Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Shabatz (more correctly Czabacz,) a town on the Save, between forty and
fifty miles above Belgrade, and one of the few garrisons still retained
by the Turks, was the first point of destination; and reaching it on the
second day, he was hospitably received by _Gospody_ (Monsieur) Ninitch,
the government collector, to whom he had an introductory letter from the
minister Garashanin. Before the revolution, Shabatz numbered 20,000
Osmanlis, the sites of whose kiosks and gardens are still pointed out on
the _Polje_, or open space between the town and the fortress,--at
present the only Moslems are the garrison of Bosniak _Redif_ or militia,
occupying the dilapidated fortifications. It is the episcopal seat of
one of the Archbishop's three suffragans; and the author, accompanied by
his friend the collector, paid his respects to the Bishop, whom he had
previously met at Belgrade. The conversation turned principally on the
system of national education, by which, in a few years, reading and
writing will be universal among the peasantry, while the sons of the
better classes are prepared, by instruction in German, &c., for a
further course of study in the Gymnasium of Belgrade, the germ of a
future university. A proof of the taste now spreading for general
literature was afforded by the library of the Archpriest, "Jowan
Paulovich, a self-taught ecclesiastic: the room in which he received us
was filled with books, mostly Servian, but among them I perceived German
translations of Shakspeare, Young's _Night Thoughts_, and a novel of
Bulwer's." The son of this priest was studying mining engineering at the
expense of government, at Schemnitz in Hungary, a capacity in which he
may one day do good service to his country, as the great mineral riches
believed to exist in Servia are hitherto wholly unexplored. Having
completed the circuit of all the notables in Shabatz, including Luka
Lasaravich, a once redoubted lieutenant of Kara-George, and now an
octagenarian merchant, with thirteen wounds on his body, Mr Paton
prepared for a fresh start, drinking health and long life to his kind
host and hostess in a glass of _slivovitsa_, or plum brandy, the
national liqueur. But his good wishes were not destined to be fulfilled;
for within a month an abortive attempt at a rising was made by the
partisans of the exiled Obrenovich family, a troop of whom, disguised as
Austrian hussars, entered Shabatz, and shot the good collector dead as
he issued from his house to enquire the cause of the disturbance. The
attempt, however, was futile, and the whole party were taken and
executed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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