The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

The number of people in the congregation was less than a hundred. They were all Bulgarians, with the exception of one family of Albanians. The school was quite prosperous, having several grades and boarding pupils who came from a hundred miles around. Among the scholars were Greeks from Florina, and Vlachs from Krushevo, as well as Bulgarians and Albanians, all, of course, Christian girls. The school was a sort of select seminary for the better classes.

A GREEK.

Tsilka, husband of Mrs. Tsilka, his wife, and ‘the brigand baby,’ born in captivity, lived near our house. Tsilka assisted Mr. Bond in his duties, and Mrs. Tsilka taught at the school. They both spoke English quite well, and the accounts they gave of the long captivity and the ransom were extremely exciting. It was never dull at the mission. There was always something interesting going on. My visit began in the height of a panic. Rumour, which stalked rampant after the Salonica outrages, planned trouble for Monastir on the following fête, St. George’s Day. The Vali, under instructions from the Governor-General, got his garrison in readiness to combat an attack by dynamiters, and the civilian Mohamedans, being in an ugly mood, prepared to assist the soldiers. No attack came from the Bulgarians, but the promises of trouble were fulfilled nevertheless. Turks all ready, it required but a signal to start them to work. The signal came in a row between a Turk khanji and a Bulgar baker over payment for a long due account. The Bulgar died, and the mob of bashi-bazouks slaughtered some forty other ‘infidels’ before being dispersed by the soldiers, who at first assisted them.

Then came the panic. Christians closed their shops and barred their doors, and the streets were deserted except for Mohamedans, who, one is led to believe, would shoot a foreign giaour as quickly as they would a native infidel. The Vali sent a soldier to escort the Englishman and me, being giaours, on our daily trips through the streets. The trooper was given us for protection from the Bulgarians, but we kept our eye fixed upon him, for he was an armed Mohamedan.

There was also a guard assigned to duty at the mission. This was a youthful Turk, who brought with him a strip of matting in lieu of a prayer rug. He came one morning at nine o’clock, and nine o’clock next morning found him still at his post. We discovered the poor fellow weeping, and asked the cause. He had been posted here to guard the mission, and told to remain until relieved. His task was severe, as he had brought no food. The missionaries fed him, and he remained twenty-four hours longer before another soldier came to take his place. The object of putting a guard in front of the mission was twofold. One day he arrested a peasant who came to the mission with a bundle and went away with a large piece of brown paper neatly folded in his hand. This piece of paper, in which the economical peasant had brought back my week’s washing, was the evidence produced against him. It was carefully saved, and shown to the Vali. The washing-list was written upon it.

To go about the town at night was thrilling. The patrols and sentinels had orders to arrest—and later to shoot—any man discovered on the streets without a lantern. Several times we were invited to dine at the Consulates, and the Consuls sent their kavasses with a lantern to escort us. As we proceeded down the streets the challenges would come from a hundred yards away, and our Albanian trusty would reply in a deep commanding tone. Even our own guard would jump to his feet on our return as the light of the lantern turned the corner of our narrow street. If nightfall overtook ox-teams or buffalo-carts within the city, the horned beasts were unyoked where they were, blanketed and fed, and their masters slept in the carts. It was uncanny stumbling into munching beasts at night.

Sometimes, when a fight had taken place in the neighbouring hills, a line of cavalry ponies, led by their masters, would pass down the cobble-stone road back to the mission bringing the wounded soldiers into the caserne. Often the men were mortally wounded and had to be supported on the backs of the stumbling ponies. This was a gloomy spectacle. It was peculiar to the night, for the Turks never brought in their wounded till the streets were deserted; they are sensitive over losses.

During an anxious period in Monastir there came around an anniversary of the Sultan’s accession day. The streets were beflagged with Star and Crescent, and Turkish designs in night-lights were arranged on the hills. The day before the celebration long lines of soldiers made their way from the camps and casernes to the various town ovens, each with a whole lamb, dressed ready for baking, in a huge pan on his shoulder. It was a curious sight to see these preparatory parades pass down the streets with the potential dinner. This, indeed, was the only parade to honour the Padisha, for on the anniversary day itself all ‘infidels’ braced the bars behind their doors, and Mohamedans remained in their homes by order of the Vali; and only a doubled guard remained in the streets, to be ready for an insurgent surprise. At night we left the house and crossed the street to the school, and after putting out all the lights—a precaution of the ladies—climbed to the top of the house to see the illuminations on the hills. Not a sound was to be heard over the entire city.

But no matter how intense the quiet in Monastir, there was always one hour of the day when a fearful row raged. That was the hour the British Consul took his daily walk. The Consul was a Scot, McGregor by name, who owned a British bulldog and employed an Albanian kavass. The latter is common to Consuls, but the bulldog was a novel and disturbing element. As the fatted pup strode the narrow streets between his master and his master’s man, a wave of protest from the native canines followed in his wake. The native dog, like the native Mohamedans, is averse to permitting an outsider within his sacred precincts; but, unlike the Turk, the dog is not required to brook the insult in peace. Whenever a protracted dog-fight passed down the semi-deserted streets, ’twas known that the British Consul was out for his daily walk; and when the disturbance came towards the mission, the hired girl was sent to put the kettle on for tea.