BÁZIÁS
Michael Quin, who published a narrative of “A Steam Voyage down the Danube” from Budapest, in 1835, visited Count Széchenyi, saw the progress of the road-making, and heard the Count described by the one Englishman employed on the work in most enthusiastic terms: “he was in the bloom of life; had served in the army; was a leading member of the Diet, over which his talents, his superior acquirements, and his disinterested patriotism, gave him great influence; was constantly occupied in devising plans for the welfare of Hungary; remained a bachelor in order that he might be more at liberty to travel about for the purpose of carrying those plans into execution; and was now actively engaged in superintending the works going on upon the Danube, which were entirely the result of his public spirit, and his indefatigable perseverance.” Széchenyi deserves to be widely known in the ranks of the truest “heroes of peace.”
Below Báziás the scenery rapidly improves as the hills increase in height and approach more closely to the water, as the river finds its way through the gorges of the Southern Carpathians. Fruitful valleys and upland pastures are seen as we are borne along our way—more especially on the Hungarian bank where, doubtless, the road has proved a serviceable link between the river-side villages and towns, and now affords them access to the railways at Báziás and Orsova.
The first stopping place beyond Báziás is Gradiste, a one-time fortress, on the Servian shore, near the mouth of the gold-bearing stream, the Peck, and the next is Ó-Moldova, on the left bank. The prefix “Ó” signifies old, and Uj (or New) Moldova, with copper mines, is some miles inland. Some distance along here, above one of the small villages, a mine is seen high on the hillside.
Near Ó-Moldova is an island of the same name, at the further end of which the Danube is nearly a mile and a third in breadth, but beyond which it so rapidly narrows that, within little more than a mile, it has decreased to about a fifth of that width. Here, among lofty rocky mountains, we are in a centre of romance and of legend. To a craggy rock, standing about twenty feet above the water that eddies round its base, attaches a story of love and revenge; the ruins of Galambócz (Golubacz) on the left, and of Lászlóvár on the right, remind us of the days when these were rival fortresses, guarding what was recognized to be “the key of the Danube”; while a great event in legendary history is said to have taken place near here.
First we may pause to learn the romantic story attaching to the Babakáj rock, standing boldly up from the water. It is a story of love and revenge, with a fulness of detail not often attaching to these local legends—a crowding of incidents that a novelist might expand into a volume. The following version is summarized from that of Dr. Beattie. A Turkish pasha who held a command on the frontier in the early part of the eighteenth century, having been absent for a time, returned home to find that Zuleika, one of his seven wives—and the fairest of the seven—had eloped with a young Hungarian nobleman. The wrathful pasha, eager for revenge, offered his favourite janissary ten purses of gold if he could overtake the fugitives, and bring back the fair one and the head of her lover. The janissary set off in pursuit, and came in sight of the party just as it was crossing the frontier. The Hungarian, unaware of the pursuit, thought himself secure once the frontier was crossed, and dismissing most of those who had aided him in the abduction, retired with Zuleika to a small place on the safe side of the frontier. The janissary, having disguised himself and his followers as Servian peasants, craved for an audience of the brave Hungarian chief that they might beg for justice at his hands for injuries just received from Turkish marauders. They were at once admitted, and instantly throwing off their sheepskin coats, drew their scimitars and cut down the supposed wife-stealer. Running furiously into the divan, they seized, bound, and carried off the fainting Zuleika—with the head of her lover dangling from the neck of the horse that bore her. Thus was she taken back and hurried into the presence of the enraged pasha, whom she had deserted for the Hungarian. The pasha ordered her to be tied in a sack and cast into the Danube, but before his orders could be obeyed he changed his mind, and deciding that her punishment should be more protracted, commanded that she should be taken to the summit of the rock in the river, to be left there to perish, with these last words ringing in her ears—“Ba-ba-Kaÿ!” “Repent of thy sin!” At great risk to the executioners, the pasha’s instructions were duly carried out, and the wretched creature left to her fate. The pasha gloated over his revenge as he gazed at the head of his enemy and thought of the faithless one famishing in mid-Danube. Little did he dream that he was gloating over the wrong head; that the janissary, in his over-eagerness, had struck down, not the count, who happened to be absent at the time, but, one of the count’s faithful friends. When the Hungarian returned to find his fair lady had just been stolen, and heard of the trick by which the deed had been done, he lost no time in vain mourning, but decided on instant action. He got together all the servants he could, and even before the janissary had reached the pasha with his prisoner, Hungarians and Servians were lying in ambush, ready at any cost to frustrate any plans against the lady’s life. What force could not effect, strategy and patience enabled them to do; and so news was brought to the count of the doom decided upon for his lady. Thus, as the janissary and his fellows returned from their hazardous employment of placing Zuleika, like a new Andromeda, as a victim to the dragons of exposure and starvation, her lover, like a modern Perseus, was hastening to her rescue in a well-manned barge, creeping along the further side of the neighbouring island. As soon as the coast was clear, the barge was pulled to the side of the rock farthest from the Turkish shore, and made fast with grappling irons, while the Hungarians clambered up and rescued the fair Zuleika. The boat was then worked across to the left bank, and, mounted on swift horses, rescuers and rescued galloped off into safety.
That, however, is not the end. The Turkish pasha declared that his dreams had been troubled with visions of Zuleika’s rescue, and to prevent any such baulking of his vengeance he sent his janissary to the rock in the morning with orders to throw the lady into the water. Once more that cruelly faithful servant set out on the hazardous exploit of climbing the rock—to find nothing but the cords which had bound the prisoner to the summit, and some scraps of Hungarian writing! Realizing that the truth would jeopardize his own ten purses of gold and further inflame the pasha’s wrath, the man declared that in her agony the prisoner must have burst her bonds and hurled herself into the water, adding, to give vraisemblance to his story, that a part of her dress had caught and remained on a jutting piece of stone. The pasha was content, and was considering how he could best fill the vacancy caused in his harem, when news came that the Imperial troops had reached the frontier and were making war upon his master the Sultan. At once the pasha gathered his forces together and set out for the front, reaching the main army on the very eve of the great battle of Karlowitz. During the fearful carnage of that day the Hungarian noble sought in vain to encounter the pasha. In the evening, as it happened, the first person brought to his tent was the man whom he had failed to meet during the day! The pasha was mortally wounded, and his last moments were embittered by the knowledge of Zuleika’s escape, of her having abjured Islamism and become the wife of her deliverer—the very man into whose tent he had been borne to die!