Through the Land of the SerbDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Through the Land of the Serb
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel
Two mounted zaptiehs clattered into the yard at one o'clock, and I was
told to start at once. They were to take me to Dechani and bring me
back. I was to go nowhere else, and the Pasha would keep my passport. I
had hoped to push right on to Prisren from Dechani, but was outwitted.
As for returning across country to Andrijevitza, that, I was told, was
out of the question. The Albanians were up, and even with an escort of
Nizams we should probably not get through without a fight. We set off
for Dechani at once. The school teacher and the student both rode with
me, and the former most kindly lent me his horse, a very good one. We
rode over the undulating plain, and they showed me where Kosovo lay,
where Mitrovitza, and where Prisren. The two zaptiehs, both Moslem, were
apparently as much interested in Kosovo as were the Christians. One,
Yakoub, was a Bosnian, and his Mohammedanism sat exceeding light upon
him. He was delighted with the job of riding about with me; his
discourse was all of the Montenegrins, and their great valour, and of
that hero, Milosh Obilich, who slew the wicked Sultan Murad. "He was a
veliki junak! Come with me, and I will show you his grave," said Yakoub
enthusiastically. But he wore the Sultan's uniform, and of his two
uncles one was a Pasha and the other a Kaimmakam! He was a fair-haired,
blue-eyed young fellow bubbling with animal spirits, singing songs and
making his horse plunge out of pure light-heartedness. The conversion of
his forefathers, doubtless for the sake of peace and quiet, to Islam had
placed him in the class of the rulers and not of the ruled. It therefore
naturally never occurred to him to doubt the superiority of
Mohammedanism, but the heroes that he cherished in his heart were all
Christian, and belonged to the days of Tsar Lazar and the great Servian
empire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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