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
Radovan and I started up the slopes of Kom of the Vassoievich, and I was
promised a fine day. I owed a good deal to this strong, ragged,
level-headed man who had piloted me safely through a somewhat risky
enterprise, and was glad of his further company. He had displayed the
most extraordinary tact throughout the tour, and, while playing the part
of a humble horse-boy who asked for my orders, had managed and arranged
everything. Silent and watchful, he was always in the background; he
slipped in his pieces of information quietly, told me what to pay, whom
to pay, had very definite ideas as to whom I was to speak to or could be
left alone with; ascertained, when buying forage for the horse in the
town, the state of the country, and passed me the news in three words
when he handed me the change. But he never spoke a word unless it was
required. On his native hills he was conversational. He had been again
to Berani, and told me with a grin that the "ljuta zmija," the
Kaimmakam, had asked, "Where is that Englishwoman?" and had been very
angry when told, "She has eaten, has fed her horse, and is gone." "It
was better so," said Radovan oracularly, and he added, with a laugh,
"and Yakoub knew." I was unaware that I had been spirited back across
the frontier, and it gave me much food for reflection.
The ascent was easy over steep grass slopes, Radovan pointing out all
the landmarks. He told of the Voyvode's prowess. He loved the Voyvode,
and showed me down below at the head of the valley the old home of the
Voyvode's family. He told me of his own little cottage, his field of
corn and his plum trees, and of his wife and three children, one, thank
God, a boy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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