THE LANDS OF THE
TAMED TURK

FOREWORD

Because of their pivotal positions, politically and geographically; because of their tempting adaptation to colonization; because of their vast proven and hidden resources; because of their divers other advantages, too numerous to mention, the Balkan States have been, are and will continue to be, as once a certain writer so aptly put it, the “Powder Box of Europe.”

Constant conflict, however, has stunted their progress, and it has only been within the past few years that these lands—conspicuously lacking in the arts of peace, but overcrowded with types and replete with wonderful scenery, their histories sated with war and romance—have begun to be disclosed to the travelling world. Only within the past few years their outlying districts have been connected with their business centres by telegraphic communication; only within the past few years railroads have been constructed, steamship lines inaugurated and hotel accommodations perfected. Yesterday their peoples were almost barbaric; to-day they are more highly civilized and more [viii]finely cultured than perhaps we are inclined to admit; to-morrow they may be famous. They have been makers of history for our forebears and us; they will be makers of history for posterity and its children.

It is to assist the reader to frame a more just opinion of that southeastern corner of Europe, “The Lands of the Tamed Turk,” and those who people it, that this volume of personal observations and experiences of travel, interspersed with brief bits of history, is offered.

The author begs to tender his appreciation to Mr. Nox McCain for the use of several unusual photographs published herewith; also to the editors of The Metropolitan Magazine, New York, Travel Magazine, New York, and The National Geographic Magazine, Washington, with whose kind permission are herein reprinted, verbatim, certain parts of special articles on the Balkan States by the author, and some of the illustrations accompanying them, which appeared in the periodicals mentioned above.

[ix]

CONTENTS

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	PAGE
CHAPTER I WHY THE BALKANS?
The Rundreise Ticket—Why the Balkans?—When and Where English is Heard—Why Not the Balkans?	1
CHAPTER II BUDA-PESTH AND BELGRADE
Buda-Pesth and Its Language—From Buda-Pesth to Belgrade—The Servian Passport System—First Impressions of Belgrade—Garden Spots in and about the Servian Metropolis	12
CHAPTER III TWENTIETH CENTURY SERVIA
The Servians—The Rise of the Nation—The Army—The Race-meets—The Market in Belgrade—National Customs—The National Dance	24
CHAPTER IV THE SERVIAN DYNASTIES
Karageorge—Milosh Obrenovitch—Murder of Karageorge—Turkey Grants the Title of Prince—Milosh Abdicates—Abdication of Prince Michael—Alexander Abdicates—Prince Milosh Re-installed, His Death and the Re-election of Prince Michael—Murder of Michael—Prince Milan’s Marriage, Abdication and Death—Alexander Elected	43	[x]
CHAPTER V ALEXANDER AND DRAGA
Alexander—Draga—The Meeting—Draga’s Return to Belgrade—Russia’s Intrigues—Marriage of Alexander and Draga—Origin of the Plot to Murder	53
CHAPTER VI THE CAPITAL OF CRIME
Plans of Procedure—Meeting of the Regicides—The First Move—The Murder of the King and Queen—The Assassination of Others—The Royal Burial—The Murder of the Brothers Novakovics in 1907	61
CHAPTER VII PREDICTIONS OF SERVIAN TRAGEDIES
Prediction of the Assassination of Prince Michael—Natalie’s Visit to the Parisian Fortune-teller—The Prediction in London of the Murder of Draga and Alexander	78
CHAPTER VIII NISCH AND SOPHIA
From Belgrade to Nisch—Nisch—Provincial Hotel Accommodations—The Monument of Skulls—Tzaribrod—Sophia—Value Received for $1.25 per Diem—Dragoleftsky	94
CHAPTER IX BULGARIA AND HER PAST
Progress of Bulgaria—Origin of her Peoples—The Bulgari—First Russian Invasion of Bulgaria—The Assenide Dynasty—Turkish Tyrannies—Emancipation of Bulgaria—Russia’s Intrigues against Prince Alexander—The Late Balkan Disturbances	111	[xi]
CHAPTER X A BULGARIAN MARKET
Bulgaria’s Busy Day—The Orient Express	130
CHAPTER XI SARAJEVO—THE SPIRED CITY
From Belgrade to Sarajevo—The Turkish Bazaar—A Bosnian Street Sprinkler—Horse-races at Ylidze—A Dervish Dance	145
CHAPTER XII FROM SARAJEVO TO THE COAST
Jablaniča—Mostar—Across the Mountains—The Balkan Riviera—Ragusa: The Fairy City of the Adriatic	166
CHAPTER XIII RAGUSA
As She Is—The First Colony—The Fire of 1292—The Black Death—Hungary Acquires the Place—Ragusa Establishes her Independence—Plague—Earthquake—Napoleon Takes Ragusa—The City Ceded to Austria	179
CHAPTER XIV THE BOCCHE DI CATTARO
Steamer-day at Gravosa—Ragusa from the Sea—The Bocche di Cattaro—Castelnuovo—Cattaro and Her Mountain Background	199	[xii]
CHAPTER XV MONTENEGRO
The Gibraltar of the Balkan Peninsula—The Settling of Montenegro—Peter I—The Family of Petrovich—Prince Nikola—The Montenegrin Costume—Incidents of War—The Montenegro of To-day	211
CHAPTER XVI THE ROAD TO CETTINJE
The Ascent of the Mountains—Njegushi—The Montenegrin Capital—Historical Monuments in Cettinje—The Return to Cattaro	229
CHAPTER XVII SPALATO AND SALONA
Westward Along the Coast—First Glimpse of Spalato—The Campanile—Diocletian’s Palace—Salona and Her Ruins	247
CHAPTER XVIII ZARA
From Spalato to Zara—Chief Objects of Interest in the Capital of Dalmatia—The Story of St. Simeon—The Five Fountains—Fragments of Roman Occupation	269
CHAPTER XIX THE GULF OF QUARNERO
The Home of the Bora—Fiume—Abbazia—The Home of the Torpedo—Descendants of the Uscocs	282

[xiii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
The Late Queen Draga of Servia	Frontispiece
Map	viii
“A crowd of stary-eyed, open-mouthed, inquisitive natives”	5
The Hotel Proprietor, Sophia	9
The Fischer Ramparts, Pesth	13
The Elizabeth Bridge,—Buda in the Background	17
The Native Servian Head-dress	25
Drinking a Friendly Glass of Slivivitz	31
A “Boze” Peddler, Belgrade	35
The Prishtina Costume, Worn by Servian Women on Feast Days	39
The Late King Alexander of Servia	51
A Sidewalk Café, Belgrade	63
King Peter Karageorgevitch of Servia	69
The Ball-room of the New Palace, Belgrade	73
Fruit Venders, Nisch	95
A Street Scene, Sophia	103
A Bulgarian Village Church	109
The Saint Cral Cathedral, Sophia	115
The Ruined Church of Saint Sophia, Sophia	119
Monument to the “Tzar Liberator,” Sophia	123
“A hawking, bantering multitude ... in gala dress”	131	[xiv]
Bulgarians in Gala Attire	135
A Group Posed for the Camera at the Friday Market, Sophia	139
The Austrian Army Barracks at Sarajevo	147
Some Turkish Homes in Sarajevo	153
Double-decked Stores in the Turkish Bazaar, Sarajevo	157
“The Real Devotees of the Races”	161
A Gorge of the Narenta, Near Jablaniča	167
The Old Roman Bridge, Mostar	173
The Harbour of Gravosa	181
Ragusa,—Mount Sergius in the Background	185
The Walls of Ragusa	189
The Sea Forts of Ragusa	197
A General View of Castelnuovo	205
The Famous “Ladder” across the Face of Mount Lovčen	209
A Group of Montenegrins	213
A Typical Montenegrin Girl	219
A Stone Mason of Cettinje and His Cart	225
A Section of the Road across the Mountains	231
The Pass at the Top of the Mountains	235
The Main Street, Cettinje	241
A Turn of the Road across the Mountains	245
Spalato from the Campanile	253
A Fountain on the Outskirts of Spalato	259
The Ruins of the Basilica, Salona	263
Roman Sarcophagi, Salona	267
The Water Front, Zara	273
The Five Fountains, Zara	279
Via Andrassy, Fiume	285

[1]

The Lands of the Tamed Turk

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CHAPTER I

WHY THE BALKANS?

The Rundreise Ticket—Why the Balkans?—When and Where English is Heard—Why Not the Balkans?

For a week we had remained in London, trying furiously to make up our minds which part of the Continent would interest us most. In the evenings at dinner we laid bare our ideas collected during the day, and endeavoured to formulate plans, but those countries which one favoured to visit seemed in no wise to appeal to the other. By the end of the week we had about completed our inventory of the tourable parts of Europe without one of us being inoculated with a special desire to revisit any of them. Then some one suggested, “Why not the Balkans?”

[2]

That seemingly insignificant little interrogation cut short our evening convocations in London as abruptly as one would snuff the wick of a candle, for inside of forty-eight hours we had purchased our “Rundreise” and “Hapag” tickets and were speeding Vienna-ward.

To the seasoned traveller the following brief explanation may seem a trifle superfluous but, at the same time, it may be the means of saving a world of bother and inconvenience, no small item of expense and an incalculable loss of temper to the uninitiated—especially in countries where an English-speaking individual is regarded with no little curiosity.

The “Rundreise,” or “Round-trip-ticket,” is an institution in itself. On it you may travel, for example, from London to Constantinople and return to London by way of any route or in any direction. You may go to Paris, to Cologne, and up the Rhine to Frankfort; thence to Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Constantinople, and return by way of the Levant and the Riviera. There are a hundred different routes by which to go and come, a hundred interesting parts of countries to pass through, a hundred beautiful cities to visit. You may travel by rail or by boat, first, second or third class—according to the price paid—but you [3]must return to the starting-point, or, at all events, you will have paid for that privilege, and it concerns but you if you do not care to avail yourself of it.

The one serious proviso of the “Rundreise ticket,” and one that will be at once a drawback to some and a boon to others, is that no luggage may be checked on it. But the less luggage and the smaller the assortment of clothes taken for travel in the Balkans the better—providing, of course, your mission does not necessitate your being dined and wined by the nobility and diplomats.

The “Hapag ticket” is, in the language of the Magyar, of the same general specie as the “Rundreise.”

And in contemplating such a trip through the Southeast of Europe, two important questions naturally arise: Why? and why not the Balkans?

To the first there are many convincing replies. The Balkan States have been, for two thousand years, the “Powder Box” of Europe. The Greeks, and, after them, the Romans, came and saw and conquered; the Venetians, for a time, swept all before them along the coast of the Adriatic; for five hundred years the Turks, thirsting for the blood of the Christians, have attacked, have been [4]repulsed and have attacked again, shocking the entire world with their atrocious massacres. One need not hunger for history in travelling through the Balkans. In addition, its peoples are primitive, their customs are curious and their methods mediæval. They are backward and unsophisticated in everything but war—and that word “war” has been the slogan in the “Near East” for centuries.

Furthermore, the territory has been left uninvaded by the frantic tourist,—in fact, an American is regarded as a wonder to look upon, and his harmless little camera, aimed promiscuously, is as apt to conjure up a crowd of stary-eyed, open-mouthed, inquisitive natives as the perpetration of a political tragedy.

And woe is he who cannot speak German, or at least enough of that language to ask the questions necessary to travel, for the days of “personally conducted” tours through the Balkans have yet to come. He may speak French fluently but, exclusive of the diplomatic circles, it would be as much to his advantage to adhere to American slang. The exceptions, however, invariably prove the rule, and it is when English is least expected to be heard that its utterance is the most heartily appreciated.

The head-waiter of the hotel in Belgrade [7]had been a deck steward on a trans-Atlantic liner and of course surprised us upon our arrival with a generous speech in English.

The hotel proprietor in Sophia spoke nine languages with great fluency and, in addition, had been studying English from newspapers. He had so far advanced in the mastery of the grammar as to have been able to read Dickens (whether he understood it or not is another matter), but I had the honour of being the first English-speaking person upon whom he had had the opportunity of airing his pronunciation. Considering the fact that he had never before indulged his English in conversation he butchered it to a remarkably small degree, and was understood without an excessive amount of difficulty.

As another example of this clandestine knowledge of the English language throughout the Balkan Peninsula, I was standing one evening on the molo at Ragusa, watching two fishermen load their small boats with nets and other implements of the catch. At the stern of their craft was displayed a large and cumbersome lantern having a powerful reflector. I questioned the rower in German, such as it was, as to the use of this paraphernalia, and, as I had not heard a word of my mother-tongue in the town—in fact, all along the Dalmatian [8]coast—my auricular nerves suffered a profound but agreeable shock when the man replied, “The sardines follow the light while we lead ’em into the nets.” He had been a sailor and had visited almost every port in the United States as well as in England.

And, why not the Balkans?

In place of the mountain-trails and muddy cart-roads of a few years ago there are now railway lines that form a network through the most interesting sections, and travel is facilitated proportionately. The scenery is as picturesque as any in Europe, while the touch of colour, in the garb of the peasants mingling with the variegated uniforms of the always conspicuous army, adds an unalloyed charm seldom enjoyed along the time-honoured travel routes of the Continent. Good hotels, at which the food is excellent and well prepared, may be found in the cities, and the accommodations, if not luxurious, cleanly and comfortable.

As late as 1853-54 not a single telegraphic line existed beyond the Austrian frontier. Along the highway from Belgrade to Constantinople, through Nisch and Sophia, messages from the Western courts to the Sublime Porte were carried by dare-devil riders at a speed which sacrificed horse-flesh regardlessly. [11]A notable achievement was the ride along this route of one Colonel Townley, who covered eight hundred miles in the incredibly short time of five days and ten hours. To-day the “Orient Express” eats its tortuous way tri-weekly from Calais to Constantinople, crossing Europe from edge to edge, in a fraction over four days.

Hardships of travel through the near East have vanished, although, in countries so backward and so seldom visited by the sightseer, it would be highly improbable that inconveniences would not be encountered. But these inconveniences are doubly cancelled by the pleasures and sensations of vibrating between the beauty-spots of pugnacious little principalities, whose histories have been written so indelibly with blood upon the pages of the world’s progress.

[12]

CHAPTER II

BUDA-PESTH AND BELGRADE

Buda-Pesth and Its Language—From Buda-Pesth to Belgrade—The Servian Passport System—First Impressions of Belgrade—Garden Spots in and about the Servian Metropolis.

Buda-Pesth, with its imposing buildings, its kaleidoscopic market scenes and its impossible language, seems to be the Eastern jumping-off place, so to speak, of Continental travel. It is the suburb of Europe; but what a fascinating suburb it is, to be sure! Its architectural beauty is unsurpassed; its situation unrivalled, with the Danube coursing between the old city, Buda, and the new city, Pesth; its parks are veritable bowers of refreshing green; its cafés are interesting and its military music delightful. It is the Mecca of Magyar aristocracy and, if one can infer aught from natural proof, it has been well adopted.

But the language! The atrocious combinations of vowels and consonants fairly numb your powers of pronunciation. In order that your attempts to even read the signs may be made all the more tantalizing, our own, the [15]Roman, alphabet is used to muddle the brain of the foreign visitor. When we see the writings of the Chinese or the Greeks, for instance, we are not inclined to regard these tongues as altogether unmasterable, but to behold the letters of our alphabet so haphazardly jumbled together and capped with many accents, grave and acute, seems bitter indeed. Taking it all in all the Hungarian tongue seems analogous to a waste of talent.

One delightful evening I summoned my courage and ventured into a trolley-car, hoping that it might eventually take me near the Casino of the principal park. It did, mirabile dictu, and I alighted. But a week in Buda-Pesth had not passed without many and varied experiences. In order to be doubly cautious and not mistake my car to return to the hotel—for, luckily, this one made the park its terminus and returned by the same route—I unsheathed my note book and copied then and there the name of the route from a sign on the side of the car. Fortified with this valuable data I was prepared to enjoy the evening with reckless abandon, mingling with the crowds, listening to the music and concerning myself not at all as to the way to get home, for I had only to wait until a car came along marked [16]“Városlíget-Eskü-Tér-Podmaniczy-Utcka,” whatever that means, and I would be among friends.

If you do not stop to look at the signs—for what is a city of this era without a host of glaring, gilded advertisements—Buda-Pesth is just as enticing, but on a somewhat smaller scale, as Vienna, and at the end of a fortnight we were loth to leave. As the next slip of our Rundreise book read “Belgrade,” we jammed ourselves into one of the dusty compartments of a crowded railway train bound for the Servian frontier.

Among our fellow-passengers was an aged, rheumatic Jewish woman, travelling from Vienna to Constantinople, who became very sociable, despite her affliction, and lighted one cigarette from the stub of the other as she unveiled to us her past history in broken German.

The railway line from Buda-Pesth to Belgrade, traversing the great Hungarian steppes, is devoid of attractive scenery and the journey of seven hours becomes somewhat tiresome, especially if the season is summer with its accompanying heat and the train is uncomfortably crowded. Agriculture along the route seems to be very much on the wane, but enormous herds of long-horned cattle, flocks of sheep and tens of thousands of pigs tell succinctly[19] of the product of that portion of Hungary. Now and again you may see a native driver in heavy leather boots, white petticoat, or smock, to his knees, and a derby hat (not a very dignified-appearing combination of apparel), tending a large flock of unusually huge geese, tapping the laggards deftly with his long willow switch.

The minute you cross the Danube at the Servian frontier you begin to feel the influence, although a waning one, of a nation that has been struggling desperately for hundreds of years to regain her lost provinces—the Turks. It is not so noticeable in Servia as in Bulgaria, not so noticeable in Bulgaria as in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, but it is there, nevertheless; the sullen, silent suffering of a nation of stoics, whose forefathers were defeated in their murderous attempts to Mohammedanize Europe only at the very gates of Vienna itself.

The fact that Servia entertains exaggerated fears for her own is brought to the notice of the traveller—and forcibly, too—at Zemlin, on the Austrian side of the Danube River, opposite Belgrade. At this point one of King Peter’s ominous-looking arms of the law, resplendent in epaulets and gold cord, boards each and every train from the west. Although [20]his trailing sword appears to be no little hindrance to his ease in getting about, his temper remains unruffled and he examines with polite suspicion the passports of all who expect to leave the train at the Servian capital. The name of the owner of the passport is jotted down on a piece of paper which, later, in the depot, is handed surreptitiously to a pair of warlike individuals who guard the exit to the street, while the customs officials are demanding excuses for the contents of your grips. Between these two warriors you must pass out from the depot and give them your name, which is forthwith checked off the list previously furnished by the portly train inspector.

But this is not all.

Upon arrival at the hotel you are handed an information blank, which must be filled in with your name, address, occupation, religion, where you came from, how long you expect to remain in the city, your ultimate destination and such data as would facilitate the authorities in bringing you to earth in case you attempted to cut short the life of the King or incited the natives to revolt.

One of these blanks, for you must fill in two, is kept at the hotel; the other is sent to police headquarters. No matter how insignificant you may imagine you are when in your mother-[21]country, you are under the eagle eye of the government continuously in Servia. Your every move is watched and made a note of. It matters not even if you change to another hotel; the police are immediately notified to that effect. You are branded as a suspicious character and will remain so until you prove it or leave the country, vindicated.

Your first impressions of the metropolis of Servia are apt to be a bit disappointing, and especially so if you arrive at night, for Belgrade is anything but an imposing city, even in the daytime. You are driven rather recklessly through streets of very uneven cobbles, miserably lighted and apparently abandoned by human beings. The business, and, at the same time, residential part of the city, in which your hotel is located, looks down from the crest of a hill upon the squalid, old Turkish quarter on one side, from which emanates a veritable vapour of highly seasoned cookery, and the poor Servian district and warehouses on the other. To the west, on a cliff overlooking the junction of the Danube and the Save, are the Kalemagden Park and the old fortress, the guns of the latter having been long since silenced by the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, which forbade Servia fortifying her Austrian frontier.

[22]

“The cheerful boulevards of Belgrade,” as one author earnestly puts it, may have been in existence at the time the phrase was coined, but I very much doubt it, because of the dearth of evidence of these alleged “boulevards” ever having deserved such flattery.

This Kalemagden Park, however, is one of the few beauty spots of the Servian capital. Another is in the vicinity of the konak, or palace, of King Peter, in the eastern portion of the city. The street borders one end of the konak and continues past the garden and lawn which the building faces: if it were not for the gates being guarded constantly by soldiers one would hardly imagine the edifice to be the residence of a royal household. The mutinous murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga in 1903 occurred in the old konak, later demolished by order of the present ruler, which stood in front of the new palace but facing the gardens and the street.

Three miles to the east of the city is located Topchidere Park, the beautiful country-seat of the ill-fated Prince Alexander, who was but one victim of the many infamously successful plots of the Servian regicides. His chalet stands on the opposite side of the roadway from the little chapel, and in the garden his stone tea-table is still preserved. Above it [23]spread the branches of a monstrous tree of some three hundred years of age, famous from the fact that from its massive limbs the invading Turks were wont to hang their Christian victims. Near by is the country estate of the present Crown Prince, with stables and kennels containing his favourite horses and dogs.

Topchidere is the improvised country club of the Belgraders, and many are the social functions given in its casino—if I may apologize for the use of the word “casino” in describing the ramshackle frame house of carousal in the Park. But the gardens are really beautiful, and are kept in excellent condition by state prisoners detailed to work in them.

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[24]

CHAPTER III

TWENTIETH CENTURY SERVIA

The Servians—The Rise of the Nation—The Army—The Race-meets—The Market in Belgrade—National Customs—The National Dance.

To the seeker of health and of pleasure, to the lover of the beautiful in art and in nature, to the reveller in gayety and luxurious living, Servia as a travel territory is null and void. It is a country of interest to the public only so long as it continues to bask in the limelight as a disturber of Balkan peace. It is the tool of Russia, the enemy of Austria, the contempt of Bulgaria and the hatred of Turkey. Indeed its only true friend may be said to be its relative—miniature Montenegro. If the Balkan Peninsula is the “Powder Box” of Europe, Servia certainly deserves to be called the “Percussion Cap” of the Balkan Peninsula.

To the student the Servians are a nation of types; as a race they are gifted by nature with unusual powers of observation, shrewdness and strength of character, but from the fact of [27]their having been so long oppressed has arisen a disposition to concealment and even absolute distrust. They are patriotic and loyal to a marked degree, which may account, in part, for their emotional proclivities. They are absolutely fearless, but this fearlessness assumes at times a tinge of the opera bouffe, as in the late controversy with Austria, which leads us Americans to think of them as a nation of charlatans.

But I digress. It is not my desire to enter into any rehearsals of the political conditions in the pivotal Near East. I exhaled a deep-breathed oath when this volume was commenced to confine my writings herein to the travelling through and brief descriptions of these “Lands of the Tamed Turk,” introducing such history as might seem romantic and interesting and instructive enough to be absorbed by the reader.

Only since the final suppression of the Turks have the Servians “found themselves,” so to speak, and the rapid rise of the nation has been remarkable. In the early years of the nineteenth century, before its revolt under the leadership of George Petrovitch—Kara, or Black George, as he was called by the Turks—Servia could not boast of a single schoolhouse; there was not even a wagon road [28]in the whole country, except what remained of the ancient Roman highway between Belgrade and Nisch; because the Turks forbade the building or even repairing of houses of Christian worship, the churches were, for the most part, in miserable ruin; the entire population at that time was scarcely larger than that of the single city of Detroit to-day. Then Servia was merely a province of Turkey, governed by a Vizir sent from Constantinople. The country was not only the seat of internal friction, but tribes, in rebellion against the Sultan, exploited the land as a private estate.

But listen to the changes of a hundred years.

As I write, Servia maintains eight hundred and sixty elementary schools for boys and a hundred and fifty for girls; fourteen middle grade schools with, and twelve without, classical departments; six high-schools for girls; two technical academies; two schools for teachers; one commercial college; a school of agriculture; a military academy; and an university. Public instruction is free and compulsory. Of the twelve hundred and seventy-eight towns and villages throughout the country the important ones are connected by rail, and telegraphic communication exists between most of the others.

The contemptible pig still constitutes the [29]chief article of export, but the raising of swine, instead of the cultivation of the soil, although the latter is by no means unprolific, has been handed down from generation to generation as an ingenious method of the Servians for saving the products of their country from the destructive raids of the Turks.[1] In some districts, however, fruits and cereals are cultivated and exported in abundance. Many thousands of cases of plums find their way to France annually, whence they are re-exported to America, and sold under the label of French products. From this fruit is pressed the national drink of Servia, slivivitz, a sort of plum brandy, which, when imbibed freely, produces most grotesque effects—so I am told.

Although the whole kingdom covers little more than twice the area of the state of New Jersey, the regular army consists of some twenty thousand men. The organization of it, however, is based upon a law enacted in 1893 which, if executed, would place in the field three hundred and thirty-five thousand men, but financial stringencies have curbed the application of this statute. For every Servian between the ages of twenty and thirty, military [30]duty for two years in the regular army is compulsory; and during the remaining years of his middle life he is classed in the first, second or third divisions of the reserves, according to his age.

Belgrade itself, the capital of the country, has a population of eighty thousand, being about the size of Hartford, Connecticut, and it is a singular fact, as well as an amusing one, that no less than two thousand of this number are policemen. These guardians of the peace, who are at the same time units of the army, are well-drilled and are housed in military barracks.

Naturally, the army is the phase of Servian life most often met with in the capital. You will see it on every hand, at all hours and clothed in every conceivable colour of uniform. It throngs the parks and takes complete and indisputable possession of the cafés; in which the prices of beverages advance simultaneously with the tuning-up of the gypsy orchestras. Should you drive out to one of the rather ridiculous race-meets you will notice that the army-officers’ race is the most important event on the programme. Like as not, upon such an excursion, the King will drive past you, bowing graciously; although the races are comparatively crude affairs, he and the other members[33] of the royal household are ardent devotees of the sport.

At the race course the army lines the fence bordering the track, while half a dozen heavily equipped peasants in black alpaca caps vie with each other as to the speed of their respective mounts. At one meet which I attended, a rider was thrown within a short distance from the tape, which his horse was about to cross ahead of the other contestants by two hundred yards. But his mind was set upon winning the race by fair means or foul and, picking himself out of the dust, he bravely endeavoured to cross the line on foot in advance of the fast-approaching cloud of rivals. Upon his failure to do so a heated discussion immediately arose as to whether the horse won the race or the rider lost it.

For a Balkan city Belgrade is exceptionally apt in acquiring the ways and “means” of the Westerner. As the traveller is about to leave the hotel to take a train a hall bell is rung, followed by a general mustering of all hands, from the head clerk to the cook’s helper, each of whom expects to receive some token of appreciation for services rendered. I suppose I had helped at least sixteen to establish themselves in business, and was just about to make a second start for the depot when one of the [34]confederates came running breathlessly towards me. Would I be good enough to wait just one moment because the zimmer mädchen (and Heaven knows I tipped her munificently each time she brought me warm water for shaving or lined the marble bathtub with a sheet—and in Belgrade a bath costs seventy-five cents, anyway) was on her way downstairs? But time was precious with me and as I drove away I heard, faintly, the tardy and disappointed zimmer mädchen clattering along the flagstone hall.

I even saw an automobile, of uncertain vintage and questionable parentage, in Belgrade, honking its noisy way through the crowds of gaping peasants near the market.

And in the word “market” I have unconsciously mentioned one of the most interesting sights to be had during a visit to a Slavonic city. Every day is “market-day” in Belgrade, but on Sunday mornings the bizarre scene is augmented by peasants in holiday garb from all the surrounding country-side, while Turkish “boze”-sellers (this word “boze” is not to be conflicted with the American slang expression which signifies intoxicating liquors) peddle about the contents of their buckets, shrieking the avowed virtues of their stock in trade. This “boze,” a sort of sweetened[37] oatmeal water, is freely consumed in Servia by shopkeepers, artisans and peasants.

But I must withhold the description of a typical market scene in the Balkans, and devote a certain amount of space to it in connection with the Bulgar capital of Sophia where one of the most interesting markets in the world is held on Friday of each week.

Of the customs of the country there are many which are quaint and singular, especially among the peasant population, but only a few of the more common ones will bear description.

In the Servian orthodox church there are a hundred and eighty feast days in the year, the continued observance of which places business in a state of chaos. Divorce is easily obtained, and for the slightest cause, through the ecclesiastical tribunals, and it carries with it no social disgrace; but to wed a cousin, no matter how distant, is attended with absolute ostracism.

Instead of bride’s-maids at a wedding the Servians employ two kums, or godfathers, each of whom is compelled by custom to give the bride a dress-length of silk. A particularly significant honour is bestowed upon the dever, who acts in the capacity of the best man at the marriage ceremony. He carries a bouquet,[38] wears a white sash and other ludicrous regalia, and for no reason whatever must he leave the bride for an instant throughout the day of the wedding.

As a general rule the wife is older than the husband and the bridegroom’s relatives have preference over those of the bride. The bride herself is regarded as little more than a household slave.

Each regiment of the army, like each Servian family, revels in the protection of a patron saint, and the celebration of the slava, or patron saint’s day, of a regiment is the only occasion of the year upon which all ranks of the army are considered socially equal. In the family the slava usually takes place upon the anniversary of that family’s conversion to Christianity, and on that day it is the custom to call upon one’s friends whose slava it is.

Characteristic of every Slavonic nation is its national dance, and the Servians, not to be outdone in this respect by their cousins, boast of what they call the “Kola,” an extremely picturesque variety of the terpsichorean art, partly adapted from the Russian and partly invented by themselves. This “Kola” is danced upon the least provocation, and at every function. It matters little where they may be; in the streets of Belgrade or tending [41]their flocks in the fields, if a group of Servians feel a “Kola” coming on they must give vent to their enthusiasm. It is danced upon the field of battle by the soldiers, and the King leads it at every state ball. At first sight it seems ridiculous, almost childish, and especially so when danced at one of the royal functions where gray-whiskered diplomats of all nations, high officials of state in uniform and be-jewelled leaders of Servian society trail like a kaleidoscopic serpent in the wake of the King, as he twists and turns up and down the polished floor of the great ball-room in the palace. But it seems to wax more and more fascinating and impressive the more often one sees it danced.

I was returning by carriage one warm, humid afternoon, from the cool environs of Topchidere Park, when I noticed a regiment of Servian soldiery drilling on the parade ground near one of the barracks. Suddenly the order to stack arms was given. Two of the privates rushed with all possible speed to the barracks and returned with a couple of violins. As they commenced the typical Slavonic music of the “Kola” the nine hundred and more officers and men linked arms and, forming one long line of white coats and caps, blue breeches and black boots, went [42]through the mystic mazes of the national Servian dance with much precision, no little amount of gusto and a great deal of effervescent enthusiasm. As I witnessed this “Kola” it was nothing if not an inspiring sight.

[43]

CHAPTER IV

THE SERVIAN DYNASTIES

Karageorge—Milosh Obrenovitch—Murder of Karageorge—Turkey Grants the Title of Prince—Milosh Abdicates—Abdication of Prince Michael—Alexander Abdicates—Prince Milosh Re-installed, His Death and the Re-election of Prince Michael—Murder of Michael—Prince Milan’s Marriage, Abdication and Death—Alexander Elected.

The very early history of Servia and her peoples has been daubed so freely with myth and fable that it would be confusing and tedious to enter into it. Instead, I shall confine myself to the brief narration of the two later dynasties, explanatory of the world-renowned friction between them.

Of all the capitals of the world none deserves more unquestionably the sobriquet of “The Capital of Crime,” as I have named a later chapter, than that of Servia. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century four reigning monarchs have been ruthlessly murdered in or near Belgrade, and four others have been forced to abdicate. What would [44]have been the fate of these latter had they not foreseen it can readily be imagined. King-killing is chronic with the Servians and there are to-day twenty-nine men incarcerated in the prison at Belgrade, charged with plotting against the life of the present ruler, King Peter Karageorgevitch.

The history of these national tragedies, the latest of which, in 1903, shocked the civilized world, begins with the histories of the two royal families of Servia, and takes us back a hundred years, to a time when the country was suffering the most from the perennial invasions of the bloodthirsty Mohammedans.

[45]

“The end of the year 1801 saw Servia a prey to systematized vandalism. It was a reign of unexampled tyranny and cruelty. The bloodthirstiness of the Sultan’s janizaries increased like the strength of a torrent. The Dahis, in obedience to the Sultan’s firmans, commissioned murderers to proceed through Servia and kill all the mayors of towns and villages, chiefs of cantons, priests and monks. A wave of terror swept over the land, spreading panic in every direction. Mothers hugged their children to their breasts and men in hushed whispers spoke of self-destruction as a less miserable fate than falling into the hands of the Turks. Every male over seven years of age was to be destroyed. But something in the Servians which had hitherto lain dormant, a spirit of manhood which had not been manifested before, arose under the whip of the gigantic thraldom; seemingly the crushed and oppressed drew breath, the instinct of self-preservation kindled in their hearts, and the embers burst out into a new flame of patriotism.”

Such, then, happened to be the deplorable conditions in Servia when George Petrovich, or Kara-George, a poverty-stricken peasant of a fiery temperament, but a man of dominating energy, morose and taciturn, imbued with this patriotic flame, descended from the little village of Topola where he made his home. By means of his character and personal magnetism he rallied his countrymen and posted the now-famed proclamation, which called upon the whole of Servia to rise against the Turks. The latter were driven from the country after a siege of eight days, and for nine years Karageorge ruled in Servia and kept at bay the subjects of the Sultan.

But in 1813, the Turks, encouraged by the jealousy which had been impregnated in the hearts of the military chiefs on account of the pre-eminence of Karageorge, proclaimed a [46]holy war. In vain did the peasant leader appeal to his people to withstand the attacks of the Mohammedans and, in the end, he fled disgusted to his mountain home.

It was at this time that the Servians found a new champion in Milosh Obrenovitch, General of Rudneek under Karageorge, and, after a successful campaign against the Turks, he was proclaimed a hero.

Karageorge, off among the hills, was loth to see this Milosh taking his place in the hearts of his people, so, in 1817, disregarding utterly the orders of the Vizir and the advices of Milosh himself, he decided to return to his subjects. He stopped for the night at the house of Semendria Vouitza, who, oblivious to the old ties of friendship and his duties as a host, murdered his guest as he slept, and who knows but at the instigation of Milosh Obrenovitch?

This, then, was the first of the Servian royal tragedies, and the beginning of the deep and terrible feud between the families of Karageorge and Obrenovitch, the latest victims of which were the unfortunate and weakly King Alexander, the last Obrenovitch, and his queen, Draga, in 1903.

In 1830 Turkey permitted Milosh to assume the title of [47]“Prince Milosh Obrenovitch I.” By this action she yielded to Servia’s demands, for Turkey had suffered defeat in the hands of the Russians in 1829, and Russia was literally the sponsor of Servia. But in 1839 the broil between the old adherents of Karageorge and the followers of his successor, far worse than mere family jealousies, because it divided a nation, caused the abdication of Prince Milosh in favour of his elder son, Prince Milan, who held the reins of government but a few short weeks when he died and his brother, Prince Michael, assumed the leadership of the Servians.

Only three years later Prince Michael was compelled to resign and Alexander, son of Karageorge, was elected in his stead. The year 1859 witnessed the enforced resignation of Alexander and the re-instalment of old Prince Milosh Obrenovitch, who had answered the fickle summons to return to his people. He died the following year, and Prince Michael was, for the second time, made the reigning head of Servia.

The fact that Michael’s wife, who was Princess Julia, a descendant of a royal Hungarian family and maid of honour to the Empress of Austria, was childless gave rise to the dastardly Karageorgevitch plot to put an end to [48]the Obrenovitch dynasty by the murder of her husband. Milosh Obrenovitch, junior, so to speak, a grand-nephew of Prince Michael, was the only heir to the Servian throne and the would-be regicides were confident that a new constitution might be proclaimed in favour of Peter Karageorgevitch, the present ruler and a grandson of the peasant, Black George. The sooner this should be attempted the better, for was not Prince Michael even then contemplating the divorce of his wife, in order that he might marry Katrine Constantinovitch, his cousin, and so insure an heir to the throne in the birth of a son?

June 10, 1868, was the day set for the tragedy.

Taking advantage of the Prince’s custom of driving unattended by military escort through the deer park at Topchidere, four men, all criminals with notorious careers, met him along the road as he drove in his carriage with Katrine Constantinovitch and two other relatives. As the Prince’s carriage advanced, these four men stepped to one side and bared their heads in recognition of his Royal Highness. Hardly had he passed when they fired simultaneously upon the royal party, killing the Prince almost instantly and mortally wounding Mlle. Constantinovitch.

[49]

Owing to a mishap to the carriage of the conniving news-bearer the true tale of the tragedy reached Belgrade before him and it was only through the masterful diplomacy of M. Petrovitch Blasnavatz, the Minister of War, that the throne of Servia was saved for the young Milan Obrenovitch.

In 1872 Prince Milan reached his majority and three years later, in Vienna, fell in love with the beautiful, charming Roumanian princess, Natalie, who was destined to play such a prominent role in the future of the Servian nation. To their union was born a son, Prince Alexander, “Little Sasha,” as the Servians lovingly called him. Natalie was popular with her subjects, and in many ways their love for her was made manifest. On one occasion, when she lay confined in her apartments before the birth of Alexander, the people walked along the street in front of the palace on tiptoe and spoke only in whispers, so fearful were they of disturbing her quiet.

But Milan, although a devoted parent and an unimpeachable patriot and ruler, proved himself nothing less than a Machiavellian roué. The persistent outcries against his dual life gained Natalie a divorce, which was subsequently revoked on account of her refusal to leave the country. Then, because of the continued[50] murmurs of the Karageorgevitch faction against him, Milan abdicated and bade farewell to the “Little Sasha” on March 6, 1889. He died later in Vienna financially, physically and morally bankrupt.

[53]

CHAPTER V

ALEXANDER AND DRAGA

Alexander—Draga—The Meeting—Draga’s Return to Belgrade—Russia’s Intrigues—Marriage of Alexander and Draga—Origin of the Plot to Murder.

After the abdication of Milan, Natalie took up her home in Biarritz in a chateau which she had previously purchased; while back in Belgrade, Alexander, under the guidance of regents, had taken upon himself the burdens of a nominal ruler of Servia. It was not long, however, before the want of the devoted affection and the healthful moral influence of his mother began to produce their effects. In many ways Alexander endeavoured to emulate his father. Although headstrong in the extreme, even to stubbornness, he became pitiably vulnerable, under the tutelage of less scrupulous associates, to influences not altogether conducive to his popularity as a king.

It was to his indiscretion and contumacious perversity that was accredited one of the most horrible royal tragedies in the history of the world. In fact, it was on one of Alexander’s [54]imprudent escapades that he met Draga Maschine, then lady-in-waiting to his mother and the adventuresome widow of an engineer in the Servian army. An illicit union with this woman kindled the spark of love between them, which ignited, as time wore on and the number of their meetings increased, into the burning flame of passionate devotion.

Of the women of Belgrade, Draga Maschine, at the time of her ascendency, was an acknowledged star in point of beauty of face and figure. She was tall and graceful in bearing; her eyes were dark and lustrous; her hair was said to have been black like the hue of a raven; the curves of her mouth were bewitching; the type of her chin was indicative of determined character. Beyond these attributes she was vivacious and alluring. While yet a mere girl of seventeen she had been married to a young army engineer, but even at that tender age she had had the reputation of being a maid of uncertain morals, and her marriage failed to act as a curb to her perverted desires and inclinations. She had been wedded barely a year when her husband took his own life because of her alleged disregard for the holy bonds of matrimony. It was then that Colonel Maschine, her brother-in-law and her enemy from the first, plotter against the [55]King and the man destined to act the role of arch-murderer in the final scene of the greatest of Servian tragedies, swore he would have retribution for her conduct, which, he said, had been the cause of his brother’s suicide.

In due course of time Draga became fired with the hope of future social distinction. She had been dragged through the mire of ill-repute and was now determined to attain the coveted recognition of society, not as an adventuress, but as a lady of wealth and rank. To this end she even sought the influence in her behalf of a minister of the Servian court, and through him the unsophisticated Natalie resolved to help her, pensioned her, and finally made Draga one of her ladies-in-waiting at Biarritz.

In 1898 the young King Alexander, upon a visit to his mother at Biarritz, met Draga, his future queen and for whom he felt no little affection from the first.

Natalie, during this visit of her son, laid before him her plans for his marriage to Princess Lilly Mirko of Montenegro, his cousin, an Obrenovitch descendant and one of the most beautiful women in all Europe. But the King, already having been subjected by the subtle charms of Draga (who, by her beauty and manners, had established herself as the [56]most fascinating of Natalie’s attendants), disappointed his mother by taking no thought of her proposal.

On the other hand, Draga Maschine left not a single stone unturned to win the love of the young King. Their secret meetings were the gossip of the community. Finally, Natalie became alarmed at the mutual infatuation of her son and her superlatively captivating lady-in-waiting and dismissed the latter from her entourage. But this action seemed only to weld more securely the relations of the pair, for Draga returned triumphantly to Belgrade and the scenes of her early degradation as none other than the mistress of the King himself.

This marks the date when the power of Draga over Alexander was brought to bear in earnest. It was at her instigation that the King, upon attaining his majority, locked his regents in a room of the palace after having invited them to dinner, drew his revolver, boastingly declared himself the all-powerful King of the Serbs and issued an order that his father, Prince Milan, then living humbly in Vienna, should be shot the moment he might attempt to cross the Servian frontier.

Then Russia, always partial to the Karageorgevitch dynasty, and prime promoter of [57]the political intrigues of Servia for her own aggrandizement, foresaw a possible end of the Obrenovitch dynasty and, by the leverage of the King’s love for his mistress, proceeded forthwith with skill and subterfuge to pave the way for a Karageorgevitch ruler.

Anticipating the final outcome of the possible marriage of Alexander and Draga, Russia commissioned the wife of a Cossack colonel as an agent to use her influence to bring about such a union. Accordingly, this woman became a personal friend of Draga; she interested herself in Draga’s love affair and, at an opportune moment, broached to her the subject of marriage with the King. Draga protested on the ground that they loved each other and were already very happy, but the exalted position of a Queen of Servia was so incessantly brought to her mind that she finally acquiesced to the suggestions of her supposedly friendly adviser. The King was assured that Russia would recognize the marriage, for the Great White Czar himself consented to act as best man, and the day for the wedding was set.

What must have been the thoughts of Alexander as he drove that day through the decorated streets of Belgrade? Was he so wrapt up in his love for the aspiring Draga that he [58]had failed to discover the plots against him? Or, aware of the deep-rooted intrigue to further the ends of a selfish monarchy, did he stubbornly face disaster and ultimate death in his loyalty to his Queen?

As the royal couple returned to the konak from the cathedral, after the marriage ceremony, the streets were thronged with a staring, phlegmatic crowd, which looked upon its new Queen in silence and wonder. Not a cheer was raised; not a trumpet sounded. All marvelled, and stood aghast at the thought that so strange and incongruous a union had received the sanction of the church.

Because of the marriage of Draga to the King the ire of her enemies had been expanded to the highest power. The net of conspiracy continued to be woven more tightly about her and her faithful but foolish husband. When she learned that it was a physical impossibility for her to become a mother she schemed to pass off an alien child as a legitimate heir to the throne; but the Czar of Russia, who had been asked to act as god-father to the child, and who, at the same time, seriously doubted the motherhood of Draga, sent his court physician to Belgrade to investigate. So frantic became the new Queen’s desire to give birth to a son that, in her dilemma, she [59]made use of her irresistible power to induce Alexander to proclaim her own brother, Nikodim Lunyevitza, as heir apparent; this Alexander did, disregarding utterly the entreaties and expostulations of the Ministry.

His action galled the Servians beyond endurance, and immediately plans were set on foot to dispose of the Queen, and the King also, should he persist in the validity of his proclamation. It is said that a woman was sent to Geneva to propose to Peter Karageorgevitch that he come to Belgrade and be proclaimed King by the army, it being understood that he accept the liberal constitution previously annulled by Alexander.

Everything now pointed to the murder of the King and Queen, but the former, although warned by word and by letter many times, seemed oblivious to all danger. He went so far as to augment the bitter feeling by issuing an order transferring a number of officers, who were known to have conspired against him, to garrisons in the interior of the country. All Servia was aware that a royal tragedy was pending. Even Draga realized it for, on the very day before her assassination, she wrote pathetically in a letter to a friend: [60]“I am haunted by a dreadful presentiment, and often at night I seem to see a terrifying picture of Michael[2] in his death agony, stretching his blood-stained hand toward his murderers and crying, ‘Stop! My brothers! It is enough!’”

[61]

CHAPTER VI

THE CAPITAL OF CRIME

Plans of Procedure—Meeting of the Regicides—The First Move—The Murder of the King and Queen—The Assassination of Others—The Royal Burial—The Murder of the Brothers Novakovics in 1907.

Swiftly and silently had been fomented the plot of wholesale slaughter, of which the Queen was marked as the first and chief victim. If the King could be induced to sign a form of abdication he was to be given a chance for his life; his refusal meant death. The murderers—and of these there were almost a hundred who cut and slashed at the lifeless bodies of their sovereign—would then descend upon the house of the Queen’s relatives and kill all in cold blood. This was to be followed by the assassination of the King’s adherents, including General Zinzar Markowitz, the Prime Minister; General Pawlowitch, the Minister of War; M. Todorowitch, Minister of the Interior; and many officers of the army who had refused [62]to join, or who had expressed themselves as being opposed to the plot to kill the royal couple.

The red glow of the setting sun had scarcely faded from the sky behind the walls and turrets of the old fortress on Wednesday evening, June 10, 1903, when the regicides gathered at the “Crown Café” to discuss and perfect their plans for the invasion of the palace that night. They sat about smoking and laughing and drinking until many were in a state of intoxication. The scene was one common in Belgrade. You will see just such a company of officers grouped about the tables along the street in front of any restaurant in the Servian capital of a summer evening. Perhaps, if you will notice, some of these men wear upon the breast, amid an array of other medals, a small, white Maltese cross. You may be sure that the proud possessors of these crosses were implicated in the terrible plot of that June evening—mayhap, some whom you will see are the very ones who, frenzied by the sting of liquor, broke open the door to the royal bedchamber and fired mercilessly upon the helpless occupants. The white crosses are decorations pinned on the breasts of those who helped to do away with Alexander and Draga by King Peter himself, in[65] apparent grateful recognition of their services.

During this preliminary meeting of the regicides at the café it was announced that everything had been arranged satisfactorily: the co-operation of the servants and soldiers, within the palace and without, was assured by none other than Colonel Maschine, the brother-in-law of the Queen, who personally had made arrangements to thus afford the least possible difficulty in entering the konak; the doors of the palace would even be left unlocked; a regiment of soldiers had been commissioned to cover the rear of the conspirators and repel any attack.

By midnight all details had been completed, and the truculent corps of more or less intoxicated officers moved stealthily toward the palace gates. After overwhelming a suspiciously weak and pitiful resistance on the part of the guards they tramped across the garden and lawn, burst through the unlocked doors of the konak and scrambled pell-mell up the broad stairs in search of the royal apartments. An officer encountered in the hallway was killed instantly, and a private who offered some slight resistance suffered a like fate. General Petrowitch, loaded revolver in hand, was the next victim, although he endeavoured to conceal[66] the exact whereabouts of the royal couple by leading the crowd to another part of the palace.

Needless to say, the King and Queen were awakened by the shots on the stairs and the loud curses of the frantic criminals. How they endeavoured to conceal themselves in their helplessness must have been pathetic indeed. Hurrying from their bed, and still clothed in night attire, they secreted themselves in an adjoining closet which was used as a wardrobe-room by Queen Draga. Here they crouched together, trembling in prayer, while their conspirators raged through room after room, demolishing bric-à-brac, overturning tables and chairs, tearing pictures from the walls and looting the palace from top to bottom.

Through a window in this closet the luckless King and Queen saw, by the dim, flickering light of the street lamps, a great crowd collect outside the palace gates. They were unable to comprehend why this crowd stood motionless and silent—why they did not rise up, like the devoted and loyal subjects they were supposed to be, and offer assistance.

At seven minutes past two a stick of dynamite was applied to the door of the bedchamber, the explosion of which burst the barrier [67]to atoms and stopped a clock which stood upon a mantel in the room. One report has it that the Queen, thinking the officers had departed, owing to a sudden lull in the noise in the bedchamber, foolishly raised the window in the closet and cried to the crowd outside in the street, “You will save your King and Queen.”

This action is said to have disclosed to the men the hiding-place of their victims. At all events the latter were discovered cowering in a corner of the closet, praying and pleading for mercy. The Queen was fired upon and killed instantly, and the King, in trying to shield her, fell a victim to the volley of shots hardly a moment later. Not to shrink from fulfilling an oath previously taken by many of the officers, that each would bury the point of his sword in the corpse of the Queen, they mutilated and hacked the bodies beyond recognition. It was found later that the body of Queen Draga bore no less than fifty-seven sword wounds.

And then, as a fitting sequel to their ghastly proceedings, the regicides tossed the bodies from the window of the closet where the King and Queen had stood but a few moments before and looked out upon the crowd. They fell with a thud into the garden below, where they remained until ten o’clock the following [68]day, all the while being viewed apathetically by the passing and repassing throng of people. At that late hour, Russia, whose embassy was directly across the street from the konak, to cover as much as possible the part she had played in the tragedy, in the person of her minister demanded that the bodies be removed.

Leaving the palace and the carnage they had wrought there, the regicides, led by Colonel Maschine, sought the home of the Queen’s family and succeeded in killing her two brothers, Nikola and Nikodim. The Minister of War suffered the same fate in his home and the Minister of the Interior was severely wounded.[3]

About this time Colonel Nikolics, the commandant of the Danube Division of the army, who, with a regiment of infantry, was in quarters outside the city, heard of what was going on in Belgrade. In a heroic attempt to bring his troops to the palace gates, with the hope of saving his sovereigns, he was met at the edge of the town by a revolutionary regiment [71]under the command of Colonel Gagowitch. Both officers were killed in the hand-to-hand encounter which followed.

The bloody labour of this night was at last terminated by the murder of many officers of the army, who had been branded by the revolutionaries with the hot iron of revenge for being in league with the King.

The morning of June eleventh dawned gray and dismal. The very heavens seemed mortified at the awful butchery of the night before. Rain descended in torrents, while crowds of indifferent Servians paced to and fro in front of the palace. The city was in the hands of the revolutionaries.

There is no need to go into political details of the aftermath: suffice it to say that Peter Karageorgevitch was elected King by the Parliament and notified to leave Geneva for Belgrade at once. The family feud of a hundred years had been brought to an awful termination, since Alexander, having no heir, was the last descendant of Milosh Obrenovitch.

Under cover of the blackness of the night of Friday, June twelfth, two roughly hewn coffins were carried into the konak, and in them were placed the mutilated remains of Alexander and Draga. No care whatever was even taken to clothe the bodies properly. [72]While the people of Belgrade still slept and dreamed of the events of to-morrow the hearse was driven, slowly, out through the rear gate of the palace grounds, over the cobbled streets, up to the weather-beaten door of the little chapel of the Obrenovitch family, which stands in the old cemetery of St. Mark, back of the city. Graves had been prepared hurriedly under the board floor of the chapel and, after chanted benedictions had been uttered by two priests—the only mourners—the bodies of the chief victims of the bloodiest national tragedy of modern times were lowered reverently to their final resting-place.

Story has it that the rambler roses, which cover thickly the fence in front of the palace grounds, had bloomed white until the summer of 1903, but that the spilled blood of the royal couple had changed their hue to red. Of course this is a consoling little piece of fiction, circulated by the friends of the Obrenovitch dynasty; but one thing is agreed upon by all, that the roses never bloomed in such profusion or with such gorgeous colouring as they did that year.

While strolling by the palace grounds to-day you would scarcely believe that only a few years ago the konak of Alexander and Draga stood upon the very spot where now a bandstand,[75] festooned with electric bulbs, shelters the musicians as they play for the royal family, while the street in front hums with the chatter of gay promenaders. You will see the same red rambler roses, forming a brilliant screen to the beautiful garden in the background. Perhaps you can, through the eye of your imagination, see the very spot upon which fell the distorted remains of royalty on that memorable tenth of June.

---

Notwithstanding the fact that the untimely death of the last Obrenovitch put an end to the family contentions, a number of dastardly crimes are perpetrated each year in Belgrade by the constituents of the two rival houses. The latest Servian outrage to be hawked before the world was the murder in prison of the brothers Novakovics on September 28, 1907, because of their too zealous efforts to bring to the bar of Justice the real murderers of King Alexander.

Captain Novakovics, a short time after the murder of the late King and Queen, was the instigator of a wide-spread scheme to bring the regicides to trial. This scheme was betrayed, Novakovics was tried by court martial and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, during which period two unsuccessful attempts[76] to poison him were made. Upon his release, although his health was permanently shaken, he started a daily paper called “Za Otadjbinu,” in the columns of which he attacked the present ruling dynasty and, in more or less open language, accused King Peter, unflinchingly, of being the prime mover of the plot to do away with Alexander. His printing presses were seized and he was arrested the second time, the absurd charge having been brought against him that he had stolen three screws from his own machine which, a few hours before, had been sold at auction by the police. Twenty-five days of incarceration in an under-ground dungeon with many of the worst criminals in the land failed to break his spirit, and he—with his brother, who had also been arrested and sent to prison—was transferred to a cell which overlooked the street. Again bribes and threats failed to insure his future silence.

Finally, the two brothers, unable longer to withstand the assaults made upon them by the prison-keepers, decided to call public attention to their case. Having secured, during a moment of relaxation on the part of the guards, rifles from a near-by room, they barricaded the door to their cell quickly and commenced firing toward the ceiling. The police, [77]failing in courage to burst open the door, resorted to a heinous method of overpowering the prisoners, which was invented on the moment by a reinstated detective agent. A solution of saltpetre was inserted through the window of the cell. Gradually the rifle-firing ceased, the door was broken open and, although the prisoners lay senseless upon the floor, the enraged jailers riddled their bodies with bullets.

People, who had gathered outside attracted by the shots of the prisoners, cried, “Asphyxiates were forbidden at The Hague!” “Down with the police!” “Enough of regicide rule!” But the prison was soon surrounded with cavalry troops and the crowd dispersed.

Captain Novakovics was a scion of one of the best Servian families, and had been married but four months before his assassination. His body was not only forbidden to be placed in the family vault, but his relatives were not even allowed to attend his funeral.

[78]

CHAPTER VII

PREDICTIONS OF SERVIAN TRAGEDIES

Prediction of the Assassination of Prince Michael—Natalie’s Visit to the Parisian Fortune-teller—The Prediction in London of the Murder of Draga and Alexander.

Strange and mysterious as it may seem, the occult, the supernatural, has played no small part in the destiny of Servian affairs. Personally, I am not of clairvoyant proclivities, I know nothing whatever of the goings-on at spiritualistic seances, neither am I even slightly versed in anything that pertains to psychical research, but in this chapter I am compelled to give credence to the cabalistic power displayed by three persons, two women and one man, in their wonderful predictions of three separate and distinct turning points in the life of the Servian nation.

The first of these was the prognostication of the fate of Prince Michael, the second was that of the social ascendency of Draga, and the third, that of the horrible death of Queen Draga and her husband—this latter foretold in a foreign city, almost three months before [79]the tragedy really occurred, by one who had neither seen nor had had any connection whatever with the King and Queen of Servia.

On the morning of the very day of the assassination of Prince Michael Obrenovitch in Topchidere Park, a poor peasant of Cremna, of local distinction because of his occult powers of divination but unknown outside of his immediate community, tore through the mountains like a madman, beating his breasts with his fists and crying, “Our Prince is dead! They have murdered our Prince!”

The cry was taken up by all with whom he came in contact, repeated broadcast and, in an incredibly short space of time, it was upon the lips of every one in Belgrade.

The peasant of Cremna was seized and thrown into prison, charged with being a fanatical disturber, but hardly before the verification of the tragedy had reached the capital.

The facts of this case are now preserved in the minutes of the national assembly.

The second instance of occultism occurred in 1897 while Draga was in the service of Queen Natalie, the year before she met her future husband.

Natalie had laughingly suggested to Draga and Mademoiselle Tzanka, another member of the Queen’s coterie, that they accompany [80]her on a visit to a certain mind-reader and spiritualistic medium of wide reputation in Paris. The trio called upon this supernaturally-endowed person, Madame de Thebes by name, and Natalie requested that the future be read for her son, the young Alexander, and for her friends. To her the Parisian fortune-teller replied, “Madame, you nourish in your bosom a viper which will turn and sting you”; evidently meaning Draga. She continued that the marriage of the young King would determine the whole future of Servia.

Some inept futurity was predicted for Mademoiselle Tzanka, but to Draga the woman said: “You, Madame, will rise to a higher position than you even imagined. One day you will even reign a queen; but when that day dawns your life will be in danger, and you will drag your lover and your husband to his ruin and his death.”

This story was published eventually in the newspapers and, three years after Draga’s ascent to the throne was prophesied, she denied vehemently that such had ever been predicted, but in the same breath she denounced Mademoiselle Tzanka scurrilously for having dared to repeat what had taken place in Paris.

In describing the seance at which the prediction[81] was made of the murder of Alexander and Draga I can do no better than to take, verbatim, in part or as a whole, the statements of Mr. William Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, who was the host on that occasion, and of his Excellency, M. Mijatovich, at that time Servian Minister at the Court of St. James and a distinguished diplomat. These signed statements were made to the press by Mr. Stead and others who were present, and relate what actually took place at the seance.

Mr. Stead’s Statement

“I had invited a numerous company, including M. Mijatovich, Earl Grey, Mr. L——, Mr. Gilbert Elliot, etc., to come on Friday, March 20th, 1903, to witness an experiment in psychometry by Mrs. Burchell at our weekly ‘at home’ in Mowbray House.

“The ‘at home’ at Mowbray House began at four in the afternoon. The psychometric experiment began an hour later, in the presence of seventy or eighty persons. In about half an hour it was seen that the conditions were adverse, and Mrs. Burchell went upstairs to give private sittings, where she succeeded much better, while the company remained below and discussed psychometry. This went on [82]till after seven.... About eight we went to the restaurant of Gatti and Rodesano, Strand ... I sat at the head of the table, with Mrs. Burchell on my right and Mrs. Manks on my left. Mr. L—— sat at the opposite end of the table, next to my private secretary, on the other side of Mrs. Burchell....

“During the dinner the conversation was general. We talked at my end of the table about many things, and as Mr. L—— was present, I talked about him and about Servia. But as far as I can remember the name of the King was never mentioned, nor was anything said that directly or indirectly could suggest the idea of his assassination. No such thought was present to my mind. As for Mrs. Burchell, she is a plain North Country woman, who dispenses medicine of her own making, who has had a family of ten children and who did not seem to me a person who had either interest in, or knowledge of, the Balkan Peninsula. She has since, in the St. James Gazette, written: ‘As to my knowledge of Servian affairs, I was then completely ignorant, and did not know either the King’s name or the Queen’s antecedents or name, or anything in connection with them in any way.’ She was tired and silent at dinner, depressed by the consciousness of the afternoon failure at [83]psychometry, and I addressed most of my remarks to Mrs. Manks.

“After the dinner there were several descriptions given by Mrs. Burchell of the impressions which she had received in connection with various members of the company. It was in her descriptions of the impressions she had received from Mr. L—— that he nodded from time to time; an indiscretion which led to a protest from my private secretary. This, however, had nothing to do with the vision of the assassination. When the prediction was made Mrs. Burchell had her eyes closed. I had no idea, while she was speaking, whether she was describing a tragedy that had taken place long ago or was predicting what would happen. I did not know what was in the envelope which she placed to her brow until after all was over. When the paper was taken out of the envelope, not being able to decipher the Cyrillic characters, I asked Mr. L—— whose name it was. He replied, ‘The King.’He then entered into conversation with Mrs. Burchell, but I did not hear what she said.

[84]

“The other two clairvoyants present, Mrs. Brenchley and Mrs. Manks, declared that they saw the same scene when it was in progress, and Mrs. Brenchley was only one degree less excited than Mrs. Burchell. It was she who added the detail about the Russian uniforms.”

The Statement of M. Mijatovich

“I, Chedomille Mijatovich, now residing at 51, Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, make this statement, as being, to the best of my knowledge and belief, a full and exact narrative of what I know of this remarkable affair.

“I have long taken a deep interest in psychical research, and this brought me, five or six years ago, to make the acquaintance of Mr. Stead, the editor of Borderland and The Review of Reviews. Knowing my interest in these subjects, Mr. Stead invited me to be present at a meeting in his office in Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, London, on Friday afternoon, March 20, 1903, when a psychometrist of some repute was to give a demonstration of her capacity to receive impressions from articles held in her hand, of the origin and nature of which she had no information. The following is an extract from Mr. Stead’s letter:

“‘On Friday next at our “at home” we shall have a very good clairvoyant at Mowbray House. She has undertaken to do from twelve to twenty tests. That is to say, ten or [85]twenty articles will be submitted to her at random, of all of which she will know nothing, and she will state what she sees in connection with each. I hope that you will be able to come and to bring with you one or two articles, the clairvoyant reading of which might be of interest or value....’

“I accepted the invitation. The rooms at Mowbray House were crowded. The lady, whose name I was told was Mrs. Burchell, complained that the conditions were bad, and the experiment was a failure.

“Among the articles brought to Mowbray House for submission to the psychometrist was the signature of King Alexander. The name was signed in Cyrillic characters on a sheet of paper which was enclosed in an envelope. It was prepared in order to see whether the psychometrist, from handling the envelope, could ‘sense’ and describe the person of the King. That was the sole object of the experiment. Nothing more was claimed or expected.

“Owing to the number of articles offered for experiment, and owing also to the abrupt termination of the trials, the envelope with the King’s signature was not produced.... While I was present nothing was said as to its existence.

[86]

“When I quitted Mowbray House the King’s signature was left with one of the company, Mr. L——, who remained behind to dine with Mr. Stead, Mrs. Burchell and some others. I was unable to stay to dinner as I had to go to the Court at Buckingham Palace that evening. I returned home feeling that the experiment had been a failure.

“On the following morning ... I was surprised to receive a visit at my house ... from Mr. L——. He said that after the dinner in the restaurant a seance had been held, at which he had submitted the envelope, containing the King’s signature, to Mrs. Burchell. He told me that on receiving the envelope she had been thrown into a state of violent agitation. She had then described the assassination of the King and the attempted assassination of the Queen in the interior of the palace. He gave me many details which had convinced him that Mrs. Burchell had actually seen in clairvoyant vision the assassination of my Sovereign in the interior of his palace.

“On the following Tuesday, March 24th, I made it my business to call at Mowbray House in order to ascertain from Mr. Stead his version of what had happened.... On returning home I made an entry in my journal, of which the following is an exact copy:

[87]

“Four days later, on March 28th, I wrote a letter to King Alexander, in the course of which I felt it my duty to warn him as to impending danger. I did not keep a copy of my letter, but I perfectly well remember the passage in question.... I wrote as follows:

“‘I know your Majesty will laugh, as you usually laughed when I spoke to you about clairvoyance, so I am not going to give you all particulars about the latest experience which I have had, but I implore your Majesty to take all possible measures for your personal safety, not only when you drive about or when you go to the church or the theatre or to the park, but when in your palace especially, because I have reason to believe that an attempt will be made to assassinate you in your own palace.’

“My wife read my letter before it was sent off and she confirms the accuracy of this account of its contents. I may say that I had often talked to King Alexander about psychic experiences, but he always mocked me and would not take them seriously. I never before sent him any warning as to an attempt on his person.

[89]

“I was myself so deeply impressed by the importance of the clairvoyant’s vision that I half expected that the King, despite his skepticism, would summon me to Belgrade in order to hear more details. This expectation was not realized. He neither sent for me nor took any notice of my warning.

“When the news arrived of his tragic end, my thoughts instantly recurred to the warning which I had sent him, and I stated to several representatives of the press the fact, which was duly published in the London evening newspapers of June 11th.”

What Actually Took Place at the Seance

“It was after ten o’clock at the restaurant when Mr. L—— thrust an envelope into Mr. Stead’s hand, saying, ‘Try her with that!’ Mr. Stead took the envelope, not knowing what it contained, and waited till the good lady had finished a description to the last of the sitters. She was getting tired and wished to go home. Mr. Stead put the envelope in her hands and asked her to try once more and see if she could get anything with it.

“Mrs. Burchell took the envelope in her two hands and sat for a moment, still. She turned the envelope round and round once or [90]twice and then said, in a loud, clear voice, ‘Royalty! An important person—a King!’

“The announcement riveted attention and we listened eagerly for what was to follow. Mrs. Burchell spoke with extreme rapidity and in breathless excitement. There was nothing to indicate that the medium was in a trance. She had been talking quite normally just before Mr. Stead gave her the envelope. Her eyes were closed, but this might have been done to aid in abstracting her from her surroundings. She spoke exactly as if she were looking through a window into an interior and describing what she saw to us who were beside her. Near to her were two other clairvoyants, Mrs. Brenchley and Mrs. Manks.

“Mrs. Burchell began by saying, ‘Royalty! An important person—a King! He is standing in a room in his palace. He is dark; stout body and long neck. With him is a lady, the Queen—brunette. And there,’pointing to a corner of the room, ‘I see a child.’ Then, becoming very excited, the medium exclaimed, ‘Terrible! Terrible! It is all bloody. I cannot bear to look. Oh, it is terrible! I cannot bear it. I see a very dark man rushing into the chamber. He tries to kill the King. The lady implores them to spare him. Oh—’ and [91]with a cry of horror Mrs. Burchell suddenly flung herself upon her knees in such a way that Mr. Stead thought she would fall and stretched out his hand to save her. She did not fall, however, but with clasped hands the medium continued in a voice of agonized entreaty:

“‘They are killing him. Oh, save him, save him! The Queen falls on her knees and implores them to save her life—they will not listen. Oh, what tumult! what bloodshed! How terrible—they kill him; she pleads in vain. Now they fling her on one side and stab her with a dagger, and—Oh, oh!’—and then Mrs. Burchell, exhausted with emotion, was falling over on her side on the floor when Mr. Stead got her up and put her on her seat.

“When Mrs. Burchell fell on her knees, Mrs. Brenchley sprang up, saying, ‘Yes, yes, I get it in the air. They are killing him; I see it.’

“‘And I also,’ said Mrs. Manks clasping hands with Mrs. Brenchley, and both following her (probably Mrs. Burchell’s) distracted cries and utterances with cries of, ‘Yes, yes! We see it; she is quite right.’

“Mrs. Burchell, in her agitation, dropped the envelope on the floor. Mrs. Brenchley picked it up and, holding it, continued to describe[92] the scene in an agitation only a little less than Mrs. Burchell’s, exclaiming, ‘Oh, the blood—how horrible! Look, how dark it becomes; see—the soldiers are coming upon us—shooting down all they meet—’

“‘What are they like?’ asked someone.

“‘They seem to me like Russian uniforms; but it is dark and I cannot see clearly....’

“‘Now the King is dead!’ she (Mrs. Brenchley) cried. ‘But, oh, what confusion! What bloodshed!’

“All these ejaculatory comments were rapidly uttered as Mrs. Burchell was being helped to her seat and not much notice was taken of them at the time. Mrs. Brenchley, however, declares that she has a lively recollection of what she saw and what she said.

“Mr. Stead turned an inquiring gaze to Mr. L——, who had given him the envelope....

“‘What was in the envelope?’ Mr. Stead asked.

“‘Look!’ said Mr. L——. Opening the envelope he took out a sheet of note-paper on which was the signature, ‘Alexander.’

“‘It is the King,’ he exclaimed.

“‘But,’ said Mr. Stead, ‘her description—was it correct?’

[93]

“‘It was exact,’ replied Mr. L——. ‘The palace, the King, the Queen. Her description is exact.’

“And then the medium, who had been silent as if recovering from the emotion through which she had just passed, said:

“‘Depend upon it, it will all happen as I have seen it, if nothing is done to prevent it, and that ere long!’

“Mrs. Burchell’s own version is that she added,‘Even then, although they may postpone it, it will certainly come to pass.’”

[94]

CHAPTER VIII

NISCH AND SOPHIA

From Belgrade to Nisch—Nisch—Provincial Hotel Accommodations—The Monument of Skulls—Tzaribrod—Sophia—Value Received for $1.25 per Diem—Dragoleftsky.

For a long time the words “Brigands” and “Bulgarians” seemed to me synonomous, for it was not so very long ago, I thought, that to be kidnapped and behold the tragic story of your life subsequently illuminating the pages of every journal, you had only to go to Bulgaria; and these thoughts were not devoid of some prestige. But since the days of Pat Crowe and Raisuli the Bulgarian man-stealers seem to have forgotten their lines and faded ignominiously into the wings of the stage of publicity. In fact, I discovered later, that you might be just as safe in your room at the “Grand Royal Hotel” in Sophia as it would be possible to be in your apartments in any fashionable hotel in America—and safer, because at the “Grand Royal” in Sophia you are not in the predatorial power of a gang of domesticated yeggmen disguised as waiters, [97] porters, bellboys and what not. So we decided to tempt our fate on a certain June morning by shaking the dust of Belgrade for that of the Servian frontier.

But eight hours’ travel in the local train so anæsthetized our desires to continue the journey, on such a train, at least, that the little vine-clad station at Nisch appealed to us most invitingly. We also determined then and there to explore the town behind it.

A two-mile drive over even rougher cobbles than Belgrade can boast of, connects the station with the centre of the town, and I might add that it is the longest two miles I have ever driven.

As we rattled along, the diminutive one-story dwellings of Nisch seemed to be scattered over an unlimited area. A single small mosque constitutes the only remaining suggestion that the town was at one time in the possession of the Turks.

Finally we stopped in front of one of the hotels—poor excuses, all of them, believe me—and commenced to bargain and barter for accommodations, only to discover that all of the rooms were occupied; I doubt if the place could have housed more than half a dozen patrons at one time. We tried another hostelry, with the same result. Then another. [98] The train on which we had arrived, the last one leaving Nisch that day in either direction, had long since departed for Sophia; the hotel people seemed anything but desirous of taking us in, for I am dubious about their houses being so crowded as they were said to be; and we commenced to consider a suitable place in which to leave our luggage, so that we might at least walk the streets that night unencumbered. Our driver, too, was apparently at his wits’ end, but after we had tendered him an extra dinare as a stimulant he thought he knew of just one more hotel where it might be possible to obtain rooms, and, accordingly, we were rattled thither. Here our trials ended, for the proprietor of this place graciously consented to accommodate us during our stay.

After first walking through a combination office and general loafing-room, containing at one end a bar, reeking with foul-smelling tobacco-smoke and alive with Servian officers who shuffled over the sanded floor or played billiards at an antequated table or sat about telling the gossip of the garrison, then through a labyrinth of narrow passages, across a court and up two flights of stairs, we came upon our room.

I think we paid about fifty cents a day each for this room, but in the Balkans you get a [99]great deal more for your money at the hotels than you would dare to expect in America. The floor was scrupulously polished; clean bed-clothes were on the beds; fresh water had been brought up for both drinking and toilet purposes; spotless white candles projected from each candlestick; hair-combs and brushes (for your application if you cared not to doubt the cleanliness of the previous user) adorned the bureau; and a gaudy pair of bed-room slippers reposed beneath each bed, awaiting only the insertion of your tired toes. Our meals we ate on the pavement in front of the hotel, “without restraint or finger bowls,” surrounded by the army, sniffed at by the dogs and stared at by the multitude, while a pet sheep nibbled playfully at our coat buttons.

In Nisch the soldier element ever predominates over the civilian, for here is located a Servian garrison of some 2,500 men. Evidently they consider themselves proficient in military tactics, for they are always on the streets, and the pavements in front of the hotels are constantly crowded with officers, smoking and drinking. And every soldier wears a different uniform. There are blue coats with white trimmings, white coats with blue trimmings; there are black trousers with green stripes and green trousers with black [100]stripes, not to mention the brown trousers with red stripes; there are gray caps with black visors and black caps without visors. Every private stops on the street to salute his officer and every officer stops to salute his superior officer; the place reminds one of a health resort for the treatment of St. Vitus’ dance.

The moment you unlimber your camera, the peasants and townspeople, who are none too familiar with the habits, customs or pastimes of English-speaking visitors, crowd around in veritable droves, until you have to give up in disgust and resign yourself to the good luck you may hope to have with your snapshots. Only a week after we left Nisch an Englishman was arrested for taking photographs in and about the city, and he had a very great deal of trouble in finally convincing the authorities that his object in making pictures was entirely inoffensive and not with a view of better explaining to his home War Department the position of the Servian fort. As it was, he was held in Nisch for some days until the British Minister to Servia demanded his release.

To say the least, the people of Nisch are primitive and their looks belie not their methods. Here, for the first time, I saw put into practice a process which was in vogue centuries[101] ago; the proprietor of the hotel, after making out his bill, sanded the wet ink instead of using a blotter.

There is but one object of absorbing interest to be seen in Nisch, and that is what once was a tower of human skulls, erected by the Turks. This ghastly monument commemorates the Turkish victory over the Servians near Nisch in 1809, and it is said to have been composed originally of twelve hundred of the enemies’ skulls. Now but one remains, too deeply imbedded in the mud-cement for easy extraction, and for that reason left undisturbed by the relic-hunter. When Nisch became Servian all the skulls which could be found, except this one, were buried reverently.

Because the time of arrival and departure of trains in the Balkan States appears to be a matter of mere conjecture and of little consequence, it is the custom for travellers to be at the depot at least an hour before train time. On the day set for our departure from Nisch we were awakened at four in the morning, so that we might have plenty of time to take coffee, be jolted the two miles over the cobblestones and wait for the train for Sophia, due to arrive at Nisch at six o’clock.

The route from the Servian frontier to the capital of Bulgaria is rich in wild and picturesque[102] scenery, for almost immediately after leaving Nisch steep grades are encountered and continue until the divide is reached at Dragoman. From there the line descends none too gradually and Tzaribrod is the next stop. At this point the Servian crew surrenders the train to the care of the Bulgarians, a perfunctory customs examination is made of your baggage and you turn the hands of your watch an hour faster to “East European Time.” Beautiful mountain scenery marks the remainder of the journey, and in exactly six hours after leaving Nisch (including the hour change of time) you are in Sophia.

When you alight from the train don’t think you have made a mistake and wax discouraged because you did not locate Sophia immediately, for almost all of these Balkan towns have an unhandy habit of springing up some two or three miles inland from their respective railway stations. You have only to jump into one of the numerous open cabs which meet all trains, each of a different and distinct Renaissance design, and make signs that you wish to be driven to the Hotel So-and-So.

During the ensuing voyage, your driver, in red fez and baggy, ill-fitting Turkish bloomers, will, by deft manipulation of the reins, graze more lamp-posts and curb-stones without[105] regard to speed limits or to the possible scattering of his fares en route than any fire-engine driver it has ever been your misfortune to come in contact with. Yelling with the full power of his leather lungs, sometimes at his animals and sometimes at the foolhardy Bulgarians who may get in his way, he will jolt you diagonally across trolley tracks and swing you dangerously around corners, now on the port tack and now on the starboard, like an ambulance driver on a hurry call.

Finally, and suddenly, his horses stop literally on a ten-cent piece in front of the hotel; you feel around to ascertain if your frame is intact and the tempo of your heart-beats once more assumes a natural rhythm. Bowing peasants with bared heads (the reason for the ceremony is known only to themselves, but I have a suspicion that they all hope to receive from you some gratuity for living) line the sidewalk, while the hotel proprietor graciously assists you to alight and escorts you to your rooms, at the same time making profuse apologies for the style and period of their appointments.

For the Bulgarian equivalent of one dollar and a quarter a day each, you may lodge and feast at this hotel. You will find the food of great variety and the cooking excellent; the [106]Turkish coffee, which is always to be had in these Eastern provinces, and to learn the making of which you must attempt an excursion into the culinary department, is the best you have ever tasted; and delicious wine or refreshing beer, the latter served temptingly in tall, thin, frosted glasses, is included in the price paid.

Perhaps your apartments consist of a suit of rooms on the second floor, overlooking a thickly wooded park, which occupies the whole of the block opposite. The floors are hard wood parquetry and the sitting-room is furnished like a throne chamber with plush-covered, handsomely carved, high-backed chairs and divans. In one corner stands an immense tile stove, a replica of those to be seen in Vienna, resembling more a sarcophagus than a heater. The bed-room contains two beautifully-carved beds, burdened with thick, soft feather comforters, while at the side of each is placed a small stand bearing an attractive electric reading lamp. The only complaint I had to make was that the thousands of jackdaws, which held daily conclave in the park during the early hours of the morning, kept up such an incessant squawking and screeching that, had our sleeping apartment not been the more remote from the street, I should have [107]begged the proprietor to give us a back room. As it was, we were compelled to bury our heads, ostrich-like, under the feather comforters to deaden the racket, although the season was mid-summer.

Your comfort during your stay having been assured, you will hurry to the street to mingle with the people of Bulgaria and to get acquainted with their capital, this noisy little city of Sophia, situated snugly at the foot of the snow-capped Balkans, the majestic Mount Vitosch to the south.

The streets of the new town, each named after some local celebrity of the era of liberation, radiate like the spokes of a wheel from the royal palace as a hub. They are well-paved, wide and well-lighted with electricity, but within the precincts of the old town, now fast disappearing, you may still find many narrow cross streets and courts, lined on either side with picturesque Turkish bazaars which continually invite your patronage.

During our stay in Sophia the trial was being conducted of the twenty-year-old assassin who murdered the Prime Minister a few months previously. The opposite side of the street from the law courts was daily thronged with inquisitive townspeople, hoping to obtain a glimpse of the boy-murderer, as he was [108]being taken to and from the prison. He was found guilty and executed.

A wonderful panoramic view of the city and of the surrounding country, a view that will amply repay you for the almost hazardous carriage ride over worse than miserable roads, may be had from the foot-hills beyond the little village of Dragoleftsky, some eight miles to the eastward. Here you may also get a glimpse, at short range, of how the Bulgarian peasant lives and has his being. You will see the women washing clothes in a crude tub, hewn out of the trunk of a tree, a tub that looks not unlike some kind of “dugout” canoe; while an olla podrida of geese, chickens, pigs and children swarm on the bare floor of the farmhouse.

Should you proceed farther into the mountains, on foot, of course, you will come upon one of the enormous monasteries which were the heart and soul of the movement for Bulgarian liberation, and around which most of the fighting against the Turks took place.

[111]

CHAPTER IX

BULGARIA AND HER PAST

Progress of Bulgaria—Origin of her Peoples—The Bulgari—First Russian Invasion of Bulgaria—The Assenide Dynasty—Turkish Tyrannies—Emancipation of Bulgaria—Russia’s Intrigues against Prince Alexander—The Late Balkan Disturbances.

But now, for a moment, let us look at the serious side of this little warlike principality which has only recently wiggled from under the vassalage of Turkey, at the same time proclaiming her absolute independence, and which, to my mind, is the Bulwark of the Balkans.

Although having enjoyed but a short thirty-one years of partial independent existence, for it is the youngest of the Balkan States, the progress of Bulgaria during that thirty-one years has been little short of remarkable. A visitor to the country is at once impressed with the look of indomitable determination that characterizes the features of the Bulgars. That indomitable determination has convinced the outside world of their worthiness of the [112]freedom as a state conferred upon them in 1877; it will continue in the future to convince the outside world of their worthiness of the indefinite prolongation of this freedom.

It is impossible to recognize in the proud, full-blown kingdom of to-day the down-trodden province of Turkey of three decades ago. In thirty years Bulgaria has built more than four thousand three hundred primary schools; she has established, and maintains, a standing army of one hundred and twenty thousand men and is capable of putting in the field in time of emergency two hundred and fifty thousand more; the value of her annual exports has reached the figure of $250,000,000; seventy per cent. of her total area has been rendered susceptible to the highest degree of cultivation; the agricultural and stock-raising adaptability of her peoples has opened the eyes of all Europe; while her ottar of rose industry, down in the little valley of Toundja, “The Rose Valley,” has become world-renowned.

But to fully appreciate and feel this miraculous development we must delve, briefly, into Bulgaria’s past.

The ancient Roman name of Thrace was the one generally applied to the entire territory lying between the Macedonian frontier [113]and the Danube River, while the territory to the north of the Balkans was then called Moesia. Savage tribes, known as the Thraco-Dacians, the Thraco-Illyrians and the Thraco-Macedonians, held sway over the whole of the Balkan Peninsula until, historians tell us, Philip and his successor, Alexander, came upon and took the country. The date of the beginning of Roman conquests in Thrace is indefinite, but it remains an undisputed fact that Vespasian annexed the country and proclaimed it a Roman province in a. d. 75.

The Slavs, moving westward from their confines in Asia, and having waged successful warfare upon the Huns and the Goths, populated Bulgaria between the third and the seventh centuries. They introduced their customs and language throughout a large part of eastern and southeastern Europe, and their descendants, influenced, of course, by the later dominant races, constitute the present population of Bulgaria.

At this point of history we hear for the first time of the Bulgari, “a horde of Asiatics of Turkish strain,” who were also destined to be a prime factor in the general make-up of the present-day Bulgarians. They swarmed over the country in the seventh century and founded the first Bulgarian empire, which [114]attained its height between the years 893 and 927 a. d. under the Tzar Simeon, only to fall ignominiously under Byzantine rule hardly a century later.

In the year 965, Greece endeavoured to subject Bulgaria to her power, and the Emperor Nikephoros Phakos sought aid in his undertakings from a tribe of Northmen (and we have every reason to believe that this tribe was composed of the antecedents of the Russians of to-day) under a leader named Sviatoslav. Sviatoslav condescended to become an ally of the Greeks, but the latter became so jealous of his many successful conquests in their behalf that they grew afraid of him and finally made a treaty with the Bulgarian Tzar, Boris II.

Upon the death of Nikephoros, Sviatoslav decided to make war on Bulgaria for his own aggrandizement, and in 969 he captured Boris, carrying him as far east as Philippopolis. Here the Greek Emperor, Zinisces, the successor of Nikephoros, with the help of the defeated Bulgarians themselves, drove the Northmen back. Sviatoslav was compelled to seek refuge in Silistria, where he sustained a siege of three months. After his final capture he was liberated and allowed to return to his native land, but, while on the march, he and his few surviving adherents were ruthlessly [117]slain by a marauding band of hostile tribesmen.

This may be said to have been the first Russian invasion of Bulgaria, the direct result of which was the fusion of the Northern and the Southern Slavs. Bulgarian history proper begins, however, with the nation’s conversion to Christianity under the Tzar Boris, late in the ninth century. About the same time the Cyrillic alphabet—now adopted by all Slav peoples, including the Russians—was introduced by the great apostles, Cyril and Methodius.

Under Assen, Bulgaria, then belonging to Greece, revolted, conquered, and Assen I, the founder of the Assenide dynasty, was chosen Tzar. This dynasty reached its height under Assen II (1218-1241) and a century later the country fell under Servian rule; to its advantage, however, for King Dushan of Servia proved himself a wise and jealous protector.

After the death of King Dushan, the Northern provinces of the Balkan Peninsula commenced to feel the effects of Turkish invasions. For some years the Bulgarians defended their lives and their property heroically; but, finally, Tzar Shishman III, having been deserted by his allies, surrendered and acknowledged himself a subject of Sultan Murad I. Not, however,[118] until after the bloody battle of Kossovo in 1389 was Bulgaria brought completely under Ottoman rule.

For the following five hundred years the Turks pillaged and sacked the country and outraged its inhabitants. Europe remained in ignorance of the atrocities, for her mind was distracted by her own sanguinary wars. The Ottoman domination and tyranny was social as well as political; it was felt keenly, not only in manners and morals, but in social liberty also. Nevertheless, it is a singular fact that no determined attempt to assimilate Bulgaria, as a whole, to Turkish customs and Mohammedanism was made during all these years. The only instances of religious coercion were prevalent in the cases of young Bulgarian girls who had been snatched from their very doorsteps and placed in the harem of some bigoted Pasha.

Even the Crimean War of 1854-56, which resulted in the liberation of Roumania from Ottoman rule, brought no relief to oppressed Bulgaria. The Turks seemed to persecute the Christians more terribly after it than before. In 1876 Gladstone’s vitriolic speeches, in the exposure of Turkish atrocities and demanding the emancipation of Bulgaria, were heeded, and the successful defence of Shipka Pass was [121]not in vain. Bulgaria became a principality under Alexander; but, after a successful war with Servia as the aggressor, Russia instigated a conspiracy against him which led to his ultimate abdication.

With glowing promises of promotion, Russia’s agents, Bendereff and Greuff by name, were bribed to influence Bulgarian officers to turn traitors to the Prince. Parts of two regiments and the cadets of the military college at Sophia, all more or less under the influence of liquor, invaded the palace on the night of August 21st, 1886, and ordered Alexander, at the point of drawn revolvers, to sign an illegible document which he was told was his abdication paper. He was forthwith carried aboard his own private yacht, taken down the river and delivered to the Russian authorities at Reni, where, for a time, he was held prisoner.

Then Europe, indignant, lent a hand and secured his liberation. Re-entering Sophia on September 3, he assumed triumphant control, for his people, incensed beyond measure at such intrigue, awaited anxiously his home-coming. Bendereff and Greuff were tried and convicted by court-martial, but Russia, Germany and Austria demanded that they should be released.

[122]

Upon the final abdication of Alexander, the Bulgarian Sobranje, or Parliament, elected unanimously Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the present ruling “Tzar of the Bulgars,” as his newly acquired title reads.

As a part of the history of present-day Bulgaria, principally, and of the Near East, generally, it would be unwise to exclude from these pages a brief rehearsal of the late eruptions in that part of Europe, which have proven the futility of international treaties and, at the outset of the troubles, tended to shatter the pacific exertions of the Old World.

This time Bulgaria exploded the percussion-cap, and the primary cause of the resulting imbroglio was a strike of the employees of the Orient Railway, which threads its way through the country from west to east, but which is really Turkish property, for it is operated under a concession from the Porte that does not expire until January 1, 1958, although it thrives under the protection of Austria, and is capitalized largely by Germany.

Bulgarian troops occupied the railway line provisionally during the strike but, when an agreement was effected, refused to relinquish the road to the officers of the Oriental Railways Company.

[125]

While Bulgaria’s answer to a formal request by Turkey to surrender the railway still hung fire her people were aroused to fever heat by an untoward incident that took place in Constantinople: Their representative at the Porte failed to find his name included in the list of guests invited to be present at an international diplomatic banquet. Turkey’s apology for this slight came too late, for the then Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria had already repaired to the ancient capital, Tirnova, probably out of pure sentiment, and was solemnly crowned “Tzar of the Bulgars” on Monday, October 5th, 1908.

Thus did Bulgaria bring into play a lame excuse to break faith with the Powers of Europe, which, in a clause of the Treaty of Berlin, signed by them in 1878 (but not signed by Bulgaria, and therefore it can hardly be said that Bulgaria broke the treaty), compelled Bulgaria to pay a yearly tribute to Turkey for certain concessions of territory, including the province of Eastern Roumelia.

Three days after Bulgaria’s proclamation, Austria, in direct violation of this same Treaty of Berlin, declared her intention (and later fulfilled the same) of usurping for her own the one-time Servian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, over which she had been appointed[126] guardian. This move provoked the Servians to clamour for war with Austria while Montenegro swore her allegiance to Servia. It looked for a time as if King Peter of Servia would be forced to abdicate in favour of his son George, the Crown Prince, or fulfil the demands of his super-patriotic subjects; and even king-killing is not a lost art in Belgrade.

To further the dismemberment of Turkey in Europe, the Island of Crete declared itself Grecian territory, and Albania, also inoculated with the serum of liberty, commenced to howl for independence and courted the sponsorship of Italy.

For several obvious reasons the convention of the original signatories of the Berlin Treaty for the promulgation of European peace was at that time impossible. Great Britain would not consent to such a convention unless all agreed that the original treaty should not be changed, but that the present issues alone should be discussed; Russia would not consent to such a convention unless the clause which barred the Dardanelles to the passage of Russian war vessels was struck in advance from the original treaty; Austria refused to be a part of such a convention unless her annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was [127]acknowledged in advance by the other Powers.

At a conference held in the interests of permanent peace, France, Russia and Great Britain submitted tentative plans, which were promptly adopted, for the re-distribution of authority in the Balkan provinces, the most important decision being that Bosnia and Herzegovina go permanently to Austria. The original stipulations of the Treaty of Berlin did not even have a hearing. France, of course, blamed Germany for instigating the troubles in order to humiliate Great Britain and force the “Young Turks’ Party,” which compelled the Sultan to acknowledge a new constitution and later dethroned him, to re-adopt the old régime, under which Germany is alleged to have benefited greatly by trade with Turkey. Germany, in turn, felt slighted at not having been invited to join Great Britain, France and Russia in the drawing up of their proposals. For a time the guy-ropes of the European peace-tent were stretched mighty taut. Had just one of them parted there would have been the liveliest scramble among the Powers for Balkan territory that Europe had seen in many a day.

Although Bulgaria complied with the demand of Turkey that the Roumelia tribute be [128]capitalized, Turkey was loth—and is yet, for that matter—to acknowledge the independence of Bulgaria or the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria; Antivari, Montenegro’s only seaport, enjoyed for a time a splendid view of an Austrian war fleet; Montenegro claimed, but failed to collect, indemnity from Austria for the detention by officials on Austrian territory of a special Montenegrin envoy to Servia; and the strained relations between Austria and Servia took on a ridiculous aspect by Austria’s refusal to allow war materials to be imported into Servia through her domain ... about the only way Servia would be able to obtain such materials.

Bulgaria said she had been preparing for a possible war with Turkey for ten years, and it is a known fact that, although barely one-fifth the size, in population, of the Ottoman Empire, she could have placed in the field fully as many men, some three hundred and seventy-five thousand, vastly better drilled and better versed in the tactics of war. The expenses of keeping the reserve forces with the colours during the recent disturbances and the “compensations” which she had to pay because of her prince’s assumption to the title of “Tzar” were met by increased taxes upon her peasantry, and upon the apathy or enthusiasm[129] of this peasantry would have depended the defeat or victory of Bulgarian arms in a war with Turkey. In advent of hostilities, however, it is safe to say that the pugnacious Bulgarians, with Austria nagging them on, would have bade fair to sweep the Turk from the map of Europe.

Had the unsatisfied Servians, on the other hand, been foolish enough to force themselves into war with Austria, the continuance of Servia as a nation would have been doubtful indeed. It would be difficult to imagine an alliance between the Servians, including the Montenegrins, and the Turks, their life-long enemies, but under the conditions at that time such a thing was not out of the question.

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CHAPTER X

A BULGARIAN MARKET

Bulgaria’s Busy Day—The Orient Express.

Returning to the people of the Bulgaria of to-day, the most advantageous place and time to study them is in the market square of Sophia of a Friday morning. This scene is alone worth the trip to the Bulgarian capital, for I doubt very much if its equal, in the number and variety of types, or in the kaleidoscopic effects of its constantly vibrating patches of colour, can even be approached in any other European city.

From seven in the morning until one in the afternoon the entire town wears a circus-day air. The square surrounding the principal mosque swarms with a hawking, bantering multitude of Greeks, Jews, Russians, Turks, Roumanians, Serbs and Bulgarian peasants, all in gala dress; and as for tongues you might well imagine yourself living in the good old times in the immediate vicinity of the Tower of Babel. Here, as I have said, you may observe[133] the characteristics of the natives to the best possible advantage, for one of the chief sources of interest in this little-travelled principality or, in truth, throughout the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, is its simple-minded, unsophisticated country people; unsophisticated, except in occasional brigandage in the sparsely settled districts.

The market is opened officially at seven o’clock, but long before that hour the peasants, representing many square miles of surrounding territory, begin to arrive on foot, on horseback and in bullock carts. That time-worn adage about the early bird holds true even in Bulgaria, for those who dispose of their produce the quickest and who, consequently, return home with the greatest number of shekels jingling in their leathern money pouches, are the ones who obtain the most desirable stands along the curb, by appearing early upon the scene.

By the time the Muezzin pops out to chant his doleful “Allah el Allah” from the narrow balcony at the top of the mosque pinnacle, the square below is already well-filled and from all directions the tardy ones continue to pour in. The unpacking and arrangement of produce and the chatter and gossip among the peasants themselves occupy the early morning [134]hours before the official opening of the market, for soon the wholesale merchants and townspeople will be dodging in and out, bent on obtaining the lowest quotations, and then there will be no time to talk over the happenings of the intervening week since the last market.

Over there on the curb a swarthy, fur-coated individual has just halted his puny pack-animals, whose dust-covered flanks tell that they have tottered many miles under the bulging loads of wood. It is no wonder that their master perspires as he tugs at the ropes to relieve the little beasts, for, if you examine his clothing, you will wonder how he came to get mixed in the seasons. Although the glare of the sun is nothing if not calorific, this fellow’s legs are bundled closely in thick, woollen stockings tied with thongs, while on his back and reaching clear to his knees he wears a heavy sheepskin coat turned wrong side out. But the particular style in which he wears this coat proves beyond an atom of doubt that he knows as well as you the time of year, for in winter he turns the wool on the outside.

Now look, if you please, at this group of Bulgarian belles from the mountains—symphonies in lavender. The ribbons in their hair are lavender, the embroidery on their jackets is lavender, their long underskirts and aprons [137]are lavender, the linings of their sunshades are lavender. How conscious they are of the tawdry effect of their fine raiment, as they strut about through the dust in the middle of the street! At their heels stalk, jealously, three Bulgarian beaux, also gorgeously attired for the occasion in their Sunday-go-to-meetings.

On the other side of the street two women, each of whom looks to be little less than a hundred years of age, are spreading aprons on the dust-covered sidewalk and arranging thereon their baskets and bundles. They will sell you the finest, most delicious cherries you have ever closed your teeth upon for forty centimes a litre; and strawberries!—well, you just can’t wait to buy a basket of such strawberries at the same price as the cherries. They are large and luscious but a litre really does not weigh enough to get a great number of fruit, for each one is worth at least two bites. I am not stretching the tape a hair’s breadth when I say that I have measured Bulgarian strawberries four and one-half inches in circumference.

Down the street now comes a parade of bullock carts, laden with wool. The clumsy animals lumber lazily along, while the drivers, one of whom walks in front of each team, tap deftly with their long poles first one beast and [138]then the other between the horns, to remind them to stay awake until they arrive at the market. The carts are heavy affairs and look for all the world like some sort of ancient chariots. And I may state here that the bullock, a prototype of the water-buffalo of the Far East, is a domestic animal commonly found in Bulgaria, and for what reason it was originally imported to the country I have often wondered. Nevertheless, it seems thoroughly acclimated, and is used as a beast of burden by the peasants and farmers, not only on the plains but in the mountains as well, where, you might imagine, its awkwardness and weight would be to its disadvantage in negotiating the rocky roads.

In the slender shadow of the mosque tower another heavily-clothed peasant and his wife are engaged in selling live stock. The woman fondles a suckling pig under her left arm, while, with her free hand, she holds another, head downward, by the hind feet. Each of these pigs may be purchased for two francs, and for three, a live lamb from the husband. A pair of spring chickens brings the same ridiculous price as a suckling pig.

In wedging your way through the crowd, which by this time surges over the entire square and overflows into the adjacent streets, [141]you stumble over an old Turkish woman, in baggy, yellow bloomers and curved-toed slippers, who has deliberately spread her array of embroideries in the very centre of the sidewalk.

At the noon hour, when the Muezzin again calls the faithful to prayer, the market is at its height. From a distance, the monotonous drone of the street-cries sounds like the hum of a myriad insects, the swelling cadenzas of which, as they float out upon the soporific atmosphere, may be heard in any part of the city.

At last the peasants, after a profitable holiday in town, prepare to start on their homeward journey. By the middle of the afternoon the last solitary vender has departed with his pack-animals or his bullock cart, his fur coat and his woollen stockings. Then the street cleaners and street sprinklers take the square in hand. They sprinkle the dust and scrub the pavement and in half an hour you would not have believed that that same square was the place from which emanated, but a short time before, the Babelonic hum-drum of hundreds of perspiring market-people.

---

It may be the fashion, but it is altogether exasperating, to be called at five-thirty in the [142]morning, in order to take a train which leaves at eight-fifteen. “But when in Rome—” at all events, we arrived at the depot exactly one hour before the time set for the departure of the “Orient Express,” which was to carry us back to Belgrade. But we felt in no wise lonesome, for many others who wished to take the same train had come to the depot even before us. The proprietor himself accompanied us from the hotel and consumed the time taken to drive the distance by asking us repeatedly to “make a recommend” in America for his hostelry, and which we gladly consented to do. When the train arrived he bade us good-bye with tears in his eyes, and graciously kissed the hands of the ladies of the party.

According to our ideas, the word “Limited” as applied to the “Orient Express” was a misnomer; in fact the only “limited” qualifications of the train which we were able to discover were its limited speed and its limited number of up-to-date conveniences. And there is one thing peculiar about travelling through these countries: no matter upon which side of the train you may take your seat, whether the train goes east or west, north or south, whether it be morning or afternoon, your side will be the sunny side. I believe if [143]we had crawled under the seats on some of the trains the sun would have shone up through the bottom of the car. Perhaps we were clothed too heavily, or, perhaps, we only travelled when the sun was exceptionally hot, but, whichever the cause, we sweltered and perspired through almost every railway trip we ever took in the Balkans.

Notwithstanding the “limited” features of the “Orient Express” we were always glad to have a chance to travel on it, if for no other reason than to enjoy our fellow-passengers and amuse ourselves by the humour of the signs, which are tacked up in conspicuous places in every compartment, to be heeded by the traveller. “Gentlemen must not go to bed with their boots on,” read one of these placards, and if the railway must needs have signs to warn its passengers against such a breach of travel etiquette, we thought what a delicate piece of business it must be for the porter or the conductor to enforce the rule; for travellers are apt to act in a manner just contrary to the notices of warning they see posted.

Another sign informed the passenger that “the conductor would shine gentlemen’s boots upon request.” Evidently the railway company had not anticipated the patronage of [144]ladies, but, if they had, they hardly presumed that ladies would require a “shine” or that they would retire with “their boots on.”

It was on this train, too, that we saw the only Americans we had seen or were destined to see for many weeks, two jovial rug-hunters of New York, en route home from a business trip to Constantinople. Also included in the collection of passengers was an immaculate Englishman, with coat tightly buttoned and gloves on, who sat all day in one position for fear of disturbing one molecule of dust, and, owing to his efforts, becoming redder in the face as the train proceeded.

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CHAPTER XI

SARAJEVO—THE SPIRED CITY

From Belgrade to Sarajevo—The Turkish Bazaar—A Bosnian Street Sprinkler—Horse-races at Ylidze—A Dervish Dance.

It is by no means an uninteresting nor an unpleasant train ride of seven hours and a half across the well-kept, fertile farm lands of Austria-Hungary; from Belgrade, in Servia, southward to the little junction town of Brod. This line continues through Agram to Fiume, Hungary’s solitary seaport, but if you would visit the Austrian provinces of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, nominally Turkish territory, you must change at Brod and take your compartment in one of the miniature cars of the little narrow-gauge train which, later, puffs and snorts its tortuous, labyrinthine way across, between and under the mountains, up grade and down to Sarajevo, Mostar and, finally, Gravosa on the Adriatic Coast.

Before Bosnia (including Croatia and the Herzegovina) was placed under the suzerainty of Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Berlin [146]of 1878—a treaty time-worn and often honoured in the breach—the traveller, in order to cover the one hundred thirty-eight miles between Brod and Sarajevo, was compelled for comfort’s and safety’s sake to resort to the springless mail cart of the Austrian Consulate in Bosnia and spend forty-eight weary hours en route. If, on the other hand, he wished to be lavishly independent and hired a native conveyance for the journey, three nights would have to be spent on the road, sleeping in khans and fearful of his very life.

Although, in point of geographical position, it was the nearest neighbour of civilized Europe, the social condition of Bosnia was at that time the most barbarous of all the provinces of European Turkey. Not one man in a hundred knew how to read, and there was not a single, solitary bookshop throughout the length and breadth of the province. While the soil teemed with various valuable minerals, its hills thickly wooded with virgin forests, its plains and valleys fertile, well-watered and productive, its commerce was contemptible. Under Turkish rule, plums constituted the most valuable article of trade.

To-day all this is changed. The fields are cultivated; mines have been prospected and developed; public schools are everywhere and [149]education is compulsory; the Austrian army has put an end to the maraudings of the Mohammedans and polices the country, having its headquarters in great garrisons in Mostar and Sarajevo. An admirably operated railway line eats its way throughout the entire length of the province, the proposed extension of this railway through the Turkish vilayet of Novi-Bazaar having been one of the bones of contention between the Sublime Porte and the Austrian Government but a short while ago.

As fate will have it, the express train leaves Brod at midnight, and, consequently, some of the most picturesque mountain scenery along the route is lost to the traveller, but as he does not reach Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, until ten o’clock the following morning, an early awakening will be rewarded with wild mountain scenes and interesting types galore.

The mere mention of a narrow-gauge train seems to convey to the average American the unpleasant idea of discomfort, if not hardship, of travel, but this train will prove itself clean and comfortable far in excess of your expectations.

Each section of the railway carriage comprises two single seats, facing each other as in our own sleeping cars, and there are no [150]upper berths. Furthermore, you may draw the curtains of your section and, although it is not possible to retire in the true sense of the word, you will enjoy being screened, during the night at least, from the stares of your over-curious fellow-passengers.

For some unknown reason I had neglected to draw the curtains of my compartment after I had prepared myself for the night. Across the aisle a Bosnian occupied somewhat more than his allotted space, and when he learned, by quizzing me surreptitiously in German as to my nationality, that I was from America, he launched a volume of questions in my direction, the answers to some of which, I confess, rendered me nonplussed for the moment and sleep impossible.

Was it a long journey from America to Bosnia?

How long?

Did I come in a steamboat?

Were there many black men in America?

How many?

These queries, and a host of others of the same stamp, gave me just cause to wonder if the man had not mistaken me for a travelling Baedeker. Had he been as tired as I was he would have enjoyed a night’s rest just as much as I. Finally, I became desperate and [151]jerked the curtains together—a rude procedure, no doubt—and went to sleep with a volley of interrogations raging about me. If my Bosnian friend wished to know during the night aught of the history, topography or population of the United States, I fail to remember, having conveniently lost consciousness, but he was ready with a fresh volume of questions when I awakened in the morning.

At seven we stopped long enough to take coffee on the vine-arboured station-porch of a little village; a short twenty minutes later the station-master rang his bell, the train conductor blew his horn and the engineer tooted his whistle, all of which seem to be absolutely necessary to start a train in the Balkans, and we were off again, whisking over the wonderfully well-kept roadbed, past the water tanks and the switch towers in their immaculate coats of fresh, white paint, through tunnels, across gorges, and in three more hours we arrived at Sarajevo.

One might as well be precipitated from the clouds into Turkey itself as to come suddenly upon Sarajevo from the country in the North. In this little city it isn’t one Turk here and one Turk there, as in Belgrade or Sophia, but more than half the population is Ottoman. Here the Mohammedan element occupies a [152]most interesting bazaar that covers in area several city blocks; on every hand the pencil-like pinnacles of the forty-odd mosques rear themselves skyward; the streets are alive with red-fezzed Mohammedans in spacious knee breeches, Turkish women in bloomers and veiled goddesses of the Harem. At the noon hour the air reverberates with the cries of the Muezzins, in response to which the faithful spread themselves devoutly upon their knees in the courtyards and on the steps of their houses of worship.

Sarajevo lies on both sides of the Miljača River, the banks of which are protected from the ravages of flood by well-built and not inartistic stone walls. Mountains surround the town on all sides. The streets are narrow as becomes a Turkish city, but under the Austrian régime they are kept clean as new pins. The buildings, especially the government ones, are large and well-proportioned, the shops are good and the hotels excellent.

Of course the principal attraction in Sarajevo is the bazaar, a sort of perennial market where the Turk and his art may be studied to advantage. This bazaar is a permanent affair, divided into streets or lanes which tangle and twine themselves around a small square centered by a public fountain. Wednesday is [155]characterized by a “grangers’ meeting” and the streets overflow with Turkish and Bosnian truck-farmers bartering their produce. This is the day to rub elbows with the sullen, lazy Mohammedans. They squat about the fountain, presumably caring little whether they sell their fruits and vegetables or not; immense four-legged loads of hay or wood, which cover the little pack-animals from nose to tail, wobble up and down through the narrow thoroughfares, compelling you to seek the shelter of a convenient doorway to allow them to pass; veiled women, with even their hands shielded by cotton gloves from the admiring gazes of the men-folk, amble silently by, ghost-like, while the kafanas, or coffee houses, buzz with the gossip of outstretched Turks who sip their coffee and smoke cigarettes until the place smells like the hybrid of a tobacco factory and a coffee-packing establishment.

Almost any day of the week, however, the pound and tinker of sandalled artisans are to be heard in the workshops which border the streets of the bazaar. The coppersmith hammers out his Turkish coffee sets and his brass trays, many of which he etches with a sharp-edged tool in ornate designs and figures; the shoe and harness-maker sits cross-legged as he [156]plies the needle back and forth, a cigarette between his lips and a cup of thick, black coffee ever at his elbow; the gold and silversmith deftly inlays his gun metal cigarette cases with threads of precious metals, first scoring with a tool the design to be worked upon the object, much as a dentist might prepare a cavity in a tooth for a gold filling. You might readily imagine yourself in Damascus, instead of in the capital of a province of Austria-Hungary.

Objects of considerable interest to me in this Bosnian city were the home-made street sprinklers which tend to serve the purpose of the municipal government, although they never would be regarded by us as labour savers. A huge hogshead is mounted on four wheels, filled with water and hauled through the streets by a horse driven by a native. In that much the contrivance somewhat resembles our own variety, except for the native. But here lies its salient feature: it requires two men to operate it, for how on earth would it be possible for one man to drive the horse and sprinkle the street at one and the same time, in Bosnia?

From the rear of the hogshead protrudes a long hose terminating in a sprinkler, like the nozzle of a watering pot. One end of a rope [159]is fastened to this sprinkler, and the other is attached to a second native, whose duty it is to walk behind the cart and swing the hose from side to side by means of the rope, the while sprinkling himself as well as the roadway. Wet feet invariably result from this crude method, but the “man behind the street sprinkler” should be deemed above his fellows in point of cleanliness, if such a condition meets with any commendation whatever in Bosnia, for the labourers in Sarajevo, as a rule, look as though they had never been on intimate terms with soap and water in all their lives.

In the afternoons horse-races usually take place at the quaint little summer resort of Ylidze, at the foot of the mountains, to be reached either by train or by a rather dusty drive of eight miles. These races furnish about the only excuse the fashion and élite of Sarajevo have to display their dresses and uniforms. The grandstand and paddock are packed with Worth gowns and three-foot hats, (mind you!) and the bookmaker does a land-office business with the be-medalled and gold-braided Austrian army. But the real devotees of the races are the Turks and peasants who drive for miles and miles to attend them, and whose Oriental costumes outline in gayest of [160]colours both sides of the course. In the late afternoon, at the conclusion of the race-meet, Bosnian society repairs en masse to the beautiful and fashionable Villa Bosna, where, in the cool of the evening, in the casino or under the great trees, it sups and dines and chatters, until it is time for the last of the evening trains to leave for Sarajevo.

Like the Turks of any Eastern city those of Sarajevo comprise many different sects, and it was on the day before I took my departure that a Bosnian porter, whose patron I had been repeatedly during my stay in the city, and who took seriously to heart the alleged fabulous wealth of all English-speaking people, came to my hotel to ask if I might care to witness a Dervish dance that evening. These calisthenic devotions, held by this most fanatical sect of Mohammedans in their mosque upon the night of each full moon, constitute a weird religious ceremony, not excelled as a spectacle even by the famous Antelope and Snake Dances of the Hopi Indians, and I promptly accepted the invitation to attend.

Shortly after nine o’clock, my guide, the pronunciation of whose real name sounded so much like “Jim” that I shall hereafter allude to him as such, called for me, and together [163]we started off for the darkened Turkish quarter. With Jim in the lead, carrying in his hand a ponderous Turkish lantern, which resembled more an oil can than anything I can think of, we stumbled over the cobbles, through the narrow streets, past the latticed windows of the low-roofed Turkish houses and, after three-quarters of an hour (during which time I am safe in saying we climbed every hill in the town) we arrived at the door of the Dervish mosque.

In the courtyard the bodies of several of the departed lay in state, as is the Mohammedan custom before burial. After proceeding through several rooms and negotiating as best we could as many flights of dark, precipitous stairs, we finally found ourselves in a balcony overlooking the room in which the “dance” was to take place. On the opposite side of the balcony from us, behind closely-woven lattice-work, was seated a group of female admirers of the dancers. On the floor below, at one end of the room, stood a shrine, on each side of which a Dervish apostle sat cross-legged. The pungent odour of burning incense and candles filled the atmosphere.

Presently the worshippers, all men, arrived, removed their slippers and squatted on the floor facing the altar, forming a semi-circle. [164]When all were seated, probably thirty in number, one of the patriarchs near the shrine commenced a low, dismal chant. After many repetitions this was memorized by the worshippers, who then chanted it together, emphasizing the first beat of a common time rhythm, their bodies swaying in unison from side to side. The tempo of the song and the movement of the bodies accelerated gradually. At the end of ten or fifteen minutes this particular chant was stopped abruptly and another was commenced, which continued for an equal length of time.

But to worship in a sitting posture did not seem to produce the desired effect and the men, at the beginning of the succeeding wail, arose to their knees to continue the services. Swinging and grunting in this position tended to heighten their emotions to a greater extent, and some of the worshippers became so accustomed to and numbed by the swaying movement that they hopped about the floor in a state of semi-consciousness, their faces engraven with an almost unearthly look, like that of sufferers from delirium tremens. At the end of each chant several required being led back by their fellows to their original positions in the semi-circle.

Still they were not satisfied with the result, [165]and, after an hour of howling in sitting and kneeling positions, they stood up to put a more emotional finishing touch to their devout proceedings. By this time the floor was littered with fallen turbans and the rugs used to kneel upon were scattered about the room. After several more exhaustive efforts to work off their superfluous religious ardour had been resorted to without apparent avail, the men snatched drums and cymbals from hooks upon the wall and commenced beating them furiously, in rhythm to the wails of the priests. The din produced on these instruments was almost deafening and the antics and shouts of the chanting fanatics transformed the place, literally, into the interior of a madhouse. During the final scene all were shouting at once, each trying to outdo the other, as if to receive some recognition for his religious ability from the high priests. From time to time a Dervish would fall upon the floor, completely enervated but trying, unconsciously, to continue his part. On the whole it constituted one of the most repulsive sights of infidel worship.

At half-past eleven the “dance” was over and I was quite willing to take up my position behind Jim and be guided through the narrow streets back to civilization.

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CHAPTER XII

FROM SARAJEVO TO THE COAST

Jablaniča—Mostar—Across the Mountains—The Balkan
Riviera—Ragusa: The Fairy City of the Adriatic.

From Sarajevo the narrow-gauge railway line makes a gradual ascent of the mountains, the engineer assuring the safety of himself and his passengers now and again by applying the rachet attachment, for the grades are very steep. Finally the divide is crossed a short while before the train reaches the picturesque little village of Konjiča, a meagre assortment of red-roofed, white-walled houses, including the inevitable mosque tower, literally dumped in among the green hills with pleasing effect.

Farther along at Jablaniča—where, although a village of but two hundred souls, the accommodations of a good hotel beckon to the traveller to spend some time in this vicinity, should the grandeur of the surrounding mountain scenery appeal to him as it did to us—a gorge of the Narenta is crossed and from this point the line follows the defile of the [169]river as far as Mostar. A military road of stone foundation, which would tempt the most apprehensive of automobile tourists, twines itself, like a white thread, along the opposite side of the river from the railway, now bridging with stone arches the waterfall of a mountain stream at its debouchment into the river below, now circling the base of an overhanging cliff, now shooting into a short tunnel blasted through the solid rock. A wall of stone masonry borders the outer edge of the road at the dangerous places.

While the adjacent mountains are wild, rugged and severe in their bleakness, the valleys between them are fertile and productive. Almost any cereal which thrives in temperate latitudes grows readily. Indeed, in travelling through Bosnia to-day the farms of prosperous land-owners so stretch themselves across the undulating sections of country between the higher mountain ranges that the observer might easily imagine himself circling a great agricultural section of England or America.

Jablaniča is a much-patronized summer resort for the people of both Sarajevo and Mostar, and from it as a starting-point climbing excursions into the mountains may be made in every direction. Responsible guides will be supplied at the hotel for comparatively [170]small sums. The air here is delightfully clear and invigorating; even on the warmest days the cooling shade of the extensive gardens which surround the hotel is much too enticing to allow one to hurry along to Mostar. As a quiet, charming place to recuperate, for as long a time as you will, from the fatigues of travel in the Balkans, I can suggest a no more convenient, or a no more fascinating spot than right here at the hotel in this diminutive village of Jablaniča. If you do not care to climb mountains you may revel in a general rest, for a few days at least. Even the name of the place requires no special lingual effort to pronounce, once you become familiar with these Slavonic combinations; you merely have to say “Yab-lā-nitz-ā”—it just sort of rolls along your tongue from the palate to the lips, and then drops.

In Mostar, the capital of the Herzegovina, the sewing-machine advertisements offer about the only hint that you are living in the twentieth century, for this city seems to have adhered more closely to mediæval methods than any in the Balkans.

The Narenta River, which divides the town, is a shallow mountain stream at times, but after a period of heavy rains it surges down through the mountain gorges and over the [171]grotesque lavic rocks, ripping away its banks and necessitating the inhabitants of the town whose homes border its scaly sides to build their houses upon stilts.

Mostar may boast of, or bemoan, as the case may be, a collection of thirty mosques, for, of its fourteen thousand population, half are Mohammedans, and two thousand of the remaining half comprise the troops of an Austria-Hungarian garrison. The streets of the town are dirty and narrow, and the sun beats down between the white walls of the houses as if in the tropics. A bridge of modern steel construction spans the Narenta just near the hotel of that name, while half a mile farther down the river one of the most famous bridges in all Europe stretches its single arch out of the shadows across the sea-blue water of the Narenta, which gurgles in and out among the volcanic boulders ninety feet below the key-stone. The age of this bridge is indeterminable. It is supposed to have been built by the Cæsars at a time when the Herzegovina was a Roman province. Be that as it may, nothing like its construction or architecture is to be seen in bridge-building in Europe, no matter how ancient or how modern, and it is still used by market-people and the inhabitants of that quarter of the city. One would almost expect [172]to see a centurion or two, in togas and sandals, walk out across the old structure any minute.

The veiled Turkish women of Mostar are world-famous for the style of their headdress, which is as characteristic of this city as the old bridge itself. In addition to being heavily veiled they wear a sort of black hood of stiffened material, which protrudes in front like the upper half of the pointed bill of a bird.

But, aside from the Roman bridge, the veiled women, and an old Turkish graveyard, there is really nothing much of interest in Mostar. At any rate, after a short visit here, you will be a little tired of the sameness of these cities, which the Turk fain would still hold as his own, and you will want to hurry along to the Dalmatian coast towns, as different from those you have recently visited as day is from night; different climates, different peoples having different customs, different architectures; all so different that when you come upon them you will wonder if you haven’t been awakened suddenly, then launched upon another dream-excursion.

Again, after leaving Mostar, the railroad commences to climb, snake-like, over the mountains toward the coast, for the building of this road has required no small amount of engineering skill. It would be difficult to find [175]in England or America, or in fact in any other country, a railway line more substantially built or kept in better condition. The crushed rock track ballast is evened off at each side of the rails as if with a pair of calipers, the roadbed is smooth and the grades, although long, are not as steep as would be imagined, considering the heights to be climbed. At Ravna the final ascent of the mountains is commenced and from here to the top the road is built on an almost continuous wall of stone masonry.

As you wind around the mountain peaks wonderful views of the valley below, dotted here and there with white specks of human beings busily at work, are before you, now on one side, now on the other. The fields resemble square patches of brown or green plush rubbed both ways, according to the angle of light as it falls upon them. Ahead, the railway line seems to be made up of tunnels, great stone arches that bridge deep ravines and cuts and fills which follow one another in rapid succession. On the distant hills you may see the remains of watch towers once used by lookouts, from which were observed the movements of Turkish invaders in the days when the gates of Vienna were threatened by the depredating Mohammedans.

A little beyond Uskoplje, as suddenly as [176]you would come into the light from the darkness of a tunnel, is displayed before you, as if molded with clay upon a great flat canvas, a most extraordinary panorama of that part of the Dalmatian coast.

Might you have had the uninterrupted view of the engineer you would have seen at first but a narrow defile in the mountains ahead, in the centre of which the rails of the road meet in perspective, like two glossy ribbons, and then seem to shoot out into a blue-vaulted void beyond. By bringing into play a very little imagination you might be willing to believe you were nearing the edge of the earth. But, as you approach, a panorama unfolds itself,—a panorama of that strip of territory which fringes the north-eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, Austria-Hungary’s only coast line. It is a panorama of an historic land of perennial loveliness. It is a panorama of a land of flowers, of sunshine and deep shadows; a land of wonderful walls and bold bastiles; a land of gayety, where Austria-Hungarian aristocracy, all-appreciative of its charms, sits and looks out upon the amethystine waters by day, and strolls languorously along the sea-parades by night; a land of quaint, fortified cities, jealous of their histories; a land of interesting, picturesque, unsophisticated peasant [177]peoples. Withal it is a new, and, as yet, comparatively an unpenetrated land to the English-speaking traveller, scenery-lover or pleasure-seeker, and I have taken the liberty to coin a new name for it—The Balkan Riviera.

From this point in the defile the road twists and turns like a scenic railway, and almost doubles in its tracks as it zig-zags down the precipitous sides of the mountains, the Adriatic ever blending into the gray sky-line in the distance.

Finally, after making in its descent many snake-like coils, the train passes the source of the beautiful Ombla, with its swan-dotted lake, and you will have arrived at Gravosa, the port and railway terminus of Ragusa. In three hours, it seems, you have been hustled from a temperate into a tropical climate.

But for those who do not care for travel through Bosnia and the Herzegovina there is a vastly more convenient route, possibly one that makes a more perfect pleasure trip, by which to reach this Balkan Riviera, for Trieste, just across the gulf from Venice, and Fiume, on the eastern shores of the Istrian Peninsula, are also gateways to this land of types and flowers.

If you take steamer from either of these towns you will be whisked down along the [178]Dalmatian coast, through the fjord-like passages between the thousands of islands which form the tassels to the fringe of country beyond, and by and by you will come within sight of that little old town of many vicissitudes—Ragusa.

It seems almost an enchanted spot and you will call it “The Fairy City of the Adriatic.”

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CHAPTER XIII

RAGUSA

As She Is—The First Colony—The Fire of 1292—The Black Death—Hungary Acquires the Place—Ragusa Establishes Her Independence—Plague—Earthquake—Napoleon Takes Ragusa—The City Ceded to Austria.

As does Venice in the north, so Ragusa in the south surpasses in lustre all of those pearl-cities which dot the Dalmatian shores.

But you must be content, if you come by steamer, with merely a long-distance glimpse of your “Enchanted City” for the time being, because the steamer will put into Gravosa, a short two knots to the north, where the waters of its magnificent harbour are of sufficient depth for safe navigation, and where the docking facilities are of a more recent vintage. The noisy little freighters of light draft which ply up and down this Adriatic coast still make Ragusa a port of call, however, and the molo there is by no means a scene of inactivity. The larger passenger steamers, however, after leaving Gravosa, do not deign even to hesitate at Ragusa, but puff by indifferently as if such a [180]city never occupied space on the map, bound for Corfu and the Levant.

So here, at Gravosa, you will take a carriage and drive out through the time-honoured sea-gate of the town, the blue Adriatic murmuring below you on one side, and a continuous arbour of beauty bowing a floral welcome to you on the other, the short distance to this dream-city of Ragusa. Immense cacti grow in luxuriance from out the very walls of stone that border the road; fig and olive trees clothe the neighbouring hills in blankets of green velvet; rows of palmettos rear their scaly trunks by the roadside and curl their broad leaves to hold the moisture of the fallen dew.

On approaching nearer to Ragusa a greater profusion of semi-tropical verdure lends a charming background to the numerous white-walled, red-roofed villas which top the rocky shore line, while a modern hotel, up to date in all its appointments, looks out from behind its gardens over the battlements and fortresses of the old city. In the evening a military band plays near the wall, which skirts the edge of one of the cliffs just outside the city gates; crowds of care-free visitors occupy seats at the near-by tables, listening to the music, drinking and gazing out over the brilliant reflection of the moon upon the water, while at their [183]backs the splendid towers of the old fortifications frown down upon the happy throng, as if in silent pleading for just a little while in which to tell of the changes they have seen.

The ancient moat surrounding the walls, now magically transformed into a garden filled with flowers of every conceivable shape and colour, is the haven of artists; it is bridged by a permanent stone arch which leads by winding passageways through the principal gate of the city, the Porta Pille, into the Corso beyond. Above this massive gateway, in a niche, is placed a small carved statue of the patron saint of Ragusa, San Biagio. The Corso, within, is probably two hundred yards long, wide and paved with stone. On either side it is bounded by shops, while at the east and the west ends respectively stand the Custom House, through which is the exit to the docks, and the Porta Pille. Just inside the Porta Pille stands a magnificent fountain of huge proportions, built in 1435 by the famous Neapolitan architect, Onofrio di la Cava, who also, in the same year, perfected the system still in use for conducting fresh water to the city from the Gionchetto, eight miles distant, and re-erected the palace which had been burnt down in 1432.

Opposite this fountain is the Franciscan [184]church of Mala Brača, the doorway of which, from the point of view of the architect, is worthy of some study.

Behind the town to the north the barren slopes of Mount Sergius interrupt the view inland. It may be interesting for our own conservationists to note that at one time this mountain was so thickly wooded that Ragusa was given the Illyric sobriquet of “Dubrovnik,” or “The Woody,” but now not a tree nor a shrub can be seen upon its entire sterile surface.

Off to the south lies the beautiful islet of La Croma. Tradition says that Richard Cœur de Lion, while returning from the Crusades, was threatened with shipwreck just off this island. While the storm was raging at its height, in an attempt to court Divine Providence, he declared he would build a church upon the spot where his caravel happened to be beached if he and his crew be saved from the fury of the elements. Scarcely had he finished his prayer when the ship thrust its prow into the wooded shores of La Croma and here, to fulfil his promise, he built a chapel.

The history of Ragusa reads like the romance it is, for it is doubtful if any other city of Europe has been so tightly and tragically wound around the finger of Fate.

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Many conflicting accounts of its founding have been published, but the real history of Ragusa begins at the time of the victory of the Venetians over the Narentines in the struggle for the supremacy of the Adriatic. Policy compelled its citizens, descendants of the refugees from the fallen Illyrian capitals who have been accredited with the founding of Ragusa, to favour the Narentines, and with their fall Ragusa came under the yoke of the Venetians.

The original city corresponded to the southern portion or modern Ragusa, but later, the Romans absorbed a rival colony and included the whole within the walls which stood, approximately, on the line of the present fortifications.

In the year 1292 a series of periodical disasters commenced in Ragusa, the blighting results of which no city of to-day could possibly sustain.

On August 16th of that year, while the little territory was being pillaged by the Servians in alliance with the people of Cattaro, but a few miles down the coast, a fire broke out and destroyed a greater part of the city; at that time all the houses were built of wood gathered from the forests of Mount Sergius, all except the Rector’s castle and the churches. Fire was [188]followed by famine and epidemic. Those of the heart-sick population who survived were finally persuaded not to abandon the city, public subscriptions were raised for the destitute and a new town was built on the same site.

When the great plague, or “Black Death,” swept across Europe in 1348 eleven thousand souls were said to have perished within the walls of Ragusa.

Exactly ten years later Ragusa, then included in the Dalmatian territory belonging to Venice, was ceded to Hungary and the payments of all tributes hitherto given to Venice were transferred with the country. In return, Lewis of Hungary pledged himself to protect Ragusa and to allow her to govern herself, as had Venice before him.

Under Hungarian protection Ragusa felt herself develop an extensive power. In this she was abetted by Lewis himself, who interceded for her with the Pope for permission to trade with the Turks. He even allowed her to elect her own Count and tended her many other unheard of privileges.

In 1418 Dalmatia again passed into the hands of Venice. Then it was that Ragusa revolted, and, three years later, she established successfully an independence, which she enjoyed for almost four hundred years. A [191]steady commercial progress marked this period of her history, and it only reached its climax after the fall of Venice in 1797. As early as 1417 slave-dealing was forbidden in Ragusa and adjudged by the assembly as “base, wicked and abominable.” A foundling hospital was established in 1432, and in 1435 teachers were invited from Italy to instruct in the public schools.

The little principality became the haven of many wealthy and noble families from the Slavonic kingdoms in the interior, who had been driven from their lands by the marauding Turks. But Ragusa, on the other hand, made friends with the deceitful Mohammedans, traded with them, and, at the same time, cannily strengthened her fortifications against them. Ragusa made treaties of commerce with Spain in 1494, with France in 1508 and with Egypt in 1510, which latter treaty smoothed the sea for her along the course to the East Indies. Her “argosies” (the word “argosy” means literally “a vessel of Ragusa”) were to be found in every commercial port, and, at the time of the fall of Venice, her mercantile marine had risen rapidly to more than four hundred sail.

But during this period of trade-building the misfortunes of Ragusa were many.

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Only by the loyalty and indomitable pluck of her sons was she able to rise so many times from her dust and ashes, while the whole world marvelled at such determination to outlive the destruction wrought by nature and the elements.

In 1462 plague broke out among the inhabitants of the town and two thousand people succumbed to its ravages. The same year a disastrous fire destroyed the Rector’s palace and the arsenal.

May 17, 1520, was the date on which commenced a series of earthquake shocks, which continued intermittently for twenty months. Many houses were demolished and it became the custom of the people to place the passover mark, I. H. S., above their doors as a devout entreaty for Divine protection. Finally, the earthquakes ceased, but six years later the germs of the plague were carried to Ragusa in the stuffs of a trader from Ancona. The unfortunate merchant was dragged through the streets and tortured by the infuriated, panic-stricken citizens, the Senate fled to Gravosa, and only a small guard remained to quiet and to ease the sufferings of the terrified inhabitants. For six long months the pestilence raged within the walls and no less than twenty thousand souls fell victims to its terrible havoc.

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Then Turkey in the east, and Venice in the west, took advantage of Ragusa’s weakness and preyed upon her, the Turks especially making the most of her misfortunes for their own aggrandizement.

The plague re-appeared from time to time, and in 1580 and 1639 the town was again visited by earthquakes.

But the historical bench-mark of Ragusa was the great seismic disturbance of 1667. With this as the basis, the dates of all subsequent or previous events of importance were calculated; even to-day the people of the town will tell you that the church of San Biagio was destroyed by fire “thirty-nine years after the earthquake.”

Early in the morning of April 6th, 1667, this great disaster descended without any warning upon the people of Ragusa. The earth seemed to roll and vibrate under the internal pressure; immense fissures were cleft in the surface and almost every house in the city was razed to the ground; five thousand citizens, the Rector of the Republic included among them, perished. The ruins took fire and the town was looted by hordes of plunderers; even the treasures of the churches were carried away.

Because the Ragusans had made some [194]armed resistance against the Turks, many of whom were among the chief looters, the Sublime Porte demanded an explanation. Nicola Bona and Marino Gozze were chosen as peace commissioners to Turkey, but both were thrown into prison at Silistria. Two others that followed suffered the same fate.

Although deluged with misfortunes Ragusa prospered, but her continued prosperity was not watched without some jealousy on the part of the powers of Europe. At the height of her ascendency, Russia and France both grew hungry for her, and Russia, aided by the Montenegrins, bombarded and sacked the city. In 1806 Napoleon took Ragusa, and eight years later the combined efforts of England and Austria caused the haughty, supercilious little principality to be annexed to Austria.

You will find such an exaggerated air of independence among the Ragusans of to-day that you will little wonder that they held themselves for four hundred years against the nations of Europe and outlived the effects of their calamities.

I was talking with a native on the Corso one day and happened to ask him, casually, what was the nature of the reception the people of Ragusa tendered the Austrian Emperor upon the occasion of his visit a short time before.[195] He seemed offended that I even intimated that they had given the Emperor a reception, and assured me that the Ragusans had taken the matter of his visit as an occasion of no importance whatever. But he hastened to tell me in detail of the demonstration planned for the Crown Prince of Montenegro, who was expected soon to make a short stay in the city.

Ragusa, as I have said, is the much favoured winter resort of the Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy, and it would be difficult to imagine a more delightful one. The climate is ideal. Although the atmosphere is free from humidity the sun of a summer’s day is quite hot—so hot, in fact, that you will be tempted to indulge in a three-dollar white duck suit at one of the little shops along the Corso.

The evenings, however, are always agreeably cool. Then the band plays in the “piazza,” on the top of the cliff, and the town awakens from its apparent lethargy. From the docks the sardine fishermen, after overhauling their tiny craft, put out to sea in the evening twilight, to make their nightly catch among the bays and inlets of the rock-bound coast. Beyond the bastiles and sea-fortresses the afterglow of the brilliant sunset tinges La Croma in hues of purple and gold.

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At night the soft breezes, redolent of the perfume of the garden below, are wafted through the latticed windows; the band seems to play the last number on the program with irresistible rhythm; the tuneful songs of Austrian sailors, as they return to their ships in the harbour of Gravosa after an evening of revelry, swell out upon the night air and die away—and before you realize it the morning sunlight is streaming through the Venetian window-shades, forming bars of gold that stretch across the polished floor, while the sea glitters and dashes musically against the bases of the cliffs just a little beyond your window.

Truly, Ragusa is the fairy city of the Adriatic.

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CHAPTER XIV

THE BOCCHE DI CATTARO

Steamer-day at Gravosa—Ragusa from the Sea—The Bocche di Cattaro—Castelnuovo—Cattaro and Her Mountain Background.

I can assure you that it will be a hard matter to tear yourself away from Ragusa. You will want to stroll through her narrow streets, or watch the market-people in the public square, or play long sets of tennis on the excellent courts in the shadows of the turreted town walls, or sip “citronade” indefinitely under the awnings of the street cafés near the Corso. There is a weird, delightful charm about Ragusa that is well-nigh irresistible.

But just in the midst of ecstatic enjoyment there always looms up that infallible something, which will, sooner or later, put an unwelcome end to all good things; and we finally found ourselves facing our luggage on the drive back, along the flower-skirted road to Gravosa to take the steamer for Cattaro.

As we wound around an overhanging cliff [200]we caught sight of the beautiful bay, and were able for the first time to appreciate its advantages. Its waters were smooth as a dancing floor; here and there a smart little launch with striped awnings darted up and down; across the harbour the gardens of handsome villas extended down to the water’s edge, while out in the roadstead the gray hulls of a squadron of Austrian sea-fighters silhouetted themselves against the sky-line.

The molo itself was a scene of animation. It was crowded with people, peasants, sailors and tradesmen, for the steamer Codolo from up the coast had just been made fast, and the arrival of any passenger steamer is an event of no little import at Gravosa.

But what of unusual interest did the Codolo have in store to occasion such wholesale manifestation of inquisitiveness among the natives of the town? Even our driver confessed he had never seen such a gathering on the molo. The arrival of an official of high rank, probably. But no, there seemed to be an absolute dearth of uniformed soldiery, and no state official could possibly arrive without the attending pomp and circumstance.

We drove through the old sea-gate at a gallop and descended pell-mell upon the molo, our driver walloping his horses through the [201]crowd with reckless abandon and utter disregard for human life or limb, for he was curious, too.

As we came to a jerky halt at the foot of the gangway we saw that on the steamer’s deck stood a great, mud-coloured object, which somewhat resembled in size and contour the broadside of an elephant. This mastodon, whatever it might be, was swathed in tarpaulins.

Tackle and planks were being rigged rapidly, and, at last, the puzzling what-was-it was skidded to the molo from the deck of the steamer. The gaping crowd stood breathless with anticipation while the tarpaulins were raised, and behold! a motor-omnibus for use on the road between the steamer piers at Gravosa and the fashionable hotel in Ragusa. Wonder of Wonders! The first automobile to denature with the fumes of gasoline the virgin atmosphere of lower Dalmatia.

This marvellous machine was the most cumbersome parcel of freight consigned to Gravosa and soon the reversed twin screws of the steamer were churning the placid waters of the harbour into filmy patches of white froth. We backed away from the molo and its burden of inquisitive onlookers, turned about and headed speedily for the narrow harbour exit, [202]through which we caught glimpses of the blue of the Adriatic beyond.

The four hour sea trip from Gravosa to Cattaro is one replete with scenic surprises, and the first of these is a magnificent panorama of Ragusa and her stately fortresses as we round the rocky promontory just to the north of the town. Ragusa is inviting enough from land, but when viewed from the sea it is fascinating beyond description.

For a distance after passing Ragusa the coast line is unprotected from the winds and storms of the Adriatic but, except in early spring or late fall, little fear of the sudden rising of a “Bora” or a “Scirocco,” the winds most dreaded along the Dalmatian coast, need be felt. On account of the depth of water the course taken by the steamers is always within easy sight of the shore, and the mountains seem to rise directly from the red-tiled roofs of the village houses.

After the steamer rounds Punta d’Ostro, with her mediæval castle and modern fortifications which keep watch for Austria over this part of her territory, an hour’s ride through some of the most beautiful scenery is in store for the traveller, for this promontory marks the entrance of the famous Bocche di Cattaro, the most wonderful and best naturally protected[203] harbour in the world. I should not say that at this point is the “entrance” to the Bocche, for the word “Bocche” itself is the plural of “Boca” and means, literally, “entrances” or “mouths,” but the term “Bocche di Cattaro” has been so generally applied to the basins themselves which, together, make up the harbour, that it enjoys almost universal usage.

Of these basins there are three which are of considerable expanse, resembling small inland seas: the basins of Castelnuovo, Teodo and Cattaro. The remaining two, for there are five in all, are not so extensive and might be considered as bays leading off from the larger bodies of water. These latter are joined by narrow straits or channels, which is not the case with the smaller bays, like that of Risano. The narrowest Boca is at the entrance of the sea of Perasto and is familiarly known as “La Catene,” because of the fact that at the time when Lewis of Hungary was defending Cattaro against the Venetians he sealed up the entrance to this particular body of water by stretching a “chain” across the mouth so that it would be impossible for the caravels of the enemy to enter.

Lofty, barren peaks rise on every side from the very shore line, while the water of the harbour[204] is peacefully calm, translucent and, in colour, a deep blue, rendered deeper by the dark shadows of the overhanging mountains. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the ancient historian of the country, probably stretched the time limit an hour or two when he said that the sun never penetrated the Bocche di Cattaro except in summer, but, nevertheless, it has been proven a fact that in the course of a winter’s day Cattaro enjoys but five hours of sunlight, so hemmed in is it between the tall mountain peaks and ranges.

The picturesque little town of Castelnuovo lies directly across the bay from the Punto d’Ostro. In front of the town the steamer stops long enough for a few fussy Dalmatian women to climb down the ship’s accommodation ladder to the boats, which have put out from shore to take off any passengers or freight the steamer may be carrying consigned to Castelnuovo.

Steaming onward toward Cattaro we pass two small islets, each of which seems barely large enough to keep the little churches and gardens which they hold on their surfaces from sliding into the bay. Upon one of them stands the monastery of San Giorgio, strikingly diminutive and quaint, but complete from bell-tower to cloister; on the other island is the [207]chapel of Santa Maria della Scarpello, containing a portrait of the Madonna said to have been painted by none other than St. Luke.

As we enter the bay of Cattaro, after turning abruptly around the foot of a cliff, the view is one of beauty beyond adequate description. Ahead, at the farther end of the bay, the town of Cattaro clings like a vegetable parasite to the steep base of the majestic mountain. Above it the famous “Ladder,” the trail used by the Montenegrins for five hundred years to descend from their mountain homes to Cattaro on market-days, scales the face of Mount Lovčen (pronounced Lovtchen); higher up, and a little to the right, may be seen the white zig-zags of the wonderful wagon road to Cettinje, the smallest and most inaccessible capital in Europe.

But distance lends enchantment to Cattaro, and the most favourable impressions of the town may be had from the deck of the steamer. Once having set foot on the stone quay the place seems to have lost its individuality, and reminds one of any other town which has huddled itself together under the dominating influences of the Venetians. You might think that the houses had been thrown upon each other in a heap, and when someone wished to move about the town he dug a path between [208]them as he needed it. The streets, if such they may be called, are little more than passageways between the walls of the houses. The hotels are dirty and offer the poorest excuses for accommodations to be found in the Balkans.

On Saturdays the Montenegrins from the mountains climb down the “Ladder” to the market in Cattaro, first being compelled to leave their weapons in the custody of an Austrian official outside the city gates. In the evening they climb wearily back to their homes, with nothing to look forward to but the market on the following Saturday.

Notwithstanding the unattractiveness of the town, there are two very patent reasons for visiting Cattaro. One is, that the delightfulness of the boat trip through the Bocche, with its magnificent scenery, far excels anything of the sort to be had south of Norway or north of the Straits of Magellan, and the other, that the drive over the Black Mountains to Cettinje unveils to the traveller some of the most wonderful views to be had in Europe. Indeed, it is said that the panorama of the Bocche and the Adriatic from the cloud-encircled summit of the mountain cannot be surpassed in the whole world.

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CHAPTER XV

MONTENEGRO

The Gibraltar of the Balkan Peninsula—The Settling of Montenegro—Peter I—The Family of Petrovich—Prince Nikola—The Montenegrin Costume—Incidents of War—The Montenegro of To-day.

A mere niche in the mountain wall of south-eastern Europe, with the blue rollers of the Adriatic pounding relentlessly against its meagre coast line and hemmed in on the remaining three sides by nominal provinces of hostile Turkey, lies Montenegro, the Gibraltar of the Balkan Peninsula. Notwithstanding the fact that it is the smallest of the free Balkan states, its total area covering but three thousand five hundred square miles, half the size of Wales and but three times as large as the state of Rhode Island, with an estimated population less than that of the single city of Buffalo, Montenegro remains as yet unconquered. For five hundred years its handful of patriots have withstood successfully the onslaughts of the hordes of Turks, fighting for every inch of rocky territory that was finally [212]ceded to them by the Powers of Europe in 1878.

The history of Montenegro begins at the time of the Turkish victory over the Servians at Kossovo, June 28, 1389. It is a history of nothing but war because, on account of their surroundings, the Montenegrins have had nothing to do with commerce and the arts of peace. Indeed, it was, and is yet, except in a few fertile valleys, almost a geographical impossibility for them to cultivate the soil, and the Turks, in their ferocious attempts to subjugate the eastern half of Europe, harassed the Montenegrins so continually on all sides that there was little else to think of but war.

To delve briefly into the beginning of things, this Land of the Black Mountain was settled by a dauntless band of Servian refugees who, after the battle of Kossovo, when Tzar Lazar, Emperor of Servia, was defeated by the Turks, preferred liberty in some wild country of their own at any price, rather than live under the domination of the Mohammedans. They fled, accordingly, into the Black Mountains and there commenced the story of the Montenegrins and their strenuous existence. This story has been written in the blood of the Ottoman, but never once during the five hundred years of almost continuous war that [215]followed did Turkey gain a permanent foothold in Montenegro.

Strange to say, even at the present writing, Montenegro does not maintain what would be called in military vernacular a “standing army.” The “regulars” comprise two companies of thirty-two men each, each company taking its turn in guarding the palace and acting in the capacity of secret service sleuths for the Prince. But the spirit of patriotism within the breast of every Montenegrin demands that he stand ready to defend his country to-day, as he has done in the past. Except for those of the guards who peer out from the open doorways of the little peppermint sentry-boxes outside the Prince’s palace, a military uniform is a rare sight in Cettinje, the miniature capital.

In a country like Montenegro, guerilla warfare is the best possible method of defence, and to it the Montenegrins are particularly well adapted. To the mountainous nature of their land is partly due the many decisive victories which they have gained over the Turks, who have sent army after army of from forty thousand to two hundred thousand men against the stubborn little band of fighters. Another point in their favour is the rapidity with which their forces may be mobilized. On one occasion,[216] in 1887, six thousand men were assembled on the Austrian frontier, between eight o’clock in the evening and four the following morning. Doubtless, even to-day, the whole available Montenegrin military force of more than forty-two thousand men might be strung along the frontier within four or five days at the most.

It seems stretching it a point or two to say that eight thousand men would be able under any circumstances to put to flight an army of sixty thousand, but such was the case in 1604 when a comparatively small band of Montenegrins defeated almost seven and one-half times their number of Turks. In 1796, under Peter I, at Kroussa, the Turks received their most crushing defeat. Thirty thousand of them were slain and the Montenegrin leader himself killed Kara Mahmoud, the Turkish general, and spitted his head on his sword. This mountain warrior was of a family which has ruled in the land for two hundred years and was an antecedent of the reigning Prince.

In those days the leader was called a “Vladika,” or Prince-Bishop, who combined both spiritual and temporal power. This Bishop being celibate the office passed from uncle to nephew until 1852 when an absolute principality was established, to be ruled over by [217]hereditary Princes with unconditional autocratic power.

Prince Nikola, the present ruler, the seventh of the family of Petrovich of Njegushi who has governed Montenegro, succeeded to the title in 1860, after the assassination of his unpopular uncle, Danilo II. Nikola is now almost seventy years of age, but tall, erect and deep-chested, and carries his years as becomes the fighter and leader he has been. He received his education in Paris and in Trieste, and is gifted with no ordinary literary talents, having written many poems commemorating the victories of the Montenegrins over the Turks, in addition to two plays, “The Empress of the Balkans” and “Prince Arbanit,” which still enjoy occasional runs behind the kerosene footlights on the exiguous stage of the little theatre in Cettinje. His civil list amounts to but $25,000, and it means a strain on his revenues to supply his two elder sons with $6,000 a year each.

Her Majesty, Queen Helena of Italy, who so endeared herself to the hearts of her subjects at the scenes of the recent earthquake in Sicily, is the most illustrious of Prince Nikola’s nine children. She was born in the palace at Cettinje in 1872 and was brought up in the strictest economy, according to the traditions [218]of the family of Petrovich. She was a girl of “God’s out-of-doors,” and the episodes of her early life taught her the trails of the Black Mountain and whither they led. It is said she could handle a rifle as well as any of her three brothers. She was also a favourite of her relative, Alexander of Russia, and through his liberality was taken to St. Petersburg and educated. The heir to the throne of Italy met her later in Venice, fell ardently in love with her and they were married on October 4, 1896.

When at home the Prince wears his national dress consisting of a small, round cap (kapitza) embroidered in gold on the top with the letters “N. I.”; a long white, or light blue, cloak of broadcloth (dolama or gunj), circled at the waist by a fancy girdle, in the front of which nestles a formidable array of cumbersome firearms; a red waist-coat (jalek); a short, richly embroidered Zouave jacket (jamada); loose, blue knickerbockers (shalwar); sandals (opanka); and carries across his shoulder a dark-coloured plaid shawl with heavy fringe (struka). That he makes himself popular goes without question, for it is said that he knows personally every citizen in Cettinje and will call each by name when the occasion arises.

In 1861-62 Nikola meted out to the invading[221] Turks a noteworthy defeat. Again in 1877-78 he defeated ninety thousand Turks, with a much inferior number of Montenegrins, and drove them from the country, killing and wounding twelve thousand.

Many interesting anecdotes are told of the daring and bravery of the Montenegrins in their struggles to save their country from the covetous grasp of the Mohammedans. Only a band of men driven to desperation in almost inaccessible mountain regions could possibly withstand so many attacks of such overwhelming odds as were hurled against them. In one famous battle at Kristatz a small band of two thousand engaged thirty thousand Turks under Suleiman Pasha, inflicting a loss of three thousand five hundred upon the enemy, while the number of their own dead totalled but seven hundred. On another occasion at Jezero the Montenegrins killed four hundred and eighty Turks, sustaining a loss of but thirty-six killed and wounded.

During this latter engagement a powerful mountaineer of the clan of Paperi, having distinguished himself at the battle of Vucidol by capturing Osman Pasha, the Turkish general, and carrying him to Prince Nikola, being presented with five hundred ducats for his captive, was jokingly bade by the Prince to fetch him [222]another Turk. The hero, however, took the matter seriously and, at an opportune moment, rushed into the Turkish lines, snatched a devout Mohammedan around the waist, disarmed him and started to carry him off toward the rear, where Prince Nikola was watching the fight. In order to arrive at the side of his sovereign he was compelled to make a détour, and before he had covered half the distance he was brought down with a bullet in his thigh. Naturally, he dropped his Ottoman captive, and the latter immediately sprang at his throat. With almost superhuman efforts, in spite of the excruciating pain of his wound, he held off the vengeful Turk with one hand and, aiming his pistol with the other, ordered his adversary to lift him on his back and carry him to the Prince. To disobey meant instant death, for the cold, circular muzzle of a huge weapon was even then so close to his fez that he could plainly see the rifling in the barrel. Stumbling and groaning under the weight of his Montenegrin rider the Turk approached the Prince, while the hills resounded with the cheers of the men of the clan of Paperi. Upon delivering his steed to his leader the soldier fell to the ground senseless from exhaustion and loss of blood.

While this same battle was at its height the [223]Prince approached a mountaineer of more than eighty years of age, who was bravely endeavouring to keep his place among his fellows but with evident difficulty, and suggested to him sympathetically that he was too old to follow the flag and had better withdraw. The veteran, being thus considered by his military idol as unable longer to fight for his country, forthwith drew his pistol and committed suicide.

It was at the siege of Nikshitch that the valorous warrior-priest of the Montenegrins, Pope Milo, challenged any Turk to personal combat between the lines with broadswords. Both armies ceased the fight while the battle-royal was in progress. The Turk, however, proved the better swordsman and killed his antagonist, severing the head from the body. Upon the resumption of hostilities an infuriated Montenegrin revenged the death of Pope Milo by dealing with the same Turk in a similar manner.

Prince Nikola himself was in command at the siege of Nikshitch, in which the Montenegrin women were little less active than the men, for they carried ammunition and food across the mountains and otherwise assisted in the Montenegrin victory. The Prince, reclining upon a rock, over which he had first spread [224]his struka, received the surrender of Scanderbeg and invited the Turkish commander to take coffee with him. Coffee over, he wrote a poem of the siege and forwarded it by messenger to his wife in Cettinje. She read it aloud to the citizens gathered together in the public square.

But fighting as one nation against another has not been the only form of warfare indulged in by the Montenegrins. During the brief intervals of Turkish lethargy blood-feuds between the families of the mountaineers afforded the male members plenty of diversion. They had no cause to complain of monotonous inactivity. A boy might grow to manhood in blissful ignorance that it would be his duty sooner or later to take the life of another, thus avenging the untimely death of one of the members of his own family. Upon the successful accomplishment of his mission, as was usually the case, he, in turn, would be thereafter considered as a target for the weapon of some member of the rival family. Thus the feuds were continuous, imperishable heirlooms handed down from father to son, even unto the third and fourth generation.

By the Treaty of Berlin, Montenegro acquired twenty-five miles of seacoast adjoining Albania; the bulk of her trade, however, continues[227] to come and go through the Dalmatian port of Cattaro, a port upon which these people of the mountains have ever cast a covetous glance, but from which they are shut out by the great rocky barriers of the Dinaric Alps.

Railway building in Montenegro is very difficult, and as yet the principality is without means of transportation other than by wagon train and a few small steamers which ply on the Lake of Scutari. The project is now on foot to build a railway from Antivari, on the coast, to Virbazaar, a short distance inland.

Podgoritza, situated in a part of the territory acquired in 1878, is a town of eleven thousand inhabitants, the largest in Montenegro, and is the centre of trade. Hard by are the ruins of the Roman city of Docle, the birthplace of Diocletian. Excellent tobacco, for which the district is famous, is grown in the vicinity of the great Lake of Scutari, half of which stretches over into Albania. The annual imports of the country are valued at about $1,375,000, while the exports, consisting mainly of tobacco, dried meats, hides and fish, are valued at $1,040,000.

A few years ago the Montenegrins shouted from hill to hill the news of the country, and in these regions the human voice is said to carry exceptionally long distances. The news [228]of the defeat of the Russians at the Alma was “holloed” by the shepherds from mountain to mountain across the Balkan Peninsula, and in a marvellously short time the tidings reached the Dalmatian coast. To-day, telegraph wires are stretched across the Black Mountains, connecting almost all of the towns; the seaport of Antivari boasting even of a Marconi wireless station, which places Montenegro in direct communication with the coast of Italy.

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CHAPTER XVI

THE ROAD TO CETTINJE

The Ascent of the Mountains—Njegushi—The Montenegrin Capital—Historical Monuments in Cettinje—The Return to Cattaro.

It takes nine hours to drive the twenty-eight miles and a quarter across the mountains from Cattaro to Cettinje, the miniature capital of this miniature principality. Because of the time consumed in the drive it does not follow that the going is rough. On the contrary, the road is of the best, for, as far as the Montenegrin frontier, it was built with infinite care by the Austrian government in order to facilitate the passage of troops and field pieces, should the occasion arise. The mountain gorges are bridged with stone arches, their foundations being imbedded in the rocks many feet below the roadway, while along the outer side of the latter stretches a continuous protecting wall of cut rock, cemented, of a yard in height. The road itself is smooth and free from stones, but the white, powdery dust sifts into your hair and through every stitch [230]of your clothing. If Cattaro, the starting-point of the trip across the mountains, were not sealed up in such an out-of-the-way corner of the continent, touring motorists, doubtless, would be more familiar with the topography of Montenegro. As it is, there have been up-to-date but two or three automobiles to cross the face of the mountains on the way to Cettinje, and the distinction of driving these machines lies at the thresholds of Americans.

Upon leaving Cattaro the road skirts the harbour for a short distance, winds around toward the hills through avenues of stately poplars, crosses a little bridge which spans the Gordicchio, makes several zig-zags, and then sweeps widely toward the south—you really seem to be driving away from the mountain which you must scale later—in full view of the Adriatic, while the bay, or Bocche di Cattaro, is lost to view behind you. At the top of the pass leading to the town of Budua, the outlook over the broad, fertile plain of Garbalj, with the sea in the distance, is very impressive. For a short distance the highway, as it winds around the face of the cliff, literally overhangs the plain and then turns abruptly toward the Black Mountain. In the distance the white, zig-zagging road, surmounting the almost perpendicular wall of rock ahead, looks [233]like a thread on the shoulder of a giant, and causes you to wonder that it took no more than twenty years to build.

This being the shortest and easiest route for trade between the outside world and the Montenegrin capital, quantities of provisions, household furniture, lumber and other materials for building purposes, and what not are freighted by four, five and six-horse teams over these twenty-eight miles of mountains, from Cattaro to Cettinje. There is also a passenger stage that operates daily between the two towns.

We had passed the little stone half-way house, which is stuck on the face of the rock at one of the very acute angles of the winding road overlooking the Bocche, when we came upon one of these freight caravans plugging laboriously along, with the hope of making Cettinje sometime the following day. One of the wagons was loaded with kegs of beer, and it was all too evident that the several treacherous looking drivers in the party had been indulging their thirst from time to time, to the appreciable loss to the person to whom the kegs were consigned. As we approached, our driver stopped his nondescript team and had a few confiding words with the freighters. Together they succeeded in puncturing one of [234]the kegs with a long wire nail; then a horse bucket was cut from its swinging position under one of the wagons. This was rinsed out with a goodly supply of beer tapped from the punctured cask, and refilled, to moisten the already well-lubricated throats of all concerned. How many full casks reached their destination after several days spent on the road would make a nice problem for a class in algebra. If the freighters met many drivers as thirsty as ours it is a question whether or not it would have been best for them to have appeared in Cettinje at all.

At each successive turn of the road a more wonderful panorama of the Bocche stretches out before you, and, after more than three hours of steady climbing, the pass at the top of the mountains is reached, and you cross the frontier, marked by a single stone post at the side of the roadway.

The view of the Montenegrin side of the mountains can only be described as purely “Montenegrin.” The Bocche is, of course, lost to view and you have before you nothing but what seems to be a gigantic upheaval of rocks. Not a tree, not a shrub, not even a dust-covered sprout at the side of the road, relieves the sameness of this picture of gray desolation. Perhaps, if you look closely, you [237]will partly be able to distinguish, less than a hundred yards away, a native mountaineer whose very garb is of protective colouring, concealing him almost entirely from your notice against the background of bare stones.

From the top of the mountain the road descends to the village of Njegushi, the birthplace of His Ferocity, Prince Nikola. But were it not for the red-tiled roofs there would be, from a distance, no circumstantial evidence whatever that the town exists, for the houses are all of stone of the same hue as the surrounding mountains.

While you sup on the stone porch of the little inn at Njegushi, handsome, well-built members of the male population stroll by indifferently, smoking and chatting in subdued tones and gazing dreamily at their beloved mountains. From every girdle protrude the muzzles of a number of well-oiled, ominous-looking firearms. Groups of women stumble by; some struggling under their loads of water casks strapped upon their backs, others driving small herds of goats and having all manner of difficulty in keeping them together.

Yes, the women are ultra-suffragettes in Montenegro, not by choice but by custom. They do all the housework, tend the flocks, cultivate the little patches of corn or wheat and, [238]in addition, bring up the family. On market-days they go to Cattaro or Cettinje and do their best to dispose of a meagre assortment of vegetable truck, returning home late at night, weary and sore. They age early, as might be expected; a Montenegrin woman of forty looks to be double that age. Not a finger will a man raise to ease the burden of his wife; for such is the lot of a woman born in the Land of the Black Mountain.

From the hills above Njegushi you may look down into small, crater-like pits, each held intact by a low stone wall. These pits constitute the truck farms of Montenegro, and into them the rain washes all the vegetable earth from the mountain sides, forming in them an alluvial stratum.

After leaving Njegushi you ascend to the pass of Kruacko Zdrjelo, and, at this point, another wonderful view unfolds itself. Away to the south, the great lake of Scutari is plainly visible; in the west, the famous Mount Lovčen rears its rocky self, with the little chapel, in which lies buried the body of Peter II, the last of the Prince-Bishops and Montenegro’s greatest poet, perched upon its crest.

Doubtless, night will by this time have spread its black mantle over the hills, leaving the remainder of the drive to be made in the [239]darkness. Down—down—down—as much down as the Austrian side of the mountain was up, until finally, you overlook the beautiful valley of Cettinje, and the blinking kerosene lamps of the capital. In half an hour you will be driving at a gallop through its deserted streets, and rein up at last in front of the Grand Hotel, obviously the most aristocratic and up-to-date hostelry, for it is the only one in the town. The head-waiter, in dress suit, will welcome you at the door, inquire whether you have had supper and show you politely to your rooms, which you will find rather bare but scrupulously clean.

Thirty years ago Cettinje was a mere handful of thatched cottages scattered over a small space in the valley and approached only by mountain trails. To-day it has a population of five or six thousand, it is the seat of the newly constituted Parliament and a diplomatic post for the ministers of the European Powers.

There are but few historical monuments in Cettinje, and of these the principal ones are the old palace of the Prince, and the monastery with its chapel and quaint cloister, the latter built against the base of a great cliff and shaded by the spreading boughs of shapely trees. The main street of the town is wide and [240]clean, flanked on either side by a uniform line of stone dwellings, which is broken only by the postoffice building and an occasional shop.

As in Njegushi, the men, all heavily armed, strut along the streets and allow the women-folk to conduct what business may be found in the stores or in the market. At the rear of the hotel a rather barren-looking square to deserve the nomenclature of “park” faces the palace of the Crown Prince. Near the centre of the town stands the palace of Prince Nikola, a comparatively small and a most unimposing structure to house the chief executive of a nation. Directly across the street from it is his former residence, in which is installed the only billiard table in Montenegro.

The most elaborate example of architecture in the capital is the home of the Russian diplomatic representatives, probably so built to impress the Montenegrins with the power of their cousins in the north. In the centre of the market square the female figure which surmounts the public fountain, the sole specimen of native sculpture in Cettinje, balances, at an uncertain angle, upon her head a dilapidated coal-oil lamp, which seems in imminent danger of being dashed upon the heads of the thirsty peasants below.

The body of Peter I reposes peacefully, [243]after his many years of active leadership, in its sarcophagus in the little chapel of the monastery, while at the opposite end of the village a small arsenal contains the sum total of Montenegrin pieces of ordnance. One room is devoted to the trophies of war taken from the Turks, including swords, bullet-riddled flags and standards, Turkish field pieces and personal insignia.

A prolonged stay is not necessary to see all there is to be seen in the miniature capital, three or four days being quite sufficient. On the height of the first ascent after leaving the town a glorious view of the valley below, all divided off into the little stone-encircled fields, may be had. As you journey on, you may pass a group or two of gypsies or a hermit-peasant who hobbles out of his thatched hut to beg a handful of tobacco. At last you break through the pass at the top of the mountains in full view of the Bocche di Cattaro.

A diminutive white steamer leaving the molo of the town almost directly under you, moves slowly toward the narrow exit to the Adriatic, its propellers churning a fan-shaped wake of foam which loses itself finally in the broad expanse of placid water.

The sunset from the heights, as it illumines the lower mountain ranges with an old-rose [244]sheen and diffuses its tinted rays across the Bocche and the broad Adriatic beyond, is gorgeous enough to baffle description. A painter who could picture truthfully that evening panorama might well consider it his masterpiece. The silence of the mountains is unbroken, save for the melancholy pipings of a lone shepherd boy hidden somewhere among the rocks in the distance. The silence of the sky and the silence of the rock-walled Bocche “mingle in an awful spell that falls upon the soul like the lonesomeness of the grave. There is something of death in life and of life in death in the grim inevitableness of this silence, so changeless and yet so vital.” The sunset above and the yawning cañon-like pit below “grip the soul and draw it to a communion with something strong outside itself—something that escapes definition and analysis; something that the ancient people meant when they said that they walked with God.”

For a long time you will stop and drink in eagerly the splendour of the scene, and then, reluctantly, yet as if influenced by the magnetism of the abyss, commence to descend the windings, one after another, back to the quaint little Dalmatian port of Cattaro.

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CHAPTER XVII

SPALATO AND SALONA

Westward Along the Coast—First Glimpse of Spalato—The Campanile—Diocletian’s Palace—Salona and Her Ruins.

The full glow of the morning sunlight gleamed and danced upon the brass-work of the little steamer Petka as the stevedores finished their loading of her freight from the dock at Cattaro and the last assortment of passengers had wobbled noisily up the gangway.

It was exactly ten o’clock when the lines were cast off and the ship steamed slowly ahead, turning on her course to gain the Adriatic. She circled about almost at the very edge of the shore line, for there is no semblance of a beach and the deep water extends to the bases of the mighty cliffs that surround the harbour, until Cattaro in the distance put one in mind of a collection of Noah’s Ark houses. The waters were calm and smooth as the surface of a mirror, and held quiescent and in perfect outline the reflections of the rugged mountains.

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Once the Petka had negotiated the many consecutive mouths of the Bocche and had finally passed the grim walls of the fortresses on Punta d’Ostro, close on the starboard, she set her course almost due west with her ultimate destination Fiume, her home port; but she was due to call en voyage at almost all of the towns along the coast.

Her main deck was an odd and interesting sight. It was crowded, so crowded that one could see scarcely one square inch of planking, with a rare galaxy of Montenegrins, Cattarines, Albanians, Greeks and Austrian soldiers, each garbed in some bit of costume that made his or her nationality unmistakable. All sprawled about in the sun, smoking or sleeping, their heads and shoulders entwined about their luggage and their legs aimed across the deck like the tails of so many comets.

Above the upper deck, reserved for first-class passengers, white awnings had been stretched, and under these we followed the examples of the natives on board, to a certain extent, to enjoy the beauties of the land-locked passage, through which the ship set her course after leaving Gravosa.

Here on deck, lunch was served at noon and dinner in the evening, each meal an elaborate affair with wine, and composed of some of the [249]most palatable dishes to be had anywhere in Europe. Seven constitutes the usual number of courses served at dinner on board any of these Adriatic coasters, and lunch is hardly less voluminous: hors-d’œuvres, of course; soup; fish; a sort of cold fish salad with mayonnaise; spring lamb and delicious vegetables; game of some description; salad; and dessert.

And just to offer one more probative demonstration of how puny the world really is, the chief officer of the Petka had been for many years in the service of a trans-Pacific steamship company, and, during that time, had lived in Santa Clara, California. There his three children had been born, and their father assisted in their education by teaching each one to speak five languages in addition to English.

Almost the entire distance from Gravosa to Fiume the course of the steamers lies along an inland passage protected from the sea-swells of the Adriatic by hundreds of islands, some large and some small, but all of a considerable height, while, from the shores of the mainland, the mountains rise with such apparent verticality that it would seem a simple matter to stand at any point along the top and drop a plumb line to the water below. No matter what moment you might gaze up [250]or down the coast or seaward you would be able to see from five to thirty-five islands, without half trying. The water is all of such great depth, even to the edge of the coast, that it is said a vessel might pass safely between two protruding rocks situated so close together as to barely admit of the ship’s passage. The conspicuous absence of lights to warn the mariner at night makes navigation seem difficult and dangerous, but the pilots know the channels as they know their rosaries. Neither are the ships supplied with searchlights to facilitate the picking out of the few buoys that mark the channels farther along. One or two of the particularly narrow places of the course, however, are marked by miniature light-houses, not more than ten feet in height, which stick up from the water to indicate the base of a wall of rock as it juts out into the blackness of the night.

About fifty miles from Ragusa, in the narrow channel which divides the Sabbioncello Peninsula from the island of Curzola, a famous sea battle between the Venetians and the Genoese took place. This affray was won by the latter, who captured the distinguished Venetian navigator, Marco Polo, he having just returned from a cruise in the China Seas. Polo was taken to Genoa and placed in a dungeon,[251] where he laboured over the manuscript of his widely read book of travels. Doge Dandolo, the Venetian ruler and the admiral of the fleet, was also captured and borne away a prisoner of war by the Genoese, but while en route he dashed out his brains against the bulwarks of the galley upon which he was confined.

Just south of Spalato, twenty hours’ ride from Cattaro by this slow steamer, you will pass the island of Solta, where is gathered the honey, world-famed for its excellence, sucked from the blooms of the rosemary and the cistus rose.

The object that will first attract your attention upon entering the harbour of Spalato is the tall campanile, always in repair, and around which the hideous scaffolding has been allowed to remain since 1882, and it will probably remain for some time to come; for the repairs to the tower are so slow in progressing that as soon as one job is finished another presents itself. The building of this campanile was begun by Maria of Hungary about 1300, but her death in 1323 caused an interruption to the work. It was not again taken up until 1360, when Elizabeth the Elder, sent by her son Lewis of Hungary to govern Dalmatia, ordered that the work be carried [252]out under the supervision of the Spalatine architect, Nicolas Tverdoj. The tower was completed in 1416, but it was not so substantially built as it might have been—for we are told that the subtle art of “graft” had made itself felt in Dalmatia even at that date—and as early as 1472 an architect, Nicolo Fiorentino, commenced the repairs which have continued to this day and which, from all appearances, promise to continue until the campanile is a ruin.

From the top of the scaffold, after a somewhat tiresome climb, one can obtain a comprehensive and beautiful panoramic view of Spalato, where lived and died the composer Von Suppe, and also of the harbour.

Aside from the quaintly dressed Dalmatian fisher folk, who patch and re-patch the variegated sails of their tiny craft along the stone quay, the town is interesting from the fact that it contains the best example of Roman domestic architecture to be found anywhere in the world, not excepting the magnificent ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The subject of this rather broad, but nevertheless true, statement is the old palace built by Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century, and in which the Roman ex-Emperor took up his abode after his abdication and [255]where he lived until his death in 313, a. d. Its building marked the date of a new departure in architecture; a departure which ended in the development of the Byzantine and the Romanesque art of modern Europe, they having been inaugurated by modifying the rules of the ancients.

To this favoured spot on the coast near the then powerful Illyrian metropolis of Salona came Diocletian, and here he built his imperial villa, where he hoped to live peacefully for the remainder of his days. And what a wonderful villa it must have been!

Its walls were from five hundred and seventy to seven hundred feet in length, fifty feet in height, and encompassed nine and one-half acres of ground. The eminent English architect, Adam, who, in 1757, accomplished the difficult and arduous task of plotting the first plans of the ruined palace on paper with no previous mathematical data to guide him, said that it was “a climax in architecture.” So much of its original splendour did it retain that the imperial Roman historian avowed that “it surpassed even in its ruin all powers of description;” and that was more than six centuries after Diocletian’s death.

On the south side, facing the sea, the walls were seventy feet in height, because of the [256]sloping of the land. The outline of this stone-work was broken by a grand total of sixteen towers, only four of which, those on the corners, were higher—and that only by a few feet—than the walls themselves. There were four entrance gates to the palace and three of these can still be distinguished.

If you could have entered the north gate of the palace at a time when its builder and owner was ripening in years within its precincts, you would have looked down on a street thirty-six feet in width. On either side, graceful stone arcades dwindled into the perspective and at the farther end of the street the view was interrupted by the massive portico and dome of the vestibule to the imperial residence. At a point three hundred feet south of this gate, where you would have stood, the lines of arcades were exchanged for the beautiful columns of a peristyle, on either side of which were enclosed courts, that to the right containing the temple of Æsculapius and that to the left, the temple of Jupiter.

Near the peristyle, a street, also fringed with arcades, crossed from west to east, having its termini at the Porta Ferrea and the Porta Ænea respectively. To the south of the vestibule the nave of the palace, ninety-eight feet long and forty-five feet wide, lined with rows [257]of columns and an aisle fourteen feet in width on either side, extended from west to east. Mosaics and multi-coloured marbles made up the decorations of the interior of the apartments, and the beauty of the courts was enhanced by the flowers and plants of this latitude.

From the peristyle, the columns of which were of Cipallino and rose-coloured granite, flights of steps led to the temples at the sides. The Temple of Jupiter, which originally stood apart in a walled court having the peristyle as a screen in front, was built by Diocletian as a prospective tomb in which he intended his body to be placed after death, but now the building serves as the Duomo of Spalato. Originally it had a projecting portico of its own in front, but this has been replaced by the campanile of the Duomo. The other of the two temples, that of Æsculapius, does duty to-day as the city’s baptistry.

Much of the walls of the palace remain to-day, and shut in the old town of Spalato built within the enclosure by the refugees from Salona. Outside of these moss-grown, inarticulate historians of Roman occupation you will find modern European dwellings, school-houses and shady little parks, and at places [258]even on the top of the walls some sacrilegious Spalatines have built their more humble abodes. The peristyle of the famous palace now forms the town square.

After you have made many conjectures as to what a residence the palace of Diocletian must have been, and what scenes were pictured there in the days when its builder made it his home, you will walk outside the walls of the old city, which you must do in order to find a carriage, for horses are not permitted within the gates on account of the narrowness of the streets, and bargain with a cocher to take you to Salona.

On the way you will pass a wonderful ruined aqueduct, which Diocletian built to supply his palace with water from the hills, and which has now been restored to the same use by the modern Spalatines. The road first rises to the top of a ridge and then stretches across the valley of the Riviera dei Castelli which extends from Salona to Traü, the ancient Tragurium of the Romans, famed for its marble, and colonized originally in 380, B.C., by Syracusan Greeks from the island of Lissa. The road is so dusty that the vegetation growing along the side is completely covered with the fine white powder; but the drive is not long and your visit to [261]Salona will be sure to repay you fully for any slight discomforts endured on the way.

Salona is situated among the foot-hills of the Cabani Mountains on the shores of an inland sea which is shut off from the Adriatic by the island of Bua. That information-breathing emperor and historian, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, said that Salona was at one time half as large as Constantinople. But no matter whether it were large or small it is worthy of a brief description for, if I may make use of a rather inelegant expression in order to better convey to the reader some idea of its antiquity, “Salona was Salona when Spalato was a pup.”

Founded by Illyrian fugitives from the capital, Delminium, after the latter’s destruction by the Romans during the second Dalmatian war, Salona was taken in 117 b. c. by Cæcilius Metellus and made a Roman colony. The city was long and narrow and divided into halves by a sort of diaphragm wall, in the middle point of which was an arched portal called Cæsar’s Gate. Through the central arch of this gate the Roman chariots passed and, although the arches themselves have tumbled you may, as in Pompeii, still see the grooves and ruts in the stone pavement worn deep by the passage of many wheels. A smaller arch [262]on either side allowed for the accommodation of pedestrians. The large Christian basilica, partly excavated in 1880, was demolished in 639 during the final destruction of the city by the Avars. A circular baptistry, with its columned portico facing the south and which marked the entrance, stood within the walls in the eastern part of the city. In the centre of this building, under the dome and sunk in the floor, was a marble fount for baptism by immersion, and from its level arose a complete circle of marble steps; at the top, an aisle with columns on either side passed around the interior of the building.

At the western end of the city can be seen the ruins of the large amphitheatre, and it is probable that this was the only building which survived the devastating fire of the Avars. At different points along the circuit of the walls, which had been battered down time and again and repaired as often, stood no less than eighty-eight towers, having been constructed to reinforce the stone-work. The remains of forty-three of these towers are plainly visible. By scraping away the dust with the toe of your shoe, ornate examples of mosaic decorations can still be distinguished on the floors over which the buildings stood, and some of the Roman sweat-baths have been preserved [265]almost intact; the ancient methods of producing their heated vapours may be solved easily. At one point within the walls was discovered a trench holding fourteen sarcophagi lying end to end in a long row. Of these several have been transferred to the museums. When found, all had been opened and it was impossible to distinguish to whom they belonged, because only two bore inscriptions, one Christian and one Pagan.

On a slight hill back of the ruined city stands the little stone house of the care-taker, embellished with cut-stone work from the buildings of old Salona. In the garden, at the rear, a Roman pergola has been restored in its entirety and over it climbs a rose-vine covered with blooming red ramblers—an attractive modern adaptation of an ancient Roman decorative feature.

Immediately after the fall of Salona in 639 the inhabitants sought refuge on some of the neighbouring islands; then, under the leadership of Severus, they descended upon Spalato and encamped within the walls of Diocletian’s palace, finally erecting buildings and more substantial dwellings, which accounts for the material change of the interior aspect of the palace. For the very good reason that nine and one-half acres was rather a small area to [266]accommodate any great number of people, the town of Spalato soon spread outside of its original walls. It was visited by the great Venetian expedition under Pietro Orseola II in 998, and was compelled to take the oath of allegiance. Internal religious controversies occurred from this time on, until the murderous Tartars, in pursuit of King Bela in 1241, sacked the town and put to death all whom they found in their path. But Spalato arose bravely from the blight of her misfortunes, and in 1327 revolted against Venice, was absorbed by Hungary and, thirty years later, revolted against the latter.

Notwithstanding the changes it has undergone, Diocletian’s palace has been handed down to us, and still holds its place as the most magnificent specimen of the domestic architecture of the Romans. And, strangely enough, its Temple of Jupiter has, for fourteen centuries, served as the Spalatine house of worship of the Christian religion, that religion which the builder of this same temple tried so hard to obliterate.

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CHAPTER XVIII

ZARA

From Spalato to Zara—Chief Objects of Interest in the Capital of Dalmatia—The Story of St. Simeon—The Five Fountains—Fragments of Roman Occupation.

It was twelve o’clock of a soft summer night when the sharp, hooded prow of the Graf Wurmbrand backed away from the molo at Spalato, swung around in the darkness and headed out into the black beyond, on her five hour run along the coast to Zara. Her cabins and after decks were ablaze with electric bulbs, but forward of the bridge all was inky darkness, for the pilot of this, the fastest boat of the Adriatic coast service, took the matter more seriously than the passengers and allowed no glare to dim the sharpness of his vision while his charge sped northward between the islands, responding gracefully to the twirl of the wheel.

When our eyes had become accustomed to peering out into the darkness, for it is almost as beautiful to ride at night through these channels as it is in the daytime and for [270]that reason we eschewed our berths, those of us who had remained on deck could distinguish, as we passed, the silhouette of the island of Kraglievaz, or King’s Seat, upon which Bela IV secluded himself from the pursuit of the Tartars. Then we plowed through a veritable shoal of islands and passed an isolated rock, formerly crowned by the Benedictine monastery of St. Arcangelo. Farther along, near the famous headland of La Planca (the Promontorium Diomedis of the Romans), we passed a little chapel, built by a thankful mariner who, while sailing up the coast with a cargo of Malvasia wine, suffered shipwreck on the rocks and made ingenious use of his cargo to mix the mortar with which to bind the stones of this little monument of appreciation of his rescue.

At this point we also crossed an arm of the open sea, and then sped on between the island of Zlarin and the mainland. Beyond Zlarin lies the town of Sebenico, founded by pirates who, from their caves in the surrounding mountains, scanned the sea for ships. Waxing in boldness they founded a colony on the shore, which they surrounded with a fortification or palisade. From the Croatian name for “palisade” (“Sibne”) is derived the name of the town, Sebenico.

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At daybreak, had there been in the distance a few scattered palm trees and a stretch of sandy beach, we might easily have imagined ourselves in equatorial latitudes. The rays of the sun tinted the mainland and the islands in hues of saffron; there was scarcely a ripple on the deep turquoise-coloured water. We steamed up through the Canal di Zara, a channel three miles in width, between the mainland and the mountainous island of Ugliano, and at five in the morning the lines of the Graf Wurmbrand were made fast to the molo at Zara.

This old town was the ancient Jadera, even then in allegiance with Rome, where a Roman colony was established in 78 b. c. Many years later it was brought under the powerful yoke of the Venetians and numerous fragments of both periods still remain. The Zara of to-day is world famous for being the home of the maraschino industry, the delicious cordial distilled from the juice of the wild cherries which grow in abundance on the slopes of the neighbouring limestone hills, and you have never tasted real maraschino if you haven’t tapped the till in Zara.

In the evenings, the esplanade along the stone quay, which skirts the harbour, is alive with promenading Dalmatians of all classes, [272]while one of the best military bands to be heard in a week’s travel plays inimitable music at the shore end of the molo. Except for the dearth of tourists and the absence of the incessantly gliding gondolas the water front at Zara almost resembles a scene along the Grand Canal in Venice.

The chief objects of interest in Zara seemed to be ourselves, and I do not remember ever having been stared at more than here in the capital of Dalmatia and barely off the beaten track of English-speaking travellers. The townspeople ran into each other, not to mention lamp-posts and stone walls, in their attempts to satisfy their curiosity. While we ate in the pretty little open-air café of the hotel the waiters stood around with their mouths open, their eyes as large as billiard balls, and the groups of Austrian army officers allowed their food to grow cold and their beer to become flat as they watched, none too furtively, our every move.

But there are many things to see in Zara, of which the natives seem to take little account when there happens to be a stranger in town. One of these objects worthy of inspection is the body of St. Simeon, the patron saint of the town, and the story of how he came into office (shall I say?) is interesting, and rather unique.

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Sometime during the thirteenth century, the exact date is unknown, a caravel put into the port of Zara after a helpless battle with wind and wave on the Adriatic. On board was a nobleman returning from the Crusades, who asked that he might deposit in the cemetery the body of his brother which he had hoped to convey to his home for burial. While his ship was undergoing repairs the nobleman himself fell ill and died. Upon examining his documents it was discovered that the body of the alleged “brother” was that of none other than St. Simeon, the prophet who had held the infant Christ in his arms. The people of Zara, having come unexpectedly into the possession of so precious a relic, exhibited the body in the collegiate church of St. Maria, where it proved its sanctity by working miracles, and its fame quickly spread throughout the country.

For some years the body was allowed to remain in the church for the want of an appropriate shrine in which it might be preserved. In 1371 Lewis of Hungary, accompanied by his mother and Elizabeth, his wife, came on a visit to Zara. After viewing the saintly body of Simeon, Elizabeth, desiring to take with her some memento of the wonder-worker, broke a finger from one of the hands and hid it in her bosom. For this sacrilege St. Simeon [276]punished her by striking her blind on the spot, caused her hand, the one with which she had taken the finger, to wither, and caused her breast, where she had hid the relic, to mortify. Frantic with the sudden loss of her sight, Elizabeth tried to flee from the church but was unable to find the door. She groped her way back to the casket, fell upon her knees and replaced the stolen finger, which immediately united itself to the proper hand, the Queen’s sight being restored the same moment. Again Elizabeth implored the forgiveness of the Saint and promised to present him with a silver casket in which his body might repose more comfortably than she thought it did in its wooden resting place. The story goes that this promise so reconciled the prophet that Elizabeth’s breast was healed forthwith and her withered hand was made whole.

When the Queen returned to her home she communicated with certain nobles in Zara with regard to the casket, and in 1377 her agents commissioned one Francesco d’Antonio di Milano, a goldsmith, to proceed with the work. By the time he had completed his task, three years later, he had used nearly a thousand pounds of silver metal, and he received twenty-eight thousand ducats as pay from Elizabeth.

Nearly two hundred years passed before any [277]attempt was made to raise funds for the erection of a suitable temple in which to place permanently the silver sarcophagus containing the body of so famous a saint; money was slow in coming in, and in 1600, after the façade of the building was half finished, the work was abandoned.

In 1543 the old church of St. Maria was demolished to make room for new fortifications. The silver casket was then given to the nuns for safe-keeping, while the body of the Saint had been transferred to its original ark of cypress wood and left in a little chapel near by.

At length Archbishop Garzadori proposed that the body be replaced in the silver casket and taken to the church of St. Stefano which stood in the immediate vicinity. About this time an outbreak of the plague tended to remind the superstitious of their neglect of the body of St. Simeon and a new chancel was hurriedly placed in the church, the silver ark, which had been found stained and tarnished in the nunnery, was repaired by a goldsmith of the name of Benedetto Libani, and on May 16th, 1632, the translation of the body took place amid public rejoicing. Since that date St. Simeon has reigned as the patron saint of Zara.

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Among the historical landmarks in the town of Zara, the Cinque Pozzi, or Five Fountains, constitute one of the most prominent. They stand in a row in front of a broad flight of stone steps, which lead up to a shady park overlooking the docks and part of the city. These fountains are more like cisterns and from them the poorer inhabitants still draw their water, carrying it away in great jars upon their heads. They were designed by Sammichieli, an architect of Verona, and built in 1574. To them the water is conducted from sources outside the city, first passing through a rather elaborate system of subterranean filtration. An architect living in Zara has in his possession a copy of a plan of these filters as designed by Sammichieli himself.

Included in the manifestations of the Roman occupancy of Zara are the fragments of an ancient temple dedicated to Juno Augusta, the consort of Emperor Augustus. These fragments had been built into the old church of St. Donato, erected in the ninth century.

And you will be loth to leave Zara, for at every turn you discover something that seems to be more interesting than that which you saw before. The streets are clean and although the rays of the sun are uncomfortably hot, the narrow thoroughfares are always shady and [281]invite you to wander aimlessly up and down, lingering here and there before the shop windows. In the evening, while the band plays, the scene along the quay is one of gayety, and you will be inspired to make the resolution, that, if ever again you happen along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, Zara will be sure to receive from you a more lengthy visit.

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CHAPTER XIX

THE GULF OF QUARNERO

The Home of the Bora—Fiume—Abbazia—The Home of the Torpedo—Descendants of the Uscocs.

In summer or fall it is a pleasant boat trip of six hours from Zara to Fiume, which is prettily situated at the north-eastern end of the Gulf of Quarnero. But in the winter and early spring, at which seasons the “Bora,” or north-east wind, is prevalent, keep an eye on the barometer! It is at this north-eastern end of the Gulf, in the mountains back of Fiume, that this dreaded wind is born. Accumulating velocity with every blast, it sweeps down upon the sea with relentless fury, carrying everything before it, overturning carts, upsetting horses in the streets and putting a quietus, for the time being, on all navigation within range.

The western channels and the western slopes of the islands are better protected from the destructive gusts of the “Bora,” but the channels nearest to the Croatian coast are swept by its full fury. Along the eastern shores of these [283]channels the soil is rendered as sterile as the sands of the desert, for the wind cuts the spray from the surface of the water and carries it inland in great clouds, completely obscuring the shore line from the sea, and destroying the tender sprouts of early cereals by depositing upon them the injurious salty sediment. In 1873, while a train was rounding one of the many curves on the line from Agram to Fiume, the “Bora” came up suddenly and blew it from the rails.

The little town of Segna seems to suffer the most from this wind; at any rate many of the stories of the extraordinary violence with which it blows originated there. Some historians tell us that in Segna during the raging of a “Bora” it is unsafe to venture out-of-doors; that it lifts weak or aged adults and little children from the ground and dashes them against the walls of the houses; that those who are obliged to go to the basin where the ships lie must crawl snake-like on the ground to avoid being picked off their feet and hurled into the sea. It is a common occurrence for horses heavily loaded to be thrown down in the market-place of Segna, and although the roofs of all houses are weighted with stones they are often lifted and carried away.

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“But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good” and, therefore, the “Bora” was hardly considered wholly unwelcome by the pirates, the Uscocs, who once infested the islands of the bay, finding their safety in the dangers of navigation thereabouts which deterred better ships but less able seamen from hunting them down and sinking their puny craft.

Strangely incongruous with its soporific atmosphere is the bustle and business of Fiume. Finally united to Hungary in 1870, Fiume has grown from a mere seaport town to a thriving manufacturing and shipping city of thirty-nine thousand inhabitants. To-day it is in the class with the Austrian city of Trieste, on the opposite side of the Istrian Peninsula; one of the most cosmopolitan ports in the world. The scene along the docks is interesting, for Fiume is the home port of fleets of coasters which ply up and down the Adriatic, of great steel cargo and passenger ships making scheduled sailings to the Levant, to the coasts of Africa, to the Straits Settlements and the Far East, to North and South America.

A few miles to the west of Fiume, nestling snugly on the edge of the bay at the foot of massive Mount Maggiore, lies a fashionable little sea-side resort, patronized by the upper crust of Austrian aristocracy, Abbazia. Here, [287]under the trees or on the porch of the Casino, the élite of the land sips its liquor and smokes its slender cigarettes while the military band interprets the latest Viennese musical success.

And almost within an arm’s reach of Abbazia, just a few yards off in the bay, is one end of the target range of an ever-busy manufacturing plant, whose product has tended more to evolutionize warfare than any device ever invented, the Whitehead torpedo factory. On this range the great fish-like instruments of destruction are tested thoroughly, their parts adjusted and tested again, to assure their deadliness, before shipment to the arsenals of the powers supplied. At one end of the range is the firing station, and in a long line, stretching away toward Abbazia, are the several floating targets, each manned by a signalman with a red flag, under the centres of which the torpedoes must eventually be made to dart before they are ready for delivery. Industrious little power boats shoot up and down the bay collecting the “dead” torpedoes, which, having spent their energy, turn finally from their course and splash about on the surface of the water like wounded porpoises, to tow them back to the launching station for an adjustment of their parts.

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What if a torpedo would come to the surface prematurely and hit one of the targets? Some do, and rip great holes in the wooden decks, causing the signalmen to execute some nimble acrobatics, but there is never any danger from explosion, because the “war-heads” of the torpedoes have not yet been put in place; all they carry are the steering-gears and the little compressed air engine. Once in a while, owing to a serious defect in the steering-gear, one will run amuck a few seconds after it has been discharged. Then is the time for the launches to be on the qui vive, for there is no telling what direction the torpedo will take. One of them once made a bee-line for the stone wall which skirts the bay in front of the factory. Like a leaping salmon it mounted this at one bound, bounced along the top for a few yards, demolishing stone-work and making the wall appear as if it had been struck by a thirteen-inch shell, and then plunged into the bay, tearing around this way and that until it made its final death-leap and lay peacefully upon the surface of the water. Then, like a naughty but remorseful boy, it was towed back and given a good spanking in the form of an overhauling of its parts.

In the city of Fiume there are many types—Croatians, Austrian army and navy officers, [289]Italians, Dalmatians, Germans, Englishmen—and all work hard accumulating fortunes, large or small as the case may be; but those who seem to be amassing the largest private estates in proportion to their labours, if one may judge from their daily net receipts, are the piratical porters of the town, who swoop down from all points of the compass upon the unsuspecting traveller. It is safe to say that these are the lineal descendants of the Uscocs of old, having only adopted more modern methods of piracy than those employed by their ancestors,—for from whom else might they have inherited their predatory proclivities? These must have been handed down from father to son, for they are too well developed to admit of mere accidental discovery. Every time one of these porters looks at your luggage he commits petty larceny, in thought, if not in deed. The charge for carrying a small grip from the dock to the hotel, a distance of a hundred feet, may be any amount from the equivalent of twenty-five cents up, and the wise traveller is gulled but once. Some one tried to explain to me why the Fiume porters were allowed to charge any amount they pleased, but it seemed a very unsatisfactory excuse. Suffice it to say that the price demanded for carrying one grip is one krone, with one, two or three [290]kronen added, according to the nationality of the patron. For example: to carry one grip for an Austrian, one krone; for a German, two kronen; for an Englishman, three kronen; for an American, four kronen. It seems that the farther away one lives the more it costs one to have one’s baggage transferred in Fiume. A Chinaman with two grips would go bankrupt in this town in no time.

With a farewell salute to Fiume and her activity, manufacturing, shipping and piratical, we sailed out across the waters of the harbour of this, the western sea-gate to the Balkan Peninsula, homeward bound.

After having wandered over this virgin touring territory, a territory with a future as well as with an eventful past, a territory of big things in war and in peace; after having revelled in its type-pictures and its remarkable scenery, mingled with its unsophisticated peoples and marvelled at its history and its struggles for mere existence, we were struck with thoughts, as we came suddenly from the land of simplicity upon the preying porters of Fiume, at once akin to and conflicting with those of a certain author, who, in an early book of travel, concludes the narration of an experience as follows:

“After having walked eleven hours without having traced the print of a human foot, to my great comfort and delight, I saw a man hanging upon a gibbet; my pleasure at the cheering prospect was inexpressible, for it convinced me that I was in a civilized country.”

THE END.

[293]

INDEX

• Abbazia, 284.
• Alexander, King. See Obrenovitch.
• Alexander, Prince, of Bulgaria, 121.
• Alexander, the successor of Philip, 113.
• Assen I, 117.
• Assen II, 117.
• Assenide Dynasty, The, 117.
• Belgrade, 21.
• Belgrade, Market Day in, 34.
• Black Death, The, 188.
• Bocche di Cattaro, The, 202.
• Bora, The, 282.
• Boris, Tzar, 117.
• Bosnia, Comparison of conditions in, 145.
• Bosnia, Railway travel in, 149.
• Brod, 145.
• Buda-Pesth, 12.
• Bulgari, The, 113.
• Bulgaria, Conversion of, to Christianity, 117.
• Bulgaria, Emancipation of, 118.
• Bulgaria, History of, 111.
• Bulgaria, Progress of, 112.
• Bulgaria, Turkish atrocities in, 118.
• [294]
• Bulgarian, The, uprising of 1908;
• its cause and effect, 122.
• Castelnuovo, 204.
• Cattaro, Description of, 207.
• Cattaro to Cettinje, Road from, 229.
• Cettinje, Description of, 239.
• Christianity, Bulgaria’s conversion to, 117.
• Constantinovitch, Katrine, 48.
• Conveniences of travel through the Balkans, 8.
• Curzola, The sea battle near the island of, 250.
• Cyril, 117.
• Dalmatia, Routes of travel to, 177.
• Danilo II of Montenegro, 217.
• Dervish dance, Description of a, 160.
• Diocletian, Palace of, at Spalato, 252.
• Draga, Queen, of Servia. See Maschine.
• Dragoleftsky, 108.
• Dushan, King, of Servia, 117.
• [295]
• English language, Frequency of the, through the Balkans, 7.
• Ferdinand, Prince, of Bulgaria, 122.
• Ferdinand, Tzar, of Bulgaria, 125.
• Fiume, Description of, 284.
• German language, The, 4.
• Gravosa, 179.
• Greek efforts to conquer Bulgaria, 114.
• Hapag ticket, 3.
• Helena, Queen, of Italy, 217.
• Hungarian language, The, 12.
• Jablaniča, 169.
• Jezero, The battle of, 221.
• Kara George, and his assassination, 45.
• Karageorgevitch, Peter, Accession to the throne of, 71.
• Kara Mahmoud, 216.
• Konjiča, 166.
• Kossovo, Battle of, 118.
• Kraglievaz, Island of, 270.
• Kristatz, Battle of, 221.
• La Croma, The Island of, 184.
• Lazar, Tzar, Emperor of Servia, 212.
• Maschine, Draga, 54.
• Maschine, Draga, Burial of, and Alexander, 71.
• Maschine, Draga, Marriage of, and Alexander, 57.
• Maschine, Draga, Meeting of, and Alexander, 55.
• Maschine, Draga, Murder of, and Alexander, 61.
• Maschine, Draga, Prediction of the assassination of, 81.
• Maschine, Draga, Prediction of the social ascendency of, 80.
• Maschine, Nikola and Nikodim, Murder of, 68.
• Methodius, 117.
• Michael, Prince. See Obrenovitch.
• Milan, Prince. See Obrenovitch.
• Milo, Pope, of Montenegro, 223.
• Milosh, Prince. See Obrenovitch.
• Montenegrin, The, Army, 215.
• Montenegrin bravery, Anecdotes of, 221.
• Montenegrin, The, national costume, 218.
• Montenegrins, The, 212.
• Montenegro, History of, 212.
• Montenegro, Modern, 227.
• Mostar, Description of, 170.
• Murad I, Sultan, 117.
• Natalie, Queen, of Servia, 49.
• Nikephoros Phakos, Emperor, 114.
• Nikola, Prince, of Montenegro, 217.
• Nikshitch, Siege of, 223.
• Nisch, Hotels in, 97.
• Nisch, Tower of skulls in, 101.
• Njegushi, 237.
• Novakovics, Murder of the brothers, 75.
• Novi-Bazaar, 149.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, 49.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, Burial of, and Draga, 71.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, Marriage of, and Draga, 57.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, Meeting of, and Draga, 55.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, Murder of, and Draga, 61.
• Obrenovitch, Alexander, Prediction of the assassination of, 81.
• Obrenovitch, Michael, 47.
• Obrenovitch, Michael, Prediction of the murder of, 79.
• Obrenovitch, Milan, the First, 47.
• Obrenovitch, Milan, the Second, 49.
• Obrenovitch, Milosh, the First, 46.
• Obrenovitch, Milosh, the Second, 48.
• Orient Express, The, 142.
• Passports, 19.
• Pawlowitch, General, Murder of, 68.
• Peter I, of Montenegro, 216.
• Peter II, of Montenegro, 238.
• Petrovich, George (Kara-George), 45.
• Philip, 113.
• Podgoritza, 227.
• Prince-Bishops of Montenegro, 216.
• Promontorium Diomedis, 270.
• Ragusa, Description of, 180.
• Ragusa, The Great Earthquake of, 193.
• Ragusa, History of, 187.
• Ravna, 175.
• Registration, The Servian method of, 20.
• Rundreise ticket, The, 2.
• Russian intrigue in Bulgaria, 121.
• Russian invasion of Bulgaria, The first, 117.
• Saint Simeon, Story of, 272.
• Salona, Description of, 261.
• Sarajevo, Description of, 151.
• Sebenico, 270.
• Segna, 283.
• Servian, The, army, 29.
• Servian customs, 37.
• Servian exports, 29.
• Servian nation, Rapid rise of the, 27.
• Servian national dance, 38.
• Servian national drink, 29.
• Servian race-meets, 30.
• Servians, The, 24.
• Shishman III, Tzar, 117.
• Simeon, Tzar, 114.
• Slavs, Population of Bulgaria by the, 113.
• Sophia, Description of, 107.
• Sophia, Hotels in, 106.
• Sophia, Market day in, 130.
• Sviatoslav, 114.
• Thraco-Dacians, 113.
• Thraco-Illyrians, 113.
• Thraco-Macedonians, 113.
• Tzaribrod, 102.
• Uscocs, The, 284.
• Uskoplje, 175.
• Vespasian, Annexation of Bulgaria by, 113.
• Vladika, or Prince-Bishops, 216.
• Ylidze, 159.
• Zara, Description of, 271.
• Zinisces, Emperor, 114.
• Zlarin, Island of, 270.