Bulgarian Settlement.
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast to the Croatian costume than was presented here. The dress of the Croats is light and airy, as if they had strayed from a land of perpetual sunshine. The Bulgars are armoured against the elements—you would fancy they were fresh from some hyperborean land of frost and storms—not yet acclimatised to the sunny South. The flowing tunics of the Croats invite the slightest breeze; the brilliant red and white hues seem to tell of a land where the roses bloom all the year round. But the heavy mantles of the Bulgars, the woollen coats, the close sleeves and leggings, are made as if to exclude the wind and frost; the cold dark colours shadow forth a sky to match. Yet the climate of the modern Bulgaria, in its widest sense, does not differ in any considerable degree from that of the Croats, except that parts of the Bulgarian area are hotter. Both are lands of vines and fig trees. Yet the language is almost the same. The modern Bulgar can talk with the Croat without an interpreter. Whence, then, this startling divergence of attire? The reason is to be sought far away in the dim twilight of history. Originally the Bulgars were not a Sclavonic people. Their kinship lies with mysterious Huns and Tartars. The fatherland whence they wandered forth lies on the shores of the Caspian and the mounts of Turkestan or more northern Altai. Since their arrival in Europe they have been lost, as it were, in a great Sclavonic sea. They have been Sclavonized by the multitude of their subjects, just as the Mantchu Tartars have within the last two centuries been Celestialized by the Chinese they subdued. But it is the northern nomads who have formed the backbone to this large unwieldy body. It was the Ugrian dynasty that erected in the tenth century the Bulgarian Czardom, as civilized as any state in contemporary Europe; that humbled Byzantine Cæsars in the dust with their own weapons, and planted the standard of the crowned lion at the gates of Constantinople. It was the Ugrian dynasty that took the lead in the first great Rouman-Sclavonic revolt against Byzantium, that ruled for awhile from the Ægean to the Danube, and from the shores of the Black Sea to the Adriatic. But much as the Mantchus, though lost among their subjects, have given the Chinese their bows and pigtails, so the Bulgars have given their tails and dress, at least in part, to their Sclavonic subjects; and these shaggy sheepskin mantles, and close-fitting woollens, still remain to tell of the chill Central-Asian plateau whence their forefathers migrated.
Bulgarian Profile.
But the Bulgars before me had other proofs of their origin even more unmistakeable than their attire. Their pedigree is written on their faces. These are not Sclavonic. They are of that type, more easily recognised than described, Mongolian in its widest sense, which extends from the White Sea shores, among Lapps and Samoyeds, Beormas and Voguls, to the Tartars and Chinese. Here are the curiously prominent cheek-bones, the broad and otherwise flat face, the small sunken eyes, the nose flat at top and inclined to be globular below; their eyebrows are strong and relieved; their complexion is dark, their head shaven save one black tuft or tail; these are true Ugrians, the ogres of our nursery stories. The purity of their breed, as evinced by this strangely Asiatic physiognomy, was partly explained by the locality of their home. They had come, so they said, from Ternova, the holy city of the Bulgarians, the destination of their pilgrimages, the seat of their old metropolitans. This was the last stronghold of the national dynasty, and to the last the original Ugrian nucleus of the race may have clustered round it—nay, who knows? even these poor peasants may have been descendants of Bulgarian Czars!
They had come all the way up the Danube and Save to scrape together money by their superior agricultural industry among the lazier Croats, and having brought with them some of their native seeds, were able to expose for sale gherkins of peculiar forms, and finer kinds of onions, in the Agram market. While I was there two more of the party came up; and one of them, a fine young fellow, dressed in European costume, I did not suspect to be a Bulgarian till he told me in German that he belonged to the settlement, and had come with them for a still more laudable purpose, namely, to obtain a good education. They had been here now three years, and, having scraped together some earnings, proposed to return this autumn. The savingness of the race was noticeable in their clothing, which was the same they had brought with them from Bulgaria; but I do not think that any amount of patching and mending could make it hold together much longer. The good humour which also distinguishes their race beamed forth from their every feature; they were evidently very pleased to see a visitor, were delighted to let me sketch them, and one sat quietly while I took his profile. They invited me to visit the inside of their hut, whose thatch was partly eked out with vine leaves and fir branches. Inside it was very dark, the only light coming through the door, itself overshadowed, and from a low-burning wood fire placed in a semicircular bay of brick which formed a chimney above. Over the fire was suspended a copper caldron, in which their homely supper was then brewing, and this was hung up by a hook such as I have seen in Wallachia, made of two pieces of wood instead of iron. Round the room ran a low wooden platform or daïs, such as throughout the barbarous lands of Eastern Europe serves as seat by day and bed by night, and on which the Turks spread their gorgeous divan. Hung round the wall were several more of the black sheepskin mantles, which imparted an additional gloom to this poor earth-floor den; and from another peg was suspended the national guitar, so that they could sing their own songs in a strange land. This is not the same as the Croatian Tamburitza; it is larger, and resembles the Serbian Ghuzla, by which name it was known to the Bulgarians. Unlike, too, the Croatian instrument, which is twanged by the fingers, this was played by a bow. This had not been brought from Bulgaria, but was made here by one of the settlers, who, seeing me examining it, took it out into the porch, and seating himself on a low three-legged stool, played an air which was meant to be lively. It was a dance tune, and much like those to which I have seen the Roumans dance one of their stamping Can-cans; it was the Bulgarian Igraja, Croatian Igrati, but better known by its Serbian equivalent the Kolo, or Sclavonic waltz. The plodding Bulgars, however, did not waltz, but plied their work harder, with a smile of inward enjoyment on their faces, which I imitated with difficulty, as the tune was wofully monotonous, there being only three strings to the instrument, all told; nor can I imagine any one who could tolerate such strains long—unless he wear a kilt. When the serenade was ended I took leave of the party, who most affectionately pressed on me a large nosegay of zimnias and rosemary, the ornaments of their little garden.
Aug. 6.—Next day, having heard that there was to be a large market at Karlovac,[156] about twenty-five miles south-west of Agram, towards the Bosnian frontier of Croatia, we hurried thither by rail, through fine oak forests and maize-covered champaign. On arriving we found the whole town swarming with country-folk, and the streets lined with varied booths. Several new features appeared in the costumes, and, above all, the greater propinquity to the Dalmatian frontier asserted itself in brilliant fezzes, such as are worn by the Morlachs and Uskoks of the Adriatic coastlands. They are of brighter scarlet than the Turkish, covered with rich embroidery or minute tassels of brilliant silk, like the tufts on some gorgeous caterpillar, and culminating in a peak. Some, however, wore varieties of the Agramer’s ‘pork-pie,’ which seemed to have been taken from patterns in the ‘Nuremberg Chronicle,’ and are very fashionable still in Sclavonic Istria. Some of the men wore blue vests or sleeveless jackets in place of the red of Agram; their belts were broader, and often displayed aching voids, in which outside the walls they carry arms; for within the towns here this is forbidden to all but Turks, who have managed to associate the practice with their religion, and are allowed to wear pistols and daggers under a conscience clause.
Sluin Woman.
But the most curious costume belonged to a people whose jet-black hair and physiognomy suggested Zingar relationship. The colours of their dress were as much darker than those of the surrounding Croats as their tresses than the prevailing tint of hair. The women wore over their black tunic and apron-skirt two black aprons, one before and one behind, with a long fringe attached; both sexes had satchels of black slung over their shoulders, and great black or dark blue mantles. On enquiry we found that they were called Wallacks, or in its Croatian form, Vlach. This curious word, used by Teutonic races[157] under different forms to characterise Roman strangers, is also used among the Southern Sclaves to qualify strangers of Latin blood such as the Wallacks of Roumania; besides, as a term of contempt for any strangers, and especially strangers in religion. Thus the Sclavonic Mahometans of Herzegovina apply it to Christians generally, the Croats of the Latin Church apply it to the members of the Greek communion, while the Serbs of the interior, who are mostly Greek, call their brothers of Dalmatia, who are mostly Roman Catholics, Morlachs or Mor-vlachs—that is, sea-Welsh. In the case of these peasants in the Karlovac market it simply meant, not that they were Roumans or Tzintzars, but that they belonged to the Greek Church, and the explanation of this is found in their tradition that they migrated hither in former times from Serbia. Now, however, they speak the Croatian dialect and call themselves Croats. Their homes are about Sluin, twenty-five miles south of Karlovac, on the Bosnian extremity of the Military Frontier.