The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-15

1y Land from the Very Dawn
over Of Servian Skulls. /
grade. a city with one Of the most TO
mantle records of history. 1t is a
magnificent city to approach, for its
site on the Danube is so beautiful that
travellers give il fourth rank in point
OF site among the capitals of Europe
Constantinople, Lisbon, Stockholm and
Belgrade.
Almost everywhere in Belgrade are
monuments and memorials. They are
10 martyrs Of the Turkish wars. MUIR
dered statesmen and assassinated
patriots.
Nearly every paving stone is preg-
nant with a bloody story that reaches
almost from the time the first stone
was laid to the beginning of the pres
ent generation.
The last Turkish garrison did not
move out of Belgrade until 1867 and
until then the entire eastern portion
OF the town was populated by Turks.
The Turks hand is still to be seen
eVerywhere-in minarets and other
architecture, in costumes and in man
ners.
On Friday, when the weekly mar
ket is held in the city. the streets are
full of red fezzes. The Servian peas
ant still wears the Turkish trousers
gathered at the ankles. Often he
wraps. towel-like mass of linen
around his high fez. Often he wears
high sheepskin cap.
Every peasant wears a long, sharply
pointed and keenly ground knife on
his right side in wooden scabbard.
From Belgrade the train roars
through a land which, only a few
years ago, was a land of brigands.
whole villages being held as openly by
them as if their occupation were the
most commonplace. One particularly
famous and strong home of the brig
ands was the village of Domuspotek
(the brook of Pigs.
NOW the most usual occupation of
OF most of those villages is to boil
down plums in great caldrons in the
open air in the season.
Where All the Balkans Meet.
If man wishes to see all the tribes
of the Balkans, he need merely continue
on the train TO the town of Nisch.
Nisch will be the great object of
maneuVers If ever there is a Balkan
war.
Its strong fortress commands the key
to the road into Bulgaria and Macedo-
ma. Christian churches and Turkish
mosques stand there almost side by
side. The eye of the Imam from the
minaret mingles with the bells that call
the Catholic worshipper.
Armed like arsenals, with long pis-
tolls, long rifles, long knives, Macedon-
ians, Albanians and Arnauts shuttle
along with the walk of the mountain
eer. Servian peasant women in gaudily
striped frockS, Bulgarian women dress
ed in black and looking like priests,
mountaineers from Montenegro in fus-
tanellas with long beaked yellow and
red shoes and brilliant scarlet cloaks,
grave Hodschas in silken caftans and
green turbans, mingle on the streees
with Spanish Jewesses with brilliant
gold and silver head-dresses, and Mon
tenegrin women in white skirts and
sleeveless waists, and little red caps
with a rising sun embroidered on their
fronts in gold. ... .-
Near Nisch is a square tower. Tell
its story and you tell the story of the
Balkans.
The tower is known as the Tsche-
lekula, meaning skull tower" In
1909 the Turks advanced toward Nisch
The Servian Woiwode, Stefan Sindjel-
itsch. entrenched himself with 5000
SerVians in the village of Kamenitza.
They were overcome. When the Janis
saries rushed among them, Sindjel-
itsch fired the powder 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 were left alive by any chance.
After they had killed and burned till
there was nothing left to kill and burn,
they chopped the heads off the dead
Servian patriots. Then they began the
erection of a great square tower. After
H., IL -
to alternate the rows of stones with
rows of Servian heads. Altogether
they set Sc rows of II heads each in al
ternate rows of stones.
This memorial of the Tamerlanes of
the nineteenth century was left I'M
touched with the skulls grinning out
upon the land, until 1878, when the Ser
VANS 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. 1t is the
fortress of Bella Palenka, and Moltke
pronounced it one of the important
points of the Balkans. 1t was the old
Roman city of Remesiana. 1t is guard
ed still by an ancient castle-fort built
in 1900 by the Grand ViZier Mustapha
Pasha He built it by the pleasant ex-
pedient 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 a true Balkan history. 1t has been
occupied at various times by Turks,
Bulgarians, Servians. Russians and
Austrfans. Almost every time ii was
taken only after bloody fighting.
The Conspirine BuIgarians.
From Servia to Bulgaria is a leap
into different manners, different cos
tunes. different architecture.
The Bulgarian does not love the
SerVian unduly. Luckily for the peace
between them, the Rulgarians are kept
so busy plotting and contemplating
about Macedonia, that their somewhat
embarrassing attentions are directed
almost entirely southwark just now.
AS the Cuban Junta made its head
quarters in the United States, so the
Macedonia Junta makes its head
quarters in Bulgaria. But unlike the
Cuban revolutionists. the Macedonian
Committee has not merely enlisted
Bulgarian sympathies and aid. 1t has
risen to a great Bulgarian political
power.
1t keeps the pitch hot all the time.
Dive out of Bulgaria and into the
mountain districts of Macedonia and
you dive into land of Alexander the
Great, of Roman generals, and OF
czars, who were cZars long before
Russia had any. Time has jumped
over this land and touched it only in