Lippincotts Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 | Page 3

poured thousands of wretched peasants, bare-footed, bareheaded,
dying of starvation, fleeing from Turkish invasion, which, happily,
never assumed large proportions. These poor people slept on the
ground, content with the shelter of house-walls: they subsisted on
unripe fruits and that unfailing fund of mild tobacco which every male
being in all those countries invariably manages to secure. Walking
abroad in Orsova was no easy task, for one was constantly compelled to
step over these poor fugitives, who packed themselves into the sand at
noonday, and managed for a few hours before the cool evening breezes
came to forget their miseries. The vast fleet of river-steamers belonging
to the Austrian company was laid up at Orsova, and dozens of captains,
conversing in the liquid Slav or the graceful Italian or guttural German,
were for ever seated about the doors of the little cafés smoking long
cigars and quaffing beakers of the potent white wine produced in
Austrian vineyards.
Opposite Orsova lie the Servian Mountains, bold, majestic, inspiring.
Their noble forests and the deep ravines between them are exquisite in
color when the sun flashes along their sides. A few miles below the
point where the Hungarian and Roumanian territories meet the
mountainous region declines into foot-hills, and then to an
uninteresting plain. The Orsovan dell is the culminating point of all the
beauty and grandeur of the Danubian hills. From one eminence richly
laden with vineyards I looked out on a fresh April morning across a
delicious valley filled with pretty farms and white cottages and
ornamented by long rows of shapely poplars. Turning to the right, I saw
Servia's barriers, shutting in from the cold winds the fat lands of the
interior; vast hillsides dotted from point to point with peaceful villages,
in the midst of which white churches with slender spires arose; and to
the left the irregular line of the Roumanian peaks stood up, jagged and
broken, against the horizon. Out from Orsova runs a rude highway into
the rocky and savage back-country. The celebrated baths of Mehadia,
the "hot springs" of the Austro-Hungarian empire, are yearly
frequented by three or four thousand sufferers, who come from the
European capitals to Temesvar, and are thence trundled in diligences to

the water-cure. But the railway is penetrating even this far-off land,
where once brigands delighted to wander, and Temesvar and Bucharest
will be bound together by a daily "through-service" as regular as that
between Pesth and Vienna.
[Illustration: SISTOVA.]
I sat one evening on the balcony of the diminutive inn known as "The
Hungarian Crown," watching the sunbeams on the broad current of the
Danube and listening to the ripple, the plash and the gurgle of the
swollen stream as it rushed impetuously against the banks. A group of
Servians, in canoes light and swift as those of Indians, had made their
way across the river, and were struggling vigorously to prevent the
current from carrying them below a favorable landing-place. These tall,
slender men, with bronzed faces and gleaming eyes, with their round
skull-caps, their gaudy jackets and ornamental leggings, bore no small
resemblance at a distance to certain of our North American red-skins.
Each man had a long knife in his belt, and from experience I can say
that a Servian knife is in itself a complete tool-chest. With its one tough
and keen blade one may skin a sheep, file a saw, split wood, mend a
wagon, defend one's self vigorously if need be, make a buttonhole and
eat one's breakfast. No Servian who adheres to the ancient costume
would consider himself dressed unless the crooked knife hung from his
girdle. Although the country-side along the Danube is rough, and
travellers are said to need protection among the Servian hills, I could
not discover that the inhabitants wore other weapons than these useful
articles of cutlery. Yet they are daring smugglers, and sometimes
openly defy the Hungarian authorities when discovered. "Ah!" said
Master Josef, the head-servant of the Hungarian Crown, "many a good
fight have I seen in mid-stream, the boats grappled together, knives
flashing, and our fellows drawing their pistols. All that, too, for a few
flasks of Negotin, which is a musty red, thick wine that Heaven would
forbid me to recommend to your honorable self and companions so
long as I put in the cellar the pearl dew of yonder vineyards!" pointing
to the vines of Orsova.
While the Servians were anxiously endeavoring to land, and seemed to

be in imminent danger of upsetting, the roll of thunder was heard and a
few drops of rain fell with heavy plash. Master Josef forthwith began
making shutters fast and tying the curtains; "For now we shall have a
wind!" quoth he. And it came. As by magic the Servian shore was
blotted out, and before me