Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family: or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.Paton, A. A. (Andrew Archibald)
History
Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family: or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.
Paton, A. A. (Andrew Archibald)
Serbia -- Description and travel
Most of the barbers in Belgrade are Turks, and have that superior
dexterity which distinguishes their craft in the east. There are also
Christian barbers; but the Moslems are in greater force. I never saw
any Servian shave himself; nearly all resort to the barber. Even the
Christian barbers, in imitation of the Oriental fashion, shave the
straggling edges of the eyebrows, and with pincers tug out the small
hairs of the nostrils.
The native _cafes_ are nearly all kept by Moslems; one, as I have
stated elsewhere, by an Arab, born in Oude in India; another by a
Jew, which is frequented by the children of Israel, and is very dirty.
I once went in to smoke a narghile, and see the place, but made my
escape forthwith. Several Jews, who spoke Spanish to each other, were
playing backgammon on a raised bench, and seemed to have in their furs
and dresses that "_malproprete profonde et huileuse_" which M. de
Custine tells us characterizes the dirt of the north as contrasted
with that of the southern nations. The _cafe_ of the Indian, on the
contrary, was perfectly clean and new.
Moslem boatmen, porters, barbers, &c. serve Christians and all and
sundry. But in addition to these, there is a sort of bazaar in the
Turkish quarter, occupied by tradespeople, who subsist almost
exclusively by the wants of their co-religionists living in the
quarter, as well as of the Turkish garrison in the fortress. The only
one of this class who frequented me, was the public writer, who had
several assistants; he was not a native of Belgrade, but a Bulgarian
Turk from Ternovo. He drew up petitions to the Pasha in due form, and,
moreover, engraved seals very neatly. His assistants, when not
engaged in either of these occupations, copied Korans for sale. His
own handwriting was excellent, and he knew all the styles, Arab,
Deewanee, Persian, Reka, &c. What keeps him mostly in my mind, was the
delight with which he entered into, and illustrated, the proverbs at
the end of M. Joubert's grammar, which the secretary of the Russian
Consul-general had lent him. Some of the proverbs are so applicable to
Oriental manners, that I hope the reader will excuse the digression.
"Kiss the hand thou hast not been able to cut."
"Hide thy friend's name from thine enemy."
"Eat and drink with thy friend; never buy and sell with him."
"This is a fast day, said the cat, seeing the liver she could not get
at."
"Of three things one--Power, gold, or quit the town."
"The candle does not light its base."
"The orphan cuts his own navel-string," &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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