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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

T >> Thomas Stevens >> Around the World on a Bicycle V1




The good fellowship and hospitality of this Servian club know no bounds;
Igali and I are banqueted and driven about in carriages all day.

Belgrade is a strongly fortified city, occupying a commanding hill
overlooking the Danube; it is a rare old town, battle-scarred and rugged;
having been a frontier position of importance in a country that has been
debatable ground between Turk and Christian for centuries, it has been
a coveted prize to be won and lost on the diplomatic chess-board, or,
worse still, the foot-ball of contending armies and wrangling monarchs.
Long before the Ottoman Turks first appeared, like a small dark cloud,
no bigger than a man's hand, upon the southeastern horizon of Europe,
to extend and overwhelm the budding flower of Christianity and civilization
in these fairest portions of the continent, Belgrade was an important
Roman fortress, and to-day its national museum and antiquarian stores
are particularly rich in the treasure-trove of Byzantine antiquities,
unearthed from time to time in the fortress itself and the region round
about that came under its protection. So plentiful, indeed, are old coins
and relics of all sorts at Belgrade, that, as I am standing looking at
the collection in the window of an antiquary shop, the proprietor steps
out and presents me a small handful of copper coins of Byzantium as a
sort of bait that might perchance tempt one to enter and make a closer
inspection of his stock. By the famous Treaty of Berlin the Servians
gained their complete independence, and their country, from a principality,
paying tribute to the Sultan, changed to an independent kingdom with a
Servian on the throne, owing allegiance to nobody, and the people have
not yet ceased to show, in a thousand little ways, their thorough
appreciation of the change; besides filling the picture-galleries of
their museum with portraits of Servian heroes, battle-flags, and other
gentle reminders of their past history, they have, among other practical
methods of manifesting how they feel about the departure of the dominating
crescent from among them, turned the leading Turkish mosque into a gas-
house. One of the most interesting relics in the Servian capital is an
old Roman well, dug from the brow of the fortress hill to below the level
of the Danube, for furnishing water to the city when cut off from the
river by a besieging army. It is an enormous affair, a tubular brick
wall about forty feet in circumference and two hundred and fifty feet
deep, outside of which a stone stairway, winding round and round the
shaft, leads from top to bottom. Openings through the wall, six feet
high and three wide, occur at regular intervals all the way down, and,
as we follow our ragged guide down, down into the damp and darkness by
the feeble light of a tallow candle in a broken lantern, I cannot help
thinking that these o'erhandy openings leading into the dark, watery
depths have, in the tragic history of Belgrade, doubtless been responsible
for the mysterious disappearance of more than one objectionable person.
It is not without certain involuntary misgivings that I take the lantern
from the guide - whose general appearance is, by the way, hardly calculated
to be reassuring - and, standing in one of the openings, peer down into
the darksome depths, with him hanging on to my coat as an act of precaution.

The view from the ramparts of Belgrade fortress is a magnificent panorama,
extending over the broad valley of the Danube - which here winds about
as though trying to bestow its favors with impartiality upon Hungary,
Servia, and Slavonia - and of the Save. The Servian soldiers are camped
in small tents in various parts of the fortress grounds and its environments,
or lolling under the shade of a few scantily verdured trees, for the sun
is to-day broiling hot. With a population not exceeding one and a half
million, I am told that Servia supports a standing army of a hundred
thousand men; and, when required, every man in Servia becomes a soldier.
As one lands from the ferry-boat and looks about him he needs no interpreter
to inform him that he has left the Occident on the other side of the
Save, and to the observant stranger the streets of Belgrade furnish many
a novel and interesting sight in the way of fanciful costumes and phases
of Oriental life here encountered for the first time. In the afternoon
we visit the national museum of old coins, arms, and Eoman and Servian
antiquities. A banquet in a wine-garden, where Servian national music
is dispensed by a band of female musicians, is given us in the evening
by the club, and royal quarters are assigned us for the night at the
hospitable mansion of Mr. Terzibachitch's father, who is the merchant
-prince of Servia, and purveyor to the court. Wednesday morning we take
a general ramble over the city, besides visiting the club's head-quarters,
where we find a handsome new album has been purchased for receiving our
autographs. The Belgrade wheelmen have names painted on their bicycles,
as names are painted on steamboats or yachts: "Fairy," "Good Luck," and
"Servian Queen," being fair specimens. The cyclers here are sons of
leading citizens and business men of Belgrade, and, while they dress and
conduct themselves as becomes thorough gentlemen, one fancies detecting
a certain wild expression of the eye, as though their civilization were
scarcely yet established; in fact, this peculiar expression is more
noticeable at Belgrade, and is apparently more general here than at any
other place I visit in Europe. I apprehend it to be a peculiarity that
has become hereditary with the citizens, from their city having been so
often and for so long the theatre of uncertain fate and distracting
political disturbances. It is the half-startled expression of people
with the ever-present knowledge of insecurity. But they are a warm-hearted,
impulsive set of fellows, and when, while looking through the museum,
we happen across Her Britannic Majesty's representative at the Servian
court, who is doing the same thing, one of them unhesitatingly approaches
that gentleman, cap in hand, and, with considerable enthusiasm of manner,
announces that they have with them a countryman of his who is riding
around the world on a bicycle. This cooler-blooded and dignified gentleman
is not near so demonstrative in his acknowledgment as they doubtless
anticipated he would be; whereat they appear quite puzzled and mystified.

Three carriages with cyclers and their friends accompany us a dozen
kilometres out to a wayside mehana (the Oriental name hereabouts for
hotels, wayside inns, etc.); Douchan Popovitz, and Hugo Tichy, the captain
of the club, will ride forty-five kilometres with me to Semendria, and
at 4 o'clock we mount our wheels and ride away southward into Servia.
Arriving at the mehana, wine is brought, and then the two Servians
accompanying me, and those returning, kiss each other, after the manner
and custom of their country; then a general hand-shaking and well-wishes
all around, and the carriages turn toward Belgrade, while we wheelmen
alternately ride and trundle over a muddy - for it has rained since noon - and
mountainous road till 7.30, when relatives of Douchan Popovitz, in the
village of Grotzka, kindly offer us the hospitality of their house till
morning, which we hesitate not to avail ourselves of. When about to part
at the mehana, the immortal Igali unwinds from around his waist that
long blue girdle, the arranging and rearranging of which has been a
familiar feature of the last week's experiences, and presents it to me
for a souvenir of himself, a courtesy which I return by presenting him
with several of the Byzantine coins given to me by the Belgrade antiquary
as before mentioned. Beyond Semendria, where the captain leaves us for
the return journey, we leave the course of the Danube, which I have been
following in a general way for over two weeks, and strike due southward
up the smaller, but not less beautiful, valley of the Morava River, where
we have the intense satisfaction of finding roads that are both dry and
level, enabling us, in spite of the broiling heat, to bowl along at a
sixteen-kilometre pace to the village, where we halt for dinner and the
usual three hours noontide siesta. Seeing me jotting down my notes with
a short piece of lead-pencil, the proprietor of the mehana at Semendria,
where we take a parting glass of wine with the captain, and who admires
America and the Americans, steps in-doors for a minute, and returns with
a telescopic pencil-case, attached to a silken cord of the Servian"
national colors, which he places abound my neck, requesting me to wear
it around the world, and, when I arrive at my journey's end, sometimes
to think of Servia.

With Igali's sky-blue girdle encompassing my waist, and the Servian
national colors fondly encircling my neck, I begin to feel quite a
heraldic tremor creeping over me, and actually surprise myself casting
wistful glances at the huge antiquated horse pistol stuck in yonder bull-
whacker's ample waistband; moreover, I really think that a pair of these
Servian moccasins would not be bad foot-gear for riding the bicycle. All
up the Morava Valley the roads continue far better than I have expected
to find in Servia, and we wheel merrily along, the Resara Mountains
covered with dark pine forests, skirting the valley on the right, sometimes
rising into peaks of quite respectable proportions. The sun sinks behind
the receding hills, it grows dusk, and finally dark, save the feeble
light vouchsafed by the new moon, and our destination still lies several
kilometres ahead. But at about nine we roll safely into Jagodina, well-
satisfied with the consciousness of having covered one hundred and forty-
five kilometres to-day, in spite of delaying our start in the morning
until eight o'clock, and the twenty kilometres of indifferent road between
Grotzka and Semendria. There has been no reclining under road-side
mulberry-trees for my companion to catch up to-day, however; the Servian
wheelman is altogether a speedier man than Igali, and, whether the road
is rough or smooth, level or hilly, he is found close behind my rear
wheel; my own shadow follows not more faithfully than does the "best
rider in Servia."

We start for Jagodina at 5.30 next morning, finding the roads a little
heavy with sand in places, but otherwise all that a wheelman could wish.
Crossing a bridge over the Morava River, into Tchupria, we are required
not only to foot it across, but to pay a toll for the bicycles, like any
other wheeled vehicle. At Tchupria it seems as though the whole town
must be depopulated, so great is the throng of citizens that swarm about
us. Motley and picturesque even in their rags, one's pen utterly fails
to convey a correct idea of their appearance; besides Servians, Bulgarians,
and Turks, and the Greek priests who never fail of being on hand, now
appear Roumanians, wearing huge sheep-skin busbies, with the long, ragged
edges of the wool dangling about eyes and ears, or, in the case of a
more "dudish " person, clipped around smooth at the brim, making the
head-gear look like a small, round, thatched roof. Urchins, whose daily
duty is to promenade the family goat around the streets, join in the
procession, tugging their bearded charges after them; and a score of
dogs, overjoyed beyond measure at the general commotion, romp about, and
bark their joyous approval of it all. To have crowds like this following
one out of town makes a sensitive person feel uncomfortably like being
chased out of a community for borrowing chickens by moonlight, or on
account of some irregularity concerning hotel bills. On occasions like
this Orientals seemingly have not the slightest sense of dignity; portly,
well-dressed citizens, priests, and military officers press forward among
the crowds of peasants and unwashed frequenters of the streets, evidently
more delighted with things about them than they have been for many a day
before.

At Delegrad we wheel through the battle-field of the same name, where,
in 1876, Turks and Servians were arrayed against each other. These battle-
scarred hills above Delegrad command a glorious view of the lower Morava
Valley, which is hereabouts most beautiful, and just broad enough for
its entire beauty to be comprehended. The Servians won the battle of
Delegrad, and as I pause to admire the glorious prospect to the southward
from the hills, methinks their general showed no little sagacity in
opposing the invaders at a spot where the Morava Vale, the jewel of
Servia, was spread out like a panorama below his position, to fan with
its loveliness the patriotism of his troops - they could not do otherwise
than win, with the fairest portion of their well-beloved country spread
out before them like a picture. A large cannon, captured from the Turks,
is standing on its carriage by the road-side, a mute but eloquent witness
of Servian prowess.

A few miles farther on we halt for dinner at Alexinatz, near the old
Servian boundary-line, also the scene of one of the greatest battles
fought during the Servian struggle for independence. The Turks were
victorious this time, and fifteen thousand Servians and three thousand
Russian allies yielded up their lives here to superior Turkish generalship,
and Alexiuatz was burned to ashes. The Russians have erected a granite
monument on a hill overlooking the town, in memory of their comrades who
perished in this fight. The roads to-day average even better than
yesterday, and at six o'clock we roll into Nisch, one hundred and twenty
kilometres from our starting-point this morning, and two hundred and
eighty from Belgrade. As we enter the city a gang of convicts working
on the fortifications forget their clanking shackles and chains, and the
miseries of their state, long enough to greet us with a boisterous howl
of approval, and the guards who are standing over them for once, at
least, fail to check them, for their attention, too, is wholly engrossed
in the same wondrous subject. Nisch appears to be a thoroughly Oriental
city, and here I see the first Turkish ladies, with their features hidden
behind their white yashmaks. At seven or eight o'clock in the morning,
when it is comparatively cool and people are patronizing the market,
trafficking and bartering for the day's supply of provisions, the streets
present quite an animated appearance; but during the heat of the day the
scene changes to one of squalor and indolence; respectable citizens are
smoking nargilehs (Mark Twain's "hubble-bubble"), or sleeping somewhere
out of sight; business is generally suspended, and in every shady nook
and corner one sees a swarthy ragamuffin stretched out at full length,
perfectly happy and contented if only he is allowed to snooze the hours
away in peace.

Human nature is verily the same the world over, and here, in the hotel
at Nisch, I meet an individual who recalls a few of the sensible questions
that have been asked me from time to time at different places on both
continents. This Nisch interrogator is a Hebrew commercial traveller,
who has a smattering of English, and who after ascertaining during a
short conversation that, when a range of mountains or any other small
obstruction is encountered, I get down and push the bicycle up, airs his
knowledge of English and of 'cycling to the extent of inquiring whether
I don't take a man along to push it up the hills!

Riding out of Nisch this morning we stop just beyond the suburbs to take
a curious look at a grim monument of Turkish prowess, in the shape of a
square stone structure which the Turks built in 1840, and then faced the
whole exterior with grinning rows of Servian skulls partially embedded
in mortar. The Servians, naturally objecting to having the skulls of
their comrades thus exposed to the gaze of everybody, have since removed
and buried them; but the rows of indentations in the thick mortared
surface still bear unmistakable evidence of the nature of their former
occupants. An avenue of thrifty prune-trees shades a level road leading
out of Nisch for several kilometres, but a heavy thunder-storm during
the night has made it rather slavish wheeling, although the surface
becomes harder and smoother, also hillier, as we gradually approach the
Balkan Mountains, that tower well up toward cloudland immediately ahead.
The morning is warm and muggy, indicating rain, and the long, steep
trundle, kilometre after kilometre, up the Balkan slopes, is anything
but child's play, albeit the scenery is most lovely, one prospect
especially reminding me of a view in the Big Horn Mountains of northern
Wyoming Territory. On the lower slopes we come to a mehana, where, besides
plenty of shade-trees, we find springs of most delightfully cool water
gushing out of crevices in the rocks, and, throwing our freely perspiring
forms beneath the grateful shade and letting the cold water play on our
wrists (the best method in the world of cooling one's self when overheated),
we both vote that it would be a most agreeable place to spend the heat
of the day. But the morning is too young yet to think of thus indulging,
and the mountainous prospect ahead warns us that the distance covered
to-day will be short enough at the best.

The Balkans are clothed with green foliage to the topmost crags, wild
pear-trees being no inconspicuous feature; charming little valleys wind
about between the mountain-spurs, and last night's downpour has imparted
a freshness to the whole scene that perhaps it would not be one's good
fortune to see every day, even were he here. This region of intermingled
vales and forest-clad mountains might be the natural home of brigandage,
and those ferocious-looking specimens of humanity with things like long
guns in hand, running with scrambling haste down the mountain-side toward
our road ahead, look like veritable brigands heading us off with a view
to capturing us. But they are peacefully disposed goatherds, who,
alpenstocks in hand, are endeavoring to see "what in the world those
queer-looking things are, coming up the road." Their tuneful noise, as
they play on some kind of an instrument, greets our ears from a dozen
mountain-slopes round about us, as we put our shoulders to the wheel,
and gradually approach the summit. Tortoises are occasionally surprised
basking in the sunbeams in the middle of the road; when molested they
hiss quite audibly in protest, but if passed peacefully by they are seen
shuffling off into the bushes, as though thankful to escape. Unhappy
oxen are toiling patiently upward, literally inch by inch, dragging
heavy, creaking wagons, loaded with miscellaneous importations, prominent
among which I notice square cans of American petroleum. Men on horseback
are encountered, the long guns of the Orient slung at their backs, and
knife and pistols in sash, looking altogether ferocious. Not only are
these people perfectly harmless, however, but I verily think it would
take a good deal of aggravation to make them even think of fighting. The
fellow whose horse we frightened down a rocky embankment, at the imminent
risk of breaking the neck of both horse and rider, had both gun, knife,
and pistols; yet, though he probably thinks us emissaries of the evil
one, he is in no sense a dangerous character, his weapons being merely
gewgaws to adorn his person. Finally, the summit of this range is gained,
and the long, grateful descent into the valley of the Nissava River
begins. The surface during this descent, though averaging very good, is
not always of the smoothest; several dismounts are found to be necessary,
and many places ridden over require a quick hand and ready eye to pass.
The Servians have made a capital point in fixing their new boundary-line
south of this mountain-range.

Mountaineers are said to be "always freemen;" one can with equal
truthfulness add that the costumes of mountaineers' wives and daughters
are always more picturesque than those of their sisters in the valleys.
In these Balkan Mountains their costumes are a truly wonderful blending
of colors, to say nothing of fantastic patterns, apparently a medley of
ideas borrowed from Occident and Orient. One woman we have just passed
is wearing the loose, flowing pantaloons of the Orient, of a bright-yellow
color, a tight-fitting jacket of equally bright blue; around her waist
is folded many times a red and blue striped waistband, while both head
and feet are bare. This is no holiday attire; it is plainly the ordinary
every-day costume.

At the foot of the range we halt at a way-side mehana for dinner. A daily
diligence, with horses four abreast, runs over the Balkans from Niseh
to Sophia, Bulgaria, and one of them is halted at the mehana for
refreshments and a change of horses. Refreshments at these mehanas are
not always palatable to travellers, who almost invariably carry a supply
of provisions along. Of bread nothing but the coarse, black variety
common to the country is forthcoming at this mehana, and a gentleman,
learning from Mr. Popovitz that I have not yet been educated up to black
bread, fishes a large roll of excellent milch-Brod out of his traps and
kindly presents it to us; and obtaining from the mehana some hune-hen
fabrica and wine we make a very good meal. This hunehen fabrica is nothing
more nor less than cooked chicken. Whether hune-hen fabrica is genuine
Hungarian for cooked chicken, or whether Igali manufactured the term
especially for use between us, I cannot quite understand. Be this as it
may, before we started from Belgrade, Igali imparted the secret to Mr.
Popovitz that I was possessed with a sort of a wild appetite, as it were,
for hune-hen fabrica and cherries, three times a day, the consequence
being that Mr. Popovitz thoughtfully orders those viands whenever we
halt. After dinner the mutterings of thunder over the mountains warn us
that unless we wish to experience the doubtful luxuries of a road-side
mehana for the night we had better make all speed to the village of Bela
Palanka, twelve kilometres distant over - rather hilly roads. In forty
minutes we arrive at the Bela Palanka mehana, some time before the rain
begins. It is but twenty kilometres to Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier,
whither my companion has purposed to accompany me, but we are forced to
change this programme and remain at Bela Palanka.

It rains hard all night, converting the unassuming Nissava into a roaring
yellow torrent, and the streets of the little Balkan village into mud-
holes. It is still raining on Sunday morning, and as Mr. Popovitz is
obliged to be back to his duties as foreign correspondent in the Servian
National Bank at Belgrade on Tuesday, and the Balkan roads have been
rendered impassable for a bicycle, he is compelled to hire a team and
wagon to haul him and his wheel back over the mountains to Nisch, while
I have to remain over Sunday amid the dirt and squalor and discomforts - to
say nothing of a second night among the fleas - of an Oriental village
mehana. We only made fifty kilometres over the mountains yesterday, but
during the three days from Belgrade together the aggregate has been
satisfactory, and Mr. Popovitz has proven a most agreeable and interesting
companion. When but fourteen years of age he served under the banner of
the Red Cross in the war between the Turks and Servians, and is altogether
an ardent patriot. My Sunday in Bela Palanka impresses me with the
conviction that an Oriental village is a splendid place not to live in.
In dry weather it is disagreeable enough, but to-day, it is a disorderly
aggregation of miserable-looking villagers, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens,
and dogs, paddling around the muddy streets. The Oriental peasant's
costume is picturesque or otherwise, according to the fancy of the
observer. The red fez or turban, the upper garment, and the ample red
sash wound round and round the waist until it is eighteen inches broad,
look picturesque enough for anybody; but when it comes to having the
seat of the pantaloons dangling about the calves of the legs, a person
imbued with Western ideas naturally thinks that if the line between
picturesqueness and a two-bushel gunny-sack is to be drawn anywhere it
should most assuredly be drawn here. As I notice how prevalent this
ungainly style of nether garment is in the Orient, I find myself getting
quite uneasy lest, perchance, anything serious should happen to mine,
and I should be compelled to ride the bicycle in a pair of natives, which
would, however, be an altogether impossible feat unless it were feasible
to gather the surplus area up in a bunch and wear it like a bustle. I
cannot think, however, that Fate, cruel as she sometimes is, has anything
so outrageous as this in store for me or any other 'cycler. Although
Turkish ladies have almost entirely disappeared from Servia since its
severance from Turkey, they have left, in a certain degree, an impress
upon the women of the country villages; although the Bela Palanka maidens,
as I notice on the streets in their Sunday clothes to-day, do not wear
the regulation yashmak, but a head-gear that partially obscures the face,
their whole demeanor giving one the impression that their one object in
life is to appear the pink of propriety in the eyes of the whole world;
they walk along the streets at a most circumspect gait, looking neither
to the right nor left, neither stopping to converse with each other by
the way, nor paying any sort of attention to the men. The two proprietors
of the mehana where I am stopping are subjects for a student of human
nature. With their wretched little pigsty of a mehana in this poverty-stricken
village, they are gradually accumulating a fortune. Whenever a luckless
traveller falls into their clutches they make the incident count for
something. They stand expectantly about in their box-like public room;
their whole stock consists of a little diluted wine and mastic, and if
a bit of black bread and smear-lease is ordered, one is putting it down
in the book, while the other is ferreting it out of a little cabinet
where they keep a starvation quantity of edibles; when the one acting
as waiter has placed the inexpensive morsel before you, he goes over to
the book to make sure that number two has put down enough; and, although
the maximum value of the provisions is perhaps not over twopence, this
precious pair will actually put their heads together in consultation
over the amount to be chalked down. Ere the shades of Sunday evening
have settled down, I have arrived at the conclusion that if these two
are average specimens of the Oriental Jew they are financially a totally
depraved people.

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