Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846. Various
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Lumpacivagabundus," which we quote for the benefit of such of our friends as may chance to be skilled in the unknown tongue. Meanwhile the assembled peasantry outside were in the full tide of merriment; and, on the following morning, Mr Paton was roused from slumbers, in which "I dreamed I know not what absurdities," by a chorus of countless voices, and, hurrying out, found the peasants he had seen the evening before, with a large accession to their numbers, on their knees in the avenue leading to the church, and following "the chant of a noble old hymn. The whole pit of this theatre of verdure appeared covered with a carpet of crimson and white; for such were the prevailing colours of the costumes. The upper tunic of the women was a species of surtout of undyed cloth, bordered with a design of red cloth of a finer description. The stockings, in colour and texture, resembled those of Persia (?), but were generally embroidered at the ankle with gold and silver thread. When I thought of the trackless solitude of the sylvan ridges around me, I seemed to witness one of the early communions of Christianity, in those ages when incense ascended to the Olympic deities in gorgeous temples, while praise to the true God rose from the haunts of the wolf, the lonely cavern, or the subterranean vault."
After witnessing this interesting reunion of a regenerated and Christian nation, Mr Paton took leave of the Superior, who parted from him with the words – "God be praised that Servia has at length seen the day when strangers come from afar to see and know the people!" and, passing through the double ranks of the peasantry, who took leave of him with the valediction of Srentnj poot! (a good journey,) repeated by a thousand voices, he rode on through the never-ceasing oak-forests, broken here and there by plantations of every variety of tree, to Krupena. Here he was received by the captain of the district at the head of a small troop of irregular cavalry, and hospitably entertained for the night. On the following day he started, "toiling upwards through woods and wilds of a more rocky character than on the previous day," to the ridge of the Gutchevo range, whence he looked down on Sokol, a fortress still held by the Turks, and which, on its inaccessible position, "built" (as described by M. Ninitch) "on the capital of a column of rock," was the only one never taken by the Servians; while the background was formed by the mountains of Bosnia, rising range over range in the distance. They reached the valley by a narrow winding path on the face of a precipitous descent, and entered the town; but their visit was ill-timed. It was Ramadan; the Disdar Aga was, or was said to be, asleep, and the castle could not be seen in his absence; and Mr Paton's enquiries from the Mutsellim, who acted as their cicerone, as to the height of the rock on which the citadel was built above the valley, only made him suspected of being an engineer surveying the stronghold with a view to its capture. After climbing up a pinnacle of rock which overlooked the abyss, he was compelled to return re infectâ; "and when we got a little way along the valley, I looked back; Sokol looked like a little castle of Edinburgh placed in the clouds; and a precipice on the other side of the valley presented a perpendicular stature of not less than five hundred feet."
A few hours travelling from Sokol brought Mr Paton to Liuhovia on the Drina, the precipitous banks of which, covered with wood, present numerous points of picturesque beauty; but at a short distance above this town, which is the quarantine station on the road between Belgrade and Seraievo it ceases to form the boundary of Servia and Bosnia, being entirely within the latter frontier. Thence ascending the valley of the Rogaschitza, a small stream tributary to the Drina, and crossing a ridge which parts the waters flowing into the Drina and into the Morava, he descended into the tract watered by the Morava, the national river of Servia; the first town in which was Ushitza, one of the fortresses still garrisoned by the Turks, and the scene of desperate conflicts during the war of independence. In past times it was a place of great importance, and contained sixty thousand inhabitants, being the entrepôt of the trade between Servia and Bosnia; but this commerce has been almost ruined by the establishment of the quarantine; and most of the Servian inhabitants, in consequence of a bloody affray with the Turks, have transferred themselves to Poshega, a town at two hours' distance, and formerly a Roman colony, of which Mr. Paton found a relic in a fragment of a Latin inscription built into the wall of the church. From Poshega Mr P. continued his route down the rich valley of the Morava, here several miles wide, to Csatsak, the residence of a bishop and a Natchalnik; where the old Turkish town is in process of being superseded by a new foundation, which, "like Poshega and all these new places, consists of a circular or square market-place, with bazar shops in the Turkish manner, and straight streets diverging from it." Mr Paton waited on the bishop, "a fine specimen of the church-militant; a stout fiery man of sixty, in full furred robes, and black velvet cap," who had been, during the rule of Milosh, an energetic denouncer of his extortions and monopolies, and was consequently in high favour since the change of dynasty. The cathedral (we are informed) was "a most ancient edifice of Byzantine architecture," of which we should have been glad to have had some particulars; but Mr Paton's remarks are confined to complaints of the wearisome length of the mass, at which the bishop presided, "dressed in crimson velvet and white satin, embroidered with gold, which had cost £300 at Vienna; and as he sat in his chair, with mitre on head and crosier in hand, looked, with his bushy white beard, an imposing representative of spiritual authority." Taking leave of this formidable prelate, Mr Paton proceeded to Karanovatz, in the rich plain round which, surrounded by hills which are compared to the last picturesque undulations of the Alps near Vicenz or Verona, the river Ybar falls into the Morava, not far fron the ancient convent of Zhitchka Jicha, where seven Servian kings of the Neman dynasty were crowned, a door being broken in the wall for the entrance of each monarch, and built up again on his departure: and here our traveller, turning to the right, and ascending the course of the Ybar, struck southwards into the highlands
The character of the mountains among which he now found himself, was widely different from the picturesque oak forests of the Gutchevo range, which he had traversed in the early part of his tour. "Tall cedars replaced the oak and beech; the scanty herbage was covered with hoar-frost; the clear brooks murmured chillingly down the unshaded gullies; and a grand line of sterile peaks to the south showed me that I was approaching the backbone of the Balkan. There is a total want of arable land in this part of Servia, and the pasture is neither good nor abundant; but the Ybar is the most celebrated stream in Servia for large quantities of trout." Still ascending the steep mountain-paths, while the scenery became wilder and wilder, they at length reached the convent of Studenitza, one of the most ancient foundations in Servia, having been built by Neman, the first monarch of the dynasty bearing his name, who died in 1195. Like most monastic edifices in Servia, it is a castellated building, with walls whose massive strength is well calculated to resist an attack not supported by artillery; and, on entering the wicket, Mr Paton was received "by a fat, feeble-voiced, lymphatic-faced superior, leaning on a long staff" – from whom he could get no other reply to all his inquiries than "Blagodarim, (I thank you.") The magnificent church of white marble, one of the finest specimens now existing of Byzantine architecture, was built in 1314 (as an inscription imports) by Stephen Vrosh; but it had suffered severely at different times from the bigotry of the Turks. "The curiously twisted pillars of the outer door were sadly chipped, while noseless angels, and fearfully mutilated lions, guarded the inner portal. Passing through a vestibule, we saw the remains of the font, which must have been magnificent; and, covered with a cupola, the stumps of the white marble columns which support it are still visible. Entering the church, I saw on the right the tomb of St Simeon, the sainted king of Servia; beside it hung his banner with the half-moon on it, the insignium(!) of the South Slavonic nation from the dawn of heraldry; and near the altar was the body of his son, St Stephen, the patron saint of Servia." Another day's journey through the same rugged and sterile scenery, in a direction due south, during which they passed the Demir-kapu, on Iron Gate, on the bank of the Ybar, where there is only room for a single led horse in a passage cut through the rock, brought them to the quarantine station on the river Raska, two hours' distance from Novibazar in Bosnia, which it was Mr Paton's intention to visit, attended by a Servian quarantine officer.
The conversion of the Bosniaks to Islam was effected by force, on the conquest of the country in 1463, by Mohammed II., the only instance in the career of Turkish conquest in which the injunction of the Prophet against compulsory proselytism has been violated; but they have always held the faith, thus forced on them, with the zeal of renegades, and are now the most fanatic and bigoted Moslems in the empire. The Christians resident in their territory are subject to every species of tyranny and maltreatment, several instances of which, related by refugees in Servia, are given in