Lippincotts Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 | Page 5

delighted squeal, which died away into a series of
disappointed and cynical groans as soon as the porkers had discovered
that no evening repast was to be offered them. Good fare do these
Servian swine find in the abundant provision of acorns in the vast
forests. The men who spend their lives in restraining the vagabond
instincts of these vulgar animals may perhaps be thought a collection of
brutal hinds; but, on the contrary, they are fellows of shrewd common
sense and much dignity of feeling. Kara-George, the terror of the Turk
at the beginning of this century, the majestic character who won the
admiration of Europe, whose genius as a soldier was praised by
Napoleon the Great, and who freed his countrymen from
bondage,--Kara-George was a swineherd in the woods of the
Schaumadia until the wind of the spirit fanned his brow and called him
from his simple toil to immortalize his homely name.
Master Josef and his fellows in Orsova did not hate the Servians with
the bitterness manifested toward the Roumanians, yet they considered
them as aliens and as dangerous conspirators against the public weal.
"Who knows at what moment they may go over to the Russians?" was
the constant cry. And in process of time they went, but although Master
Josef had professed the utmost willingness to take up arms on such an
occasion, it does not appear that he did it, doubtless preferring, on
reflection, the quiet of his inn and his flask of white wine in the
courtyard rather than an excursion among the trans-Danubian hills and
the chances of an untoward fate at the point of a Servian knife. It is not
astonishing that the two peoples do not understand each other, although
only a strip of water separates their frontiers for a long stretch; for the
difference in language and in its written form is a most effectual barrier
to intercourse. The Servians learn something of the Hungarian dialects,
since they come to till the rich lands of the Banat in the summer season.
Bulgarians and Servians by thousands find employment in Hungary in
summer, and return home when autumn sets in. But the dreams and
ambitions of the two peoples have nothing in common. Servia looks
longingly to Slavic unification, and is anxious to secure for herself a

predominance in the new nation to be moulded out of the old scattered
elements: Hungary believes that the consolidation of the Slavs would
place her in a dangerous and humiliating position, and conspires day
and night to compass exactly the reverse of Servian wishes. Thus the
two countries are theoretically at peace and practically at war. While
the conflict of 1877 was in progress collisions between Servian and
Hungarian were of almost daily occurrence.
The Hungarian's intolerance of the Slav does not proceed from
unworthy jealousy, but rather from an exaggerated idea of the
importance of his own country, and of the evils which might befall it if
the old Serb stock began to renew its ancient glory. In corners of
Hungary, such as Orsova, the peasant imagines that his native land is
the main world, and that the rest of Europe is an unnecessary and
troublesome fringe around the edges of it. There is a story of a
gentleman in Pesth who went to a dealer in maps and inquired for a
globus of Hungary, showing that he imagined it to be the whole round
earth.
[Illustration: THE DANUBE AT TRAJAN'S BRIDGE.]
So fair were the land and the stream after the storm that I lingered until
sunset gazing out over river and on Servian hills, and did not accept
Josef's invitation to visit the chapel of the Hungarian crown that
evening. But next morning, before the sun was high, I wandered alone
in the direction of the Roumanian frontier, and by accident came upon
the chapel. It is a modest structure in a nook surrounded by tall poplars,
and within is a simple chapel with Latin inscriptions. Here the historic
crown reposes, now that there is no longer any use for it at Presburg,
the ancient capital. Here it was brought by pious hands after the
troubles between Austria and Hungary were settled. During the
revolution the sacred bauble was hidden by the command of noblemen
to whom it had been confided, and the servitors who concealed it at the
behest of their masters were slain, lest in an indiscreet moment they
might betray the secret. For thousands of enthusiasts this tiny chapel is
the holiest of shrines, and should trouble come anew upon Hungary in
the present perturbed times, the crown would perhaps journey once

more.
It seems pitiful that the railway should ever invade this out-of-the-way
corner of Europe. But it is already crawling through the mountains:
hundreds of Italian laborers