Chapter LIII: The Impaled Raïa

Hark to the measured tramp of feet as the Slavonian peasants whirl and twirl in the intricate mazes of the _kolo_, the national dance of the Slávs! Bright eyes flash beneath heavy lashes, bosoms heave, hearts go pit-a-pat, the charms and beads that hang round the women’s necks rise and fall in unison with the rapid movement, fire-flies dart about the steamer’s deck, now hovering on the bulwarks, and now playing at hide-and-seek above the head of the dancers. On the margin of the river, glow-worms begin to light their lamps and scintillate in the bushes; whilst over on the Bosnian hills long rows of fires are flickering where the gipsies have pitched their encampments.

Faster and faster go the feet; louder and louder sounds the “burr” of the _kobsa_. The bag-pipes, played by a Wallachian shepherd, drone out their harsh music, above which the shrill little _svira_[3] tries hard to hold its own, and pours forth its plaintive pipings in a feeble and somewhat intermittent treble.

[3] A small flageolet.

The theme of the _kolo_ is the same as that of the Csárdás, love expressed in rollicking pantomime. The dance was got up by a number of peasants who came on board at Xupanje, but who left us again at a village further down the stream.

While the dancing was going on, our attention was attracted to a gipsy woman, who, taking no apparent interest in the proceedings around her, was sitting apart, close to the bows of the steamer. Almost masculine in stature, and with the prominent features which so many of the Bosnian gipsies possess, she looked, with her large lustrous eyes fixed immovably upon the horizon, like some Sibyl prophesying dark things to the night.

Excited by the strains of music that followed the _kolo_, the little guslar took up his tiny instrument--a mere toy--and began singing some more ballads, which won for him no end of kreuzers and applause. At ten o’clock, however, all was silent, every one being asleep, with the exception of a tall and sturdy young Montenegrin, who was standing against the galley smoking, as motionless as a statue, his eyes fixed intently upon the fading hills. Was he thinking of his beloved _Vaterland_--the land of Slavo-Serv liberty, and of its _Tserna Gora_, that dark pine-covered mountain from which his brave little country takes his name? Judging from the small amount of luggage carried by the other passengers, which consisted, as a rule, solely of a gourd or leather bottle, a rug, and an iron pot containing food for their journey, our Montenegrin must have been an emigrant, so numerous are the bundles with which he is surrounded. His gun was slung across his shoulder, and from his shawl-girdle hung some other weapon. But he, too, soon spread his _straka_ on the deck, as the large cloak that forms the Montenegrins’ outer garment is called, and turning to the east, he makes the sign of the Greek cross, and, lying down, is soon fast asleep.

The night was delicious, the air fresh, but without chill. We had come to anchor opposite a dense belt of forest on the Slavonian side, through which the moon, penetrating here and there between the boughs, shone like silver spray. Everything was calm and dreamy. Occasionally a night-bird, roosting within its leafy labyrinths, uttered a plaintive cry, or a fish rose with a sudden plash; but these sounds seemed in complete harmony with the silence, and, retiring to our cabins, we soon subsided into the general slumber, and did not awake until the sun, shooting golden arrows through our window, summoned us on deck.

To the right, gently undulating hills, which constitute a portion of the Diarnic Alps, and on whose summits snow lies for nine months in the year, now begin to unfold themselves in a solemn rhythm.

We left Croatia behind long ago, and on our right the shore wears an Oriental appearance, for we have reached Bosnia--“Golden Bosnia,” as it is familiarly called--whose efforts, together with those of Herzegovina, to obtain emancipation from Mahomedan oppression and misrule, called forth the sympathies of Europe, and elicited the diplomatic action of the great Powers on her behalf.

The shores of this river are especially interesting in a historical point of view. It was on the conquest of Bosnia by the Osmanlis, who at that time spread themselves over the whole district of the Save, that the Military Frontier was established, or rather systematically organised, by Ferdinand of Austria. Extending from the shores of the Adriatic to Moldavia, it embraced Slavonia and Transylvania, as well as a portion of Croatia and the southern belt of Dalmatia, thus covering an area of nearly a thousand miles. At distances of about half a mile apart, we see the Military Frontier posts, which previous to the Treaty of Berlin were vigilantly guarded. They consist of small wooden houses raised on stakes, and surrounded by a verandah in which the guard patrolled. By the side of each house is still seen a high pole to which straw and wood are tied, and which, when ignited, formed a primitive mode of signalling at night to neighbouring frontier-posts on the occurrence of local disturbances of a political character. On the advance of an invading foe the guard of one station signalled to the next, and so on, till the whole line, apprised of the danger, arose to arms and hastened to the threatened district; from three to four hours being the time which is said to have been occupied in communicating from one end of the frontier to the other; whilst during the day when disturbances arose, the wild tocsin--with which every guard-post was provided--resounding along the banks of the river, called the border regiments to arms.

In consequence of the geographical positions of the Danube and the Save, the immediate districts of the rivers were from an early period infested by bands of fugitives from neighbouring countries who lived principally by war and plunder, but whom the Hungarian Government under Matthias Corvinus--that great champion of Christendom against Mahomedan invasion--permitted to remain on condition of their defending the boundaries from the inroads of barbarian hordes from the East. The system adopted was precisely that of the ancient Romans in the defence of their frontiers on the shores of the Rhine and the Danube. These border men-at-arms received no pay, but had fiefs allotted to them on the payment of a heavy tax to the State, and also on the condition of furnishing a certain number of guards. The owners of the fief’s were united under a chieftain who governed the little commonwealth, which generally consisted of fifty families. In times of peace, forty thousand men were on duty at the various posts, but in case of war the whole military force was capable of furnishing two hundred thousand men, all of whom were compelled, if necessary, to serve in the regular army. Under Austria, this border-line became one of the most perfect military institutions of modern times, whereby not only two hundred thousand men were added to her standing army without any cost whatever to the Empire, but a complete system was formed for the maintenance of quarantine. Since the organisation of this frontier line by Austria, the plague, which formerly was seldom absent from Hungary more than twenty years together, has not once visited that country.

On the Bosnian shore we also see at regular intervals the guard posts, which, previous to the Treaty of Berlin, were similarly used by the Turks to protect their frontier lands from Austrian invasion.

What a splendid country Bosnia is, with its luxuriant vegetation and fertile soil. Hundreds of miles of it have never as yet been turned by either spade or plough. Nothing is wanting to render it a happy and prosperous country but colonists to bring its rich virgin soil under cultivation. The population of Bosnia is small, scarcely amounting to one million, of whom thirty-five thousand are Jews, and twelve thousand gipsies, the former being descendants of refugees from Italy and Spain. The remaining inhabitants are divided between Mahomedans and Christians, a Sláv people, the original inhabitants of the country, who speak a Sláv dialect, containing a large admixture of Turkish words. There are no sons of the Prophet so truly bigoted, strange as it may seem, as these Slávs of Bosnia, although they only embraced Islam to protect themselves from persecution, and their property from spoliation when invaded by the Turks. More fanatical far than even the true-born Turk himself, the Bosnian Mahomedan persecutes in his turn his Christian compatriot, the _raïa_, and calls him “dog.”

The _raïas_, who form the Christian portion of the Sláv population of Bosnia, the greater number of whom belong to the Greek Church, constitute almost exclusively the peasant class. Although the former feudal system, of which these _raïas_ were the serfs, was abolished by the reforms of 1852, yet forced labour still exists to some extent in Bosnia, the imperious Infidel obliging the Christian _raïa_ to work for him almost at the point of the bayonet.

The condition of these poor Bosnian peasantry is consequently still one of the most humiliating servitude, and is very little mended. Not only are they oppressed by the Mussulman population but they are impoverished by their ecclesiastical superiors, the _popas_, who impose burdens on them grievous to be borne, and who on non-payment of their imposition are said not unfrequently to refuse them the rites and consolations of religion. Between the intimidation of their ghostly advisers and the vengeance and cruelty of the Mahomedans, the poor _raïas_ still have a hard time of it, and are kept in a state of perpetual poverty and fear.

The banks on the left or Slávonian side, the extreme south-east of which territory we skirted when traversing the Danube, are extremely picturesque. We pass numerous villages, the houses of which, built on stakes, are all gables, balconies, and palisades. In the open windows of these dwellings a woman is occasionally seen, her bright costume creating a charming bit of colour set in its dark wooden frame-work, whilst on the Bosnian shore a long caravan is seen preparing for the day’s march, consisting of thirty or forty people and as many mules. How picturesque they are, with their Eastern-looking packs, and deep, rich brown colouring, as they stand grouped in one mass against the background of glowing horizon!

The dense primeval forests which have been skirting us for some hours now give place to morasses, and leaving these behind we enter a sandy region roamed by pigs. A number of these animals, the precise colour of the sand, come down to drink, driven by a man enveloped in a mantle made of long finely split grass, which, forming a fringe many inches thick, is plaited at the neck, and reaches almost to the heels. This garment, believed by the learned to be the very first that was invented, is also occasionally worn by the shepherds on the Croatian plains. Wherever we cast our eyes there are pigs, pigs, pigs: canary-coloured pigs; pigs with long golden hair (probably the embodied spirits of the water-nymphs, transmigrated into these domestic pachyderms, which the Slávs, like the ancient Greeks, still believe sit upon the banks of the Save, and, combing their golden tresses, sing sweetly to lure the unwary boatman into the shifting sands); sienna-coloured pigs; pigs of every gradation of yellow and light brown, surrounded by little families of pink piglets, whose bodies, not yet impregnated with the prevailing sand, seem not to belong to the same genus as their progenitors, as one and all stand out in bold relief and artistic contrast against the intense blue sky.

On arriving at Bertsch, I lose my little guslar, a woman carrying a distaff--which, like the women of Transylvania, a Sláv is seldom seen without--having come on board to fetch him. Before he left I threw into his bundle a quantity of Turkish sweetmeats, given me by a Bosnian gentleman, which must I fear have sown the seed for a rich harvest of indigestion and night-mares sufficient to drown his little pipe and extinguish his muse for many a day to come.

Reaching the province of Syrmien, whose banks skirt us on the Hungarian side, a group of Amazons with red and blue scarfs, folded round their heads like turbans, are standing knee-deep in the water washing their _chuddas_, just as they are seen to do in the Ganges. They scuttle away at our approach, and hide in the low bushes which are growing in the sandy soil, whence they gaze at us furtively like Miriams and the maidens of Pharaoh’s daughter. The shore here is covered with hundreds of pigs, no longer golden, but grimly black, with long bushy hair and hanging tails, looking from a little distance like bears. We have now left the region of sand behind, and again enter a morass, the abode of myriads of wild fowl, numbers of which are taking their bath on the confines of the river, or diving for fish; the shore being literally edged with them as by a fringe. More tame by far than the human bipeds of Syrmien, they take no notice whatever of our approach. A raft passes close to them, but they do not move; whilst an eagle standing alone, its great yellow feet planted on a small green promontory, was so lost in contemplation that it did not stir for full a quarter of an hour, but remained as immovable as if it had been the Sphinx beneath the pyramids of Gezah.

At every turn in the river we are reminded of our gradual approach to the East. Women, walking in the roadway or coming down to the river’s brink for water, now wear yack-mashes, and the Austro-Hungarian traits have almost died out. Presently we see, apparently standing alone with no habitation within sight, a long pole, to which is lashed what appears from a distance to be a human form, and our minds involuntarily revert to the famous newspaper controversy of “Impaled Bosnian” _versus_ “faggot of haricot beans.”

There he was sure enough, his black hair standing on end, as well it might, and his loose, Oriental-like garments fluttering in the breeze, with his poor wizened legs dangling black and helpless. It was a blood-curdling sight, and fain would we have turned our eyes in the contrary direction, but no! we would be brave and view through a field-glass this unfortunate _raïa_--another victim to Mahomedan cruelty and barbarism. We would view him in all his ghastly details, in order that we might expose the horrors of the deed throughout the length and breadth of Christendom. Our courage almost fails us, but we raise the glass, through which we see the sickening picture. Across the breast, his epitaph was written in black letters painted rudely on a narrow strip of board. What are the tragic words? They are Slávish for “good cheer for man and beast,” and point to a small, one-storied “_gastina_” or wayside inn now seen amongst a cluster of low bushes!

The resemblance was complete and the object of our commiseration a veritable fact, until with calm eyes we were able to dissect him limb by limb. His head was formed of a bundle of sticks, that doubtless when originally placed there were freshly gathered boughs, but from which the leaves since dropped had left simply a little bundle of dry twigs which formed a capital shock head of hair. The upper part of his body consisted of a piece of old sacking, and his flowing nether garments of a sheaf of Indian corn without the ears, the long, pointed leaves of which, bleached by the sun, fluttered in the air; the narrow board, by dividing the body, formed the waistbelt, and the legs, which hung black and helplessly, were two somewhat crooked stakes, to which the whole fabric was tied previous to its being hoisted to the pole.

Plenty more victims to “impalement” saw we on our farther progress down the Save, but we henceforth witnessed them with stoical indifference, and they no longer awoke our pity or moved us to tears.

The time occupied in steaming down the Save is twenty-six hours, and we are fast reaching our destination. Already ambitious Servia lies to our right. We have passed Schabatz with its hospital and gymnasium, for since this brave little race of Slávs have achieved their independence, they are imitating the civilised West in many of its national institutions. After steaming into a flock of wild swans, we turn another bend of the river, and Belgrade, with its fortress-crowned hill, comes in sight, over which, thank God, the banner of Slavo-Serb liberty at last floats in the breeze. The Save now ends its career, and empties itself into the beautiful Danube, which here looks like the ocean.

As we steam under the citadel of Belgrade with its minarets and towers, which for centuries has been alternately the bulwark of Christendom and the advanced post of the Infidel, a gun booming from its battlemented heights reverberated against the promontory of Semlin, the last Hungarian town on the banks of the Danube, and, stepping on shore, the red, white, and green colours of the kingdom of St. Stephen no longer float over us, for we have planted our feet on Servian soil.

FINIS.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.