“What struck me in all the villages of the Confines through which I passed, were the guard stations, before which loitered, or slept beside their guns, suspended on the wall, five or six Gränzer. In summer, they wear merely their trousers and shirt of coarse white cloth, and sometimes a sort of brown jacket with red facings, which they also wear for field work. In winter they are seen enveloped in their large hooded cloaks of red cloth; and, thus equipped and armed, guard their flocks on the moors. The state furnishes them, for exercise and service, with guns similar to those used by regiments of the line; but when not on duty, many of them prefer long guns of Albanian manufacture or shape, with swallow-tailed stocks. These guns are transmitted from father to son for several generations. Besides these, they wear in their girdles, one or two pistols, and a kind of dagger with a bone handle inlaid with coral or glass. In this guise they have rather the appearance of Bosniak bachibozouks, than of civilized subjects of His Majesty Francis Joseph, constitutional Emperor of Austria, and King of Hungary. Their uniform, consisting of a blue trouser fitting close to the leg, and a vest of black or white wool, is only produced on field days, or in war.
“But what is it that these sentinels are guarding? This is just what I have never been able to understand. No enemy, from Belgrade to Sissek, was threatening; and these villages are exposed to no more disorder than those of the neighbouring provinces, where they dispense with all this armed exhibition. This, therefore, is another of the useless and erroneous consequences of the military régime: here are hands taken day after day from their labour in the fields, and with no greater advantage than that of acquiring the habits of idleness and drunkenness, usually contracted during the period of barrack-room inactivity.”
In [Fig. 57] we represent one of the military stations of the Confines, with the guards belonging to it, called Gränzers.
57.—GRÄNZERS AND THEIR GUARD-HOUSE.
“All those who have lived for some time among the Gränzers, have been struck with their indolent apathy, their careless and continued idleness. For whose sake should they exhaust themselves with work? Under the rules of their community, their wives and children are almost beyond want. As regards themselves, to-morrow they may be torn from their orchards and fields, to encounter death in Italy, or on some other frontier; would it not be madness to expose themselves to privation and fatigue in view of a future upon which they have no means of reckoning? Besides this, does their property, which they can neither render as valuable as they wish, nor sell or bequeath as they may think proper, belong to them sufficiently to give them any pleasure or profit in its improvement? They have maxims which accurately indicate their character; ‘Go late to the field and return early, so as to avoid the dew;—if God does not aid, what is the use of working?’ Being accustomed to rely only, as they say, ‘Upon God and the Emperor,’ they refuse to recognize the advantages to be gained from any modern invention, better tools, or more advanced methods of cultivation. ‘Thus I found it, and thus I will leave it,’ is a saying of which they often make use in speaking of their patrimonial domain.
58.—TSIGANE PRISONER.