Twenty Years of Balkan TangleDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel; Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
Scarcely one of the Austrian military or civil authorities I spoke
with had ever visited Serbia or Montenegro. They all regarded the
two as semi-savage lands used as tools against them by Russia. When
I arrived at Vishegrad, close on the Serb frontier, feeling was
running high. Serbia showed no sign of giving way as had been
expected. I told the officials their boycott was bound to fail, as
you cannot starve out a people whose main assets are maize and pigs.
"You will see I am right. They will simply go on eating pigs till
you are tired." The Bezirksvorsteher was annoyed at this, but
interested. I said "Get me a horse and a guide, and I will go into
Serbia and see." He retorted It was impossible as the frontier was
closed, but he hired me the horse and a very black gypsy, a wild
enough creature, and I went.
Was halted at the border blockhouse, which the black gypsy thought
unpassable, but the Serbs were rather pleased to be inspected,
telephoned through to Uzhitza, and I rode on. An amusing sidelight
was the surprise of the gypsy at finding the same language both
sides of the border. "But they talk Bosniak!" he cried.
An aged peasant on horseback joined me and asked so many questions
about London that I thought he knew something about it till he asked
"Is it a free country?"
He was puzzled when I said, "Yes."
"But it is under Austria," he protested.
"No, no," said I, "it is a free country."
"Thank God," said the old boy, "and I believed it was under Austria.
Bogati--so many people are under Austria. But London is not."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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