g. There is
something peculiarly pathetic in the lot of these small Danubian states.
Nearly every one of them has been the cause of combats in which its
inhabitants have shed rivers of blood before they could obtain even a
fragment of such liberty and peace as have long been the possessions of
Switzerland and Belgium. It is not surprising that the small countries
which once formed part of Turkey-in-Europe are anxious to grow larger
and stronger by annexation of territory and consolidation of
populations. They are tired of being feeble: it is not amusing. Servia
once expected that she would be allowed to gain a considerable portion
of Bosnia, her neighbor province, but the Austrians are there, and would
speedily send forces to Belgrade if it were for a moment imagined that
Prince Milan and his counsellors were still greedy for Serapevo and
other fat towns of the beautiful Bosnian lands. Now and then, when a
Servian burgher has had an extra flask of Negotin, he vapors about
meeting the Austrians face to face and driving them into the Sava; but
he never mentions it when he is in a normal condition.

[Illustration: SOPHIA.]

The country which Servia has won from the Turks in the neighborhood of
Nisch, and the quaint old city of Nisch itself, were no meagre prizes,
and ought to content the ambition of the young prince for some time. It
was righteous that the Servians should possess Nisch, and that the Turks
should be driven out by violence. The cruel and vindictive barbarian had
done everything that he could to make himself feared and loathed by the
Servians. To this day, not far from one of the principal gates of the
city, on the Pirot road, stands the "Skull Tower," in the existence of
which, I suppose, an English Tory would refuse to believe, just as he
denied his credence to the story of the atrocities at Batak. The four
sides of this tower are completely covered, as with a barbarous mosaic,
with the skulls of Servians slain by their oppressors in the great
combat of 1809. The Turks placed here but a few of their trophies, for
they slaughtered thousands, while the tower's sides could accommodate
only nine hundred and fifty-two skulls. It is much to the credit of the
Servians that when they took Nisch in 1877 they wreaked no vengeance on
the Mussulman population, but simply compelled them to give up their
arms, and informed them that they could return to their labors. The
presence of the Servians at Nisch has already bee