BULGARIAN BOZAJI, BELGRADE
the Bulgarian bozaji, selling slightly fermented maize beer, alone broke the drowsy silence with his mournful cries. There was absolutely nothing to see, and therefore we also sought shelter, and sleepily waited for the town to come to life again. In the middle of the afternoon a few hurrying peasant women, their brilliant dresses quite out of harmony with the commonplace aspect of the streets, flashed along in the sunshine; one or two men with effeminate lace-trimmed tunics, plaited like imitations of the Albanian fustinella, strode proudly past, unconscious that hats of London make and elastic-sided boots made them look extremely ridiculous; and so the streets gradually resumed their normal activity as the afternoon coolness came on. We soon yielded to the tempting invitation of a fresh breeze and sailed away into the Danube again, escorted by a fleet of Servian canoes with naked crews.
We began to think that in crossing the frontier we had passed the limit beyond which the modern invention of modesty has not yet been universally accepted. It certainly seemed so, for the bronzed figures of the naked youths excited no comment on the shore as we passed. Rounding the water-battery and drifting along the old Turkish quarter, we came to a large pleasant meadow, glowing in the rich light of the afternoon sun. Here scores of men, as unclothed as the horses they bestrode, were riding their animals out into the shallows, bathing with them in the yellow stream. Like so many figures from the frieze of the Parthenon, they sat their horses with perfect grace, saddleless and bridleless, and now dashed along, throwing up clouds of spray, and again disappeared in a golden cloud of dust on the meadow. A party of young men and boys, equally in Spartan attire, were having an exciting foot-race along the level turf, and this little spot was for the time a sculptors’ paradise. We drifted slowly along, watching the athletic figures in the wonderful light, all unconscious in our preoccupation that the current was carrying us into a scene of still more surprising simplicity and innocence. Our canoes, if left to themselves, would always turn round and float down-stream stern foremost; and that afternoon, as on many other occasions, we found the trick to be of advantage, for we could longer watch the unusual spectacle on the meadow. When we could see no more in the direction of the dazzling sun, we paddled the canoes around, and found ourselves, to our surprise, quite near a number of Servian families, who were taking a refreshing bath—old and young, men, women, and children—in the sandy shallows. No bath-house had given them refuge on the bank, nor had they considered it necessary to disfigure themselves with drapery, except a few of the women, who wore an apology for an apron tied around the waist.
FOUNTAIN IN THE SQUARE, BELGRADE
It was a sudden change from the contemplation of figures of classical grace to the unwitting interruption of the bath of a dozen unlovely families, and it was a parallel plunge from the accustomed luxuries of pleasant camp grounds above Belgrade to the mud flats on the river-side below. We had drifted along the meadow so slowly that we found the daylight already waning and a threatening storm close at hand before we thought of camping. Then we hastened to the first spot where there was a possible landing. Here we slept until the ring of scythes at the very bows of our canoes brought us to consciousness again, and we opened the tents to see a sunny meadow among the trees, all dotted over with the white figures of peasants slashing at the ranks of coarse grass that fringed the sun-baked shore.