Through the Land of the Serb

Ushitza is plucky and enterprising. It not only makes plans, but it carries them out. It is blessed with good men at the head of affairs. For all the world over, in spite of the old saying, the voice of the people is very seldom the voice of a god; it is far more frequently simply a "row," and in most places we find that all good work is due to the brains and energy of a few individuals, and not to the collective wisdom of the mass, except in the sense that the mass has had the wit to know a good man when they see him and to follow his lead.

Ushitza, poked away in a lonely valley in a far corner of Servia, has a very good school, well fitted with modern apparatus, maps and diagrams and plaster casts; is well lighted by electricity, and has started an electric cotton and linen weaving factory, which is the pride and joy of the town. Three years did it take in the making; every bit of the machinery had to be imported from abroad and carried over the mountains on ox-carts, but in spite of all difficulties it is well started and beginning to pay its way, and Ushitza, like Chachak, is trying to find the ways and means for an electric railway.

Ushitza was Ushitza in the glorious days of the Servian Empire, and was the seat of its first arch-bishop, the great St. Sava. Stefan VI. transferred the archbishopric to Ipek (Petch), that lies in Stara Srbija waiting to be redeemed; but Ushitza worked out her own redemption in 1862, and after severe fighting evicted the Turk, and is once more the seat of a bishop. The Djetina, a tributary of the Morava, rushes past the town from a narrow valley, where leaps the fall that works the 150-horse-power electric engines, and high on the opposite hill tower the ruins of the big castle that once guarded the town. Fortified by the Turks, it was taken by the Servians and blown to pieces, and its shattered walls hang perilously on the precipice edge. I was told it was a Turkish building, but I scrambled all over it, and believe it to be a Servian mediæval castle belonging probably to the palmy days of the Empire.

Everything else in Ushitza is new, except the stone bridge over the river, which is mediæval, and the big Roman altar stone found in the neighbourhood that stands in the entrance of the school; but the town, though so new, is very picturesque. I left Ushitza with regret, for it was very good to me. I said good-bye for ever and ever, promised to send picture postcards of London, and was soon again on the road.

Ivanitza was my destination, and my midday halt at Arilje, where I arrived cold and damp in a heavy rainstorm. The police captain and the priest were kindly folk and offered to take me to see the church. According to tradition, it is the oldest church in Servia, and is said to have been built to the memory of one Aril, a Christian priest martyred by heathen Servians early in the ninth century. It is a cruciform building with a central dome, a very flat apse, the usual narthex, and is barrel-vaulted. My guides could tell me nothing at all except that it was "very old." I suggested thirteenth century, which astonished them. That the building itself had anything to say on the subject was a new idea to them. After a little discussion with the priest, the captain said that someone had said it was of the time of King Milutin, and added naively that they did not know when that was. Milutin (Stefan Milutin Urosh) reigned from about 1275 to 1321. This date fits in with its appearance, but not with the tradition that it is the oldest church in Servia. Probably it is a later building on an old site. It is old and dim enough, at any rate, to have seen the Great Servian Empire and the rise and the fall of the Ottoman. Frescoes stiff and Byzantine in style cover its walls. Big saints in long straight white robes with bizarre black patterns stand in a row along the walls, and a king (Milutin himself) in a high crown and a long cloak decorated with large discs of gold. The faces have been scraped out by the Turks, and the whole of the paintings are dim and faded, but they are scarce examples of early art, and appear to have never suffered restoration. I am sorry that I allowed damp, cold, and general discomfort to prevent my staying to draw them.

We pushed on through the storm along a richly wooded defile through which tears the Morava, and arrived chill and stiff in the evening at Ivanitza, where the mere sight of the inn made me feel much worse. As it was not possible to get anything to eat till supper-time, and as the bedroom offered me was uninhabitable, and as both my letters of introduction were to gentlemen who only spoke Servian, I wondered why I had come. It was too wet to go out, so I sat in the doorway and drew the shops over the way, and soon forgot all the surrounding circumstances. I was aroused by the most cheery police officers, in very smart uniforms, who came in answer to my letters of introduction, and who were extraordinarily amused to find me already settled down to draw. They brought the burgomaster, called for drinks, and in the approved fashion each stood me a glass. When the doctor, who spoke German, turned up and tried to stand me one on his own account, I cried off. My Montenegrin sketches here were the topic of the day; for the nearer you get to the frontier the more beloved and admired is Montenegro. Central, Eastern, and Northern Servia seem to dislike it. Everyone here wanted to hear both about the place and the people, and I sat in that little low-ceiled, dark, messy, stone-floored room filled with officers and peasants, and explained things as best I could, the company all helping me out with the language. The rain poured in torrents outside and splashed in at the open door; everyone offered me tobacco, which I declined; and there was a good deal of glass clinking. Helped out by German and the doctor, I told tales of Skodra, which Ivanitza thought was a place perilous. And we talked of the virtues of the Black Mountains and the sins of the Turks. The two oil lamps made the black corners blacker and threw odd shadows of fur-capped peasants on the walls, and as I looked at my surroundings, saw the white kilts, the leathern sandals and the uniforms, and heard the clank of sword and spur, I wondered to which of my ancestors I owed the fact that I felt so very much at home. Presently two men slunk in who were greeted by a roar of laughter. "How are the Turks?" cried everyone. Chaff flew much too thickly for me to see my way through it. When it cleared, I was told that the two had strayed over the frontier, had been caught by the Turks, and, as they had no passports upon them, were promptly put into prison. There they had stayed some days, and they had only just been released. Everyone treated this as a huge joke except the victims, who looked extremely silly. There was more in the episode than met the eye, for in the course of the arrest shots had been exchanged, and two Servians – a shepherd and a border patrol man – killed. My officers told me seriously that I was to keep off the edge. Never having lived on a ruddy frontier, I was much interested. All my life I had heard of the value of our "silver streak," but I had to go to a public-house in South Servia before I realised it.

The fact that I had come so soon after the affair of Miss Stone charmed everyone, as it conclusively proved that England had a high opinion of Servia. I was, as someone naively stated, the most remarkable event since the war. An English officer had ridden through the town three years before, but he had had an interpreter and had carried a revolver. Also two Frenchmen had once passed that way. That was Ivanitza's complete visitors' list for the last twenty years. I was the first who had tackled it alone and unarmed. When a fresh arrival turned up, he was told "She is English; it is not a joke; she really is"; and I was shown to some children as a unique specimen: "Look at her well; perhaps you will never see another." Yet the country is so beautiful that it only requires to be known to attract plenty of strangers.

Having first asked me if I were quite sure I had a room that I could sleep in, they all wished me good-night. I said the room was good enough, and went to find out if I had spoken the truth, through into the stableyard. It was pitch dark and the rain was falling. I called for a light. Something came out of the night, and I followed it up a rickety ladder and on to a wooden gallery. It thrust a tallow candle into my hand, and struck a match. The light revealed a lean, hairy man, bare-legged, bare-chested, and sparsely clad in dirty cotton garments. Clasping the candle, I followed him into a very small room. It was a different one from the one I had been shown on arriving. There was an iron bedstead in it, covered with a wadded coverlet, and there were three nails in the wall. Otherwise, nothing; not even a chair. The gentleman produced an empty bottle, stuck the candle into it, put it on the window sill, wished me good-night, and was going. "The room is not ready," said I firmly. He looked round in a bewildered manner and said it was, and shouted for female assistance. A stout lady panted up the stairs, beaming with good-nature. She apologised for the room. The best one contained four beds and they had quite meant me to have one of them, but unfortunately a family had arrived and taken all of them! It was most unlucky! I assured her that I did not mind having to sleep alone. But this room was not ready. She glanced round, appeared to realise its deficiencies, rushed off, and returned in triumph with a brush and comb. I thanked her, but said that what I wanted was some water to wash in. She seemed surprised at this, but went off again, and came back this time with a small glass decanter and a tumbler. I ended by getting a very small tin basin and a chair to stand it on. The seriousness of my preparations then dawned upon her, and of her own accord she brought me two towels and a little piece of peagreen soap stamped, in English, "Best Brown Windsor." I had met this kind before. It is, I think, made in Austria.

The room proved to be quite clean, and I fared much better than I had expected. They were all as kind as possible, and in return I was as Servian as I knew how to be, except that I never patronised the well in the stableyard, which is, I believe, the proper way of getting up in the morning – presuming that you are dirty enough to require washing. The stray officers who rode up without even a saddle-bag and passed the night at the inn were, as far as I could make out, satisfied with waxing their moustachios in the morning and having their boots polished, and the effect was much better than one would have expected. Of course you are washed when you arrive. This is, most likely, the survival of some Eastern reception ceremonial. It is a little surprising at first, but you soon get used to it. A girl or a man – the latter is usually my fate – invades your bedroom, shortly after you have been shown to it, with a little basin, a bottle of water, a towel, and a cake of the "Best Brown Windsor." He holds out the basin solemnly and dribbles water over your outstretched hands, for it is very dirty to wash in standing water. When he thinks your hands are clean, he gives you the towel to dry them. Then you have to hold them out again, and he pours more water on them; this you are supposed to rub on your face. This being accomplished, he retires, taking the apparatus with him. In the old days, it is said that foot-washing was part of the ceremony, but I am glad to say that this has now gone out of fashion. When asking for water, it is always necessary to add "that I may wash," for the Servian invariably imagines that it is for internal application and brings it in a tumbler. These remarks apply, be it said, only to the inns in the villages; in the larger towns the arrangements are quite civilised as a rule, and quite clean.

Ivanitza was so kind to me, and so beautiful, that in spite of its primitive accommodation I stayed on. As long as the food is good, one can stand rough surroundings well enough. The long street of picturesque, tumbledown wooden shops straggles along the valley; the West Morava tears through a wooded deep – cut gorge, and the cloud – capped mountains tower around. It is a lonely and lovely spot, and one that I shall never forget.

On Sunday afternoon there was a little festival, and we sallied forth to a meadow about a mile and a half away. An ox-cart or two brought chairs, tables, beer, bread and cherries – all that Ivanitza required for a happy afternoon. I myself formed no small part of the entertainment, as all who had not yet made my acquaintance had now the chance of doing so.

The priest arrived on horseback with his vestments in his saddle-bags. He made a little altar in the middle of the field with three sticks and a board, spread a cloth on it, and planted a green bush by the side. Then the men stood round close to it, and the women stood behind very much in the background, and the service began. The incense curled thin and pale against the dark background of mountains that ringed us round, and the peasants, in their gayest and best, sang the responses heartily, while the oxen chewed cud alongside. Suddenly down the narrow valley the sky turned dark and red; everything was blotted out by a dense storm-cloud that burst overhead almost immediately. The priest picked up his petticoats and books, and we all fled precipitately to a group of cowsheds a couple of hundred yards away, and crowded into them.

The one I ran into was so dark that we could hardly see one another. I climbed out of the mud into the manger and held a sort of reception. I answered all the usual questions, and then they tried to find out my accomplishments by asking, "Can you do this? can you do that?" etc. I did all my little tricks, and felt like a circus. Finally it was suggested that I should sing – a thing I never do in public at home. The ever-increasing darkness suggested "Abide with me," and I started boldly. When, however, I got as far as the words "and comforts flee," they struck me as being so ridiculously appropriate to the circumstances in which I found myself that I ended abruptly by laughing, which made the audience think that the song was a comic one and beg to hear more of it. But the storm was passing over, and though the rain was still falling and the water standing in pools, the devoted priest hurried out to finish the service; out rushed everybody from the sheds and plashed back to the meadow. By the time I arrived on the scene it was all in full swing, the incense rising and the sun struggling through a cloud-rift. As soon as it was over, music struck up and the kolo dance began, and, regardless of the wet, they frisked and splashed through the deep and sopping grass. Even the doctor thought it was all right. When he told me later that he had a great many patients, because the place was so damp, I was not surprised.

The weather did not seem likely to improve, and the police officer told me with a grin that whenever I said I wanted to go they hoped it would rain; now that I knew everyone I had better stay, and he called upon his friends to describe the horrors of my proposed route. But as I could not stay on indefinitely, I asked him to find me a man and a pony, and decided to risk a wetting. The start had to be made at 5 a.m., too early to see what manner of a day it was likely to be, and it is but a chilly hour at best. A border officer saw me off, and assured me I should find friends wherever I went, which cheered my rather depressed feeling that I was leaving all my friends behind me.

I had come to the end of the road, and the onward track was very much a plunge into the unknown. The mist was thick and clammy as we struck up the mountain path, but was beginning to clear slowly. It was not a bad road at all. A Montenegrin pony would have laughed at it, and a Montenegrin man have done it on foot; but my guide was a Servian and therefore required a mount, and the beasts were fat and sluggish. My baggage consisted of a small hand-bag and a little bundle. These I had carefully made of equal weight, meaning them for either side of my own saddle. Regardless of the fact that I was by far the lighter weight of us two, the Serb insisted on putting them on his own saddle and on tying them both on the same side. Consequently, as the girths were very loose, his saddle kept turning round. This he strove to prevent by sitting crooked! As he obstinately persisted in this plan in spite of all I could do, he was perpetually re-saddling. I broke a switch from a bush, stirred up my pony and rode ahead in hopes of hurrying him; but all in vain, for I came to the end of the path in about half an hour, saw before me an endless succession of wild and apparently trackless valleys and mountains, and had to wait my guides arrival. He appeared at last, crawling along quite happily, and at once hopped off to take another futile pull at the girths. This time I succeeded in getting a better arrangement of the bags, which saved the twisting; but the saddle still slipped towards the beast's head going downhill, and towards its tail going uphill. Moreover, both animals were weak in their hind fetlocks, and we had to dismount pretty often. Luckily I had a pocketful of black bread handy, and as there seemed no prospect of ever arriving at a feeding-place, I gnawed crusts as I rode over that lonely land – land that has an awful magnificence, for it is untouched by the hand of man. Silently we went through huge and dripping beech woods, dim with fog wreaths, where great trees lay and rotted where they had fallen, and silently out over rich grassy uplands where no flocks feed. Deep valleys lay below us, and mountain peaks rose all around. For miles and miles it was absolutely lonely, there was no sign of a living thing and no sound save the squelching of our horses' hoofs in the deep wet leaf-mould. In a dip of the hills we came upon two most primitive villages, collections of wooden wigwams with high pitched roofs of twigs and branches; through their open doors I could see that they were mere unfurnished dens. Wild – looking, ragged people squatted in the doorways, who stared like startled animals as I passed. Nothing more primitive in the way of a village could exist. It seemed the kind of place that the Romans might have come upon when they conquered ancient Illyria, and I drew rein. My guide, however, was so determined that I should neither stop nor dismount that I thought he might be aware that its customs were Illyrian also, and I yielded regretfully to his request, for the first time, to hurry on.

At midday we reached another collection of huts, the village of Mlantza, not quite so primitive as the last one, but all of wood. A man with a revolver and cartridge belt, one of the gendarmerie, was resting here and nursing his rifle. Two very tall and incredibly ragged men came out of a hut, and at my guide's request made us some black coffee and boiled us some eggs. We off-saddled, and our ponies were soon blowing themselves out with grass and water, and there seemed every prospect of the girths fitting better after lunch. My guide said we must rest an hour, and inquired the way from the man with the rifle. I wondered that anyone knew it, for there was no track to be seen anywhere. There are not enough people even to wear a footpath. And folk live and die in these lonely spots, and a grave, quite fresh made, with a gaudily painted gravestone, stood close by. One or two men, black-eyed, barefooted, and in clothes that were torn to ribbons, sauntered up. None of them made an attempt to speak to me, and they scarcely exchanged a word with my guide. They were too far removed from the outer world to take any interest in it. They seemed part of the wild, dumb rocks and forests, and only the cluttering of the hens that came to pick up the crumbs I had dropped broke the heavy silence.

My guide re-saddled the ponies, and we started off again. Downhill most of the way, often very steep, and there was a good deal of dismounting and leading to be done. For some way the rocks were all of green serpentine in wildly contorted strata. A very tiny church stood high on a ledge, far up the mountain side, that looked quite inaccessible from below; one of those built as a retreat by the early kings; a lone wilderness in which some soul had wrestled with temptation, or more probably striven to expiate guilt. And this and the primitive wooden huts of the morning were the only buildings I saw on that long ten hours' ride, until at last, in the valley below, the little white church and the monastery of Studenitza came in sight.

Down past the back of the monastery buildings we joggled, and round to the door of the little inn, where I dismounted thankfully, stiff and somewhat dazed. The kindly peasants who thronged the little bare room made a place for us, and refrained from questioning me till I had eaten a huge meal of rye bread, red wine, onions and kaimak, which was all that the place afforded, and I ate with an appetite that delighted everyone.

Revived and cheered by the food, the wine, and the company, I arose when the inevitable interview was over and strolled across to the open gate of the monastery. Within the walls lay smooth green lawns from which arose the little lily church, its white marble pale gold with age; beyond were the quaint wood and plaster buildings of the monastery, with wide wooden balconies and tall bell tower. Little acacias, clipped to round balls, were ranged stiffly along the paths, the air was heavy with the scent of lime blossoms, and a stillness so dead that it seemed supernatural hung over all. I stole quietly round the church, which was shut, and saw no living creature.

As I was returning I came face to face with an armed youth, a picturesque figure who, but for his weapons, looked very mediæval in closely-fitting black leg-gear of the Albanian pattern and a very short straight jacket. His feet were shod with leathern sandals, into the straps of which were twisted long spurs; his rifle was slung on his back; the bright green cord to which his revolver was fastened hung round his neck, and his cartridge belt was well filled. He stood up straight, a lithe slim young thing, saluted with great style, and told me that he was a "pandur" (gendarme), had been sent over from Rashka to take care of me and to escort me thither when I was ready to go. Meanwhile he was entirely at my service. His captain had received a telegram about me from Ivanitza and had sent him at once. He added that Rashka expected me and wanted to see me. I was greatly astonished. I had intended going to Kraljevo. The pandur looked grieved. He thought evidently that he should have failed in his duty to his captain if he did not produce me at Rashka. Impelled largely, I confess, by a wicked desire to have such a very good-looking fellow at my beck and call, I was inquiring the means of arriving at Rashka, when the pandur said suddenly, in an awestruck whisper, "Gospoditza, here is the Archimandrite!" and there was the Archimandrite himself advancing slowly down the path towards us.

A very beautiful old man, with a kindly, benevolent face, tall and stately in his black robes and high velvet hat. His long grey hair flowed over his shoulders, and he fingered a string of amber beads as he came along. The pandur bared his head, dropped on one knee reverently and kissed the hand extended to him, and I wondered miserably whether it would be foolish or polite to follow his example. The Archimandrite relieved me at once by shaking hands with me and welcoming me to Studenitza. Anyone who had come so far, he said, must be his guest. It would have been grossly rude to refuse such a kindly-meant invitation, but I accepted it with fear. To the manners and customs of a Servian inn I was now accustomed. The primitive building outside the monastery walls suddenly seemed to me to be a homelike and wholly desirable resting-place, and the monastery was a strange unknown world. The pandur, on the other hand, was filled with joy. "This is very, very good," he whispered to me; "they are very rich here"; and we followed the Archimandrite over the lawn to the long low guest building on the other side, up a wooden staircase and along a long blue-and-white corridor, to a room at the end which he offered me. It was a beautiful room, luxuriously furnished. I accepted it gratefully, and the pandur whispered his admiration and enthusiasm. He was sent off at once to fetch my bag from the inn, and the Archimandrite, who was greatly overcome at learning that I had come on horseback from Ivanitza, begged that I would rest myself. To-morrow, he said, I should see all, and was at liberty to draw what I pleased. At what time would I have supper? He added with a little smile, "I fear that to-day I cannot feed you well. We are monks here, and it is one of our great fasts." (It was that of SS. Peter and Paul.) He knew no word of any language but Servian, and waited patiently while I looked up words in the dictionary. I told him I would eat whatever they had. "But no," he said, and he shook his head; "those of our own Church do not keep these fasts as they should. For us monks it is our duty; but for you, who are a stranger, it is different." His words I can give, but not the charm of his manner, nor his simple dignity and his courtesy. His amber beads clicked as he went.