The Fortress of Belgrade, which is the most extensive, as well as the strongest military position possessed by the Turks, is garrisoned only by four hundred men, or rather men and boys, for a portion of them are mere youths; and when to this fact is added another still more startling, that since it passed into the hands of its present masters, all the cisterns have been suffered to fall into utter decay; and that the whole of the water necessary for the supply of the inhabitants is carried into the fort daily in carts, it will be seen at once that a future “Siege of Belgrade” would be a bloodless one; as the garrison must inevitably be starved out by drought.
I must not, however, omit to mention that the gentlemen of our party were much struck by the very soldier-like and efficient manner in which the troops (if thus I may be permitted to designate the mere handful of men collected in the drilling-ground) were performing their exercise; and whom they declared to excel in precision of movement, and cleanliness of appearance any Turkish regiment that they had seen in the capital; and to do great credit to the military talent of Osman Bey, their Lieutenant-Colonel; who, as well as Ismaèl Bey, a subaltern officer in the same corps, is a son of the Pasha.
Osman Bey, who is rather a fine-looking man, greeted us very politely as we crossed the exercise-ground, in order to leave the fortress by a handsome gate, above whose massy columns are still emblazoned, in alto relievo, the arms of Austria, in a shield surrounded by military emblems, and supported by two colossal suits of armour.
Beside the moat that protects this gate, stands an hexagonal tower, built by the Turks, and called the “Fearless Tower,” from the pertinacity with which they defended it during a siege; and the heroic actions performed in its immediate vicinity by one of their Pashas. This tower, and two or three rude bridges of timber over the moat; a couple of ill-proportioned minarets, and the wooden kiosk attached to the citadel, are the only Turkish erections perceptible. Ruin is rapidly progressing on all sides; the walls are giving way; the ditches are in many places cumbered with the fallen rubbish; the covered ways are laid open; and the guns that yet remain within the weed-grown embrasures are so ill-mounted, as to be perfectly innoxious.
Such is, at this moment, the condition of the far-famed Fortress of Belgrade—the boundary-fort of Servia—the last spot of European land subject to the sway of the Moslem—And here, as we re-entered our barge to pass to the opposite bank of the Save, whence we were to return to Semlin in the carriage of a friend of the Chevalier’s, we looked our last on the graceful minarets which indicate the religion of Mahomet, and form so elegant a feature in the Oriental landscape.
Ere we returned on board, we drove to the garden of the Austrian dragoman, whence you are said to command the finest view in the neighbourhood of Semlin; and although the river-vapours effectually prevented us, on this occasion, from seeing a hundred yards beyond the spot where we stood, we were amply repaid for the détour that we had been induced to make, by the opportunity which it afforded to us of spending half an hour in one of the most charming and well-kept gardens imaginable; a great treat at all times, but doubly agreeable to individuals like ourselves, who had been so long wanderers on the waters. The walks ran through avenues of vines, whose purple clusters did not invite our touch in vain; and so neatly trained as to form the greenest and most level hedges that can be imagined; while not a weed nor an unsightly object was to be seen from one end of the enclosure to the other. The Sclavonians are, indeed, considered such proficient gardeners, that forty-five out of fifty of those employed in Constantinople are of that nation; and we had consequently been curious to see a gentleman’s grounds in their own land, and laid out entirely in their own manner.
We were about to re-enter the carriage, in order to return to the vessel, when a flight of rockets ran shimmering along the sky; and immediately afterwards we were overtaken by a procession of peasants, celebrating the last day of the vintage.
It was one of the prettiest sights that I ever remember to have seen. The train was headed by about thirty youths dressed in white garments, and wearing large flapping hats of black felt, nearly similar to the sombreros of Spain, into whose narrow bands they had wreathed bunches of wild-flowers; each carrying across his shoulder a long pliant pole, with a basket piled with grapes at each extremity. These were followed by as many young girls, in the usual picturesque costume of the country, with a profusion of marigolds fastened among their dark tresses; walking two and two, and bearing baskets of grapes between them. And the procession terminated with a crowd of children waving in their little hands long branches of the vine; and lending their clear and joyous voices to the wild chorus of the vintage-song that their elders were pealing out; and which ran, as nearly as I can render it from the hurried and imperfect translation given to me as we journeyed on, somewhat in the following manner:—
THE SCLAVONIAN VINTAGE-SONG.
Around the oak the wild-vine weaves