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 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 principality 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 fashioned Albanian guns, presented arms.
After half an hour’s riding, the valley became wider, and we passed 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.[1]1
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 fashioned 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 unpronounceable 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 Franks2 ever visiting the town.[2]
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,3 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,[3] 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,4 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 God’s sake let us go straight home. If I go back to Novibazar my life may be taken.”
Not wishing 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-pôt for British manufactures in the interior, got a certain chieftain of a clan Vassoevitch,5 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.6 As a necessary consequence, he was obliged to fly for his life, and his house was burned to the ground. The Vassoevitch 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 circumstance.”
Author. “My government is at present on the best terms with the Porte: the readiness with which such hopes arise in the minds of the people, is my motive for avoiding political conversations with Rayahs7 on those dangerous topics.”
[1] Most of the gipsies here profess Islamism.
[2] I presume Messrs. Boué and party.
[3] The Austrian zwanziger goes here for only three piastres; in Servia it goes for five.
- Tran. note: the custom was not so ancient in this corner of the Ottoman Empire. This would have still been the law in the Balkans in the beginning of XIX century, which is to say within the woman’s lifetime. ↩︎
- Tran. note: foreigners, not the French specifically. ↩︎
- Tran. note: a contemporary term for Albanians. ↩︎
- Tran. note: monastery of Đurđevi Stupovi (St. George’s Pillars), build by Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty in c. 1170. Emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan was a 5th generation descendant of Stefan Nemanja. Since 1979, the monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ↩︎
- Tran. note: Montenegro’s population still traces strong tribal lineages, Vasojevići being one of them. ↩︎
- Tran. note: not uncommon for consuls in the 19th century Ottoman Empire, except these would be normally full consuls and with their respective government’s backings. ↩︎
- Tran. note: “rayah” or “raja” generally refers to the non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. ↩︎
