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
There flowed the Save in all its peaceful smoothness; looking out of
the window, I perceived that the high rampart, on which the kiosk was
constructed, was built at a distance of thirty or forty yards from the
water, and that the intervening space was covered with boats, hauled
up high and dry, and animated with the process of building and
repairing the barges employed in the river trade. The kiosk, in which
we were sitting, was a species of cafe, and it being Ramadan time, we
were presented with sherbet by a kahwagi, who, to judge by his look,
was a eunuch. I was afterwards told that the Turks remaining in the
fortified town are so poor, that they had not a decent room to show me
into.
A Turk, about fifty years of age, now entered. His habiliments were
somewhere between decent and shabby genteel, and his voice and manners
had that distinguished gentleness which wins--because it feels--its
way. This was the Disdar Aga, the last relic of the wealthy Turks of
the place: for before the Servian revolution Shabatz had its twenty
thousand Osmanlis; and a tract of gardens on the other side of the
_Polje_, was pointed out as having been covered with the villas of the
wealthy, which were subsequently burnt down.
Our conversation was restricted to a few general observations, as
other persons were present, but the Disdar Aga promised to call on me
on the following day. I was asked if I had been in Seraievo.[2] I
answered in the negative, but added, "I have heard so much of
Seraievo, that I desire ardently to see it. But I am afraid of the
Haiducks."[3]
_Cadi_. "And not without reason; for Seraievo, with its delicious
gardens, must be seen in summer. In winter the roads are free from
haiducks, because they cannot hold out in the snow; but then Seraievo,
having lost the verdure and foliage of its environs, ceases to be
attractive, except in its bazaars, for they are without an equal."
_Author_. "I always thought that the finest bazaar of Turkey in
Europe, was that of Adrianople."
_Cadi_. "Ay, but not equal to Seraievo; when you see the Bosniacs, in
their cleanly apparel and splendid arms walking down the bazaar, you
might think yourself in the serai of a sultan; then all the esnafs are
in their divisions like regiments of Nizam."
The Disdar Aga now accompanied me to the gate, and bidding me
farewell, with graceful urbanity, re-entered the bastioned miniature
citadel in which he lived almost alone. The history of this individual
is singular: his family was cut to pieces in the dreadful scenes of
1806; and, when a mere boy, he found himself a prisoner in the Servian
camp. Being thus without protectors, he was adopted by Luka
Lasarevitch, the valiant lieutenant of Kara Georg, and baptized as a
Christian with the name of John, but having been reclaimed by the
Turks on the re-conquest of Servia in 1813, he returned to the faith
of his fathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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