybar, there was room for only a led horse, by a pa.s.sage cut in the rock.

This place bears the name of Demir Kapu, or Iron Gate. In the evening we arrived at the frontier quarantine, called Raska, which is situated at two hours' distance from Novibazar.

In the midst of an amphitheatre of hills dest.i.tute of vegetation, which appeared low from the valley, although they must have been high enough above the level of the sea, was such a busy scene as one may find in the back settlements of Eastern Russia. Within an extensive inclosure of high palings was a heterogeneous ma.s.s of new buildings, some unfinished, and resounding with the saw, the plane, and the hatchet; others in possession of the employes in their uniforms; others again devoted to the safe keeping of the well-armed caravans, which bring their cordovans, oils, and cottons, from Saloniki, through Macedonia, and over the Balkan, to the gates of Belgrade.

On dismounting, the Director, a thin elderly man, with a modest and pleasing manner, told me in German that he was a native of the Austrian side of the Save, and had been attached to the quarantine at Semlin; that he had joined the quarantine service, with the permission of his government, and after having directed various other establishments, was now occupied in organizing this new point.

The _traiteur_ of the quarantine gave us for dinner a very fair pillaff, as well as roast and boiled fowl; and going outside to our bench, in front of the finished buildings, I began to smoke. A slightly built and rather genteel-looking man, with a braided surtout, and a piece of ribbon at his b.u.t.ton-hole, was sitting on the step of the next door, and wished me good evening in German. I asked him who he was, and he told me that he was a Pole, and had been a major in the Russian service, but was compelled to quit it in consequence of a duel.

I asked him if he was content with his present condition; and he answered, "Indeed, I am not; I am perfectly miserable, and sometimes think of returning to Russia, _coute qui coute_.--My salary is 20 sterling a year, and everything is dear here; for there is no village, but an artificial settlement; and I have neither books nor European society. I can hold out pretty well now, for the weather is fine; but I a.s.sure you that in winter, when the snow is on the ground, it exhausts my patience." We now took a turn down the inclosure to his house, which was the ground-floor of the guard-house. Here was a bed on wooden boards, a single chair and table, without any other furniture.

The Director, obliging me, made up a bed for me in his own house, since the only resource at the _traiteur's_ would have been my own carpet and pillow.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Ingenious treaties have been written on the origin of the Gothic and Saracenic styles of architecture; but it seems to me impossible to contemplate many Byzantine edifices without feeling persuaded that this manner is the parent of both. Taking the Lower Empire for the point of departure, the Christian style spread north to the Baltic and westwards to the Atlantic. Saint Stephen's in Vienna, standing half way between Byzantium and Wisby, has a Byzantine facade and a Gothic tower. The Saracenic style followed the Moslem conquests round by the southern coasts of the Mediterranean to Morocco and Andaloss. Thus both the northern and the eastern styles met each other, first in Sicily and then in Spain, both having started from Constantinople.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Cross the Bosniac Frontier.--Gipsy Encampment.--Novibazar described.--Rough Reception.--Precipitate Departure.--Fanaticism.

Next day we were all afoot at an early hour, in order to pay a visit to Novibazar. In order to obviate the performance of quarantine on our return, I took an officer of the establishment, and a couple of men, with me, who in the Levant are called Guardiani; but here the German word Ueber-reiter, or over-rider, was adopted.

We continued along the river Raska for about an hour, and then descried a line of wooden palings going up hill and down dale, at right angles with the course we were holding. This was the frontier of the princ.i.p.ality of Servia, and here began the direct rule of the Sultan and the Pashalic of Bosnia. At the guard-house half a dozen Momkes, with old fas.h.i.+oned Albanian guns, presented arms.

After half an hour's riding, the valley became wider, and we pa.s.sed through meadow lands, cultivated by Moslem Bosniacs in their white turbans; and two hours further, entered a fertile circular plain, about a mile and a half in diameter, surrounded by low hills, which had a chalky look, in the midst of which rose the minarets and bastions of the town and castle of Novibazar. Numerous gipsy tents covered the plain, and at one of them, a withered old gipsy woman, with white dishevelled hair hanging down on each side of her burnt umber face, cried out in a rage, "See how the Royal Servian people now-a-days have the audacity to enter Novibazar on horseback,"

alluding to the ancient custom of Christians not being permitted to ride on horseback in a town.[12]

On entering, I perceived the houses to be of a most forbidding aspect, being built of mud, with only a base of bricks, extending about three feet from the ground. None of the windows were glazed; this being the first town of this part of Turkey in Europe that I had seen in such a plight. The over-rider stopped at a large stable-looking building, which was the khan of the place. Near the door were some bare wooden benches, on which some Moslems, including the khan-keeper, were reposing. The horses were foddered at the other extremity, and a fire burned in the middle of the floor, the smoke escaping by the doors. We now sent our letter to Youssouf Bey, the governor, but word was brought back that he was in the harem.

We now sallied forth to view the town. The castle, which occupies the centre, is on a slight eminence, and flanked with eight bastions; it contains no regular troops, but merely some _redif_, or militia.

Besides one small well-built stone mosque, there is nothing else to remark in the place. Some of the bazaar shops seemed tolerably well furnished; but the place is, on the whole, miserable and filthy in the extreme. The total number of mosques is seventeen.

The afternoon being now advanced, I went to call upon the Mutsellim.

His konak was situated in a solitary street, close to the fields.

Going through an archway, we found ourselves in the court of a house of two stories. The ground-floor was the prison, with small windows and grated wooden bars. Above was an open corridor, on which the apartments of the Bey opened. Two rusty, old fas.h.i.+oned cannons were in the middle of the court. Two wretched-looking men, and a woman, detained for theft, occupied one of the cells. They asked us if we knew where somebody, with an unp.r.o.nounceable name, had gone. But not having had the honour of knowing any body of the light-fingered profession, we could give no satisfactory information on the subject.

The Momke, whom we had asked after the governor, now re-descended the rickety steps, and announced that the Bey was still asleep; so I walked out, but in the course of our ramble learned that he was afraid to see us, on account of the fanatics in the town: for, from the immediate vicinity of this place to Servia, the inhabitants entertain a stronger hatred of Christians than is usual in the other parts of Turkey, where commerce, and the presence of Frank influences, cause appearances to be respected. But the people here recollected only of one party of Franks ever visiting the town.[13]

We now sauntered into the fields; and seeing the cemetery, which promised from its elevation to afford a good general view of the town, we ascended, and were sorry to see so really pleasing a situation abused by filth, indolence, and barbarism.

The castle was on the elevated centre of the town; and the town sloping on all aides down to the gardens, was as nearly as possible in the centre of the plain. When we had sufficiently examined the carved stone kaouks and turbans on the tomb stones, we re-descended towards the town. A savage-looking Bosniac now started up from behind a low outhouse, and trembling with rage and fanaticism began to abuse us: "Giaours, kafirs, spies! I know what you have come for. Do you expect to see your cross planted some day on the castle?"

The old story, thought I to myself; the fellow takes me for a military engineer, exhausting the resources of my art in a plan for the reduction of the redoubtable fortress and city of Novibazar.

"Take care how you insult an honourable gentleman," said the over-rider; "we will complain to the Bey."

"What do we care for the Bey?" said the fellow, laughing in the exuberance of his impudence. I now stopped, looked him full in the face, and asked him coolly what he wanted.

"I will show you that when you get into the bazaar," and then he suddenly bolted down a lane out of sight.

A Christian, who had been hanging on at a short distance, came up and said--

"I advise you to take yourself out of the dust as quickly as possible.

The whole town is in a state of alarm; and unless you are prepared for resistance, something serious may happen: for the fellows here are all wild Arnaouts, and do not understand travelling Franks."

"Your advice is a good one; I am obliged to you for the hint, and I will attend to it."

Had there been a Pasha or consul in the place, I would have got the fellow punished for his insolence: but knowing that our small party was no match for armed fanatics, and that there was nothing more to be seen in the place, we avoided the bazaar, and went round by a side street, paid our khan bill,[14] and, mounting our horses, trotted rapidly out of the town, for fear of a stray shot; but the over-rider on getting clear of the suburbs instead of relaxing got into a gallop.

"Halt," cried I, "we are clear of the rascals, and fairly out of town;" and coming up to the eminence crowned with the Giurgeve Stupovi, on which was a church, said to have been built by Stephen Dushan the Powerful, I resolved to ascend, and got the over-rider to go so far; but some Bosniacs in a field warned us off with menacing gestures. The over-rider said, "For G.o.d's sake let us go straight home. If I go back to Novibazar my life may be taken."

Not wis.h.i.+ng to bring the poor fellow into trouble, I gave up the project, and returned to the quarantine.

Novibazar, which is about ten hours distant from the territory of Montenegro, and thrice that distance from Scutari, is, politically speaking, in the Pashalic of Bosnia. The Servian or Bosniac language here ceases to be the preponderating language, and the Albanian begins and stretches southward to Epirus. But through all the Pashalic of Scutari, Servian is much spoken.

Colonel Hodges, her Britannic Majesty's first consul-general in Servia, a gentleman of great activity and intelligence, from the laudable desire to procure the establishment of an entre-pot for British manufactures in the interior, got a certain chieftain of a clan Va.s.soevitch, named British vice-consul at Novibazar. From this man's influence, there can be no doubt that had he stuck to trade he might have proved useful; but, inflated with vanity, he irritated the fanaticism of the Bosniacs, by setting himself up as a little Christian potentate. As a necessary consequence, he was obliged to fly for his life, and his house was burned to the ground. The Va.s.soevitch clan have from time immemorial occupied certain mountains near Novibazar, and pretend, or pretended, to complete independence of the Porte, like the Montenegrines.

While I returned to the quarantine, and dismounted, the Director, to whom the over-rider related our adventure, came up laughing, and said, "What do you think of the rites of Novibazar hospitality?"

_Author_. "More honoured in the breach than in the observance, as our national poet would have said."

_Director_. "I know well enough what you mean."

_By-stander_. "The cause of the hatred of these fellows to you is, that they fear that some fine day they will be under Christian rule.

We are pleased to see the like of you here. Our brethren on the other side may derive a glimmering hope of liberation from the circ.u.mstance."