The Luck of Thirteen Part 17

"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"

"Because it is hot."

"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.

But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of drunkards.

Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked, and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on the map as a first-cla.s.s road; the mind staggers at what the second and third-cla.s.s must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart, but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum total of misery produced by the post, travelling daily, must in time exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their brutal natures.

We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over.

There were other waggons on the road--heavy, slow ox carts, exporting wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar round--some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.

The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each extra bang and jolt--collected them as it were--for certainly he never avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.

We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had arrived.

The Hotel Bristol was full--why are there so many hotels in Serbia named Bristol?--but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo, and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed, which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.

The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half.

Sitting on the road was the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones, which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us once more till we had pa.s.sed, then hurled even louder curses after us.

We came to a tiny cafe in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.

Jan: "I wonder what that is?"

Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"

Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."

Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."

And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables, and presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split in his endeavour to express a voiceless grat.i.tude.

We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk, and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations of pa.s.ses, etc., during which time all intending pa.s.sengers were locked in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the train, and off we went.

We pa.s.sed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's tomb:--Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem general, who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his pa.s.sage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried on the same field--one dead in victory, one in defeat.

We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses.

Signs of culture!

Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no account be hindered.

Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant in the black mountains is a n.o.ble and carries a n.o.ble's dignity; while Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro--save only Pod.--which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb, and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the process.

We pa.s.sed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.

We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the sounds of music. The restaurant walls were--superfluously--decorated with paintings of food which almost took away one's appet.i.te; but one enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like chariot over a purple sea amused us.

In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman without a voice sang a popular song--one thought of the women on the Rieka River--a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed of halfpence--we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?

And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII

USKUB

Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the Grad.

The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly upon half-buried mosques with gra.s.s growing from their dilapidated domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old caravanserai.

We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker--

"Who has the key?"

"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a fez.

How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway, as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these figures? Mystery--for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no longer gives protection to the hara.s.sed traveller, it only cures his boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we did not loiter long, for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful than a beautiful view.

Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar, and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous, land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these states--civilization which has swept one cla.s.s to the twentieth century, while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity--seems always to produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks"

to the savage and equally deadly in effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WINE MARKET IN USKUB.]

Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot of small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia, Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing under the shield of the Alliance--why not?--and Serbia as compensation allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly Serb in nationality and in feeling.

We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written OLD SERB CAFe JANSIE HAN. After sketching there we entered the inn for coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it, and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven in a chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer b.u.mping along on a separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.

The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat ma.s.ses.

The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us.

Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a vision of unusual beauty.

One thought of the awful winter it had pa.s.sed through, when dead and dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some great barracks on the hill. The paths were made of Turkish tombstones, which were always used in Uskub for road metal.

The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester, who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.

One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess--or is it Mpret.i.tza, or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly not a present to Essad.

The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed, saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five dinars.

What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of melodrama without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?

At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.