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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




The rain ceased soon after noon on Sunday, and, although the roads are
all but impassable, I pull out southward at five o'clock on Monday
morning, trundling up the mountain-roads through mud that frequently
compels me to stop and use the scraper. After the summit of the hills
between Bela Palanka and Pirot is gained, the road descending into the
valley beyond becomes better, enabling me to make quite good time into
Pirot, where my passport.undergoes an examination, and is favored with
a vise by the Servian officials preparatory to crossing the Servian and
Bulgarian frontier about twenty kilometres to the southward. Pirot is
quite a large and important village, and my appearance is the signal for
more excitement than the Piroters have experienced for many a day. While
I am partaking of bread and coffee in the hotel, the main street becomes
crowded as on some festive occasion, the grown-up people's faces beaming
with as much joyous anticipation of what they expect to behold when I
emerge from the hotel as the unwashed countenances of the ragged youngsters
around them. Leading citizens who have been to Paris or Vienna, and have
learned something about what sort of road a 'cycler needs, have imparted
the secret to many of their fellow-townsmen, and there is a general
stampede to the highway leading out of town to the southward. This road
is found to be most excellent, and the enterprising people who have
walked, ridden, or driven out there, in order to see me ride past to the
best possible advantage, are rewarded by witnessing what they never saw
before - a cycler speeding along past them at ten miles an hour. This gives
such general satisfaction that for some considerable distance I ride
between a double row of lifted hats and general salutations, and a
swelling murmur of applause runs all along the line.

Two citizens, more enterprising even than the others, have determined
to follow me with team and light wagon to a road-side office ten kilometres
ahead, where passports have again to be examined. The road for the whole
distance is level and fairly smooth; the Servian horses are, like the
Indian ponies of the West, small, but wiry and tough, and although I
press forward quite energetically, the whip is applied without stint,
and when the passport office is reached we pull up alongside it together,
but their ponies' sides are white with lather. The passport officer is
so delighted at the story of the race, as narrated to him by the others,
that he fetches me out.a piece of lump sugar and a glass of water, a
common refreshment partaken of in this country. Yet a third time I am
halted by a roadside official and required to produce my passport, and
again at the village of Zaribrod, just over the Bulgarian frontier, which
I reach about ten o'clock. To the Bulgarian official I present a small
stamped card-board check, which was given me for that purpose at the
last Servian examination, but he doesn't seem to understand it, and
demands to see the original passport. When my English passport is produced
he examines it, and straightway assures me of the Bulgarian official
respect for an Englishman by grasping me warmly by the hand. The passport
office is in the second story of a mud hovel, and is reached by a
dilapidated flight of out-door stairs. My bicycle is left leaning against
the building, and during my brief interview with the officer a noisy
crowd of semi-civilized Bulgarians have collected about, examining it
and commenting unreservedly concerning it and myself. The officer, ashamed
of the rudeness of his country - and their evidently untutored minds,
leans out of the window, and in a chiding voice explains to the crowd
that I am a private individual, and not a travelling mountebank going
about the country giving exhibitions, and advises them to uphold the dignity
of the Bulgarian character by scattering forthwith. But the crowd doesn't
scatter to any appreciable extent; they don't care whether I am public or
private; they have never seen anything like me and the bicycle before,
and the one opportunity of a lifetime is not to be lightly passed over.
They are a wild, untamed lot, these Bulgarians here at Zaribrod, little
given to self-restraint. When I emerge, the silence of eager anticipation
takes entire possession of the crowd, only to break forth into a spontaneous
howl of delight, from three hundred bared throats when I mount into the
saddle and ride away into - Bulgaria.

My ride through Servia, save over the Balkans. has been most enjoyable,
and the roads, I am agreeably surprised to have to record, have averaged
as good as any country in Europe, save England and France, though being
for the most part unmacadamized; with wet weather they would scarcely
show to such advantage. My impression of the Servian peasantry is most
favorable; they are evidently a warm-hearted, hospitable, and withal a
patriotic people, loving their little country and appreciating their
independence as only people who have but recently had their dream of
self-government realized know how to appreciate it; they even paint the
wood-work of their bridges and public buildings with the national colors.
I am assured that the Servians have progressed wonderfully since acquiring
their full independence; but as one journeys down the beautiful and
fertile valley of the Morava, where improvements would naturally be seen,
if anywhere, one falls to wondering where they can possibly have come
in. Some of their methods would, indeed, seem to indicate a most deplorable
lack of practicability; one of the most ridiculous, to the writer's mind,
is the erection of small, long sheds substantially built of heavy hewn
timber supports, and thick, home-made tiles, over ordinary plank fences
and gates to protect them from the weather, when a good coating of tar
or paint would answer the purpose of preservation much better. These
structures give one the impression of a dollar placed over a penny to
protect the latter from harm. Every peasant owns a few acres of land,
and, if he produces anything above his own wants, he hauls it to market
in an ox-wagon with roughly hewn wheels without tires, and whose creaking
can plainly bo heard a mile away. At present the Servian tills his little
freehold with the clumsiest of implements, some his own rude handiwork,
and the best imperfectly fashioned and forged on native anvils. His plow
is chiefly the forked limb of a tree, pointed with iron sufficiently to
enable him to root around in the surface soil. One would think the country
might offer a promising field for some enterprising manufacturer of such
implements as hoes, scythes, hay-forks, small, strong plows, cultivators,
etc.

These people are industrious, especially the women. I have entry met a
Servian peasant woman returning homeward in the evening from her labor
in the fields, carrying a fat, heavy baby, a clumsy hoe not much lighter
than the youngster, and an earthenware water-pitcher, and, at the same
time, industriously spinning wool with a small hand-spindle. And yet
some people argue about the impossibility of doing two things at once.
Whether these poor women have been hoeing potatoes, carrying the infant,
and spinning wool at the same time all day I am unable to say, not having
been an eye-witness, though I really should not be much astonished if
they had.






CHAPTER VIII.




BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY.

The road leading into Bulgaria from the Zaribrod custom-house is fairly
good for several kilometres, when mountainous and rough ways are
encountered; it is a country of goats and goat-herds. A rain-storm is
hovering threateningly over the mountains immediately ahead, but it does
not reach the vicinity I am traversing: it passes to the southward, and
makes the roads for a number of miles wellnigh impassable. Up in the
mountains I meet more than one " Bulgarian national express " - pony pack-
trains, carrying merchandise to and fro between Sofia and Nisch. Most
of these animals are too heavily laden to think of objecting to the
appearance of anything on the road, but some of the outfits are returning
from Sofia in "ballast" only; and one of these, doubtless overjoyed
beyond measure at their unaccustomed lissomeness, breaks through all
restraint at my approach, and goes stampeding over the rolling hills,
the wild-looking teamsters in full tear after them. Whatever of this
nature happens in this part of the world the people seem to regard with
commendable complacence: instead of wasting time in trying to quarrel
about it, they set about gathering up the scattered train, as though a
stampede were the most natural thing going. Bulgaria - at least by the
route I am crossing it - is a land of mountains and elevated plateaus, and
the inhabitants I should call the "ranchers of the Orient," in their
general appearance and demeanor bearing the same relation to the plodding
corn-hoer and scythe-swinger of the Morava Valley as the Niobrara cow-boy
does to the Nebraska homesteader. On the mountains are encountered herds
of goats in charge of men who reck little for civilization, and the
upland plains are dotted over with herds of ponies that require constant
watching in the interest of scattered fields of grain. For lunch I halt
at an unlikely-looking mehana, near a cluster of mud hovels, which, I
suppose, the Bulgarians consider a village, and am rewarded by the
blackest of black bread, in the composition of which sand plays no
inconsiderable part, and the remnants of a chicken killed and stewed at
some uncertain period of the past. Of all places invented in the world
to disgust a hungry, expectant wayfarer, the Bulgarian mehana is the
most abominable. Black bread and mastic (a composition of gum-mastic and
Boston rum, so I am informed) seem to be about the only things habitually
kept in stock, and everything about the place plainly shows the proprietor
to be ignorant of the crudest notions of cleanliness. A storm is observed
brewing in the mountains I have lately traversed, and, having swallowed
my unpalatable lunch, I hasten to mount, and betake myself off toward
Sofia, distant thirty kilometres. The road is nothing extra, to say the
least, but a howling wind blowing from the region of the gathering storm
propels me rapidly, in spite of undulations, ruts, and undesirable road
qualities generally. The region is an elevated plateau, of which but a
small proportion is cultivated; on more than one of the neighboring peaks
patches of snow are still lingering, and the cool mountain breezes recall
memories of the Laramie Plains. Men and women returning homeward on
horseback from Sofia are frequently encountered. The women are decked
with beads and trinkets and the gewgaws of semi-civilization, as might
be the favorite squaws of Squatting Beaver or Sitting Bull, and furthermore
imitate their copper-colored sisters of the Far West by bestriding their
ponies like men. But in the matter of artistic and profuse decoration
of the person the squaw is far behind the peasant woman of Bulgaria. The
garments of the men are a combination of sheepskin and a thick, coarse,
woollen material, spun by the women, and fashioned after patterns their
forefathers brought with them centuries ago when they first invaded
Europe. The Bulgarian saddle, like everything else here, is a rudely
constructed affair, that answers the double purpose of a pack-saddle or
for riding - a home-made, unwieldy thing, that is a fair pony's load of
itself.

At 4.30 P.M. I wheel into Sofia, the Bulgarian Capital, having covered
one hundred and ten kilometres to-day, in spite of mud, mountains, and
roads that have been none of the best. Here again I have to patronize
the money-changers, for a few Servian francs which I have are not current
in Bulgaria; and the Israelite, who reserved unto himself a profit of
two francs on the pound at Nisch, now seems the spirit of fairness itself
along-side a hook-nosed, wizen-faced relative of his here at Sofia, who
wants two Servian francs in exchange for each Bulgarian coin of the same
intrinsic value; and the best I am able to get by going to several
different money-changers is five francs in exchange for seven; yet the
Servian frontier is but sixty kilometres distant, with stages running
to it daily; and the two coins are identical in intrinsic value. At the
Hotel Concordia, in Sofia, in lieu of plates, the meat is served on
round, flat blocks of wood about the circumference of a saucer - the
"trenchers" of the time of Henry VIII.- and two respectable citizens
seated opposite me are supping off black bread and a sliced cucumber,
both fishing slices of the cucumber out of a wooden bowl with their
fingers.

Life at the Bulgarian Capital evidently bears its legitimate relative
comparison to the life of the country it represents. One of Prince
Alexander's body-guard, pointed out to me in the bazaar, looks quite a
semi-barbarian, arrayed in a highly ornamented national costume, with
immense Oriental pistols in waistband, and gold-braided turban cocked
on one side of his head, and a fierce mustache. The soldiers here, even
the comparatively fortunate ones standing guard at the entrance to the
prince's palace, look as though they haven't had a new uniform for years
and had long since despaired of ever getting one. A war, and an alliance
with some wealthy nation which would rig them out in respectable uniforms,
would probably not be an unwelcome event to many of them. While wandering
about the bazaar, after supper, I observe that the streets, the palace
grounds, and in fact every place that is lit up at all, save the minarets
of the mosque, which are always illumined with vegetable oil, are lighted
with American petroleum, gas and coal being unknown in the Bulgarian
capital. There is an evident want of system in everything these people
do. From my own observations I am inclined to think they pay no heed
whatever to generally accepted divisions of time, but govern their actions
entirely by light and darkness. There is no eight-hour nor ten-hour
system of labor here; and I verily believe the industrial classes work
the whole time, save when they pause to munch black bread, and to take
three or four hours' sleep in the middle of the night; for as I trundle
my way through the streets at five o'clock next morning, the same people
I observed at various occupations in the bazaars are there now, as busily
engaged as though they had been keeping it up all night; as also are
workmen building a house; they were pegging away at nine o'clock yestefday
evening, by the flickering light of small petroleum lamps, and at five
this morning they scarcely look like men who are just commencing for the
day. The Oriental, with his primitive methods and tenacious adherence
to the ways of his forefathers, probably enough, has to work these extra
long hours in order to make any sort of progress. However this may be,
I have throughout the Orient been struck by the industriousness of the
real working classes; but in practicability and inventiveness the Oriental
is sadly deficient. On the way out I pause at the bazaar to drink hot
milk and eat a roll of white bread, the former being quite acceptable,
for the morning is rather raw and chilly; the wind is still blowing a
gale, and a company of cavalry, out for exercise, are incased in their
heavy gray overcoats, as though it were midwinter instead of the twenty-
third of June. Rudely clad peasants are encountered on the road, carrying
large cans of milk into Sofia from neighboring ranches. I stop several
of them with a view of sampling the quality of their milk, but invariably
find it unstrained, and the vessels looking as though they had been
strangers to scalding for some time. Others are carrying gunny-sacks of
smear-kase on their shoulders, the whey from which is not infrequently
streaming down their backs. Cleanliness is no doubt next to godliness;
but the Bulgarians seem to be several degrees removed from either. They
need the civilizing influence of soap quite as much as anything else,
and if the missionaries cannot educate them up to Christianity or
civilization it might not be a bad scheme to try the experiment of
starting a native soap-factory or two in the country.

Savagery lingers in the lap of civilization on the breezy plateaus of
Bulgaria, but salvation is coming this way in the shape of an extension
of the Eoumelian railway from the south, to connect with the Servian
line north of the Balkans. For years the freight department of this
pioneer railway will have to run opposition against ox-teams, and creaking,
groaning wagons; and since railway stockholders and directors are not
usually content with an exclusive diet of black bread, with a wilted
cucumber for a change on Sundays, as is the Bulgarian teamster, and since
locomotives cannot be turned out to graze free of charge on the hill-sides,
the competition will not be so entirely one-sided as might be imagined.
Long trains of these ox-teams are met with this morning hauling freight
and building-lumber from the railway terminus in Eoumelia to Sofia. The
teamsters are wearing large gray coats of thick blanketing, with floods
covering the head, a heavy, convenient garment, that keeps out both rain
and cold while on the road, and at night serves for blanket and mattress;
for then the teamster turns his oxen loose on the adjacent hill-sides
to graze, and, after munching a piece of black bread, he places a small
wicker-work wind-break against the windward side of the wagon, and,
curling himself up in his great-coat, sleeps soundly. Besides the ox-
trains, large, straggling trains of pack-ponies and donkeys occasionally
fill the whole roadway; they are carrying firewood and charcoal from the
mountains, or wine and spirits, in long, slender casks, from Roumelia;
while others are loaded with bales and boxes of miscellaneous merchandise,
out of all proportion to their own size.

The road southward from Sofia is abominable, being originally constructed
of earth and large unbroken bowlders; it has not been repaired for years,
and the pack-trains and ox-wagons forever crawling along have, during
the wet weather of many seasons, tramped the dirt away, and left the
surface a wretched waste of ruts, holes, and thickly protruding stones.
It is the worst piece of road I have encountered in all Europe; and
although it is ridable this morning by a cautious person, one risks and
invites disaster at every turn of the wheel. "Old Boreas" comes howling
from the mountains of the north, and hustles me briskly along over ruts,
holes, and bowlders, however, in a most reckless fashion, furnishing all
the propelling power needful, and leaving me nothing to do but keep a
sharp lookout for breakneck places immediately ahead. In Servia, the
peasants, driving along the road in their wagons, upon observing me
approaching them, being uncertain of the character of my vehicle and the
amount of road-space I require, would ofttimes drive entirely off the
road; and sometimes, when they failed to take this precaution, and their
teams would begin to show signs of restiveness as I drew near, the men
would seem to lose their wits for the moment, and cry out in alarm, as
though some unknown danger were hovering over them. I have seen women
begin to wail quite pitifully, as though they fancied I bestrode an all-
devouring circular saw that was about to whirl into them and rend team,
wagon, and everything asunder. But the Bulgarians don't seem to care
much whether I am going to saw them in twain or not; they are far less
particular about yielding the road, and both men and women seem to be
made of altogether sterner stuff than the Servians and Slavonians. They
seem several degrees less civilized than their neighbors farther north,
judging from tieir general appearance and demeanor. They act peaceably
and are reasonably civil toward me and the bicycle, however, and personallv
I rather enjoy their rough, unpolished manners. Although there is a
certain element of rudeness and boisterousuess about them compared with
anything I have encountered elsewhere in Europe, they seem, on the whole,
a good-natured people. We Westerners seldom hear anything of the Bulgarians
except in war-times and then it is usually in connection with atrocities
that furnish excellent sensational material for the illustrated weeklies;
consequently I rather expected to have a rough time riding through alone.
But, instead of coming out slashed and scarred like a Heidelberg student,
I emerge from their territory with nothing more serious than a good
healthy shaking up from their ill-conditioned roads and howling winds,
and my prejudice against black bread with sand in it partly overcome
from having had to eat it or nothing. Bulgaria is a principality under
the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom it is supposed to pay a yearly
tribute; but the suzerainty sits lightly upon the people, since they do
pretty much as they please; and they never worry themselves about the
tribute, simply putting it down on the slate whenever it comes due. The
Turks might just as well wipe out the account now as at any time, for
they will eventually have to whistle for the whole indebtedness. A smart
rain-storm drives me into an uninviting mehana near the Roumelian frontier,
for two unhappy hours, at noon - a mehana where the edible accommodations
would wring an "Ugh" from an American Indian - and the sole occupants
are a blear-eyed Bulgarian, in twenty-year-old sheep-skin clothes, whose
appearance plainly indicates an over-fondness for mastic, and an unhappy-
looking black kitten. Fearful lest something, perchance, might occur
to compel me to spend the night here, I don my gossamers as soon as the
rain slacks up a little, and splurge ahead through the mud toward Ichtiman,
which, my map informs me, is just on this side of the Kodja Balkans,
which rise up in dark wooded ridges at no great distance ahead, to the
southward. The mud and rain combine to make things as disagreeable as
possible, but before three o'clock I reach Ichtiman, to find that I am
in the province of Eoumelia, and am again required to produce my passport.

I am now getting well down into territory that quite recently was
completely under the dominion of the "unspeakable Turk " - unspeakable,
by the way, to the writer in more senses than one - and is partly so even
now, but have as yet seen very little of the "mysterious veiled lady."
The Bulgarians are Christian when they are anything, though the great
majority of them are nothing religiously. A comparatively comfortable
mehana is found here at Ichtiman, and the proprietor, being able to talk
German, readily comprehends the meaning of hune-hen fabrica; but I have
to dispense with cherries.

Mud is the principal element of the road leading out of Ichtiman and
over the Kodja Balkans this morning. The curious crowd of Ichtimanites
that follow me through the mud-holes and filth of their native streets,
to see what is going to happen when I get clear of them, are rewarded
but poorly for their trouble; the best I can possibly do being to make
a spasmodic run of a hundred yards through the mud, which I do purely
out of consideration for their inquisitiveness, since it seems rather
disagreeable to disappoint a crowd of villagers who are expectantly
following and watching one's every movement, wondering, in their ignorance,
why you don't ride instead of walk. It is a long, wearisome trundle up
the muddy slopes of the Kodja Balkans, but, after the descent into the
Maritza Valley begins, some little ridable surface is encountered, though
many loose stones are lying about, and pitch-holes innumerable, make
riding somewhat risky, considering that the road frequently leads
immediately alongside precipices. Pack-donkeys are met on these mountain-
roads, sometimes filling the way, and corning doggedly and indifferently
forward, even in places where I have little choice between scrambling
up a rock on one side of the road or jumping down a precipice on the
other. I can generally manage to pass them, however, by placing the
bicycle on one side, and, 'standing guard over it, push them off one by
one as they pass. Some of these Roumelian donkeys are the most diminutive
creatures I ever saw; but they seem capable of toiling up these steep
mountain-roads with enormous loads. I met one this morning carrying
bales of something far bigger than himself, and a big Roumelian, whose
feet actually came in contact with the ground occasionally, perched on
his rump; the man looked quite capable of carrying both the donkey and
his load.

The warm and fertile Maritza Valley is reached soon after noon, and I
am not sorry to find it traversed by a decent macadamized road; though,
while it has been raining quite heavily up among the mountains, this
valley has evidently been favored with a small deluge, and frequent
stretches are covered with deep mud and sand, washed down from the
adjacent hills; in the cultivated areas of the Bulgarian uplands the
grain-fields are yet quite green, but harvesting has already begun in
the warmer Maritza Vale, and gangs of Roumelian peasants are in the
fields, industriously plying reaping-hooks to save their crops of wheat
and rye, which the storm has badly lodged. Ere many miles of this level
valley-road are ridden over, a dozen pointed minarets loom up ahead, and
at four o'clock I dismount at the confines of the well nigh impassable
streets of Tatar Bazardjik, quite a lively little city in the sense that
Oriental cities are lively, which means well-stocked bazaars thronged
with motley crowds. Here I am delayed for some time by a thunder-storm,
and finally wheel away southward in the face of threatening heavens.
Several villages of gypsies are camped on the banks of the Maritza, just
outside the limits of Tatar Bazardjik; a crowd of bronzed, half-naked
youngsters wantonly favor me with a fusillade of stones as I ride past,
and several gaunt, hungry-looking curs follow me for some distance with
much threatening clamor. The dogs in the Orient seem to be pretty much
all of one breed, genuine mongrel, possessing nothing of the spirit and
courage of the animals we are familiar with. Gypsies are more plentiful
south of the Save than even in Austria-Hungary, but since leaving Slavonia
I have never been importuned by them for alms. Travellers from other
countries are seldom met with along the roads here, and I suppose that
the wandering Romanies have long since learned the uselessness of asking
alms of the natives; but, since they religiously abstain from anything
like work, how they manage to live is something of a mystery.

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