The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

We told the schoolmaster to persuade them we were not.

There was little danger that they would bring the soldiers down upon us, knowing the habit of the Turk to visit vengeance upon the town that harbours committajis. But we learned that there were three families of Turkish peasants living in the village, and this, indeed, alarmed us. It was quite on the cards that they would trot over to Kratovo, half an hour away, and come back with a cheery gang of Anatolians or Albanians, whose habit in dealing with insurgents is to fire the house in which they are and shoot them as they emerge from the flames.

So we sent our compliments to the Turks (Mohamedans must be treated with deference) and requested them to call; which they did, and were convinced that we were not Bulgarians. Nevertheless, we spent a most uncomfortable night. We lay on the rough gallery rolled in rugs, watching the fireflies and listening for the ‘fire brigade,’ falling asleep from dead weariness and starting out of it at every sound.

We got away from the Servian village early the following morning, taking a guide for the direction in which we were bound, but not divulging our destination. We shook him off when we got the lay of the country and were certain of our maps again.

About noon we dropped, as intended, into the monastery of Lesnova. We sat down by a fountain in the courtyard, the brown-timbered structure enclosing three sides, and over the mud wall on the fourth stretched the valley into the blue distance. A palsied beggar in a filthy state devoured food like a ravenous wolf, washing it down unchewed with great gulps of water. The old abbot who came out to greet us said they could do nothing for the man’s ailments; there are no doctors in the country, and folk who become ill die.

Here we got the first news of events which had driven the Christian peasants to Bulgaria. The story was the same we had heard so often before; nothing new except the details of tortures. Of these there are sufficient in later chapters; for this, the adventure of our long trail.

The monks gave us a good meal, and we slept for an hour on a comfortable divan, for we were footsore already. The soles of my boots and those of Alexander’s—whom we had now come to call ‘Sandy’—had gone, and we were driven to native charruks—which, from their absence of heels, caused me to walk as on eggs for many miles, and made my insteps very sore. The Englishman’s clumsy foot-gear outlasted mine by many hours; still, I do not believe in British boots.

Shortly after one o’clock we were on the climb again, up a decent path for once, which led over a big hill towards the town of Sletovo. A delightful town it appeared, as we looked down from behind a bush at the top of the hill. It was surrounded by tents, with even barracks to add a charm. The first sight of us from one of those tents by any intelligent soldier, and our trekking was over! By great luck a trail led off to the right, which seemed to skirt the tents entirely, and we picked our way cautiously down it, concealed by a shoulder of the hill. At the bottom the trail turned straight into the town. There was another path somewhere to the right leading away; but how to get to it? Just as we had made up our minds for a dash through some corn we came on the connecting link, a dry watercourse, and we were soon on the circular tour. But now, while keenly watching the tents to the left, an ancient tower—probably of Roman antiquity—appeared on our right front. Outside this, with his rifle leaning against the wall, squatted a sentry, dirgeing a dismal Oriental lay. He was not more than two hundred yards off, and commanded a view of our heads and shoulders above the corn; but there was nothing for it except to go ahead. I am confident that I watched that songster with one eye and the town on the opposite side with the other. For five minutes our fate hung on the balance. Our hats were unmistakable; no one but a man from civilisation wears anything with a brim to it in that part of the country. Once his dull eye was caught by our headgear we were booked. But the amiable creature sang on, his mind probably back in Anatolia; and we dropped out of sight to the next stream and took a big drink.

Late that afternoon a few drops of rain came down, a delightful sensation to the parched and dusty ‘foot-slogger’; but presently this increased to sheets of water driven before a cold wind, and for half an hour we clung, soaked, to the slimy face of a bank, with little mud waterfalls dribbling down our necks. Then the storm blew over. The path, awkward at any time, was like a switchback skating-rink, down which we slid and staggered with horrible swoops and marvellous recoveries, to a boiling yellow torrent below, about as fordable as the Mississippi in flood. We had hoped to do a greater distance this day, but neither of us was sorry—though neither of us admitted it—that we had to seek shelter on this side of the stream. There was an attractive-looking place near at hand, but a forbidding minaret stood high above the poplars; and we pushed on to the first Christian village.

We had slogged for two days, travelled for four; we were sore in every joint and muscle, wet to the skin, and chilled to the bone. We began to lose temper with each other, and vented our feelings upon Sandy. We spoke seldom, except at meals, when our spirits revived, and in the fresh hours of the morning. Now we were sour and snappish, and each disagreed with whatever the other proposed. The constant strain and the heavy marching were beginning to tell on our dispositions. And we had hardly begun our journey. I was sorry I lost the bet. Perhaps the other man was too.