l its walls cracked
beneath the successive blows of Christian and Mussulman. Suleiman the
Lawgiver, the elector of Bavaria, Eugene of Savoy, have trod the
ramparts which frown on the Danube's broad current. The Austrians have
many memories of the old fortress: they received it in 1718 by the
treaty of Passarowitz, but gave it up in 1749, to take it back again in
1789. The treaty of Sistova--an infamy which postponed the liberation
of the suffering peoples in Turkey-in-Europe for nearly a hundred
years--compelled the Austrians once more to yield it, this time to the
Turks. In this century how often has it been fought over--from the time
of the heroic Kara George, the Servian liberator, to the bloody riots in
our days which resulted in driving Mussulmans definitely from the
territory!

[Illustration: VILLAGE NEAR SEMLIN.]

Everywhere along the upper Servian banks of the Danube traces of the old
epoch are disappearing. The national costume, which was graceful, and
often very rich, is yielding before the prosaic--the ugly garments
imported from Jewish tailoring establishments in Vienna and Pesth. The
horseman with his sack-coat, baggy velvet trousers and slouch hat looks
not unlike a rough rider along the shores of the Mississippi River. In
the interior patriarchal costumes and customs are still preserved. On
the Sava river-steamers the people from towns in the shadows of the
primeval forests which still cover a large portion of the country are to
be found, and they are good studies for an artist. The women, with
golden ducats braided in their hair; the priests, with tall brimless
hats and long yellow robes; the men, with round skull-caps, leathern
girdles with knives in them, and waistcoats ornamented with hundreds of
glittering buttons,--are all unconscious of the change which is creeping
in by the Danube, and to which they will presently find themselves
submitting. The railway will take away the lingering bits of romance
from Servia; the lovely and lonely monasteries high among the grand
peaks in the mountain-ranges will be visited by tourists from Paris, who
will scrawl their names upon the very altars; and Belgrade will be rich
in second-class caravanserais kept by Moses and Abraham. After the
Austrians who have gone over into Bosnia will naturally follow a crowd
of adventurers from Croatia and from the neighborhood of Pesth, and it
would not be surprising should many of them find it for their interest
to settle in S