Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family Part 5

Shabatz.--A Provincial Chancery.--Servian Collector.--Description of his House.--Country Barber.--Turkish Quarter.--Self-taught Priest.--A Provincial Dinner.--Native Soiree.

I entered Shabatz by a wide street, paved in some places with wood.

The bazaars are all open, and Shabatz looks like a good town in Bulgaria. I saw very few shops with glazed fronts and counters in the European manner.

I alighted at the princ.i.p.al khan, which had attached to it just such a cafe and billiard table as one sees in country towns in Hungary. How odd! to see the Servians, who here all wear the old Turkish costume, except the turban--immersed in the tactics of _carambolage_, skipping most gaily and un-orientally around the table, then balancing themselves on one leg, enveloped in enormous inexpressibles, bending low, and c.o.c.king the eye to catch the choicest bits.

Surrendering our horses to the care of the khan keeper, I proceeded to the konak, or government house, to present my letters. This proved to be a large building, in the style of Constantinople, which, with its line of bow windows, and kiosk-fashioned rooms, surmounted with projecting roofs, might have pa.s.sed muster on the Bosphorus.

On entering, I was ushered into the office of the collector, to await his arrival, and, at a first glance, might have supposed myself in a formal Austrian kanzley.

There were the flat desks, the strong boxes, and the shelves of coa.r.s.e foolscap; but a pile of long chibouques, and a young man, with a slight Northumbrian burr, and Servian dress, showed that I was on the right bank of the Save.

The collector now made his appearance, a roundly-built, serious, burgomaster-looking personage, who appeared as if one of Vander Helst's portraits had stepped out of the canva.s.s, so closely does the present Servian dress resemble that of Holland, in the seventeenth century, in all but the hat.

Having read the letter, he cleared his throat with a loud hem, and then said with great deliberation, "Gospody Ilia Garashanin informs me that having seen many countries, you also wish to see Servia, and that I am to show you whatever you desire to see, and obey whatever you choose to command; and now you are my guest while you remain here. Go you, Simo, to the khan," continued the collector, addressing a tall momk or pandour, who, armed to the teeth, stood with his hands crossed at the door, "and get the gentleman's baggage taken to my house.--I hope," added he, "you will be pleased with Shabatz; but you must not be critical, for we are still a rude people."

_Author_. "Childhood must precede manhood; that is the order of nature."

_Collector_. "Ay, ay, our birth was slow, and painful; Servia, as you say, is yet a child."

_Author_. "Yes, but a stout, chubby, healthy child."

A gleam of satisfaction produced a thaw of the collector's ice-bound visage, and, descending to the street, I accompanied him until we arrived at a house two stories high, which we entered by a wide new wooden gate, and then mounting a staircase, scrupulously clean, were shown into his princ.i.p.al room, which was surrounded by a divan _a la Turque_; but it had no carpet, so we went straight in with our boots on. A German chest of drawers was in one corner; the walls were plain white-washed, and so was a stove about six feet high; the only ornament of the room was a small snake moulding in the centre of the roof. Some oak chairs were ranged along the lower end of the room, and a table stood in the middle, covered with a German linen cloth, representing Pesth and Ofen; the Bloxberg being thrice as lofty as the reality, the genius of the artist having set it in the clouds. The steamer had a prow like a Roman galley, a stern like a royal yacht, and even the steam from the chimney described graceful volutes, with academic observance of the line of beauty.

"We are still somewhat rude and un-European in Shabatz," said Gospody Ninitch, for such was the name in which the collector rejoiced.

"Indeed," quoth I, sitting at my ease on the divan, "there is no room for criticism. The Turks now-a-days take some things from Europe; but Europe might do worse than adopt the divan more extensively; for, believe me, to an arriving traveller it is the greatest of all luxuries."

Here the servants entered with chibouques. "I certainly think," said he, "that no one would smoke a cigar who could smoke a chibouque."

"And no man would sit on an oak chair who could sit on a divan:" so the Gospody smiled and transferred his ample person to the still ampler divan.

The barber now entered; for in the hurry of departure I had forgotten part of my toilette apparatus: but it was evident that I was the first Frank who had ever been under his razor; for when his operations were finished, he seized my comb, and began to comb my whiskers backwards, as if they had formed part of a Mussulman's beard. When I thought I was done with him, I resumed the conversation, but was speedily interrupted by something like a loud box on the ear, and, turning round my head, perceived that the cause of this sensation was the barber having, in his finishing touch, stuck an ivory ear-pick against my tympanum; but, calling for a wash-hand basin, I begged to be relieved from all further ministrations; so putting half a zwanziger on the face of the round pocket mirror which he proffered to me, he departed with a "_S'Bogom_," or, "G.o.d be with you."

The collector now accompanied me on a walk through the Servian town, and emerging on a wide s.p.a.ce, we discovered the fortress of Shabatz, which is the quarter in which the remaining Turks live, presenting a line of irregular trenches, of battered appearance, scarcely raised above the level of the surrounding country. The s.p.a.ce between the town and the fortress is called the Shabatzko Polje, and in the time of the civil war was the scene of fierce combats. When the Save overflows in spring, it is generally under water.

Crossing a ruinous wooden bridge over a wet ditch, we saw a rusty unserviceable bra.s.s cannon, which vain-gloriously a.s.sumed the prerogative of commanding the entrance. To the left, a citadel of four bastions, connected by a curtain, was all but a ruin.

As we entered, a cafe, with bare walls and a few shabby Turks smoking in it, completed, along with the dirty street, a picture characteristic of the fallen fortunes of Islam in Servia.

"There comes the cadi," said the collector, and I looked out for at least one individual with turban of fine texture, decent robes, and venerable appearance; but a man of gigantic stature, and rude aspect, wearing a grey peasant's turban, welcomed us with undignified cordiality. We followed him down the street, and sometimes crossing the mud on pieces of wood, sometimes "putting one's foot in it," we reached a savage-looking timber kiosk, and, mounting a ladder, seated ourselves on the window ledge.

There flowed the Save in all its peaceful smoothness; looking out of the window, I perceived that the high rampart, on which the kiosk was constructed, was built at a distance of thirty or forty yards from the water, and that the intervening s.p.a.ce was covered with boats, hauled up high and dry, and animated with the process of building and repairing the barges employed in the river trade. The kiosk, in which we were sitting, was a species of cafe, and it being Ramadan time, we were presented with sherbet by a kahwagi, who, to judge by his look, was a eunuch. I was afterwards told that the Turks remaining in the fortified town are so poor, that they had not a decent room to show me into.

A Turk, about fifty years of age, now entered. His habiliments were somewhere between decent and shabby genteel, and his voice and manners had that distinguished gentleness which wins--because it feels--its way. This was the Disdar Aga, the last relic of the wealthy Turks of the place: for before the Servian revolution Shabatz had its twenty thousand Osmanlis; and a tract of gardens on the other side of the _Polje_, was pointed out as having been covered with the villas of the wealthy, which were subsequently burnt down.

Our conversation was restricted to a few general observations, as other persons were present, but the Disdar Aga promised to call on me on the following day. I was asked if I had been in Seraievo.[2] I answered in the negative, but added, "I have heard so much of Seraievo, that I desire ardently to see it. But I am afraid of the Haiducks."[3]

_Cadi_. "And not without reason; for Seraievo, with its delicious gardens, must be seen in summer. In winter the roads are free from haiducks, because they cannot hold out in the snow; but then Seraievo, having lost the verdure and foliage of its environs, ceases to be attractive, except in its bazaars, for they are without an equal."

_Author_. "I always thought that the finest bazaar of Turkey in Europe, was that of Adrianople."

_Cadi_. "Ay, but not equal to Seraievo; when you see the Bosniacs, in their cleanly apparel and splendid arms walking down the bazaar, you might think yourself in the serai of a sultan; then all the esnafs are in their divisions like regiments of Nizam."

The Disdar Aga now accompanied me to the gate, and bidding me farewell, with graceful urbanity, re-entered the bastioned miniature citadel in which he lived almost alone. The history of this individual is singular: his family was cut to pieces in the dreadful scenes of 1806; and, when a mere boy, he found himself a prisoner in the Servian camp. Being thus without protectors, he was adopted by Luka Lasarevitch, the valiant lieutenant of Kara Georg, and baptized as a Christian with the name of John, but having been reclaimed by the Turks on the re-conquest of Servia in 1813, he returned to the faith of his fathers.

We now returned into the town, and there sat the same Luka Lasarevitch, now a merchant and town councillor, at the door of his warehouse, an octogenarian, with thirteen wounds on his body.

Going home, I asked the collector if the Aga and Luka were still friends. "To this very day," said he, "notwithstanding the difference of religion, the Aga looks upon Luka as his father, and Luka looks upon the Aga as his son." To those who have lived in other parts of Turkey this account must appear very curious. I found that the Aga was as highly respected by the Christians as by the Turks, for his strictly honourable character.

We now paid a visit to the Arch-priest, Iowan Paulovitch, a self-taught ecclesiastic: the room in which he received us was filled with books, mostly Servian; but I perceived among them German translations. On asking him if he had heard any thing of English literature, he showed me translations into German of Shakspeare, Young's Night Thoughts, and a novel of Bulwer. The Greek secular clergy marry; and in the course of conversation it came out that his son was one of the young Servians sent by the government to study mining-engineering, at Schemnitz, in Hungary. The Church of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, in which he officiates, was built in 1828. I remarked that it had only a wooden bell tower, which had been afterwards erected in the church yard; no belfry existing in the building itself. The reason of this is, that, up to the period mentioned, the Servians were unaccustomed to have bells sounded.

Our host provided most ample fare for supper, preceded by a gla.s.s of slivovitsa. We began with soup, rendered slightly acid with lemon juice, then came fowl, stewed with turnips and sugar. This was followed by pudding of almonds, raisins, and pancake. Roast capon brought up the rear. A white wine of the country was served during supper, but along with dessert we had a good red wine of Negotin, served in Bohemian coloured gla.s.ses. I have been thus minute on the subject of food, for the dinners I ate at Belgrade I do not count as Servian, having been all in the German fashion.

The wife of the collector sat at dinner, but at the foot of the table; a position characteristic of that of women in Servia--midway between the graceful precedence of Europe and the contemptuous exclusion of the East.

After hand-washing, we returned to the divan, and while pipes and coffee were handed round, a noise in the court yard denoted a visiter, and a middle-aged man, with embroidered clothes, and silver-mounted pistols in his girdle, entered. This was the Natchalnik, or local governor, who had come from his own village, two hours off, to pay his visit; he was accompanied by the two captains under his command, one of whom was a military dandy. His ample girdle was richly embroidered, out of which projected silver-mounted old fashioned pistols. His crimson shaksheers were also richly embroidered, and the corner of a gilt flowered cambric pocket handkerchief showed itself at his breast.

His companion wore a different aspect, with large features, dusky in tint as those of a gipsy, and dressed in plain coa.r.s.e blue clothes. He was presented to me as a man who had grown from boyhood to manhood to the tune of the whistling bullets of Kara Georg and his Turkish opponents. After the usual salutations, the Natchalnik began--

"We have heard that Gospody Wellington has received from the English nation an estate for his distinguished services."

_Author_. "That is true; but the presentation took place a great many years ago."

_Natch_. "What is the age of Gospody Wellington?"

_Author_. "About seventy-five. He was born in 1769, the year in which Napoleon and Mohammed Ali first saw the light."

This seemed to awaken the interest of the party.

The roughly-clad trooper drew in his chair, and leaning his elbow on his knees, opened wide a pair of expectant eyes; the Natchalnik, after a long puff of his pipe, said, with some magisterial decision, "That was a moment when nature had her sleeves tucked up. I think our Kara Georg must also have been born about that time."

_Natch_. "Is Gospody Wellington still in service?"

_Author_. "Yes; he is commander-in-chief."

_Natch_. "Well, G.o.d grant that his sons, and his sons' sons, may render as great services to the nation."

Our conversation was prolonged to a late hour in the evening, in which a variety of anecdotes were related of the ingenious methods employed by Milosh to fill his coffers as rapidly as possible.

Mine host, taking a candle, then led me to my bedroom, a small carpeted apartment, with a German bed; the coverlet was of green satin, quilted, and the sheets were clean and fragrant; and I observed, that they were striped with an alternate fine and coa.r.s.e woof.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: The capital of Bosnia, a large and beautiful city, which is often called the Damascus of the North.]

[Footnote 3: In this part of Turkey in Europe robbers, as well as rebels, are called Haiducks: like the caterans of the Highlands of Scotland, they were merely held to be persons at war with the authority: and in the Servian revolution, patriots, rebels, and robbers, were confounded in the common term of Haiducks.]