TOWER OF SKULLS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11596, 14 January 1916, Page 1

TOWER OF SKULLS.

TEE STORY OF

• Nish has had-its-brief year .'of :great--5 .ntess, says fhk London* Star. 1 ' * For 1 twelve months it has been the capital ■ of- Serbia, with a King in" residence, a 5 general staff, and a Diplomatic Corps, ' and all the other incidents that make 1 v capital. When the Atistrians made ! Belgrade untenable, this little country • town lying amongst the hills' blossom-. ■ cd out as a place where they make his- • tory. • But' this "was not. 'its" first" ap- ' pearance iu that capacity, for Nish is on the <=>ite of tho Roman city Naissus. • and Oonstentinev the Greatf -tii& first Christian Enmeror, was born there,, in A.I). 274. * Five years before .his bfrth there was , ( fought under the walls of the ancient Roman city the great battle in which the Emperor Claudius destroyed the Gothic army. After the de£th fit' :€cnstantine tha Emperor Julian was at Nish, and improved its defenses.' The; Huns under Attila destroyed it-in the' fifth century, and the Buteariars took it in'"the ninth century. They had to give it up to the A ustnans. from whom it- onßsed to the Byzantine Emperors. To " the twelfth r century the Serbian Prince Stephen Nemanya was master of Nish. andrceeivo-d there the. German Emperor Frederick Barbarcssa and his i-usaders. THEN GAME THE TURK.' Then ca?n-$ the struggles; with the Turk. In 13~n' Nish was. captured. It was recovered by. the allied Hnngr.rians j and Serbians', but/in J-456 the Turks I recaptured it, and for 300 years i.t re- | maincd in their- possession, although there were brief periods when the Austrians held it. In 1809 occurred the most traffic episode in the chequered history of Nish. _ The Serbians, who had recovered most ■of their chqntr'y from the Turks. besi'ged Nish. but 1 were defeated with great loss. The Turks, to c?lebrate their victory, erect- j ed a rough tower, composed alternately j of lumps of rock and skulls of Serbians ) cemented together.' It is related that j there were originally 1200 skulls in the j Tower of Nish, and -whori Lamarfcine 1 visited the East the skulls still had.i hair clinging to them' and presented a j gruesomo spcetncle. For a long period it was the habit of travellers to Nish •to carry off a skull as a souvenir, and this reduced their numbers. But in the 'Rufso-Tur-kish war tho Serbian army, under the command of' King Milan, besieged Nish, and the fortress'' fell on January 10, 1873. The remaining . skulls were then reverently buried by the Serbian troops exrnyLonp. which was too deeply embedded 'in th«» plaster to bo 'extracted. Tho so-called '' Tower of Skulls '' is now only about four feet in height, and only one skull can bo .set-n to remind the traveller of its gloomy , history. The fortress, which is approached by a. handsome bridge over the river Nishavn. is an obsolete' struc- | :ro now, defended bv a, few breechloading howitzers. The jsouak. which is the. Royal Palace, was formerly the house of a Turkish insha. It has been tho custom of the Kings of Serbia to ■ide here for several months of the year, and the gardens of the Koiiak are ver-v Oriental in their wild profusion. Nish is the seat of a. bishopric, and. there is a lofty modern cathedral, erected since the Serbian occupation. There still remains one mosque, not far from the Tower of Skulls, where the mut-z----zin calls to prayer. The repairing shops of r'--_ *-•' rn v ailw«vs are at hj, and several of th& chief Balkan high ro;iu> o ac tais .spot, eo thnt it is of considerable strategic' importance. In recent years the town ftvhich has a jjoiuiir.won of 24 ,€00). hj;.„ be«n mod-, cruised in tN> A u?tro-French style i ('ales and casinos, but there stili remain the vincnag uhoys and picturesque houses of the older Nish--tho nleas-ant capital which saw the birth of : ii'intrnf? the Great, and has fallen temporarily into the talons of l<Wli'iand Uic