CHAPTER III. Maidenpek--Well-to-do condition of Servians--Lady Mary Wortley Montague's journey through Servia--Troubles in Bulgaria--Communists at Negotin--Copper mines--Forest ride--Robbers on the road--Kucainia--Belo-breska--Across the Danube--Detention at customhouse--Weisskirchen--Sleeping Wallacks.

We reached Maidenpek without further mishap, and here I began to make inquiries again about a horse. I was informed that in some of the villages farther up I should be sure to find the sort of horse I wanted, and not sorry for an excuse for exploring the country, I agreed to go, at the same time getting my friend to join me.

We hired some horses for the expedition, and set off, a party of four: three Englishmen (for we had picked up a friend at Maidenpek) and a Serb attendant, who was to act as our guide. He rode a small plucky horse, being armed with a long Turkish gun slung over his shoulder, while his belt was stuck full of strange-looking weapons, worthy of an old-curiosity shop. We were mounted on serviceable little nags, and had also our revolvers.

The ride was truly enjoyable. We soon left the road, and took our way along a forest path in Indian file, our picturesque guide leading the way. The path came to an end before long, and we then followed the course of a little stream; but as it wound about in a most tortuous manner we were obliged to be continually crossing and recrossing. Sometimes we rode through a jungle of reeds, at least eight feet high; then we had to scramble up a sandy bank. The horses were like cats, and did their scrambling well; and at rare intervals we found ourselves on a fair stretch of open lawn which fringes the dense forest. There were bits here and there which reminded one of Devonshire, where the luxuriant ferns dipped their waving plumes into the cool waters of the rocky stream. In the forest, too, there were exquisite fairy-spots, where, as Spenser says, is found "beauty enregistered in every nook."

After a time the way grew more wild in the character of the scenery, and at length the route we took was so rough that we had to dismount and lead our horses up the side of a steep hill. It was tiresome work, for the heat was intense; but gaining the top, we were rewarded by a grand view of the Balkan Mountains rising directly south. We ought to have made out Widdin and a stretch of the Danube at Palanka; but the middle of the day is the worst time for the details of a distant view.

Shortly after this we arrived at a small uncivilised-looking village. The men were powerfully built in point of figure, and the women rather handsome. Both sexes wear picturesque garments. This village, like many others of the same kind, we found encircled by plum-orchards. Thousands of barrels of dried plums are sent from Servia every year, not only to Western Europe, but to America. Besides the consumption of the fruit in its innocent form of prunes, it is made into the spirit called slivovitz, the curse of Hungary and Roumania.

We made a halt at this village, and sent out a man to look up some horses. He brought in several, but none of them were strong enough for my purpose. It was then proposed that we should ride on to the next village. Here we got dinner but no horses. The meal was very simple but not unpalatable, finishing up with excellent Turkish coffee.

I am writing now of the status quo ante bellum, and I must say I was struck with the well-to-do aspect of the peasants in Servia. By peasants I mean the class answering to the German bauer. It is true they lack many things that Western civilisation regards as necessaries; but have they not had the Turks for their masters far into this century? Turning over Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letters,[4] there occurs the following paragraph in her account of a journey through Servia in 1717:—

"We crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite overgrown with wood, through a country naturally fertile. The inhabitants are industrious; but the oppression of the peasants is so great, they are forced to abandon their houses, and neglect their tillage, all they have being a prey to janissaries whenever they please to seize upon it. We had a guard of five hundred of them, and I was almost in fears every day to see their insolencies in the poor villages through which we passed.... I was assured that the quantity of wine last vintage was so prodigious that they were forced to dig holes in the earth to put it in. The happiness of this plenty is scarcely perceived by the oppressed people. I saw here [Nissa] a new occasion for my compassion. The wretches that had provided twenty waggons for our baggage from Belgrade hither for a certain hire being all sent back without payment, some of their horses lamed, and others killed, without any satisfaction made for them. The poor fellows came round the house weeping and tearing their hair and beards in a most pitiable manner, without getting anything but drubs from the insolent soldiers. I would have paid them the money out of my own pocket with all my heart, but it would only have been giving so much to the aga, who would have taken it from them without any remorse.... The villagers are so poor that only force would extort from them necessary provisions. Indeed the janissaries had no mercy on their poverty, killing all the poultry and sheep they could find, without asking to whom they belonged, while the wretched owners durst not put in their claim for fear of being beaten. When the pashas travel it is yet worse. These oppressors are not content with eating all that is to be eaten belonging to the peasants; after they have crammed themselves and their numerous retinue, they have the impudence to exact what they call teeth-money, a contribution for the use of their teeth, worn with doing them the honour of devouring their meat."

This is a lively picture of Turkish rule a century and a half ago; it helps us to understand the saying, "Where the Turk treads, no grass grows."

The insurrection in Bulgaria had just broken out when I was in Servia: I cannot say I heard it much talked of; we, none of us, knew then the significance of the movement. But great uneasiness was felt in reference to the wide spread of certain communistic doctrines. A disturbance was stated to have taken place a few days before at Negotin. The foreign owners of property expressed themselves very seriously alarmed about the communistic propagandists who were going round the country. No one seemed certain as to the course events would take.

However—to resume my own simple narrative—after dining in the little village aforesaid, we set our faces again towards Maidenpek, returning by another route, which afforded us some very romantic scenery. I finished the difficulty about the horse by purchasing the one I had ridden that day. He was smaller than I liked, but he had proved himself strong and sure footed. I cannot say he was a beauty, but what can one expect for seventeen ducats—about eight pounds English?

The second day of our stay at Maidenpek was principally devoted to inspecting some copper mines belonging to an English company. They appeared to be doing pretty well. We next arranged to ride over to Kucainia, a place some twenty-five miles off. It was settled that we were to start at seven o'clock in the morning, but a dense white fog obliterated the outer world—we might have been on the verge of Nowhere. It was more than two hours before the fog lifted sufficiently to enable us to proceed. We went on our way some three miles when a drenching shower came on, and we took shelter in the cavernous interior of an enormous, half-ruined oak-tree. Natural decay and the pickaxes of the woodman seeking fuel for his camp-fire had hollowed out a comfortable retreat from the storm. Surrounding the tree was a bed of wild strawberries, which helped to beguile the time. When at length the clouds cleared away, we resumed our saddles with dry jackets. But, as it turned out, the half-hour we spent under the tree lost us the chance of some fun.

I must remark that our road lay the whole way through a majestic forest. We were actually on the highroad to Belgrade, yet in many places it was nothing more than a grass-drive with trees on either side. Looking some way ahead when we found ourselves on a track of this kind, we observed in the distance two men on horseback standing their horses in the middle of the road, apparently waiting for some one to pass. One of the fellows, armed with the usual long Turkish gun, seeing our approach, came forward as if to meet us. We instinctively looked to our revolvers, but as he came up we saw that the stranger on the black horse (he must have been once a splendid roadster) had no sinister intentions upon us. It turned out that he was the pope from a neighbouring village. He was in a great state of excitement, but shook hands with us all round before uttering a word. He then told us that the diligence from Belgrade had been stopped only half an hour ago by five brigands at the bottom of the very hill we had just passed. The booty was by no means insignificant. The robbers had made off with 7000 florins in gold; but what seemed rather significant was the statement that though the driver and the conductor of the diligence were both well armed, they had offered but little or no resistance. They declared they were overpowered by numbers. If there had been a shot fired we certainly must have heard it.

Later we ascertained that the money belonged to the copper-mining company at Maidenpek; the loss was not theirs, however, as the Government would have to reimburse it. It was just like our ill-luck to wait out of the shower; but for that delay we should have come in for the affray. I have my doubts as to whether our assistance would have been particularly welcome to the driver of the diligence. Robbery on the highroad is a capital offence in Servia.[5]

Arriving at the next village, we found the whole place in a hubbub and commotion. The men were arming and collecting horses. We went straight to the post-office to hear the rights of the story; the facts were mainly as I have related them. The excitement appeared to increase as the crowd flocked in from the fields. Horses were being saddled, powder served out, and arrangements made for a systematic battue of the robbers. After amusing ourselves by watching the warlike preparations, we rode on to Kucainia.

We were hospitably received by a fellow-countryman who is working the mines there. We did justice to his capital dinner, and told our robber story, which our host capped with the rumours of a communistic rising down south.

After a short stay at Kucainia, we made arrangements for returning over the Danube; but this time we proposed to strike the river at Belo-breska, higher up than Milanovacz. We had dropped our other friend, so H—— and I hired a light cart for the thirty miles to Belo-breska, my new horse meanwhile being tied on behind, and so we jogged along. The road was good, but, like the good people in Thackeray's novels, totally uninteresting. We drove continually through fields of maize—I say through the fields, for there was no hedge or fence anywhere. The soil appeared to be splendidly fertile and well cultivated.

Arrived at Belo-breska, our object was to get across the Danube, and luckily we found a large flat-bottomed boat used for cattle. The owner demanded a ducat (about nine shillings) for taking us across. I thought it a monstrous charge, but the fellow had us in his power. I do not think the Servians are much liked by those who have to do business with them. From all I heard, Canning's lines about the sharp practice of some nearer neighbours would apply very well to the Servians:—

No sooner had we landed on the Hungarian side of the river than up came a customhouse official, who informed me that I must pay duty for my horse. Of course, as a law-respecting Briton, I was ready enough to comply; but the fellow could not tell me what the charge was, saying his chief was absent, and might not be back for some hours.

This was exasperating to the last degree; the more so that it seemed so stupid that the man left in charge could not consult a tariff of taxes, or elicit from the villagers some information. He was stolidly obstinate, and refused to let my horse go at any price, though I offered him what H—— and I both thought a reasonable number of florins for the horse-duty. In less than ten minutes I had worked myself into a rage—a foolish thing to do with the thermometer at 96° in the shade; but H—— was provokingly calm, which irritated me still more. There is an old French verse which, rendered into English, says—

Now, a little patience would have saved me a useless ebullition of temper. While I was still at white-heat up came the head official; removing the cigar from his lips with Oriental dignity and deliberation, he calmly answered my question, and having paid the money we went our way.

Our design was now to get to Weisskirchen, and sleep there, that place being the only decent quarters within reach. Our road was over the mountains—a lonely pass of ill repute. Several persons had been stopped and robbed in these parts quite recently. The Government had formerly a small guardhouse at the top of the pass; but it has been deserted since 1867, when the district ceased to be maintained as the Military Frontier. Since that time crime has been very much on the increase all along the border-country. The lawlessness that is rampant at the extremities of the kingdom shows a weakness in the Central Government which is very reprehensible. But for this laxity on the borders, the recent Szeckler conspiracy for making a raid on the Russian railway could never have been projected.

We arrived all right at Weisskirchen, which was good-luck considering the chances of an upset in the darkness, for night had overtaken us long before our drive was half over. Thoroughly tired, we were glad enough to draw up in the innyard, the same I had visited some weeks before; but great was our disgust at being told that there was not a bed to be had—every room was taken. We drove on to inn No. 2, where they had beds but no supper. We were nearly starving, for we had had nothing to eat since the morning, so back we had to go to No. 1 to procure supper. When this important meal was finished, we had to make the return journey once more. The streets were perfectly dark, and it was an affair of no small difficulty to find our way. It happened to me that I stepped into something soft and bumpy. I could not conceive what it was. I made a long step forward, thinking to clear the obstacle, but I only stumbled into another soft and bumpy thing. Was it a flock of sheep lying packed together? The skins of the sheep were there, it is true, but as covering for the forms of prostrate Wallacks. A lot of these fellows, wrapped in their cloaks, were sleeping huddled together at the side of the street. I found afterwards that this is a common practice with these people. The wonderful bunda is a cloak by day and a house by night.

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