nsive, to assist each other in
the difficult passages of life. This bond is considered sacred and
indissoluble. Frequently remarkable instances of it are found in the
wars of Kara Georg. But now that regular guarantees for the security
of life and property exist, the custom appears to have fallen into
desuetude. These confederacies in the dual state, as in Servia, or
multiple, as in the clan system of Scotland and Albania, are always
strongest in turbulent times and regions.[20]

Another of the old customs of Servia was sufficiently characteristic
of its lawless state. Abduction of females was common. Sometimes a
young man would collect a party of his companions, break into a
village, and carry off a maiden. To prevent re-capture they generally
went into the woods, where the nuptial knot was tied by a priest
_nolens volens_. Then commenced the negotiation for a reconciliation
with the parents, which was generally successful; as in many instances
the female had been the secret lover of the young man, and the other
villagers used to add their persuasion, in order to bring about a
pacific solution. But if the relations of the girl mode a legal affair
of it, the young woman was asked if it was by her own will that she
was taken away; and if she made the admission then a reconciliation
took place: if not, those concerned in the abduction were fined, Kara
Georg put a stop to this by proclamation, punishing the author of an
abduction with death, the priest with dismissal, and the assistants
with the bastinado.

The Haiducks, or outlawed robbers, who during the first quarter of the
present century infested the woods of Servia, resembled the Caterans
of the Highlands of Scotland, being as much rebels as robbers, and
imagined that in setting authority at defiance they were not acting
dishonourably, but combating for a principle of independence. They
robbed only the rich Moslems, and were often generous to the poor.
Thus robbery and rebellion being confounded, the term Haiduck is not
considered opprobrious; and several old Servians have confessed to me
that they had been Haiducks in their youth, I am sure that the
adventures of a Servian Rob Roy might form the materials of a stirring
Romance. There are many Haiducks still in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and on
the western Balkan; but the race in Servia is extinct, and plunder is
the only object of the few robbers who now infest the woods in the
west of Servia.

Such are the customs th