e house of Austria not only the
whole of Hungary, but added great part of Servia and Little Wallachia,
as far as the Aluta. With this period began the Austrian rule in
Servia, and at this time the French fashioned Lange Gasse of Belgrade
rose amid the "swelling domes and pointed minarets of the white
eagle's nest."[17]

Several quaint incidents had recalled this period during my tour. For
instance, at Manasia, I saw rudely engraven on the church wall,--

Wolfgang Zastoff,
Kaiserlicher Forst-Meister im Maidan.
Die 1 Aug. 1721.

Semendria is three hours' ride from Posharevatz; the road crosses the
Morava, and everywhere the country is fertile, populous, and well
cultivated. Innumerable massive turrets, mellowed by the sun of a
clear autumn, and rising from wide rolling waters, announced my
approach to the shores of the Danube. I seemed entering one of those
fabled strong holds, with which the early Italian artists adorned
their landscapes. If Semendria be not the most picturesque of the
Servian castles of the elder period, it is certainly by far the most
extensive of them. Nay, it is colossal. The rampart next the Danube
has been shorn of its fair proportions, so as to make it suit the
modern art of war. Looking at Semendria from one of the three land
sides, you have a castle of Ercole di Ferrara; looking at it from the
water, you have the boulevard of a Van der Meulen.

The Natchalnik accompanied me in a visit to the fortress, protected
from accident by a couple of soldiers; for the castle of Semendria is
still, like that of Shabatz, in the hands of a few Turkish spahis and
their families. The news from Shabatz having produced a alight
ferment, we found several armed Moslems at the gate; but they did not
allow the Servians to pass, with the exception of the Natchalnik and
another man. "This is new," said he; "I never knew them to be so wary
and suspicious before." We now found ourselves within the walls of the
fortress. A shabby wooden _cafe_ was opposite to us; a mosque of the
same material rose with its worm-eaten carpentry to our right. The
cadi, a pompous vulgar old man, now met us, and signified that we
might as well repose at his chardak, but from inhospitality or
fanaticism, gave us neither pipes nor coffee. His worship was so
proud, that he scarcely deigned to speak. The Disdar Aga, a somewhat
more approximative personage, now entered the tottering chardak, (the
carpente