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
We awoke one morning to find the second-class saloon turned into a
Herzegovinian camp, piled with gay saddle-bags and rugs upon which
squatted, cross-legged, a couple of families in full native costume, and
the air was thick with the highly scented tobacco which the whole party
smoked incessantly. The friendly steward, a Dalmatian Italian,
whispered hastily, "This is a Herzegovinian family, signorin'. Do you
like the Herzegovinese?" Rather taken aback, and not knowing what his
politics were, I replied, stupidly enough, "I find their costume very
interesting," This frivolous remark hurt the steward deeply.
"Signorin'," he said very gravely, "these are some of the bravest men in
the world. Each one of these that you see would fight till he died."
Then in a mysterious undertone, "They cannot live without freedom ...
they are leaving their own land ... it has been taken, as you know, by
the Austrian.... They are going to Montenegro, to a free country. They
have taken with them all their possessions, and they go to find
freedom."
I looked at them with a curious sense of pity. Though they knew it not,
they were the survivors of an old, old world, the old world which still
lingers in out-of-the-way corners, and it was from the twentieth century
quite as much as from the Teuton they were endeavouring to flee. All
these parti-coloured saddle-bags and little bundles tied up in cotton
handkerchiefs represented the worldly goods of three generations, who
had left the land of their forebears and were upon a quest as mystical
as any conceived by mediæval knight--they were seeking the shrine of
Liberty. "Of old sat Freedom on the heights"; let us hope they found her
there! I never saw them again.
On the other hand, in a boat with Austrian sympathies, the tale is very
different. "I am a Viennese, Fräulein. Imagine what it is to me to have
to travel in this dreary place! The people?--they are a rough,
discontented set. Very ignorant. Very bad. No, I should not advise you to
go to Montenegro--a most mischievous race." "And what about Bosnia and
the Herzegovina?" "Oh, you will be quite safe there; _we_ govern that.
They are a bad lot, though! But we don't stand any nonsense."
Thus either party seizes upon the stranger and tries to prevent his
views being "prejudiced." He seldom has need to complain that he has
heard one side only; but there is a Catholic side, an Orthodox side, a
Mohammedan side, there are German, Slav, Italian, Turkish, and Albanian
sides; and when he has heard them all he feels far less capable of
forming an opinion on the Eastern Question than he did before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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