The Balkan Trail :: CHAPTER II THE ROAD TO RILO

CHAPTER II THE ROAD TO RILO

A representative body of Bulgarians assembled at the khan on the morning of our departure from Kustendil. Several army officers, who were staying at the khan, rose early and ate a five-o’clock breakfast with us; a deputation of committajis arrived before we had finished the meal; at six o’clock the missionary and the judge appeared; and a mounted officer and two gendarmes drew up before the door; peasants on their way to the fields, and meek and miserable refugees, for want of something better to do, gathered to see the strange foreigners depart. Everybody was anxious to be of service to us, and ready at a word to do anything we required. But the judge and the minister managed to secure all of my few commissions, because they, speaking English, did not have to wait like the others until the Count interpreted my wants. I had to arrange several minor matters, such as the forwarding of telegrams and letters, and to send some of my luggage back to Sofia, because we had discharged our shandrydan at this point, and would proceed down the frontier mounted.

While I was engaged stuffing a toothbrush, a box of Keating’s, a couple of pairs of socks, and other absolute necessities into my saddle-bags, the Count, ever busying himself with money matters, went to the khanji and requested the statement of our account. Now, the innkeeper was a Greek, and, true to Hellenic principles, he had charged us all and more than he had any hope of getting. He tried to put the Count off and get a settlement from me. But my Jew was not to be thrust aside by any mere Greek.

When Greek meets Jew.

The khanji informed the Count—after much insistence on the part of the latter—that we owed him a sum of several napoleons (I do not remember the exact amount).

‘What!’ exclaimed the Jew. ‘Let me see your book.’

The Greek passed over a much ear-marked memorandum book in which he had kept the record of the number of nights we had slept at his hostelry, and what we had eaten. We had been charged three francs per night per cot, while two officers who shared a room with us and had like accommodation, were paying less than a franc apiece; two francs fifty for each meal—for which the Bulgarians paid less than a third as much—and a franc a flagon for the Count’s wine, correspondingly high for the native vintage. My man began to talk to the khanji in loud, loose language, which let the entire assembly know of the Greek’s crime. The officers, the committajis, and even the ordinary natives became indignant at this ‘attempt to impose on a foreigner,’ and in a body joined the Count in abusing the garrulous Greek. The Greek stood his ground in a manner worthy of his ancient forefathers, and declined to take one sou off his bill, arguing that I should pay at the rate at which I was accustomed to paying. The foreigner, he contended, should not profit by native prices, but the native should profit by foreign prices. Good reasoning. I offered to ‘split the difference’ between native and foreign prices. The Greek agreed, but the sum to be paid figured out too much to meet the approval of the Count, who left the khan most disgruntled, because, he said sorrowfully, ‘It hurts me to be cheated; and even if it suits you to throw away money, I would have you refrain from lavishing it upon Greeks, who do not appreciate it, and puff themselves up with pride at having successfully swindled me!’ My old Jew assumed more the rÔle of manager than man, and I did not dislike him for it. While I acted on my own judgment in matters of more or less importance, I always listened to his counsel, for it was generally good, and I took no measures to suppress him.

We made so early a start from Kustendil that the governor was unable to be present; but he sent a representative to wish us a pleasant journey and to offer me an escort of gendarmes.

‘Isn’t the district safe?’ I asked.

The question was offensive. Everybody generally responded to my inquiries in one breath, but this brought a dignified silence over the assembly; only the official person, the governor’s representative, replied:

‘Every district in Bulgaria is perfectly safe. You can travel anywhere in our land as securely as you can in your own.’

‘Then of course we need no escort?’

‘But there is danger,’ interrupted the Count, unconsciously blinking his bad eye. ‘The route which we are taking is seldom travelled, and if we encounter border patrols we shall arouse suspicion.’ The Count knew what the company of gendarmes would mean in foraging, and to old Von Stuffsky the grub was the thing!

The gendarmes were fairly well mounted, but the only animals that we could obtain were two tiny pack-ponies full of tantalising pack-train habits. They were strong little beasts, and could travel all day without showing fatigue, but it was impossible to get them out of a pack-train gait, and under no circumstance would they travel side by side. After the Count had struggled desperately with his little brute for quite an hour, he borrowed one of the officer’s spurs, and we all halted while he sat on a rock and fastened it to a foot; for had we not waited, the Count’s animal, having no other to follow, would have taken him back to its stable. When the old man mounted again his temper had cooled, and instead of giving his pony a vicious kick, as I expected, he brought his heels together gently but firmly. The horse lifted a hind leg and kicked viciously at the bite. But this did not rid him of the annoyance, so he turned his head around and sought the insect with his teeth. For this he got a kick in the nose, and then began to learn what the spur meant.

The price for the hire of the ponies was absurd, a franc a day apiece; and we paid another franc a day for a boy to go with us and care for them. This boy was wise; he came along on foot.

From the crest of the first high hill Macedonia came into view. The land sweeps on as one; there is no line to mark where Occident ends and Orient begins; but somewhere down there the order of things reverses. Here, where we stood, the Mohamedan is the infidel; across the valley the Christian is the giaour.

We took a course generally along the Struma, as near the border as we could pass without being halted by frontier guards. We kept to the north bank as much as possible; when compelled, because of bad ground, to take the south side, we did not lose sight of the river, for there was no other line to keep us within the border. There was no high road on our route, and for many miles not even a footpath. We had no guide, and neither of the gendarmes had been over the route before. Consequently we had often to retrace our steps and make long dÉtours, sometimes for miles, when we happened to get into a ‘blind’ caÑon or meet the edge of a mountain side too steep for descent. Once, while following the river (which was generally fordable), we came to a gorge less than a hundred feet in breadth, through which the water poured swift and deep, and on both sides the mountains rose almost perpendicularly. We could not venture the horses into the seething waters, nor was it possible to get them up the steep slopes, so we were obliged to make our way back up stream until we found an incline gradual enough to climb.

It was often necessary to dismount and make our way on foot. For several miles we followed a footpath seldom more than two feet wide, high up on the side of a steep, rocky mountain. Fortunately the ponies were cool-headed and sure-footed. On one such ledge we overtook a committaji pack-train making its way towards the frontier from Dupnitza with ammunition and provisions for a band. We hailed the insurgents and accompanied them to an apparently deserted hut with a little wooden cross at its top. When we came in sight of this place the voivoda gave a long, loud whistle, and two men appeared. Where were the others? We were all disappointed to hear that the band had had a good opportunity to cross the border the evening before, and had gone back into Turkey without waiting for the supplies.

We ate lunch at the insurgent armoury, and had a contest at target-shooting after the meal. Some of the insurgents were very good marksmen, but the gendarmerie officer hit more ‘bull’s eyes’ than any of us.

THE ROAD TO RILO.For hours before we came upon this hut we had not passed a single habitation, and for quite a while after we left it the mountains were completely deserted. It was just the place for a brigand camp. Most of the country through which we passed this day was not only uncultivated, but almost entirely barren; dwarfed shrubs grew in patches here and there, but no woods did we pass in the whole twelve hours’ track.

In the afternoon we came upon a faint footpath which led in our direction. After following it for half an hour, we found it change abruptly into a waggon track, though no farmhouse or ploughed field excused this sudden transformation. The road began at nowhere, but led down to the river again, through it, and up to Boborshevo, where we had planned to spend the night. We found our boy already established at the khan; he had outstripped us early in the day.

We were all weary and dusty, and ravenously hungry, but the khan’s larder contained only a huge round loaf of brown bread, a few bits of garlic, and the materials for Turkish coffee, which I had not yet come to regard as fit to drink; nor did it seem possible to obtain much else in the village. We despatched the boy to make inquiries, and he returned with the information that each of four peasant families could supply a loaf. Not a very promising outlook for supper! I asked if the villagers ate nothing else themselves, and learned that they lived practically by bread alone. They have generally a bit of cheese or an onion with which to flavour the bread; but meat or fowl or eggs they indulge in only on fÊte days.

But our gendarmes assured us that we should get a supper, and presently the meal came bleating through the door. It was allowed to stop in the cafÉ for a few minutes, where it cuddled up to the Count, while the khanji sharpened his knife. Then the poor little thing was dragged back into the stable, and in about half an hour a smoking stew was set before us.

This town afforded about the worst accommodation we had yet found, but it provided a wandering minstrel. All the creature could do was laugh; but his laugh was incessant and infectious. We gave him supper, and he returned again in the morning for breakfast, whereafter I took the preceding photograph of him, which by no means does justice to the breadth of his grin. The cap which he wore was made (he told us) by an insurgent in a band with which he had travelled as a mascot. It was an extra large committaji cap bearing the committee’s motto, in the usual brass design,‘Liberty or Death.’ It lacked, however, the skull and crossbones sometimes worn.

The khanji at Boborshevo apologised for the bill he presented at our departure. He had stabled and fed nine of us, including the four ponies, and our indebtedness came to a grand total of eleven francs! The khan-keeper was a Bulgarian.

It is interesting to observe that a Turk swindles you to demonstrate to himself how much more clever he is than is an ‘infidel’; a Greek swindles you because he desires your money; while both Turk and Greek declare the Bulgarian too stupid to cheat.

We expected to find a high road leading out of Boborshevo, but if there was one it did not lead in our direction. The only road towards the east was another waggon track which again crossed the Struma. By this time we had come to feel as much at home in the water as out of it. We had at first shown consideration for our boy by taking him across the river on one of our horses, but we both got tired of this, and he soon struck his own course, invariably arriving at appointed meeting places an hour or more before us. We met him at Kotcharinova this day at noon, resting at the village fountain and making a meal of bread and lump sugar. He declined a piece of lamb, saying that to eat meat two days in succession would make him ill.

To the south of Kotcharinova, less than half a mile, is a border post, where the casernes of the respective forces stand on the opposite shores of the narrow Struma, and the Bulgarian and Turkish sentries pace side by side, bayonets fixed, at the centre of the bridge. We made a dÉtour to Barakova (such is the name of this post), leaving our escort to await us on the road to Rilo. There was no difficulty in securing from the Bulgarian officer permission to visit the Turkish side, but we were halted for a quarter of an hour at the magic line while the Turkish sentry called the corporal, and the corporal called the sergeant, and the sergeant went and waked the commandant, who first peeped out of his window, then rose, dressed, and came to fetch us. The first remarks of this smartly uniformed officer, who spoke some French, were in the nature of apologies for the Turkish part of the bridge; a Graphic artist, with whom I visited Barakova a year later, described it as ‘made of holes with a few boards between.’

The half-dozen fezzed soldiers whom we saw from the bridge were fine specimens of men, and at a glance compared favourably in uniforms and arms with the Bulgarians. I was curious to go through their camp, but the officer would show me only his own room. The Turks possess no military secret unknown to the European, but they are all afraid he might find one in their camps.

‘It is quite absurd,’ said the officer at Barakova, as, seated on his rough divans, we sipped his coffee; ‘it is quite absurd for the foreign journals to say that Turks commit atrocities. We are a highly civilised people, and our Padisha is a most enlightened and humane monarch, and it is ridiculous to accuse him or his army of doing a single barbarous deed. Now, the Bulgarians are barbarians, and, naturally, it is they who perpetrate all these massacres and other horrible crimes.

‘Tell me,’ continued the Turk without abatement, ‘are sections of America still barbarous? I read of blacks being burned at the stake.’ Clever Turk.

A BULGARIAN BLOCKHOUSE.

THE BRIDGE OVER THE STRUMA: TURK AND BULGAR.More than a year later I returned to Barakova from the Turkish side and asked the same Turkish commander for permission to visit the Bulgarian barracks; but he had many excuses to offer. Perhaps the Bulgarian garrison would not like us to visit them unannounced; it was against all regulations for anyone to step across that border without a passavant which could not be issued nearer than at Djuma-bala; if anything should happen to us while on the Bulgarian side, the Padisha would be seriously grieved at his (the officer’s) having permitted us to go over into Bulgaria. But we had despatches to forward and letters to post, and vented upon the Turk three hours’ persistent persuasion, when finally he consented to take us over the bridge himself. Six other officers accompanied him, and our interpreter was detained in the Turkish barracks as a hostage. There was no other way than to deliver our letters to the Bulgarians in the presence of the Turks, and the moment was awkward for all parties.

Shortly after leaving Barakova we got the first view of Perim Dagh, a celebrated high peak in Macedonia, renowned among the Bulgarians as the mountain from which Sarafoff issued his call ‘to his brothers’—Sarafoff and St. Paul!—to come over into Macedonia and help him!

This was a more productive district than that through which we had passed the day before; the land was generally tilled and settlements were comparatively numerous. And after passing Rilo Silo (Rilo village), where the long climb to the monastery begins, the way leads through a dense forest which covers the mountains.

The road to Rilo is by the side of a rapid brook, which has its source somewhere in the wild woods far above the monastery, up under the line of perpetual snow. It tumbles for more than twenty miles over the small boulders, and between the big ones, down, down, down to the village; this, at least, is as far as I know it tumbles, from having followed it. On both sides of the brook rise the Balkans, the crest of the range to the south forming the border-line. From Rilo Silo to Rilo Monastery there is but one pass through these mountains, and in this gateway to Turkey stands the Bulgarian blockhouse shown in the preceding picture. In spite of the fact that it was yet winter, the leaves on the trees were thick enough to keep the rays of sun from the road, and there was a chill under the grove which soon caused us all to unpack our greatcoats. As our elevation increased, the air grew yet colder; the brook took on icy rims, icicles clung to the bigger boulders, and snowdrifts lodged by the side of the road. We dismounted one by one, for the slow up-hill pace of the horses afforded no exercise, and we needed more warmth than our coats would give. The gendarmes, as I have said, were better mounted than were the Count and I, but on foot we had the advantage of them. Their horses had always to be led—and did not lead as well as they drove—while our pack-ponies, ever content to follow pace, could be turned loose, and would follow the other animals as tenaciously as if tied to their tails.

The sun had long dropped behind the mountains—though the day had not yet gone—when we emerged from the forest into a clearing, and the first view of the great, bleak, deserted-looking monastery broke suddenly upon us. The heavy gates were swung back, grating on their rusty hinges, and a long-bearded, black-robed priest came forth to welcome us. The gendarmerie officer had telegraphed from Rilo Silo that we would arrive that night, and the hospitable monks had got our rooms warm and ready, and prepared a splendid supper for us.

There was no fireplace or stove in the room which was allotted to me, but a broad, tiled chimney came through the wall from an ante-room. A queer little dwarf—not a monk, but long-haired and bearded like them—who occupied this room, was assigned to the task of waiting on us and stoking the fire in the oven.

The Rilo Monastery is a great rectangular pile four storeys high, built of stone around a spacious courtyard. On the outside a height of sheer wall is broken by small barred windows only above the second floor, and two arched gateways below, one at each end of the place. The old convent was built for siege. Within, facing on the courtyard, are broad balconies, quite a sixth of a mile around. The chapel stands in the centre of the court, and beside it there is an ancient tower and dungeon dating from mediÆval times. Although the foundation of the monastery is very old, most of the present structure and the church date from only 150 years back. At one time it sheltered several hundred monks, but the number has dwindled away until to-day there are but fifty or sixty there. The old abbot said ruefully that since the Bulgarians had become free they are not so willing to enter holy orders as they were when under the Turks. Naturally; this monastery, for some reason, was always exempt from ravage by Turkish troops, and to enter it was to find safety for body as well as soul. The greater part of the building is now usually unoccupied, and its vast, bare rooms have a most desolate appearance.

The painting of the place is most peculiar. Outside the stones are left their natural colour, but the courtyard walls are whitewashed and striped with red. The balconies and the overhanging roof, the rafters of which are visible, are almost black from age. The place would be magnificent were it not made hideous with atrocious frescoes, which might have originated in the mind of a DorÉ and must have been executed by a schoolboy. The pictures covering both the outer and inner walls of the chapel, which stands in the centre of the court, are grouped in pairs or sets, and portray side by side the after torments of the wicked and the bliss of the good. Many of the sleeping-rooms are likewise decorated in a manner conducive to nightmare.

RILO MONASTERY: GRACE BEFORE GRUB.

There is a museum at Rilo of old Bulgarian books, icons, and other church relics, of all of which the monks are very proud. Many of the books were saved from destruction at the hands of the Greek priests in their late attempt to Hellenise the Bulgarians by obliterating their language. There are presents from the Sultans, and some articles of intrinsic value.

I was much interested in a retired brigand who lived at the monastery, and invited him and a committaji sojourning there to join us one evening at supper. We were a strange gathering that sat down to the monks’ good fare that memorable night. There were many monks, in flowing robes and headgear like stove-pipe hats worn upside down. In the centre of this sombre assembly was our party: the brigand, a powerful mountain fellow who had worn his weapons day and night for thirty years; a desperate revolutionist engaged in directing the passage of bands across the Balkans; a border officer who had been picked for his nerve and judgment to serve on the Turkish frontier; my Count and myself.

It took much persuasion and many glasses of the monks’ good wine to make the brigand tell us of his adventures; but when he had fairly begun he went into most extravagant detail and gave us substantial demonstration of how he had done his many deeds of valour. He took his yataghan and wielded it about him in a desperate manner as he told us of how, when surrounded on one occasion, he cut his way through overwhelming numbers of Turkish troops; he drew his dagger at another period and crept stealthily along to slay an adversary by surprise; and he stretched himself full length on the floor and aimed his rifle over imaginary rocks when giving an account of what he considered the narrowest escape he had ever had.

He and his band had been forced by a body of Turks up a mountain side at the back of which was a yawning precipice. Half of his men dropped behind rocks and held the Turks at bay while the others took off their long red sashes and tied them together into a rope, by which all but four managed to escape by sliding down the chasm into a thickly wooded valley below. The brigand told us that he had chopped off the heads of Turks with a single blow, and had to his credit in all seventeen dead men. He was an Albanian—a Christian Albanian—which accounts for the record he kept of his killings.

Everybody at the monastery but myself was accustomed to such narratives as these, and no one else—not even the holy monks—showed the least emotion at the bloody recital. It was purely for my benefit.

Towards midnight the conversation turned to combats to come, and both the officer and the committaji assured me there would be no lack of blood-letting as soon as the snows melted. Ammunition was going across the frontier nightly, and preparations for the revolution were being prosecuted vigorously under the very noses of the Turkish authorities. But it was necessary in some districts, where the Government officials were keenly on the alert, to adopt curious means of getting arms into the towns. The insurgent told this story of how a supply of dynamite bombs was got into Monastir. A funeral parade started from an ungarrisoned village near by, and marched into the town to the solemn chant of a mock priest, attired in gilded vestments, and acolytes swinging incense. Mourners, men and women, followed the corpse, weeping copiously. The Turks did not notice that the dead man was exceptionally heavy, and required twice the usual number of pall-bearers. The insurgents buried their load in the Bulgarian cemetery with all due dust to dust and ashes to ashes. The local voivodas were apprised of the fact, and the following night a select delegation robbed the grave.

There were no refugees at Rilo on the occasion of my first visit. Several months had elapsed since the search for arms in the Struma and Razlog districts, and the fugitives who had come to the monastery to escape this inquisition in Macedonia had now moved on to the towns and villages further from the frontier. But six months later, when I returned after the revolution in Macedonia, the place was crowded with refugees. There were nearly two thousand quartered in the main building and in the stables and cornbins round about, and more were arriving daily. Some reached the monastery driving a cow or two, and others leading ponies and donkeys heavily laden with all their poor possessions; but many came with only what they carried on their backs. The special burden of the little girls seemed to be their mothers’ babies, borne in bags strapped to their backs.Some of the young mothers bore between their eyes peculiar marks which attracted my attention. They were crosses tattooed there. They told me that these life marks were for the purpose of preventing the Turks from stealing them; but I am of the opinion that the sign of the Cross would not prevent a Moslem from taking a Christian woman.

A caravan of pack-ponies arrived at Rilo every morning, bringing bread, which was supplied to the refugees by the Bulgarian Government. Besides this they received soup from the monastery once a day.

The kitchen at Rilo is quite worthy of description. It is on the ground floor, but above it there are no other rooms. Its walls go up to the roof. The fire is built in the centre of the room, on the floor, which is of stone, and the smoke rises a hundred feet and escapes through a round hole about a foot in diameter. The refugee soup was boiled in a huge iron cauldron, suspended by chains over the fire. So large was this pot that the cook had to stand on a box to stir the boiling beverage, which he did with a great wooden spoon almost as long as himself. At noon the refugees gathered in the courtyard with earthen vessels, and as the names of their villages were called they came up to the pot, and the old grey-bearded cook dished out a big spoonful of soup to each mother, and a monk handed her a loaf or more of bread according to the number of children she had.

FATHER COOK AND THE BRIGAND.

The native costumes of the Macedonians are of the gayest colours, and this midday scene was beautiful as well as pitiable. But there was a night scene at the monastery which was even more fascinating. There were two companies of infantry also quartered here, and as there was no hall to spare for use as mess-room, they were obliged to eat their meals in the open courtyard. A few minutes before the supper-hour pots of stew or soup, or other army rations, were set in a row on the stone pavement. When the call to mess was sounded the soldiers fell in behind the pots, each with half a loaf of bread and a tin spoon, and stood facing the chapel. The drums beat again, and with one accord the line of yellow-coated men doffed their caps. Their officer, likewise reverencing, pronounced the grace, and the company made the sign of the Cross three times in drill regularity. The men then seated themselves, eight round a pot, and began their meal in the golden light of pine torches fastened to the great pillars which support the balconies.

In the Balkans the Christian call to mass is beaten on a pine board. The hours of prayer are regular at Rilo, and the time of day is told by the shrill tattoo. The next lap of our trail was long, and we rose and saddled horses at the call to six o’clock mass.

Clyx.com