SERVIA,
YOUNGEST MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN FAMILY:
OR, A
RESIDENCE IN BELGRADE,
AND
TRAVELS IN THE HIGHLANDS AND WOODLANDS OF THE INTERIOR,
DURING THE YEARS 1843 AND 1844.
BY
ANDREW ARCHIBALD PATON, ESQ.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Drina.—Liubovia.—Quarantine Station.—Derlatcha.—A Servian beauty.—A lunatic priest.—Sorry quarters.—Murder by brigands.
The Save is the largest tributary of the Danube, and the Drina is the largest tributary of the Save, but it is not navigable; no river scenery, however, can possibly be prettier than that of the Drina; as in the case of the Upper Danube from Linz to Vienna, the river winds between precipitous banks tufted with wood, but it was tame after the thrilling enchantments of Sokol. At one place a Roman causeway ran along the river, and we were told that a Roman bridge crossed a tributary of the Drina in this neighbourhood, which to this day bears the name of Latinski Tiupria, or Latin bridge.
At Liubovia the hills receded, and the valley was about half a mile wide, consisting of fine meadow land with thinly scattered oaks, athwart which the evening sun poured its golden floods, suggesting pleasing images of abundance without effort. This part of Servia is a wilderness, if you will, so scant is it of inhabitants, so free from any thing like inclosures, or fields, farms, labourers, gardens, or gardeners; and yet it is, and looks a garden in one place, a trim English lawn and park in another: you almost say to yourself, “The man or house cannot be far off: what lovely and extensive grounds, where can the hall or castle be hid?”1
Liubovia is the quarantine station on the high road from Belgrade to Seraievo. A line of buildings, parlatorio, magazines, and lodging-houses, faced the river. The director would fain have me pass the night, but the captain of Derlatcha had received notice of our advent, and we were obliged to push on, and rested only for coffee and pipes. The director was a Servian from the Austrian side of the Danube, and spoke German. He told me that three thousand individuals per annum performed quarantine, passing from Bosnia to Sokol and Belgrade, and that the principal imports Were hides, chestnuts, zinc, and iron manufactures from the town of Seraievo. On the opposite bank of the river was a wooden Bosniac guard-house.
Remounting our horses after sunset, we continued along the Drina, now dubiously illuminated by the chill pallor of the rising moon, while hill and dale resounded with the songs of our men. No sooner had one finished an old metrical legend of the days of Stephan the powerful and Lasar the good, than another began a lay of Kara Georg, the “William Tell” of these mountains. Sometimes when we came to a good echo the pistols were fired off; at one place the noise had aroused a peasant, who came running across the grass to the road crying out, “O good men, the night is advancing: go no further, but tarry with me: the stranger will have a plain supper and a hard couch, but a hearty welcome.” We thanked him for his proffer, but held on.
At about ten o’clock we entered a thick dark wood, and after an ascent of a quarter of an hour emerged upon a fine open lawn in front of a large house with lights gleaming in the windows. The ripple of the Drina was no longer audible, but we saw it at some distance below us, like a cuirass of polished steel. As we entered the inclosure we found the house in a bustle. The captain, a tall strong corpulent man of about forty years of age, came forward and welcomed me.
“I almost despaired of your coming to-night,” said he; “for on this ticklish frontier it is always safer to terminate one’s journey by sunset. The rogues pass so easily from one side of the water to the other, that it is difficult to clear the country of them.”
He then led me into the house, and going through a passage, entered a square room of larger dimensions than is usual in the rural parts of Servia. A good Turkey carpet covered the upper part of the room, which was fenced round by cushions placed against the wall, but not raised above the level of the floor. The wall of the lower end of the room had a row of strong wooden pegs, on which were hung the hereditary and holyday clothes of the family, for males and females. Furs, velvets, gold embroidery, and silver mounted Bosniac pistols, guns, and carbines elaborately ornamented.
The captain, who appeared to be a plain, simple, and somewhat jolly sort of man, now presented me to his wife, who came from the Austrian aide of the Save, and spoke German. She seemed, and indeed was, a trim methodical housewife, as the order of her domestic arrangements clearly showed. Another female, whom I afterwards learned to be the wife of an individual of the neighbourhood who was absent, attracted my attention. Her age was about four and twenty, when the lines of thinking begin to mingle with those of early youth. In fact, from her tint I saw that she would soon be passata: her features too were by no means classical or regular, and yet she had unquestionably some of that super-human charm which Raphael sometimes infused into his female figures, as in the St. Cecilia. As I repeated and prolonged my gaze, I felt that I had seen no eyes in Belgrade like those of the beauty of the Drina, who reminded me of the highest characteristic of expression—”a spirit scarcely disguised enough in the flesh.” The presence of a traveller from an unknown country seemed to fill her with delight; and her wonder was childish, as if I had come from some distant constellation in the firmament.
Next day, the father of the captain made his appearance. The same old man, whom I had met at Palesh, and who had asked me, “if the king of my country lived in a strong castle?” We dined at mid-day by fine weather, the windows of the principal apartments being thrown open, so as to have the view of the valley, which was here nearly as wide as at Liubovia, but with broken ground. For the first time since leaving Belgrade we dined, not at an European table, but squatted round a sofra, a foot high, in the Eastern manner, although we ate with knives and forks. The cookery was excellent; a dish of stewed lamb being worthy of any table in the world.
Our host, the captain, never having seen Ushitza, offered to accompany me thither; so we started early in the afternoon, having the Drina still on our right, and Bosniac villages, from time to time visible, and pretty to look at, but I should hope somewhat cleaner than Sokol. On arrival at Bashevitza the elders of the village stood in a row to receive us close to the house of conciliation. I perceived a mosque near this place, and asked if it was employed for any purpose. “No,” said the captain, “it is empty. The Turks prayed in it, after their own fashion, to that God who is theirs and ours; and the house of God should not be made a grain magazine, as in many other Turkish villages scattered throughout Servia.” At this place a number of wild ducks were visible, perched on rocks in the Drina, but were very shy; only once did one of our men get within shot, which missed; his gun being an old Turkish one, like most of the arms in this country, which are sometimes as dangerous to the marksman as to the mark.
Towards evening we quitted the lovely Drina, which, a little higher up, is no longer the boundary between Servia and Bosnia, being entirely within the latter frontier, and entered the vale of Rogatschitza, watered by a river of that name, which was crossed by an ancient Servian bridge, with pointed arches of admirable proportions. The village where we passed the night was newly settled, the main street being covered with turf, a sign that few houses or traffic exist here. The khan was a hovel; but while it was swept out, and prepared for us, I sat down with the captain on a shopboard, in the little bazaar, where coffee was served. A priest, with an emaciated visage, sore eyes, and a distracted look, came up, and wished me good evening, and began a lengthened tale of grievances. I asked the khan-keeper who he was, and received for answer that he was a Greek priest from Bosnia, who had hoarded some money, and had been squeezed by the Moslem tyrant of his village, which drove him mad. Confused ejaculations, mingled with sighs, fell from him, as if he supposed his story to be universally known.
“Sit down, good man,” said I, “and tell me your tale, for I am a stranger, and never heard it before. Tell it me, beginning with the beginning, and ending with the end.”
“Bogami Gospody,” said the priest, wiping the copious tears, “I was once the happiest man in Bosnia; the sun never rose without my thanking God for having given me so much peace and happiness: but Ali Kiahya, where I lived, received information that I had money hid. One day his Momkes took me before him. My appeals for mercy and justice were useless. I was thrown down on my face, and received 617 strokes on my soles, praying for courage to hold out. At the 618th stroke my strength of mind and body failed, and I yielded up all my money, seven hundred dollars, to preserve my life. For a whole year I drank not a drop of wine, nothing but brandy, brandy, brandy.”
Here the priest sobbed aloud. My heart was wrung, but I was in no condition to assist him; so I bade him be of good cheer, and look on his misfortune as a gloomy avenue to happier and brighter days.
We slept on hay, put under our carpets and pillows, this being the first time since leaving Belgrade that we did not sleep in sheets. We next day ascended the Rogatschitza river to its source, and then, by a long ascent through pines and rocks, attained the parting of the waters.2
Leaving the basin of the Drina, we descended to that of the Morava by a steep road, until we came to beautifully rich meadows, which are called the Ushitkza Luka, or meadows, which are to this day a debatable ground for the Moslem inhabitants of Ushitza, and the Servian villages in the neighbourhood. From here to Ushitza the road is paved, but by whom we could not learn. The stones were not large enough to warrant the belief of its being a Roman causeway, and it is probably a relic of the Servian empire.
- On my return from Servia, I found that the author of Eothen had recorded a similar impression derived from the Tartar journey on the high road from Belgrade towards Constantinople: but the remark is much more applicable to the sylvan beauty of the interior of Servia. ↩︎
- After seeing Ushitza, the captain, who accompanied me, returned to his family, at Derlatcha, and, I lament to say, that at this place he was attacked by the robbers, who, in summer, lurk in the thick woods on the two frontiers. The captain galloped off, but his two servants were killed on the spot. ↩︎