THE NATIVE SERVIAN HEAD-DRESS.
To the student the Servians are a nation of types; as a race they are gifted by nature with unusual powers of observation, shrewdness and strength of character, but from the fact of their having been so long oppressed has arisen a disposition to concealment and even absolute distrust. They are patriotic and loyal to a marked degree, which may account, in part, for their emotional proclivities. They are absolutely fearless, but this fearlessness assumes at times a tinge of the opera bouffe, as in the late controversy with Austria, which leads us Americans to think of them as a nation of charlatans.
But I digress. It is not my desire to enter into any rehearsals of the political conditions in the pivotal Near East. I exhaled a deep-breathed oath when this volume was commenced to confine my writings herein to the travelling through and brief descriptions of these “Lands of the Tamed Turk,” introducing such history as might seem romantic and interesting and instructive enough to be absorbed by the reader.
Only since the final suppression of the Turks have the Servians “found themselves,” so to speak, and the rapid rise of the nation has been remarkable. In the early years of the nineteenth century, before its revolt under the leadership of George Petrovitch—Kara, or Black George, as he was called by the Turks—Servia could not boast of a single schoolhouse; there was not even a wagon road in the whole country, except what remained of the ancient Roman highway between Belgrade and Nisch; because the Turks forbade the building or even repairing of houses of Christian worship, the churches were, for the most part, in miserable ruin; the entire population at that time was scarcely larger than that of the single city of Detroit to-day. Then Servia was merely a province of Turkey, governed by a Vizir sent from Constantinople. The country was not only the seat of internal friction, but tribes, in rebellion against the Sultan, exploited the land as a private estate.
But listen to the changes of a hundred years.
As I write, Servia maintains eight hundred and sixty elementary schools for boys and a hundred and fifty for girls; fourteen middle grade schools with, and twelve without, classical departments; six high-schools for girls; two technical academies; two schools for teachers; one commercial college; a school of agriculture; a military academy; and an university. Public instruction is free and compulsory. Of the twelve hundred and seventy-eight towns and villages throughout the country the important ones are connected by rail, and telegraphic communication exists between most of the others.
The contemptible pig still constitutes the chief article of export, but the raising of swine, instead of the cultivation of the soil, although the latter is by no means unprolific, has been handed down from generation to generation as an ingenious method of the Servians for saving the products of their country from the destructive raids of the Turks.[1] In some districts, however, fruits and cereals are cultivated and exported in abundance. Many thousands of cases of plums find their way to France annually, whence they are re-exported to America, and sold under the label of French products. From this fruit is pressed the national drink of Servia, slivivitz, a sort of plum brandy, which, when imbibed freely, produces most grotesque effects—so I am told.
[1] To those of the Mohammedan faith pork is a forbidden delicacy.
Although the whole kingdom covers little more than twice the area of the state of New Jersey, the regular army consists of some twenty thousand men. The organization of it, however, is based upon a law enacted in 1893 which, if executed, would place in the field three hundred and thirty-five thousand men, but financial stringencies have curbed the application of this statute. For every Servian between the ages of twenty and thirty, military duty for two years in the regular army is compulsory; and during the remaining years of his middle life he is classed in the first, second or third divisions of the reserves, according to his age.
Belgrade itself, the capital of the country, has a population of eighty thousand, being about the size of Hartford, Connecticut, and it is a singular fact, as well as an amusing one, that no less than two thousand of this number are policemen. These guardians of the peace, who are at the same time units of the army, are well-drilled and are housed in military barracks.