Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire. (Mem.,I
must ask the Count about these superstitions.)
When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this
time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross
and pointed two fingers towards me.
With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what
they meant. He would not answer at first, but on learning that I
was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the
evil eye.
This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown
place to meet an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted,
and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be
touched.
I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn
yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves,
as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich
foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the
centre of the yard.
Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole
front of the boxseat,—"gotza" they call them—cracked his big whip
over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on
our journey.
I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the
beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the
language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were
speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily.
Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with
here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with
farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a
bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry. And as
we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled
with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of
what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself
as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the
straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down thestraggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the
hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we
seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand
then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on
losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road
is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in
order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from
the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old
tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old
the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think
that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten
the war which was always really at loading point.
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty
slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians
themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon
sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious
colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the
shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled,
and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till
these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks
rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains,
through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the
white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm
as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty,
snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our
serpentine way, to be right before us.
"Look! Isten szek!"—"God's seat!"—and he crossed himself
reverently.
As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower
behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This
was emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held
the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here
and there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire,and there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire,
but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside
were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed
themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling
before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but
seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor
ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me. For
instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful
masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver
through the delicate green of the leaves.
Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon—the ordinary peasants's
cart—with its long, snakelike vertebra, calculated to suit the
inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a
group of homecoming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the
Slovaks with their coloured sheepskins, the latter carrying
lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening
fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to
merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech,
and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of
the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out
here and there against the background of latelying snow. Sometimes,
as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the
darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness which
here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and
solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies
engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw
into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the
Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes
the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the
horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them,
as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. "No, no," he