"Les hommes croient en général connaître suffisamment l'Empire Ottoman pour peu qu'ils aient lu l'énorme compilation que le savant M. de Hammer a publiée ... mais en dehors de ce mouvement central il y a la vie intérieure de province, dont le tableau tout entier reste à faire."...

The narrative and descriptive portion of this work speaks for itself. In the historical part I have consulted with advantage Von Engel's "History of Servia," Ranké's "Servian Revolution," Possart's "Servia," and Ami Boué's "Turquie d'Europe," but took the precaution of submitting the facts selected to the censorship of those on the spot best able to test their accuracy. For this service, I owe a debt of acknowledgment to M. Hadschitch, the framer of the Servian code; M. Marinovitch, Secretary of

  I have been four years in the East, and feel that I have had quite enough of it for the present. Notwithstanding the azure skies, bubbling fountains, Mosaic pavements, and fragrant narghilés , I begin to feel symptoms of ennui, and a thirst for European life, sharp air, and a good appetite, a blazing fire, well-lighted rooms, female society, good music, and the piquant vaudevilles of my ancient friends, Scribe, Bayard, and Melesville. At length I stand on the pier of Beyrout, while my luggage

  All hail, Bulgaria! No sooner had I secured my quarters and deposited my baggage, than I sought the main street, in order to catch the delightfully keen impression which a new region stamps on the mind. How different are the features of Slaavic Turkey, from those of the Arabic provinces in which I so long resided. The flat roofs, the measured pace of the camel, the half-naked negro, the uncouth Bedouin, the cloudless heavens, the tawny earth, and the meagre apology for turf, are exchanged for

I left Widdin for the Servian frontier, in a car of the country, with a couple of horses, the ground being gently undulated, but the mountains to the south were at a considerable distance. On our right, agreeable glimpses of the Danube presented themselves from time to time. In six hours we arrived at the Timok, the river that separates Servia from Bulgaria. The only habitation in the place was a log-house for the Turkish custom-house officer. We were more than an hour in getting our equipage ac

  Through the courtesy and attention of Mr. Consul-general Fonblanque and the numerous friends of M. Petronievitch, I was, in the course of a few days, as familiar with all the principal objects and individuals in Belgrade, as if I had resided months in the city. The fare of a boat from Semlin to Belgrade by Austrian rowers is five zwanzigers, or about 3s. 6d. English; and the time occupied is half an hour, that is to say, twenty minutes for the descent of the Danube, and about ten minutes for t

  The melancholy I experienced in surveying the numerous traces of desolation in Turkey was soon effaced at Belgrade. Here all was life and activity. It was at the period of my first visit, in 1839, quite an oriental town; but now the haughty parvenu spire of the cathedral throws into the shade the minarets of the mosques, graceful even in decay. Many of the bazaar-shops have been fronted and glazed. The oriental dress has become much rarer; and houses several stories high, in the German fashion

  After an absence of six months in England, I returned to the Danube. Vienna and Pesth offered no attractions in the month of August, and I felt impatient to put in execution my long cherished project of travelling through the most romantic woodlands of Servia. Suppose me then at the first streak of dawn, in the beginning of August, 1844, hurrying after the large wheelbarrow which carries the luggage of the temporary guests of the Queen of England at Pesth to the steamer lying just below the lo

  Belgrade, unlike other towns on the Danube, is much less visited by Europeans, since the introduction of steam navigation, than it was previously. Servia used to be the porte cochère of the East; and most travellers, both before and since the lively Lady Mary Wortley Montague, took the high road to Constantinople by Belgrade, Sofia, Philippopoli, and Adrianople. No mere tourist would now-a-days think of undertaking the fatiguing ride across European Turkey, when he can whizz past Widdin and Ro

  The immediate object of my first journey was Shabatz; the second town in Servia, which is situated further up the Save than Belgrade, and is thus close upon the frontier of Bosnia. We consequently had the river on our right hand all the way. After five hours' travelling, the mountains, which hung back as long as we were in the vicinity of Belgrade, now approached, and draped in forest green, looked down on the winding Save and the pinguid flats of the Slavonian frontier. Just before the sun se

  Words fail me to describe the beauty of the road from Tronosha to Krupena. The heights and distances, without being alpine in reality, were sufficiently so to an eye unpractised in measuring scenery of the highest class; but in all the softer enchantments nature had revelled in prodigality. The gloom of the oak forest was relieved and broken by a hundred plantations of every variety of tree that the climate would bear, and every hue, from the sombre evergreen to the early suspicions of the yel

  A middle-aged, showily dressed man, presented himself as the captain who was to conduct me to the top of the Kopaunik. His clerk was a fat, knock-kneed, lubberly-looking fellow, with a red face, a short neck, a low forehead, and bushy eyebrows and mustachios, as fair as those of a Norwegian; to add to his droll appearance, one of his eyes was bandaged up. "As sure as I am alive, that fellow will go off in an apoplexy. What a figure! I would give something to see that fellow climbing up the lad

  I cannot present what I have to say on the feudal monarchy of Servia more appropriately than in connexion with the architectural monuments of the period. The Servians, known in Europe from the seventh century, at which period they migrated from the Carpathians to the Danube, were in the twelfth century divided into petty states. "Le premier Roi fut un soldat heureux." Neman the First, who lived near the present Novibazar, first cemented these scattered principalities into a united monarchy. He

  The Natchalnik having got up a party, we proceeded in light cars of the country to Ravanitza, a convent two or three hours off in the mountains to the eastward. The country was gently undulating, cultivated, and mostly inclosed, the roads not bad, and the ensemble such as English landscapes were represented to be half a century ago. When we approached Ravanitza we were again lost in the forest. Ascending by the side of a mountain-rill, the woods opened, and the convent rose in an amphitheatre

  On passing from the country to the town the politician views with interest the transitional state of society: but the student of manners finds nothing salient, picturesque, or remarkable; everything is verging to German routine. If you meet a young man in any department, and ask what he does; he tells you that he is a Concepist or Protocollist. In the public offices, the paper is, as in Germany, atrociously coarse, being something like that with which parcels are wrapped up in England; and san

  The gloom of November now darkens the scene; the yellow leaves sweep round the groves of the Topshider, and an occasional blast from the Frusca Gora, ruffling the Danube with red turbid waves, bids me begone; so I take up pen to indite my last memoranda, and then for England ho! Some pleasant parties were given by M. Fonblanque, and his colleagues; but although I have freely made Dutch pictures of the "natives," I do not feel at liberty to be equally circumstantial with the inexhaustible wit a

  Kara Georgevitch means son of Kara Georg, his father's name having been Georg Petrovitch, or son of Peter; this manner of naming being common to all the southern Slaaves, except the Croats and Dalmatians. This is the opposite of the Arabic custom, which confers on a father the title of parent of his eldest son, as Abou-Selim, Abou-Hassan, &c. while his own name is dropped by his friends and family. The Prince's household appointments are about £20,000 sterling, and, making allowance fo

  Upon the whole, it must be admitted, that the peasantry of Servia have drawn a high prize in the lottery of existence. Abject want and pauperism is nearly unknown. In fact, from the great abundance of excellent land, every man with ordinary industry can support his wife and family, and have a large surplus. The peasant has no landlord but the Sultan, who receives a fixed tribute from the Servian government, and does not interfere with the internal administration. The father of a family, after

  So much for the native government. The foreign agents in Belgrade are few in number. The most prominent individual during my stay there was Baron Lieven, a Russian general, who had been sent there on a special mission by the emperor, to steer the policy of Russia out of the shoals of the Servian question. On calling there with Mr. Fonblanque, I found a tall military-looking man, between forty and forty-five years of age. He entered at once, and without mystery, into the subject of his mission,

"Lebanon and its inhabitants, particularly the Druses, Damascus, and Aleppo, are his leading subjects. His statements, under the first of those heads, form by far the most valuable portion of the work, affording, as it does, information not elsewhere to be found respecting the social condition, the politics, and the state of religion in a highly interesting region, our knowledge of which has hitherto been of the slightest description. Next to this, in interest, is the account of Aleppo, which ha