CHAPTER V.
BODOLA.
In one of the innermost recesses of the county of Felsö-Feher, when you have left behind you the Boza Pass, or avoided it by taking one of the narrow footpaths which wind along the mountain side, you will come in sight of the Tatrang valley.
On every side of you are hills wrapped in lilac-coloured mists, and behind the hills the heaven-aspiring peak of Kapri, glistening with early-fallen snow. From the mist-shrouded valley below emerge four or five villages, with their white houses sending up bluish smoke-wreaths among the green orchards. The little Tatrang stream winds, silvery blue, in and out among the quiet villages, forming cascades in its downward progress, which in the dim distance look like fleecy mists. The clouds sink so deeply down into the valleys that their golden, veil-like shapes hide first this and then that object from the eyes of the observer on the hill-tops. There you can see Hosszufalva, with its far-stretching street. There, again, the tiny church of Zajzonfalva, whose pointed, tin-covered roof gleams far and wide in the rays of the sun. Tatrang lies on the banks of the stream, just where a large wooden bridge has been thrown across it. Far, very far off, black and misty, are to be seen the walls of Kronstadt and the blue outlines of the still unscathed citadel. In the valley just below you is the straggling village of Bodola. The houses lie low, but the church stands on rising ground, and opposite the village you notice a sort of small fortress with broad towers, black bastions, and projecting battlements. The western bastion is built on a steep rock, whence there is a fall of three hundred feet on to the roofs of the houses below.
It is only in the distance, however, that the castle looks so gloomy. On approaching nearer, you perceive that what had seemed, from afar, to be a dark green belt of bushes, is really a wreath of flower-gardens thrown round the ramparts. The large Gothic windows are adorned with handsome sculptures and stained glass. A well-kept, serpentine path winds up the steep rock, and there is a mossy stone seat at every bend. Where the rock is most precipitous a breastwork has been thrown up. The pointed turrets of the castle are all painted red, and adorned with fantastic weathercocks.
The path leading through the Boza Pass to Kronstadt is not more than an hour's journey from this little castle, and along this path, at the very time when Prince John Kemeny was still regaling himself at Hermannstadt, we see a long line of cavalry wending their way into the valley below—two thousand Turkish horsemen, or thereabouts, distinguishable from afar by the scarlet tips of their turbans and their snow-white kaftans. Among them are some hundreds of Wallachian irregulars in brown gabardines and long black csalmaks.[13]
[13] Csalmak [pr. chalmak]. A low, skin turban.
The way is so narrow here that the horsemen can only proceed along in couples, so that while the rearguard is still painfully making its way through the narrow defile between converging rocks, the vanguard has already reached Tatrang.
The Turkish general is a middling-sized, sunburnt man, with eyes as bold and bellicose as an eagle's. A large scar runs right across his forehead. His beard curls in little locks around his chin. His moustache is twisted fiercely upwards on both sides, making one suspect an excessively fiery temper in its possessor, a suspicion confirmed by his hard and curt mode of speech, the haughty carriage of his head, and the impatient movements of his body.
He halts his little army outside the village, to give the rearmost time to come up. Last of all roll a few wagons and a large pumpkin-shaped coach. This is all the heavy baggage which the Turks carry with them. The rearguard is led by a child whose round, cherub face contrasts strangely with his glittering scimitar and his grave, commanding look. He cannot be more than twelve. Inside the coach, the curtains of which are thrown back on both sides so as to freely admit the evening air, we perceive a young lady of about five-and-twenty years of age, dressed half in Turkish, half in Christian costume, for she wears the wide silken hose and the short blue open kaftan of the Turkish ladies, but has taken off her turban, and her face, contrary to Turkish custom, is without a veil. She gazes with the utmost composure out of the carriage window, bestowing her attention now upon the landscape and now upon the passing peasants.
The Turkish commander is marshalling his forces in the village below. They seem used to the strictest discipline. Every one looks steadily at his leader without moving a muscle. At the head of the left wing stands the little boy; a tall, muscular man leads the right. The Wallachs are drawn up in the rear.