all afoot at an early hour, in order to pay a visit
to Novibazar. In order to obviate the performance of quarantine on our
return, I took an officer of the establishment, and a couple of men,
with me, who in the Levant are called Guardiani; but here the German
word Ueber-reiter, or over-rider, was adopted.

We continued along the river Raska for about an hour, and then
descried a line of wooden palings going up hill and down dale, at
right angles with the course we were holding. This was the frontier of
the principality of Servia, and here began the direct rule of the
Sultan and the Pashalic of Bosnia. At the guard-house half a dozen
Momkes, with old fashioned Albanian guns, presented arms.

After half an hour's riding, the valley became wider, and we passed
through meadow lands, cultivated by Moslem Bosniacs in their white
turbans; and two hours further, entered a fertile circular plain,
about a mile and a half in diameter, surrounded by low hills, which
had a chalky look, in the midst of which rose the minarets and
bastions of the town and castle of Novibazar. Numerous gipsy tents
covered the plain, and at one of them, a withered old gipsy woman,
with white dishevelled hair hanging down on each side of her burnt
umber face, cried out in a rage, "See how the Royal Servian people
now-a-days have the audacity to enter Novibazar on horseback,"
alluding to the ancient custom of Christians not being permitted to
ride on horseback in a town.[12]

On entering, I perceived the houses to be of a most forbidding
aspect, being built of mud, with only a base of bricks, extending
about three feet from the ground. None of the windows were glazed;
this being the first town of this part of Turkey in Europe that I had
seen in such a plight. The over-rider stopped at a large
stable-looking building, which was the khan of the place. Near the
door were some bare wooden benches, on which some Moslems, including
the khan-keeper, were reposing. The horses were foddered at the other
extremity, and a fire burned in the middle of the floor, the smoke
escaping by the doors. We now sent our letter to Youssouf Bey, the
governor, but word was brought back that he was in the harem.

We now sallied forth to view the town. The castle, which occupies the
centre, is on a slight eminence, and flanked with eight bastions; it
contains no regular troops, but merely some _redif_, or militia.
Besides one small well-built stone mosque, there is nothing el