Jasło

Abstract

The town was situated at the junction of three rivers, in a shallow basin surrounded by low hills. The nearest hill, lying to the north—“above the quarry”—was only a half-hour’s walk away. If you made the effort you were rewarded with a view of white houses, the blue Carpathian Mountains, the silver Wisłoka, and green meadows. Within a reasonable hike to the west lay the village of Podzamcze and a roadside inn near the ruins of the castle of the Firlejs. Some of the neighboring inns had quaint names—such as “Bumpcatcher,” “The Little Mill,” “The Candlestick,” and “Spree”. The road leaving the Wisłoka at Podzamcze, leading to Kołaczyce and Tarnów, was the most important of the region—which doubtless explains why the original castle was built there. I too thought it important since it was the route taken every week by the wagon laden with tobacco drawn by three great draught horses arriving from my Father’s main warehouse in Tarnów. Tobacco and tobacco products were then a state monopoly, and my Father held a lease permitting him to trade in these wares. The wagon, covered in tent canvas, would halt in front of our coach house. The horses were given feed and the driver Lewandowski would sit by the door of the coach house and eat his dinner—a loaf of bread and a jug of buttermilk. The horses, the imposing bulk of the wagon, and the size of this meal altogether made the arrival of the wagon a big event for us children. Lewandowski was strong enough to protect the wagon and its load by himself over the seven mile route. Once, at night, when a thief tried to help himself to the tobacco, Lewandowski chained him to the wagon and made him keep up with the horses for a mile. Sometimes he was permitted to arrange the tobacco on the shelves himself: the square boxes labelled “Dames” separately from the long brown boxes labelled “Drama,” and from the small circular packets of “Herzegowina”. The grains of feed scattered by the horses attracted pigeons until at any one time there were more than fifty of them—and their number did not decline since we children refused to eat pigeons. For us they were holy birds, like the ibis for the Egyptians.