CHAPTER I - OVER THE BORDER
At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of
familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me;
the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet,
whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman's fortress -
austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube -
historic Belgrade. I had come, as it were, to the end of this
wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes would see the splendour and
havoc of the East.
The two frontier towns are less than a cannon-shot distant, and yet
their people hold no communion. The Hungarian on the north, and
the Turk and Servian on the southern side of the Save are as much
asunder as though there were fifty broad provinces that lay in the
path between them. Of the men that bustled around me in the
streets of Semlin there was not, perhaps, one who had ever gone
down to look upon the stranger race dwelling under the walls of
that opposite castle. It is the plague, and the dread of the
plague, that divide the one people from the other. All coming and
going stands forbidden by the terrors of the yellow flag. If you
dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with
military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from
a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently
whispering to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at
duelling distance; and after that you will find yourself carefully
shot, and carelessly buried in the ground of the lazaretto.
When all was in order for our departure we walked down to the
precincts of the quarantine establishment, and here awaited us a
"compromised" {1} officer of the Austrian Government, who lives in
a state of perpetual excommunication. The boats, with their
"compromised" rowers, were also in readiness.
After coming in contact with any creature or thing belonging to the
Ottoman Empire it would be impossible for us to return to the
Austrian territory without undergoing an imprisonment of fourteen
days in the odious lazaretto. We felt, therefore, that before we
committed ourselves it was important to take care that none of the
arrangements necessary for the journey had been forgotten; and in
our anxiety to avoid such a misfortune, we managed the work of
departure from Semlin with nearly as much solemnity as if we had
been departing this life. Some obliging persons, from whom we had
received civilities during our short stay in the place, came down
to say their farewell at the river's side; and now, as we stood
with them at the distance of three or four yards from the
"compromised" officer, they asked if we were perfectly certain that
we had wound up all our affairs in Christendom, and whether we had
no parting requests to make.
