ia of the province of
Rumili--and crossed the Danube, the Serbs going chiefly to their own
countryfolk in Banat and the lands to the west of it, while the
Bulgars went partly to the Banat, where their descendants have won
fame as market-gardeners, but chiefly to Roumania, settling in
villages round Bucharest.

THE CONSOLATION OF THOSE WHO REMAINED

Those who preferred to take arms against the Turk had the choice
either of leaving their country and entering the service of one which
was at war with Turkey or else abiding in their own land, gathering in
bodies of fifty to a hundred men, massacring as many Turks as
possible, protecting and avenging their own people, sometimes being
killed themselves, otherwise returning to the mountains every spring.
The "heiduks," as they were called, had the people's unbounded
devotion. Their achievements, perhaps a little touched with romance,
were celebrated in the people's songs, and as it may be of interest to
know what kind of song this people made in the period of uttermost
depression, I give overleaf a couple that are concerned with heiduks;
they are translations from a book of mine, _The Shade of the Balkans_,
which is out of print.

I.

Go now and tell them,
Tell your companions
That, O Heiduk,
I have cut off your hands.

Cut away, cut away,
For I did curse them
When, O Buljuk Pasha,
They trembled on the gun.

Go now and tell them,
Tell your companions
That, O heiduk,
I have pricked out your eyes.

Prick away, prick away,
For I did curse them
When, O Buljuk Pasha,
They failed along the gun.

Go now and tell them,
Tell your companions
That, O heiduk,
I have hacked off your head.

Hack away, hack away,
For I did curse it
When, O Buljuk Pasha,
It compassed not your end.

II.

O Mechmed,[23] my beloved son,
Have you come wounded back to me?
Where is your pipe and your heiduk garb?
--Ask me not, ask me not.
Ask me rather where are my comrades.
With six hundred I went to the mountains--
Six of them live and brought me hither,
Brought me though themselves were wounded.
A little time and I must die,--
Call everyone of those I love,
For I would take my leave of them.

When all were come young Mechmed said:
Mother, how long will you mourn for me?
--Til