Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-11-05

dressed in black and looking like
priests, mountaineers from Montenegro
In fustanellas with long.beaked yellow
and red shoes and brilliant scarlet
FGloaks, gave Hodschas in silken caftans
and green turbans, mingle on the
streets with Spanish Jewesses with
brilliant gold and silver headdresses
and Montenegrin women in white skirts
and sleeveless waists, and little red
caps with a rising sun embroidered on
their fronts in gold. ~ +; a7%S
Near Nisch is a square tower Tell
it's story and you tell the story Of the
Balkans.
kula. meaning Skull Tower" In 1909
the Turks advanced toward Nisch. The
Servian Woiwode. Stefan Sindjelitsch,
intrenched himself with 5000 Servians
in the village of Kamenitza. They were
overcome. When the Janissaries rushed
among them, Sindjelitsch fred the pow
, der magazine and blew his own men
and the Turks into pieces.
! The Turkish army ravened like a
band of wolves and killed all Servians
| who We're left alive by any chance.
After they had been killed and burned
till there was nothing left to kill and
burn they chopped the heads off thu
dead Servian patriots. Then they be-
gan the erection of a great square tow
er.
After it had risen to some height they
began to alternate the rows of stones
with rows of Servian heads. Altogeth-
er they set fifty-six rows of seventeen :
heads each in alternate rows Of stones.
This memorial of the Tamberlanes of
the nineteenth century was left I'M
touched, with the skulls grinning out
upon the land; until 1878, when the
Servians took them out reverently and
buried them, with the exception of one
that still looks out from the east side
of the tower. "%
Farther on, near the Bulgarian boun-
Diary. is another strategic place that
Will be heard from in case OF war. II
is the fortress of Bella Palenka, and
Moltke pronounced it one Of the inn
portant points of the Balkans.
1t was the old Roman city of Remes-'
lana. 1t is guarded still by an ancient
castlefort built in 1900 by the Grand
Vizier Mustapha Pasha. He built it by
the pleasant expedient of tearing down
Servian churches and using their stones
for it. He also took the stones from
ancient Roman ruins.
This town is close to Piost. which
stands on the Bulgarian boundary and
has true Balkan history. 1t has been
occupied at various times by Turks.
Bulgarians Servians and Austrians,
Almost every time it was taken. only
after bloody fighting.
IN wi .;o To-,
to different manners, different cos,
tunes, different architecture
The Bulgarian does not love the
Servian unduly. Luckily for the peace
between them, the Bulgarians are kept
SO busy plotting and counter plotting
about Macedonia, that their somewhat
embarrassing attentions are, directed
almost entirely southwark just now.
AS the Cuban Junta made it's head
quarters in the United States, SO the
Macedonian Junta makes its head
quarters in Bulgaria. But unlike the
Cuban revolutionists the Macedonian
committee has not merely enlisted Bull
garian sympathies and aid. 1t has ris-:
en- to great Bulgarian political power.
1t keeps the pitch hot all the time.
Dive out of Bulgaria and into the noun
tain districts oil Macedonia and YOU dive
into land of Alexander, the Great. of
Roman Generals and ,czars who ruled
long before Russia had any Time has
jumped over this land and touched 1t onlv
in leapsages apart.
GO only short distance from Salonca,
ancient. stored Salonica, very dirty now
and inhabited by flea bitten Turkish SOL
diers who do not like life apparently.
and you will find country marked with
the tumult of the Macedonian kings, big
stone piles just within sighting distance.
Of each other. that served as stations
Tor the wireless biography of those days
fCl may find fine old gentleman.
dressed in a long skirt that falls below
the knees ana with pretty weapons fast .
encd to all available protuberances He
will talk to you df he trusts you and you
are fortunately so poor that you are not
worth capturing) of his system of levy
ing tribute as unconcernedIy as if he lived
in the day of Ulysses. earning his living
with his good sword and shield.
the very brigands whom they are, tech
nically sworn to kill. Those brigands
sWagger through the villages. beloved by ;
all the women. envied and admired by all
the men. afraid Of nobody. Impossible
though it seems. they wear even more
arms than the other citizens. They strut
by the Turks superciliously. mockingly.
Sometimes the Macedonian brigand sits
on rock just out of gunshot from a gar
rison of Turks and sings little songs care
fully calculated to embitter even the most
stoid souls
Everybody lives in the past. The Bal
kans were the portals into Europe of all
the strange tribes of early time. The
traces of the Dacians, the Marcomanni
the QUAD, the Goths. the Huns, all are
to be found in survival in the Balkans. It,
is as if all those irruptng tribes and races
had left their fiotsam and jetsam there,
to remain unchanged in those undelecta-
BILE mountains as 81.
Their songs are the songs of the Car
Simeon and the Gar Boris and the Car
Dushan, who ruled more than a thousand
years ago when there was no such
thing Car in Russia. throughout
the Balkans today the favorite dance Is
the kolo which is nothing more or less
than the ancient Roman dance .of, Boro Is,
without a change.
Bagpipers go around everywhere, and
everywhere the inhabitants are prone to
drop their work suddenly and dance and
sing as If every one of those queer Wiz
lagos were q stage village and the the
peasants were members of the ballet
The land has been described by one
traveller as a land that still HIVES In the
days of the troubadours. The Montene- ,
grin. If he Is truly patriotic, still wears
his little red fez with black band. It
has been worn by Montenegrins for more
than five centuries In memory of the kill
-, "a - 49,