PASS IN THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS.
BY HAIDHOS.
In this great and apparently impenetrable chain, five passes have been discovered, each at a considerable distance, by Haidhos, Karabat, Jamboli or Selimno, Kersaulik, and Tâtar-bazaar. Of these, the passes by Haidhos and Tâtar-bazaar are the most picturesque—the one at the east, and the other at the western extremity of the mountains.
From Haidhos the traveller begins to ascend, and, after surmounting the Low Balkans, and passing the lovely valleys between them, finds himself in a deep sequestered vale, surrounded on all sides by mountains. Directly before him is the vast wall of rock, extending interminably both ways, and presenting a perpendicular form ascending to the skies. When close under it, the flank seems suddenly, as it were, torn open by some rupture, presenting a dark chasm, which before was not seen. This he enters beside a rivulet, and for some time descends with it towards the very bowels of the mountain, involved in dim twilight below, and seeing, at an immeasurable distance above, a scarcely describable stripe of blue sky. Ascending, and winding his way, up one side of the chasm, he at length emerges on the summit, and stands on the ridge of the High Balkans, enjoying a prospect, of unparalleled extent and magnificence, of the less elevated hills and plains below. From hence the road proceeds across a kind of table-land, generally enveloped in mist and entangled in morasses, crossed by various ravines and tottering planks, so loosely set as to rise at one end as the traveller presses the other, or by decayed wooden bridges, which frequently break down, and precipitate horse and rider into the abyss below. Reaching the opposite or northern face of the ridge, the way descends to Lopenitza, a Balkan village, after a transit of twenty-seven miles, across the High Balkans, and proceeds to the Danube by Shumla.
| Drawn from Nature by F. Hervé. Esq. | Engraved by J. Tingle. |
ROUTE THROUGH THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS, BY TÂTAR-BAZAAR.
ON THE FRONTIERS OF BULGARIA & ROUMELIA.
The western pass, by Tâtar-bazaar, presented in the Illustration, is not approached by a chasm so singular and wild as that by Haidhos, but the passage on the summit is of a much more grand and romantic character. The distinct mountains rise into immense cones of splintered schist or granite, indented into clefts and fissures. Sometimes masses of rock rise perpendicularly beside the traveller, between which the road passes, with sharp-pointed tops, of a pyramidal form, and outline so regular, as to make it doubtful whether they are not artificial constructions. The road runs between them, and they stand like “mountain sentinels” placed to guard the pass. The delusion is increased when he arrives in this wild and lofty region at the remains of a great arch of Roman brick, which apparently was one of those pylæ, or mountain-gates, raised, to guard against the incursions of the barbarous hordes from Dalmatia, Dacia, and other places beyond the mountains, who for centuries continued to press and harass the declining Roman empire. Such is the use to which it is at present applied. Here is stationed a Dervenni, or guard of Albanian soldiers, which form part of the cordon of posts, planted in various parts of the ramparts of the chain, when the Russians prepared to ascend and pass it. The Turks, in several parts of their vast empire, both in Europe and Asia, select those points for defence which the Greeks and Romans also appear, by their remains, to have chosen, but they never think of repairing the old gate, or strengthening the pass by new fortifications.